Daily Archives: July 23, 2021

Daily Political BriefingJuly 22, 2021Updated

July 22, 2021, 10:57 p.m. ET

The House voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to expand a visa program for Afghans who are facing retribution for helping American troops and diplomats during the 20-year war in Afghanistan, moving to allow more of them to immigrate to the United States quickly as the Biden administration races to evacuate them.

With Afghans who helped the U.S. personnel now facing threats from the Taliban as American troops withdraw, a broad bipartisan coalition in Congress led by military veterans who have worked alongside interpreters or fixers in combat zones themselves has raced to give the administration wider latitude to airlift them to safety.

By a vote of 407-16, the House moved on Thursday to expand the number of available special immigrant visas for Afghans to 19,000 from 11,000 and broaden the universe of people eligible for them by removing some application requirements.

Many of us have expressed grave concerns about the challenges our allies face in navigating the application process, said Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Administration Committee. Afghans stepped forward to serve aside our brave military.

Under the legislation, applicants would no longer have to provide a sworn statement that they faced a specific threat or proof that they held a sensitive and trusted job. Instead, the measure would in effect stipulate that any Afghan who helped the U.S. government by definition faces retribution, and should be able to apply for a visa.

The legislation also strengthens protections for surviving spouses and children, allowing them to retain eligibility if an applicant dies or is killed before his or her visa is approved. Each visa applicant is allowed to include up to four family members, limited to their spouse and unmarried children under the age 21.

The bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where there is bipartisan support for the Afghan visa program, but funding for its expansion has been embroiled in a broader fight over spending on Capitol security. The same is true for another measure the House passed recently that would waive a requirement for applicants to undergo medical examinations in Afghanistan before qualifying for visas.

Both pieces of legislation aim to shorten the long wait for permission to enter the United States, which can last as long as seven years for some applicants.

Even with the bill passed on Thursday, the application process is still expected to take more than a year long after the American withdrawal.

Sixteen Republicans opposed the measure, which some of them argued did not contain strong enough vetting for the Afghans who helped American troops. Others argued that the bill was simply misguided at a time when Congress should be more strictly limiting immigration, not making it easier.

But those arguments were rejected by Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida and a former Green Beret who still serves as a colonel in the national guard. He referenced an interpreter he served with in Afghanistan, nicknamed Spartacus, who he said had been beheaded along with members of his family for helping Americans.

The legislation does not diminish or circumvent the screening process, Mr. Waltz said. Trust me, before these men and women were allowed to work with our units, they were heavily vetted.

The legislation, spearheaded by Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado and a former Army Ranger, has widespread support in both parties.

Some members of this body, including me, may not be here without the service and sacrifice of Afghans who answered the call to serve shoulder-to-shoulder with us, Mr. Crow said.

Its consideration comes as the Biden administration has announced plans to evacuate an initial tranche of Afghans to an Army base in Virginia in the coming days. About 2,500 Afghan interpreters, drivers and others who worked with American forces, as well as their family members, will be sent in stages to Fort Lee, Va., south of Richmond, to await final processing for formal entry into the United States, officials said.

With the American military in the final phases of withdrawing from Afghanistan, the White House has come under heavy pressure to protect the Afghan allies.

Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, said the Afghans have a bull's-eye on their back.

They will be killed if we dont get them out of there, Mr. McCaul said. Please, Mr. President, get them out before they are killed.

Some of the Afghans awaiting visas have spoken out about the threats they face from the Taliban.

Since 2014, the nonprofit organization No One Left Behind has tracked the killings of more than 300 translators or their family members, many of whom died while waiting for their visas to be processed, according to James Miervaldis, the groups chairman and an Army Reserve noncommissioned officer.

More than 18,000 Afghans who have worked as interpreters, drivers, engineers, security guards, fixers and embassy clerks for the United States during the war have been caught in bureaucratic limbo after applying for special immigrant visas, which are available to people who face threats because of work for the U.S. government. The applicants have 53,000 family members, U.S. officials have said.

