Daily Archives: January 13, 2021

Apart from banners supporting president Donald Trump, a number of other flags were seen waving at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

WASHINGTON, D.C., USA The dramatic images we saw during the historic riots at the U.S. Capitol last week included a lot of different flags and symbols.

Apart from the pro-Trump banners you may have noticed rioters carrying, there were other flags you might not have recognized. We wanted to take a closer look.

The "Gadsen Flag" with the words "Don't tread on me," for one, has been around for centuries, and there are many variations of it now.

The yellow flag, with a coiled rattlesnake, tends to symbolize opposition to restrictions and government oppression. It has origins before the American Revolution but has recently been used by the Tea Party movement, militia groups, and even in sports branding. Now, the flag tends to symbolize opposition to restrictions and government oppression.

Another flag you might have noticed shows black-and-white stripes across a green banner.

These "Kekistan" or "Kek" flags are often used by white nationalists to troll liberals, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. This flag first appeared on the website 4chan in 2017 as a symbol for the made-up sect who worship Kek, the ancient Egyptian deity of darkness.

Another flag shows a ring of stars around the Roman numeral for three III. These are generally carried by a group known as the Three Percenters.

The Three Percenters are an American-Canadian faction described by the Anti-Defamation League as "anti-government extremists who are part of the militia movement." Their name is derived from the unproven claim that only 3% of Americans fought for independence during the American Revolution.

The Three Percenters, also styled 3 Percenters, 3%ers and III%ers, are an American and Canadian militia movement and paramilitary group described as having right-libertarian and far-right ideology. The group advocates gun ownership rights and resistance to the U.S. federal government's involvement in local affairs.

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Identifying the flags seen at the U.S. Capitol riots - KVUE.com

More than 70 Harvard student organizations from across the University signed a statement demanding the release of Ekpar Asat the brother of Rayhan Asat, Harvard Law Schools first Uighur graduate from a Xinjiang internment camp.

The statement, written by the Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights, calls for the immediate release of Ekpar Asat and for swift accountability for the mass atrocities continuing to be committed against this ethnic group.

As Harvard students, we lend our support to Rayhan Asat in her fight to secure her brothers release and seek justice for the Uighur community, the statement reads. We join widespread calls for the United States government and the international community to demand that the Chinese government end their long-standing and systematic oppression of the Uighur ethnic minority.

International human rights groups estimate more than 1 million people have been held in the so-called re-education camps, and allege that ethnic Muslims are subjected to religious persecution and forced sterilization in the camps. In response to what it called human rights violations, the United States issued sanctions against several Chinese officials involved in July.

Rayhan Asat said she was surprised that the Chinese government chose to detain her brother, particularly given his dearth of anti-government activity.

I just never thought it would happen to my brother because hes never critical of the Chinese government, she said.

Ekpar Asat, a tech entrepreneur and philanthropist, founded a social media platform for Uighurs in his college years. In 2016, Asat participated in the U.S. Department of States International Visitor Leadership Program, which boasts alumni including New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and United Nations Secretary-General Antnio Gueterres.

The Chinese government did approve him to come to this trip its a government-approved trip between the United States and China, Rayhan Asat said. And the program is designed to promote [the] U.S.-China relationship.

When Ekpar Asat came to the U.S. to attend the program, he and his sister made arrangements for their immediate family to return to America for Rayhan Asats graduation from the Law School.

Our agreement was that he would be coming back for my graduation in two months time he got the visa and everything, Asat said, who is a U.S. permanent resident. We thought that we were going to see each other never had I ever thought that would be the last time Id be seeing him.

Asats brother disappeared three weeks after his return from the U.S. Her parents told her that they would no longer be able to attend her Law School graduation as planned because a family member was ill, but Asat suspected something was wrong.

It was only four years later in January 2020 that she got official confirmation of what had happened. She met with members of Congress to advocate for her brother in December 2019, who then sent a letter asking the Chinese government about the whereabouts of Ekpar Asat.

In response, Beijing officials said that Ekpar Asat had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison for inciting ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination.

The charges against Asat were a "sham" and he was imprisoned with "no trial, no lawyer, no evidence, no due process, no justice," according to tweets from the U.S. State Department.

Law School student Sondra R. P. Anton, director of activism at HLSs Advocates for Human Rights, said the writers of the statement strived to humanize Rayhan Asats story. Anton said that, too often, mass atrocity and genocide are rendered faceless and nameless.