J. Thomas Manger, a veteran police chief of departments in the Washington, D.C., region, has been hired to lead the United States Capitol Police, the board that oversees the agency announced on Thursday.

After conducting a national search in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the board members said in a statement that they were confident in Chief Mangers experience and approach in protecting the Congress its members, employees, visitors and facilities.

He will begin work on Friday. Chief Manger takes over a police force that is still reeling half a year after the riot. The 2,000-member police force that protects Congress finds itself at perhaps its biggest crossroads in its nearly two-century existence. Its work force is traumatized and overworked as its ranks have been hollowed out by a flood of departures. The agency is facing possible furloughs, teetering on the brink of running out of funding as overtime costs outpace its budget for salaries. It has been besieged by criticism from members of both parties for the stunning security failures that allowed the assault to occur.

After the attack, Steven A. Sund resigned from his post as the Capitol Police chief, along with the top House and Senate security officials, a move that left raw feelings on the force among those who remained deeply loyal to Mr. Sund.

The union representing officers voted that it had no confidence in the acting Capitol Police chief, Yogananda D. Pittman, and six other senior officials in the department.

The challenges in protecting the Capitol campus, and everyone who works or visits there, have never been more complex, Chief Manger said in a statement.

The courage and dedication of the men and women of this agency were on great display on Jan. 6th. It is now my job to ensure that they have the resources and support to continue to fulfill their mission in an ever increasingly difficult job.

Chief Manger has spent more than four decades in policing, including serving as chief of police in Montgomery County, Md., from 2004 to 2019. He also served as police chief in Fairfax County, Va., from 1998 to 2004.

From 2014 to 2018, Chief Manger was president of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, and from 2013 to 2017, he was vice president of the Police Executive Research Forum.

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If were ever going to be able to get through this, and especially to prevent something like this from happening again, we need to at least find out how it really did happen. And while Speaker Pelosi refuses to investigate this, many of us have taken action on our own to start digging in to the facts, to try to get the facts as best we can. We know that the Chinese Communist Party wont release the background, the data, the facts. Wont let us talk to those people that worked in that Wuhan lab was there American tax dollars that went directly or indirectly to the Wuhan lab to perform gain-of-function research. A lot of evidence indicates there was all of these questions deserve answers. The question is: Why are Democrats stonewalling our efforts to uncover the origin of the Covid virus? Why are Democrats not investigating the growing list of evidence that leads us directly to the Chinese Communist Party and their cover-up? And why is this administration refusing to hold China accountable? Our Republican members will continue to work to demand answers and accountability and transparency for the American people.

House Republican leaders and doctors gathered Thursday morning for a news conference ostensibly to urge Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus amid rising infections across the United States, but they used the event to attack Democrats who they said, without proof, had dissembled about the origins of the virus.

The appearance by the second and third-ranking House Republicans, Representatives Steve Scalise of Louisiana, and Elise Stefanik of New York, alongside a dozen doctors suggested that a resurgence in the spread of the virus, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, had not prompted the party to change its tone. Mr. Scalise and Ms. Stefanik instead blasted Democrats for what they called a cover-up on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

Only when pressed by reporters did the leaders address vaccination.

I would encourage people to get the vaccine, Mr. Scalise said near the end of the event, when pressed about his position on it. I have high confidence in it. I got it myself.

He and other Republicans spent most of their time on Thursday discussing unproven claims that the Chinese had released a virulent, human-made virus on the world and charging that Democrats had ignored it.

The event in front of the Capitol had been billed as a press conference to discuss the need for individuals to get vaccinated, uncover the origins of the pandemic, and keep schools and businesses open. Yet Republicans who attended, many of whom represent constituencies that have refused to get the vaccine, could not seem to bring themselves to hammer home the importance of doing so.

Even the doctors who emphasized vaccinations, Representative Andy Harris of Maryland and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, soft-pedaled and qualified their statements.