Rayhan could have been any of us, she said.

Tzofiya M. Bookstein 23, who first became involved in Uighur advocacy last spring, said she was able to contribute to Rayhan Asats campaign through collaborating with the Jewish Movement for Uighur Freedom, an international initiative she helped found in 2020.

Something that was really amazing with this petition was that the network kind of activated, and I could bring in people who I had worked with in my own community to amplify this petition and have them reach out to their networks, Bookstein said. It was a really amazing way to bring the two initiatives together.

Rebecca S. Araten 22, a former Crimson News editor involved with the Jewish Movement for Uighur Freedom, highlighted the breadth of student organizations that had signed the statement, many of which hold no political affiliations.

There are progressive organizations, there are cultural and affinity organizations, there are pre-med related organizations, and just a lot of groups that are seeing this issue not as something political, she said. Theyre signing on because this is a human rights issue, and theres no way to not support Ekpar and his freedom.

Rebecca N. Thrope 22, a member of the campaign, wrote in an email that she was moved by Rayhan Asats consideration for supporters despite her difficult situation.

Working with Rayhan has taught me so much about the care it takes to sustain this effort, Thrope wrote. She time and time again cares for us as she boosts our morale and pushes us to achieve more ambitious goals.

Rayhan Asat wrote an opinion piece for The Crimson in June of 2020, in which she details the story of her brother, his detainment, and her advocacy efforts that demand the Chinese government release Ekpar from the Xinjiang detention center.

Many of you will be shapers and movers of our society, Asat wrote in her editorial. Therefore, I ask you: Join the fight, be the light, be the integrity, be the voice for my brother, and my people. Because you are my people too.

Staff writer Emmy M. Cho can be reached at emmy.cho@thecrimson.com.

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70 Harvard Organizations Demand Law School Graduate's Brother Be Released from Chinese Detention Camp | News - Harvard Crimson

Good news if you were disappointed by how Bobby Seale and Fred Hampton were treated in Aaron Sorkins The Trial of the Chicago 7: Shaka Kings Judas and the Black Messiah, which stars Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton, leader of the Black Panther Party, and Lakeith Stanfield as William ONeal, the man who sold Hampton out to the FBI, finally has a release date. The pandemic release limbo is finally over, at least for this film, thank God. But, first, Warner Bros. dropped a brand-new trailer for the film earlier on Tuesday, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, it looks pretty great.

Heres the trailer:

Heres the longest synopsis weve ever read for a film its practically a press release, but were cool with it:

Chairman Fred Hampton was 21 years old when he was assassinated by the FBI, who coerced a petty criminal named William ONeal to help them silence him and the Black Panther Party. But they could not kill Fred Hamptons legacy and, 50 years later, his words still echo louder than ever. I am a revolutionary!

In 1968, a young, charismatic activist named Fred Hampton became Chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, who were fighting for freedom, the power to determine the destiny of the Black community, and an end to police brutality and the slaughter of Black people.

Chairman Fred was inspiring a generation to rise up and not back down to oppression, which put him directly in the line of fire of the government, the FBI and the Chicago Police. But to destroy the revolution, they had to do it from both the outside and the inside. Facing prison, William ONeal is offered a deal by the FBI: if he will infiltrate the Black Panthers and provide intel on Hampton, he will walk free. ONeal takes the deal.

Now a comrade in arms in the Black Panther Party, ONeal lives in fear that his treachery will be discovered even as he rises in the ranks. But as Hamptons fiery message draws him in, ONeal cannot escape the deadly trajectory of his ultimate betrayal.

Though his life was cut short, Fred Hamptons impact has continued to reverberate. The government saw the Black Panthers as a militant threat to the status quo and sold that lie to a frightened public in a time of growing civil unrest. But the perception of the Panthers was not reality. In inner cities across America, they were providing free breakfasts for children, legal services, medical clinics and research into sickle cell anemia, and political education. And it was Chairman Fred in Chicago, who, recognizing the power of multicultural unity for a common cause, created the Rainbow Coalition joining forces with other oppressed peoples in the city to fight for equality and political empowerment.

Judas and the Black Messiah will have its premiere at this years Sundance Film Festival before it hits theaters and HBO Max on February 12.

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'Judas and the Black Messiah' has a new trailer and a release date - Vanyaland

The Mental Health Act confers unique powers on the state: allowing police, health and social services to detain a person on the basis of their mental state.