If you are at risk, you should be getting this vaccine, Dr. Harris said, adding, We urge all Americans to talk to their doctors about the risks of Covid, talk to their doctors about the benefits of getting vaccinated, and then come to a decision thats right for them.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that anyone age 12 or over not only those at higher risk get vaccinated against the coronavirus as soon as possible.

When pressed, Representative Greg Murphy, Republican of North Carolina, demurred: This vaccine is a medicine, and just like with any other medicines, there are side effects and this is a personal decision.

The emphasis on the so-called lab leak theory was something of a surprise given the surge of infections concentrated in rural, strongly Republican regions of the country.

Nationally, the average of new coronavirus infections has surged 171 percent in 14 days, to more than 41,300 a day on Wednesday, and deaths a lagging number are up 42 percent from two weeks ago, to nearly 250, according to a New York Times database. Still, new cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain at a fraction from their previous devastating peaks.

Vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of Covid-19, including from the Delta variant. Experts say breakthrough infections in vaccinated people are so far still relatively uncommon. The Delta variant is estimated to account for 83 percent of new cases in the United States, the C.D.C. said earlier this week.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported at the end of June that 86 percent of Democrats had at least one shot, compared with 52 percent of Republicans. An analysis by The Times in April found that the least vaccinated counties in the country had one thing in common: They voted for Mr. Trump.

But Dr. Murphy said the notion that conservatives are hesitant to receive the vaccine is not only disingenuous; its a lie.

As for the lab leak theory, one after another, Republicans framed the issue as virtually settled: Research at a virus laboratory in Wuhan, China, created the novel coronavirus through risky gain of function experiments, then leaked it into the world.

Criminals have been convicted on less circumstantial evidence than currently exists, and every day more evidence has revealed, Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa said.

Recently, some scientists have urged that the possibility of a lab leak be taken seriously, alongside the possibility that the coronavirus emerged naturally, most likely from an animal. But they are mostly looking at the possibility that a naturally evolved virus was present in the lab and escaped, not that the virus was created deliberately. Even some of the most vocal scientific supporters of a lab leak possibility do not claim that there is definitive evidence of the origin of the virus.

Rather than cover up the matter, President Biden ordered U.S. intelligence agencies in late May to investigate the origins of the coronavirus and to report back in 90 days.

The Justice Department on Thursday began putting in place a plan to reduce violent crime in the nations largest cities, detailing the work of five federal strike forces aimed at disrupting illegal gun traffickers who flood urban streets with illicit firearms.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland traveled to Chicago, where one of the strike forces will be located, to highlight the plan and underscore the Biden administrations efforts to curb the spread of illegal firearms. A Chicago police officer and two agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were shot while working undercover in the city this month.

The gun violence tragedy now facing the country, needless to say, affects our communities and our security and safety, but it also affects our law enforcement officers, Mr. Garland said in remarks at A.T.F. headquarters in Washington before leaving for Chicago.

He also appealed to lawmakers, who have not yet confirmed President Bidens nominee to lead the bureau, David Chipman. A.T.F. is on the front lines of our efforts to battle gun violence, Mr. Garland said. We are very hopeful that the Senate will soon act.

The bureau will serve as a key coordinating partner in the strike forces, which will be overseen by U.S. attorneys in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Northern California and Washington, D.C. The Justice Department has identified those places as end points for significant gun trafficking corridors.

WASHINGTON Calling Roe v. Wade egregiously wrong, Mississippis attorney general urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to do away with the constitutional right to abortion and to sustain a state law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The court will hear arguments in the case in the fall, giving its newly expanded conservative majority a chance to confront what may be the most divisive issue in American law: whether the Constitution protects the right to end pregnancies.

Lower courts blocked the Mississippi statute, calling it a cynical and calculated assault on abortion rights squarely at odds with Supreme Court precedents. The justices agreed to hear the case in May, just months after Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has said she personally opposes abortion, joined the court. She replaced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a proponent of abortion rights, who died in September.