We know that the Act saves lives, providing vital health care in an emergency to people who need urgent help, but we also know that the use of coercion to treat mental illness can be frightening and traumatic. For too many people, powers that exist to protect them have ended up causing lasting harm, and the use of these powers is far from equal across society.

i's opinion newsletter: talking points from today

This is why the publication of the governments plan to reform the Act this week is so welcome.

The current legislation was written in 1983, and partially updated in 2007. In that time, the way mental ill health is understood and treated has changed but the law has not kept up. Now, with the publication of a government reform plan, based largely on an independent report written two years ago by Sir Simon Wessely, we have a chance to bring mental health law into the 21st century. The changes will give patients more control and autonomy over their care, ensure that the needs of those with learning disabilities and autism are better met, and work towards making the system less discriminatory towards Black people.

Every year since the Act was last updated, the use of coercion has risen. That means more people are sectioned, often with the involvement of the police. And since 2007, compulsory powers can be extended once people leave hospital, through community treatment orders which require people to comply with treatment or face a return to hospital.

Use of these powers is not spread evenly. Black people in England and Wales are four times more likely to be sectioned than white people, and even more likely again to be given a community treatment order. These inequities may partly relate to higher rates of mental illness, but they cannot be explained away without understanding Black peoples experiences of racism, oppression and injustice that begin early in life and are too often reflected in how they experience mental health care.

The reforms aim to stop discrimination and racism within the mental health system using a Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (a tool designed to improve care and race equality,recommended in the 2018 Independent Review).It is vital that this is properly resourced and given the time it needs to make a real difference in communities and services nationwide.

The Mental Health Act doesnt just provide a legal basis for people to be detained in hospital. It also sets out the ways in which peoples rights can be protected during that time. For example it sets limits on how long a person can be detained and what for, and it provides protections such as a right to independent advocacy and aftercare.

The Governments plans seek to boost those protections: including enabling people to write Advance Choice Documents to say how they would like to be treated when they are unwell. And it pledges to boost advocacy services so that more people get advice and support about their rights. This will mean people will get the care and dignity they desire when unwell.

The Government also pledges to end the use of mental health law to detain people solely because they are autistic or have a learning disability. If this is accompanied by investment in better community support, it should prevent the inappropriate use of mental health legislation to keep people in hospitals and care homes for months and years at a time.

While the changes proposed by government will not happen quickly, we hope that in time they will mean that peoples rights and dignity are respected at every turn

Reforming the Mental Health Act will rebalance a system that too often leaves people traumatised and treated without dignity when they are at their most unwell. But it will not on its own be enough to tackle the injustices and inequalities that lie beneath the letters of the law.

Deeply ingrained racism and discrimination in society must be tackled to prevent mental ill health in communities. Investment in community mental health support is also vital: years of austerity, especially in social care, have eroded the services that support people living with a mental illness, putting them at greater risk of relapse and hospitalisation.

And the hospital buildings used for mental health support are in urgent need of modernisation: in some cases, the places people are detained when they are most unwell are some of the poorest and most dated parts of the NHS estate. And in last years hospital upgrade plan, just two of the 40 sites chosen by government for modernisation were for mental health care.

Reform of the Mental Health Act is long overdue. While the changes proposed by government will not happen quickly, we hope that in time they will mean that coercion is used only where it is necessary, for as short a time as possible, respecting peoples rights and dignity at every turn. The Governments plans are now out for consultation, with plans for new legislation to be introduced later this year.

Andy Bell is deputy chief executive at Centre for Mental Health and was a member of the working group for the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act in 2018

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People have been traumatised by the Mental Health Act for decades the government's reform plan is welcome - iNews

Last Monday, workers at Google and other companies under the umbrella company Alphabet formed a minority union, affiliated with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). This Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) claims it aims to include workers of all job descriptions at Alphabet, including temps and contractors, who are normally excluded from union activities recognized by the National Labor Relations Board. These workers have explicitly said why they are unionizing: thousands of workers at Alphabet companies have been organizing for years to end forced arbitration in cases of sexual harassment and assault, to end company cooperation with state-sponsored campaigns of violence, and to stop managements retaliation against workers who have spoken out against its monopoly power. Recently, a leading AI researcher named Timnit Gebru, critical of Googles large-scale AI initiatives and their failure to fight bias, said she was fired for speaking out. In an op-ed for the New York Times, the AWUs newly elected executive chair and vice chair stated,

Our bosses have collaborated with repressive governments around the world. They have developed artificial intelligence technology for use by the Department of Defense and profited from ads by a hate group. They have failed to make the changes necessary to meaningfully address our retention issues with people of color. We joined Alphabet because we wanted to build technology that improves the world. Yet time and again, company leaders have put profits ahead of our concerns.

While all workers have a strategic role to play in the struggle of the working class against capital, some are more strategically positioned than others. Technology workers, and these workers in particular, hold an enormous amount of power: they control large parts of the communications and business capabilities of a huge swath of the economy. Alphabet products include not only the portal through which 88 percent of the world accesses websites, but also the software for 84 percent of the worlds cellphones, 29 percent of all ads served over the Internet, and 7 percent of the worlds cloud computing services, as well as the physical infrastructure for the delivery of Internet and television services through Google Fiber, among other tentacles that wind their way into our everyday lives.

It is not hyperbolic to say this could be world-historic: the establishment of a strong, militant union within one of the worlds most powerful companies, whose products touch nearly every part of American life and extend into the lives of workers across the globe (whether through direct use of Alphabets products or because of the influence that Alphabet products and company decisions have on American government and geopolitics). It would, however, be hyperbolic to say that the AWU may be able to exercise this power anytime soon: as of January 5, the AWU had collected 530 signed union cards. For reference, in March 2019, Google had 102,000 full-time employees and worked with about 121,000 contractors.

Get the latest news and thought-provoking analysis from Truthout.

A minority union (also sometimes known as a solidarity union or a noncontract union), like the one formed by the AWU, is a union that does not represent the majority of the workers of a given employer and does not explicitly (with much legal precedent) have the right to compel management to bargain with them.

Minority unions differ from majority unions, which in the United States do have legal bargaining rights with bosses, in how they are created. To form a majority union, the kind most Americans are familiar with, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) requires that workers first collect signed union cards from at least 30 percent of the eligible employees of a workplace. This period of organizing convincing coworkers to demand union representation and the right to bargain with management over their working conditions is often done one-on-one and in secret, so as not to incur union-busting tactics by bosses. After collecting enough of these signed cards to meet the 30 percent threshold required by law (but often much higher than this, to protect their majority against the attrition associated with union busting), worker leaders can submit them to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and request an election. After unions go public, but before their vote (a waiting period that can take months), bosses frequently engage in union-busting tactics, either by themselves or after hiring a union-busting law firm to do it for them. To win, workers must muster yes votes out of 50 percent plus one of all votes cast by the time the NLRB vote comes around. Once they win, workers in a majority union win the exclusive representation in their workplace for all eligible workers. This means that the workers can elect members of a bargaining committee and send them to negotiate with their bosses on a contract.

In contrast, the AWU is not held to the same standards of organizing a majority of workers in their workplace. Auni Ahsan, a member of AWUs executive council and software engineer at Google, said, We didnt need our boss or the government to tell us we could have a union, we have a union because WE say we do and because were hundreds of workers ready to fight in solidarity to make a change. The power that workers hold by organizing is not granted by the state via the NLRB; it is granted by their strength in numbers and opposition to their bosses. The mechanisms for safety are exactly the same for any union: collective power, exercised by striking (or the credible threat to do so), said Google organizer Laurence Berland. There is no safety without power. You can organize for power in any union structure, and you can fail to do so in any structure. The closer you are to being able to exercise that power through strike, the safer you are. The boss needs our labor, and we can choose the terms under which we give it. Thats the only real safety there is.

That is not to say that there are not some things that might be easier to do with a majority union: a majority union can theoretically use the NLRB to force its bosses to negotiate a contract. The union can do this without striking. It is unclear if minority unions in the United States have the legal authority to compel their bosses to bargain. They likely do not have the authority to bargain with their bosses on behalf of all workers at their company, but they might have the right to bargain on behalf of their members only.

Regardless, the AWU will likely use its public status for the legal protection that its full-time members now have against retaliation for organizing and recruiting in the workplace. Such protection is granted by the NLRA (and is the same protection the union would have as a majority union), and is crucial, since Google is known for firing organizers. AWU members now have some semblance of safety in numbers, some legal protections, and an organized structure for future workplace activism.