The new filing, from Attorney General Lynn Fitch, was a sustained and detailed attack on Roe and the rulings that followed it, notably Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that said states may not impose an undue burden on the right to abortion before fetal viability the point at which fetuses can sustain life outside the womb, or about 23 or 24 weeks.

The Constitution does not protect a right to abortion, Ms. Fitch wrote. The Constitutions text says nothing about abortion. Nothing in the Constitutions structure implies a right to abortion or prohibits states from restricting it.

She told the justices that the scope of abortion rights should be determined through the political process. The national fever on abortion can break only when this court returns abortion policy to the states where agreement is more common, compromise is often possible and disagreement can be resolved at the ballot box.

The law at issue in the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, No. 19-1392, was enacted in 2018 by the Republican-dominated Mississippi Legislature. It banned abortions if the probable gestational age of the unborn human was determined to be more than 15 weeks. The statute included narrow exceptions for medical emergencies or a severe fetal abnormality.

The law was challenged by Mississippis sole abortion clinic, which is represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, an advocacy group. The centers president, Nancy Northup, said she was dismayed by the states new filing.

Mississippi has stunningly asked the Supreme Court to overturn Roe and every other abortion rights decision in the last five decades, Ms. Northup said in a statement. Todays brief reveals the extreme and regressive strategy, not just of this law, but of the avalanche of abortion bans and restrictions that are being passed across the country.

The precise question the justices agreed to decide was whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional. Depending on how the court answers that question, it could reaffirm, revise or do away with the longstanding constitutional framework for abortion rights.

Ms. Fitch urged the justices to take the third approach, saying it would bolster the legitimacy of the court.

Roe and Casey are unprincipled decisions that have damaged the democratic process, poisoned our national discourse, plagued the law and, in doing so, harmed this court, she wrote.

Representative Hank Johnson, Democrat of Georgia, was among a group of protesters arrested on the Capitol complex on Thursday while demonstrating for voting rights and against the filibuster in the Senate. The arrest came one week after the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus was arrested by U.S. Capitol Police, also while demonstrating for voting rights.

I was arrested today protesting against Senate inaction on voting rights legislation & filibuster reform, Mr. Johnson wrote on Twitter. In the spirit of my dear friend and mentor the late Congressman John Lewis I was getting in #goodtrouble.

In a video posted to his Twitter account, Mr. Johnson could be seen continuing to chant with protesters even after he was taken into custody with his hands bound in zip ties.

Tia Mitchell, a reporter with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution who was on the scene, posted a video on Twitter showing Mr. Johnson and other protesters with their arms linked, blocking a doorway. They were warned by U.S. Capitol Police that they could be arrested for demonstrating without a permit, according to Ms. Mitchell.

Last Thursday, Representative Joyce Beatty, Democrat of Ohio, was among nine people arrested in the atrium of a Senate office building while demonstrating in favor of two voting rights bills in Congress, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act.

Both measures aim to protect and expand access to voting but face long odds of becoming law because Democrats, who have a narrow majority in the Senate, need Republican votes to overcome a filibuster. For months, Democrats have expressed frustration over their inability to advance their expansive voting overhauls as Republican state legislatures rush to pass laws that restrict voting rights across the country.

President Biden last week called the fight against restrictive voting laws the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War, even as he seemed to acknowledge that the legislation had little hope of passing. At a televised town hall on Wednesday in Cincinnati, the president defended keeping the filibuster, saying that getting rid of it would throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done.

As news and images of the arrests spread across social media, some noted the contrast between the treatment of the members of Congress, who are both Black, and the hundreds of rioters who trespassed at the Capitol on Jan. 6 who were not detained, although police made efforts to impede them.

In an interview with Elle about her arrest, Ms. Beatty pointed out the same discrepancy.

At the Jan. 6 insurrection, you had thousands of people damaging federal property, rushing and breaking down doors, Ms. Beatty said. People were dying. There was nothing peaceful about it. And look what happened. That day there were no arrests, no handcuffs, no paddy wagons.