It is a great thing that white-collar workers (who make up some, but not all, of AWUs membership) are identifying as members of the working class (and they are, without a doubt, workers), in opposition to management, and are showing solidarity in a wall-to-wall union that includes workers in all departments, job titles, and employment statuses. Google employs workers and contractors in the U.S. and around the world, workers whom U.S. labor law does not allow in a bargaining unit international solidarity with workers for the same company in other countries is possible with a strong domestic bargaining unit, but would be built-in with a solidarity union, which would directly include workers around the world. These workers will not be covered by the NLRAs protections for full-time employees in the United States, but because those full-time employees are explicitly including international workers in their organization, the entire organization will benefit from the increased power of strength in numbers, power that will protect those international workers.

According to some common union-busting messaging, tech workers, and white-collar workers in general, do not need or deserve union power. These messages have begun making the rounds in reaction to the AWUs launch. Contrary to popular belief, the most skilled workers have always played a big role in organizing. From the craftsman guilds to the American autoworkers of the 1930s, who were some of the most well-compensated workers in the industrial world, skilled labor has a long history of organizing and winning fights against capital. All workers deserve unions, regardless of their compensation and perceived proximity to capital the actual control of that capital is what separates the working class from our bosses. All members of the working class have a role to play in the struggle against the exploitation of our labor, and the reason union-busters claim that skilled labor shouldnt be included in our unions is that their inclusion makes us stronger.

But the formation of a union that includes only Alphabets white-collar workers would have failed to fulfill the revolutionary potential of such organizing. A real workers movement, organized against exploitation and oppression, must include and organize the sectors of the working class that are historically most oppressed: less specialized or skilled workers, as well as contractors, who are more likely to be members of historically oppressed groups. These members of the working class, even more than the rest, have been victims of a decades-long divide-and-conquer strategy aimed at reducing worker solidarity by encouraging identification among white-collar workers with management. Organizing together would not only build solidarity among different sectors of the working class; it would also, if successful, more than double the number of eligible members of this union at Alphabet, further increasing its power to stop work and make demands.

We must remember the particular workplace these workers are organizing. The rank-and-file spokespeople of the AWU have stated that their reasoning for organizing includes pressuring their bosses to treat workers with equity, stop biased and unethical AI research, improve diversity among the workforce, and stand up for their contracted coworkers. Few of these issues involve bread-and-butter wage and benefit demands, and none are issues that would classically (or could potentially even legally) be included in the bargaining of a contract. Nor should the AWU be focused only on those issues collective action by unions should not be limited to improving material conditions just within their own workplace, or just within their own sector.

If we, as socialists, must consider our goal in every move that we make, we need to consider the immense power that these workers have to stop surveillance, the spread of far-right propaganda and populist messaging, AI-driven incursions on civil life, and the empowerment of state violence that is enabled by big tech companies like Alphabet. As workers, we will have to defeat these aspects of bourgeois society if we are going to be able to overcome bourgeois oppression at all.

It is exciting that we are seeing activity in the labor movement that is not obviously or immediately associated with small economic sectoral- or workplace-specific gains. We are seeing, both in the fact that this union will not (anytime soon) be able to force Google management to the bargaining table, and in the language used by the workers themselves in public op-eds and interviews, that these workers are focused on making changes that will affect not only their own working conditions but also those of workers around the world.

The particular role that these workers hold in the wider strategy against capitalism is evident in an analysis of where worker power comes from. Work stoppages at Google would take down large swaths of the Internet we have seen in accidental outages of Amazon Web Servicess cloud computing systems (which are similar to Googles Google Cloud Platform cloud services) that many businesses, news outlets, e-commerce sites, and more are taken down when cloud computing systems go offline. An organized faction of these tech workers could significantly disrupt commerce worldwide and interfere with the profit collection of not only Google but also myriad more corporations. This is, of course, a scope of power that is not exclusive to tech workers workers in the manufacturing, transportation, telecom, agriculture, pharmaceutical, and energy sectors could win big, but only if they fight.

* * *

Any formation of a new union is an opportunity to meet workers in their local struggles, a sign that workers across the world are organizing themselves to fend off their bosses, and, particularly in this case, a glimmer of hope against the deepest darkness of the Silicon Valleypowered surveillance states, right-wing propaganda machines, and tools of technological oppression that Google and its affiliates compel their workers to build.

What remains to be seen is if 530 AWU members, now that their organizing effort is public, can organize enough of their coworkers to wield enough power to realize their potential. They are protected in word only by both federal law and the CWAs legal team, and they are up against Alphabets notoriously anti-union and historically well-funded general counsel, as well as what we can only assume will be the best union-busters money can buy. At the end of the day, protection for them comes from power on the shop floor. For the sake of our collective struggle against the state and the ruling class, we can only cheer them on and hope that they will succeed.

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New Google Union Will Help Build Labor Struggle Against Technological Oppression - Truthout

NEW DELHI: China has engaged continuously in silencing the voices of dissent under its oppression and the most recent name in this manhunt initiated by the Chinese government is Uighur doctor and rights activist from Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) Dr. Gulshan Abbas. China has sentenced Dr. Gulshan Abbas to 20 years in prison after branding her a terrorist. Abbas reportedly disappeared in 2018, shortly after her sister Rushan Abbas participated in a panel discussion on China and its internment camps in the XUAR. After her location remained unknown for the past 27 months, her family was confirmed about her sentencing by the CCP government in March 2019. Her family came to know about this on December 25, 2020 by reliable inside sources.

As the cloud around the disappearance of Gulshan Abbas has cleared, China has been caught off-guard on the geopolitical stage of the world. Major human rights organizations have started to gather and press for the demands of unconditional release of Dr. Abbas. Campaign for Uyghurs an advocacy organization campaigning for Uighur human rights, has shared the statement of the Commissioner of the United States Council on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Nury Turkel, who has appealed to everyone to write to the Chinese ambassador in their respective regions, even if the letters are ignored by them. He has further asked everyone to build a movement for immediate and unconditional release of Dr Gulshan Abbas. Turkels arguments were reiterated by the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy . Human Rights and Labour, Robert A Destro, while voicing out his demand for immediate release of Dr. Gulshan Abbas on Twitter. He highlighted CCPs practice of hunting down activists for speaking out against its repressive policies.

The campaign for Uighurs along with Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC),organised a press conference on 30th December 2020, CFUs Executive Director Rushan Abbas , who happens to be the sister of Dr Gulshan Abbas , informed about sentencing of her sister of 20 years by the CCP government. The event was joined by many prominent human rights advocates including CECC Chairman and parliamentarian Rep. Jim McGovern, Rep. Tom Suozzi, Rep. Chris Smith,

Ambassador Kelly Currie from the State Department's Office of Global Women's Issues, and USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel. The speakers in the event unanimously put forward the demand for immediate release of Dr. Gulshan Abbas by the CCP government.

Jim McGovern strongly condemned the action of the CCP government to imprison and punish the innocent and helpless people from the region. He appealed to the government of the United States to prioritize the passage of the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act during discussions with Officials of the CCP government. Rep. Tom Suozzi strongly denied the charges on Dr. Abbas, while calling out the merciless abuse of the Uighurs by the CCP. His thoughts were reiterated by Rep. Chris Smith, who also called out on American corporations for their biased portrayal of human rights values. and keeping silence on the Uighur rights issue. Ambassador Kelly stated that human rights crimes of such stature need to be repulsed with unanimity, where the US Congress and administration jointly need to pursue this matter, seeking early and unconditional release of Dr. Abbas. USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel is the immediate testimony of the fabrication of charges on Dr. Gulshan Abbas. Citing his personal cordial relations with her, he pointed out the cowardly policy of the CCP government of going after mothers, grandmothers, and professionals all in the name of muzzling the voices against oppression from the region.

Rushan Abbas and Dr. Rishat Abbas , siblings of Dr. Gulshan Abbas have kept the lanterns of Uighur rights and liberation of Gulshan Abbas burning. In the fight towards CCPs abuse of Uighur rights, they have been bravely demanding China for the release of their sister and checking CCPs abuse of human rights in XUAR. The horror of Uighur families can be felt in the statement of Gulshan Abbass daughter , Ziba Murat , who could not reveal the source of information about her mothers detention in China due to the security reasons. She further stated that her mother , being a doctor has helped people all along her life. But her cruel sentencing of 20 years by the Chinese government in her old age is an inhuman torture.

Such arrests have emerged as a new paradigm by the CCP regime, where it subjects the relatives of the exiled activists to various kinds of tortures and forcibly disappears them. Subjecting the people to harsh

punishments, enforced disappearances, and relocation to internment centers are few arrows in the quiver of Chinese government. According to World Uyghur Congress, China has adopted the most inhumane policies in its genocide against the Uighurs. China has not only forced the Uighurs to work in the labour camps, but it has also banned the Uighur language, separated Uighur families and sterilized the Uighur women in an attempt to bulldoze a cultural identity completely.