WASHINGTON The Biden administration issued new sanctions on Thursday against Cubas defense minister and an elite brigade of government security forces over human rights violations during a crackdown on protesters this month.

In the days since demonstrations erupted across Cuba on July 11, the Biden administration has been consulting with officials in Washington and experts on how broadly it should impose economic penalties against authorities accused of ordering or carrying out a heavy-handed response.

The Biden administration concluded that lvaro Lpez Miera, the head of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, has played an integral role in the repression of ongoing protests in Cuba, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Members of the special forces unit Boinas Negras, or Black Berets, which was previously placed under sanctions during the final days of the Trump administration, will also be penalized for a wave of arrests larger than any other crackdown in years, if not decades.

Activists said at least 150 protesters were arrested or disappeared during the July 11 demonstrations, and internet service was cut for much of the island to stifle anti-government sentiment. Additionally, Human Rights Watch officials said on Thursday that protesters in Cuba were being subjected to closed-door summary trials without a defense lawyer.

The sanctions, issued as part of the Global Magnitsky Act, allow the American government to freeze the property or other assets in the United States that belong to the people targeted by the economic penalties.

The Cuban people have the same right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly as all people, President Biden said in a statement.

He added, This is just the beginning the United States will continue to sanction individuals responsible for oppression of the Cuban people.

Cubas foreign minister, Bruno Rodrguez, said the new sanctions were unfounded & slanderous in a message on Twitter.

Calling attention to police violence in the United States, the foreign minister added: It should rather apply unto itself the Magnitsky Global Act for systematic repression & police brutality that took the lives of 1021 persons in 2020.

Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, described the sanctions as among a range of responses Mr. Biden would deploy to help Cubans grappling with government oppression and a growing humanitarian crisis. She said that addressing this moment was a priority for the administration.

As vice president during the Obama administration, Mr. Biden oversaw a policy that restored full diplomatic relations with Cuba for the first time in more than a half-century. But he has taken a tougher stance as president, a position that generally has been greeted warmly by members of Congress including some Democrats who had been in the awkward position of siding with President Donald J. Trumps policy of containing Cubas communist government.

Cubans have grown increasingly frustrated with their government amid an economic crisis that has included food scarcity, power cuts, skyrocketing inflation and a growing number of Covid-19 deaths. The Cuban government, for its part, has blamed the United States for a trade embargo and, last week, accused American officials of stirring the unrest.

Our message could not be clearer: The U.S. stands with the people of Cuba and there will be consequences for those with blood on their hands, Senator Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said on Twitter. Mr. Biden is absolutely right in holding the Cuban regime accountable as it violently tries to squash Cubans hopes & dreams.

The State Department also is considering whether to allow people in the United States to send money to relatives and friends in Cuba though a remittance process that, in past cases, has been exploited by government officials who have seized a cut of the funds. The departments spokesman, Ned Price, said this week that the Biden administration was examining how to get the money directly in the hands of the Cuban people.

Additionally, Mr. Price said, the department may increase the number of American diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, where the Trump administration set the number of staff at the bare minimum. It is not clear when, or if, the Biden administration will move forward on either front.

Ernesto Londoo and Frances Robles contributed reporting.

The C.I.A. is stepping up efforts to confront the cause and effects of mysterious sonic incidents, believed to be attacks, that have injured U.S. officials, by increasing medical staff and assigning an agency veteran who hunted Osama bin Laden, the agencys director, William J. Burns, said in an interview on Thursday.

Im certainly persuaded that what our officers and some family members, as well as other U.S. government employees, have experienced is real and its serious, Mr. Burns told NPR in his first interview since taking over the C.I.A. three months ago.

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The House votes to increase the number of visas for Afghans who have helped U.S. troops. - The New York Times

A Cuban flag and an image of Cubas late President Fidel Castro hang on a wall in Havana as people head to Revolution Square for a massive tribute to Castro in 2016.(Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)

Like all forms of oppression, communism and democratic socialism belong in the dustbin of history.