The press conference organized by Campaign for Uyghurs and CECC has brought the notice of the world on the gross injustice inflicted upon the Uighurs. Resulting in brewing of a movement by the Uighur rights activists,media houses around the world have started taking notice of this issue. Meanwhile, Twitter has started to flood with the hashtag #FreeGulshanAbbas , bringing in the attention of Twitter

community on this issue. The Uighur cause has also started to gain momentum and support in India. Red Lantern Analytica (RLA), a New Delhi based international affairs observer group has issued a statement of solidarity with Dr. Gulshan Abbas, wherein the organization has condemned the inhumane sentencing of the activist and extended support to the movement demanding immediate release of Dr. Abbas from the Chinese prison. This moment of solidarity was duly welcomed by Gulshan Abbas sister Rushan Abbas and daughter Ziba Murat and campaign for Uyghurs, all of them retweeted the statement from RLA from their respective Twitter handles. Campaign for Uighurs thanked RLA for their active support to the cause and sharing the truth about the crackdown on Uighurs by the Chinese regime . The tweet was further retweeted by Ziba Murat and Rushan Abbas . The whitewashing of the Uighur issue by the Chinese government handles and their propaganda operations. With the awareness of people on the issue of Uighur right abuses , a hopeful future awaits for those who have been oppressed for long by the CCP government in XUAR.

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Pressure builds on China to release Uighur doctor Gulshan Abbas, who is sentenced to 20 years in jail - Zee News

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri says he is going forward with his objection to the Electoral College results from Pennsylvania. However, he denounced the violent breach at the Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump. (Jan. 6) AP Domestic

Chances are, youve seen George Orwells name thrown around a lot in the past week on social media, either by conservatives invoking his name with sincerity or by liberals poking fun at conservatives for its misuse.

On Friday, when Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trumps Twitter account, his son Donald Trump Jr. was quick to invoke George Orwell. We are living Orwells 1984, he tweeted. Free-speech no longer exists in America. It died with big tech and whats left is only there for a chosen few.

When Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., lost his book deal with Simon & Schuster afterWednesdays Capitol Hill riot and his widely perceived role in helping incite it, he had some words for what he called the woke mob at his would-be publisher. This could not be more Orwellian, he tweeted in a statement.

Cheeky Twitter users have been quick to criticize the invocation of Orwell from people who, like many of us, probably havent dusted off a copy of 1984 since high school.

As we all remember, Orwell's 1984 is about an old man who gets banned from a bird-themed social media site after regularly encouraging violence, tweeted the progressive think tank Gravel Institute.

Starting a Go Fund Me to buy conservatives some Orwell books, wrote @ClueHeywood.

My son just described having to clean his room as positively Chorewellian, tweetedTV writerGennefer Gross.

1984 rose to the top ofAmazons top-selling book list over the weekend. On Monday, it reached the No. 1 spot. Not bad for a book published in 1949. Too bad few people citing the books dystopian horrors in earnest seem to understand the usage.

The term Orwellian has become lazy shorthand for exercises of authority with which one disagrees. When a publisher drops your book because your brand has become toxic, its Orwellian. When an internet platform enforces its terms of service and kicks you off, its Orwellian. When a store has you removed from the premises for refusing to wear a mask during a pandemic, its Orwellian.

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It tends to be a kind of catch-all for repression, says David Ulin, associate professor of English at the University of Southern California and former book editor of the Los Angeles Times. He hasread and studied Orwells works extensively, and he finds Hawleys and Trumps Orwell name-checking not just inaccuratebut ironic.

Theres a real irony in the fact that someone who paid such attention to clarity in language Orwells whole thing was about transparency in language, that language needed to be absolutely clear like a pane of glass that a writer like that becomes a rhetorical tool for the people who would have been at the point of his lance, Ulin says.

Its actually almost counter-Orwellian, says Pallavi Yetur, a practicing psychotherapist with a master's degree in creative writing whose critical thesis was on Orwell and how his life experiences formed the way he thought about government. In fact, Donald Trump Jr.s tweet is Orwellian because he is using language as a way to control peoples opinions about something thats happening in his favor, and thats propaganda.

Orwellian is probably the most widely used adjective derived from the name of a writer (Kafkaesque mightcomeclose), yet so many are using it wrong. It helps, first, to understand who Orwell was and the deeply held political convictions that fueled his writing.