We may be witnessing the end of Communism in Cuba. On July 11, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to protest the islands appalling political and economic conditions. Some media outlets are trying to spin these as COVID protests rather than a general rejection of government domination. The cries of Freedom! and Enough! and the prevalence of American flags put that narrative to rest. Cubans long to be free, and now they may get the chance.

The island nation of 11 million is a political and economic basket case. Its government is a brutal dictatorship with an appalling record of human-rights abuses. Freedom of speech and assembly are heavily curtailed, and in response to the protests, the regime has restricted Internet access. Cubas economy is largely bereft of private ownership. Government-run enterprises are the rule, not the exception. Most workers are employed by the state. On the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom, only two countries rank lower: Venezuela and North Korea.

These are not separate problems. Political and economic tyranny are symptoms of the same malady. We must not fall into the trap of blaming only one kind of repression. In Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman warned against thinking any kind of economic arrangement can be associated with any kind of political arrangement. We arent free to choose political and economic systems a la carte. Genuine democracy requires free enterprise, and vice versa.

Cubas ongoing turmoil reminds us we cant compartmentalize human freedom. Sadly, many Western politicians and intellectuals remain obstinate. So-called democratic socialism is currently fashionable. Its also completely unworkable. F. A. Hayek, who shared the Nobel prize in economics in 1974 and was also an accomplished political philosopher, demonstrated this nearly 80 years ago. His Road to Serfdom shows economic control and political liberty are incompatible. The reason is obvious: Top-down economic planners cannot possibly obtain the knowledge of free citizens acting in their economic interest. Political freedom threatens the very control the elites wish to exercise. As Hayek recognized, democratic socialism is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something utterly different the very destruction of freedom itself.

What about China? comes the inevitable reply. Yes, China has seen significant economic liberalization without political liberalization over the decades. But even now, the Chinese Communist Party dominates economic affairs. Formally and informally, many businesses take their marching orders from the government. In the words of Xi Jinping, the CCPs goal is integrating the leadership of the party into all aspects of corporate governance. Dont be fooled into thinking the CCPs compromise with some amount of private residual income is a capitalist triumph.

Is it possible to have extensive economic freedom without political freedom? Certainly, its possible. But far more importantly, how likely is this to work? Too often we focus on authoritarian-capitalist success stories Singapore is a favorite as if they provide a generalizable model. Robert Lawson, a researcher at Southern Methodist University and a leading expert on economic and political freedom, rightly calls out this ahistorical thinking. For every Lee Kuan Yew, Lawson reminds us, there are dozens of tin-pot dictators who have ruined their nations. The extensive scholarly literature on political and economic freedom is clear: They are complements, not substitutes.

Of course, the fullest flowering of human political freedom is liberal democracy. While regular, transparent elections are important, these may matter less for economic liberty than constitutional protections for speech, religion, assembly, and so on, writes Lawson. Reaching this destination is incredibly hard. It took a good long time in the Anglosphere. As ex-prime minister Gordon Brown once quipped, When establishing the rule of law, the first five centuries are the hardest. Can it happen in Cuba, China, and other authoritarian states on a more favorable timeline? The jury is still out on how effectively political repression can function in these societies. What might be fragile in Cuba can weather a storm in China. Transitions are always tricky. Hopefully all nations suffering despotism can find their way.

Like all forms of oppression, Communism and democratic socialism belong in the dustbin of history. They deprive millions of life, liberty, and property. Its time to make a final push to eradicate these barbaric philosophies once and for all. We can only hope the brave Cuban demonstrators will lead the way. If they show the world the harmony of political and economic freedom, they can forever wear it as a badge of honor.