George Orwell, author of "1984."(Photo: AP)

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it, Orwell wrote in his 1946 essay handily titled Why I Write. That was the year Orwell joined a leftist militia to fight in the Spanish Civil War against fascist Francisco Francos military uprising in Spain.

Eric Arthur Blair (Orwell was his pen name) was born to British civil servants in India, a member of what he called the lower-upper-middle class. A deeply moral thinker and writer, Orwell didnt sit comfortably in his privilegebut was a committed democratic socialist, along the lines of a Bernie Sanders, as Yetur describes him. He was also, Ulin says, a brilliant critic of pre-World War II British liberal isolationism.

So when war broke out in Spain, Orwell saw it as his moral duty to get involved. When I joined the militia I had promised myself to kill one Fascist after all, if each of us killed one they would soon be extinct, Orwell wrote. He was shot in the throat by a fascist sniper and nearly died.

His experience in the Spanish Civil War also wised Orwell up to thefailures of Soviet communism, whose tactics of oppression and obfuscation mirrored those of the fascists the communists were fighting despite existing on opposite ends of the political spectrum. The opposing ideologies were two sides of the same totalitarian coin, each flavor of undemocratic authoritarian control intolerable to Orwell. He was very wary of totalitarianism from the left as well as from the right, Ulin says.

Orwells experience in the Spanish Civil War crystallized his politics, which formed the literary fabric of everything he would write thereafter.

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Sales of the dystopian classic '1984' have soared since Donald Trump's inauguration.(Photo: Signet)

Newspeak. Doublethink. Thoughtcrime. Big Brother.

1984 is often reduced to its base components, the catchphrases and slogans of the fictional government in Orwells dystopian allegory for Soviet totalitarianism. The takeaway is often: Oppression bad, liberty good.

But Orwells book is much more sophisticated. Orwell was interested not just in communicating the badness of totalitarian regimesbut also dissecting how they succeed through the manipulation of language.

He was really most concerned with language and how language was used in a propaganda type of way or as a means of control, Yetur says.

Orwell observed that totalitarian governments, whatever their ideologies, cannot simply impose their wills; they must indoctrinate. Their success requires complicity. Hes really sharp on the ways in which people get indoctrinated, Ulin says.

Which brings us to the term Orwellian. If Hawleys book deal getting canceled and Trump getting booted from Twitter arent Orwellian, what is?

'Orwellian, in the most orthodox way, is about language as a means of control, Yetur says. A Nazi propagandist like Leni Riefenstahl, that would be very Orwellian, because thats somebody whos using words to invoke feelings, to invoke allegiances, to discredit enemies."

Orwellian is not just applicable to the fascists and communists of Orwells era, though. Ulin believes 1984 is relevant to our political moment. There are aspects of the novel that are quite reminiscent, interestingly enough, of Trumpism, even though (Trumps) right-wing, Ulin says. Things like the dissemination of false information, the use of information to obfuscate rather than illuminate.

He also sees shades of 1984 in social media. In the book, Orwell invents Two Minutes Hate, a daily event in which video of the enemy is publicly screened and the audience is encouraged to stir itself up into a froth of rage. That kinds of reminds me of what we see in terms of social media mob mentality, and this extreme QAnon type of conspiracy theorists, Ulin says, working on peoples most negative and virulent emotions and using that as a way to control them but also to make them feel as if they are being heard.

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1984 and Animal Farm are Orwells greatest hits and certainly worth revisiting (or reading for the first time; we wont judge). But Orwell was also a prolific essayist, literary critic, journalist and columnist, and much of his best work is in his less flashy nonfiction. If you want to expand your understanding of Orwell and better appreciate the philosophy of one of our most enduring modern political writers, these works are good starting points.

Homage to Catalonia: Published in 1938, this personal account of Orwells experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War is essential to understanding every work that followed. If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: To Fight against Fascism, Orwell wrote, and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: Common decency.

Down and Out in Paris and London: Orwell lived in purposeful poverty for a time in Paris and London, two of the worlds wealthiest cities, and wrote about his experiences in this 1933 memoir. He made the choice to go to Paris and London and work low-end jobs and live that life, to immerse in it, because thats where his sympathies were, says Ulin.

Politics and the English Language:This 1946 essay is a short and essential read on the importance of clarity of language. It was central to both Orwells writing and politics, because he saw the two inextricably linked. Corrupt language, Orwell wrote, can also corrupt thought. Political language and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

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You may be using the term Orwellian wrong. Heres what George Orwell was actually writing about - USA TODAY