See more here:

Cuba Reminds Us There Is No Political Freedom without Economic Freedom - National Review

By contributing authors Tishina Okegbe, PhD, MPP and Temi Ifafore-Calfee

Historically, global health assistance has been delivered largely by high and upper-middle income countries, the so-called Global North. These countries export technical expertise, often furnishing financial and human resources to low- and middle-income countries, frequently referred to as the Global South. Annually, OECD and donor countries spent over $150 billion on foreign aid with a subset targeted to advance global health goals and priorities abroad. While we celebrate declining poverty rates, improving maternal and child health outcomes and ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic, deeper investigation leads one to question the purportedly altruistic nature of the Global North. In fact, one may find that an element of duality exists.

Global health assistance has its origin in colonization, though development agencies, donors, academic institutions, and global health practitioners seldom refer to this history. As a result, health systems across the globe model themselves on systems established by former colonial powers. These systems are held up as the ideal to which the Global South should aspire. The consequences of the Global North not recognizing the enduring imprint of colonization and imperialism results in continued subjugation of the Global South through the provision of global health technical assistance.

The negative impact of the North-South dynamics is evident. People from the Global South regularly report being ignored, silenced, and excluded from funding decisions that affect them. Several studies have highlighted the extraction of intellectual property from the Global South as reflected by principal authors from outside countries of research, including a recent Lancet Global Health commentary. Global health organization staffing models built on highly paid Global North leadership and inexpensive Global South labor may result in adverse work conditions. Moreover, English and other UN official languages dominate the language of global health fora and publications, further devaluing local languages.

In the Global North countries, academic institutions can play a critical role in shrinking the space between the purported values of global health and incongruent actions. This starts by acknowledging the duality that exists and actively working to improve the health and wellbeing of domestic communities of color. Framing the work through a restorative justice lens, Global North countries must also self-reflect. Given that the United States is the worlds largest global health assistance funder, intentionally rectifying ubiquitous oppressive global health practices may motivate other Global North countries to initiate national-level self-inquiry.

Because systems of oppression are complex and longstanding, we recognize that there is no sole solution to dismantle them. Hence, we offer two recommendations for US academic and global health institutions and practitioners to implement towards mitigating the problematic duality.

We applaud efforts by institutions like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Lancet to address the organizational structures and systems that perpetuate racial inequity. These efforts advance transparency and contribute towards closing the vast research gap on the study of racism and its impact on health practices. However, were concerned that these efforts are performative and commitments will fade once momentum passes. US academic institutions can address this concern by establishing a global accountability structure. This structure would create a safe space through which the Global North acknowledges its oppressive legacy and the subsequent impact on the Global South, and truly listens and learns from the Global South. This structure could be coordinated by a body such as the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, whose current membership represents government, US and international institutions, and think tanks. This would lead to a gradual shift in power dynamics, which currently favors the Global North. It will also be important for Global North institutions to hold each other accountable so that the onus does not rest on the Global South.

US academic institutions also have a role to play in advancing equitable access to quality health services. While domestic communities of color appear strikingly similar to populations the US serves abroad through global health assistance, strategic domestic health investments in communities of colors have been lacking. US academic institutions should employ the same evidence-based decision-making processes domestically that are utilized internationally to determine where resources and healthcare investments should be deployed. By determining the magnitude and geography of the problem, these institutions can assist the government in providing technical assistance to communities in need.

We acknowledge that these recommendations will not eradicate this duality, as more robust, systemic approaches are needed to shift dynamics that have been in place for centuries. However, they can serve as first steps and can be implemented immediately. We are also inspired by recent US commitments toward advancing racial equity and can envision a decolonized global health field on the horizon.

Tishina Okegbe, PhD, MPP is a global health specialist with 10+ years of experience. She earned her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania and a masters degree from Princeton University, and is a Term Member on the Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tishina-okegbe/

Temi Ifafore-Calfee is the acting Managing Director within USAIDs Private Sector Engagement Hub. Her career spans 15 years, holding senior and director-level roles and she is a first-generation American.

Disclaimer: The findings and views in this commentary are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.

Read more:

Helping or Hurting? The Duality of Global Health and How to Fix It - PLoS Blogs

More than 200 nations are represented at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics. As ever, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asserts the games are a means of unifying humanity through elite sport. At the same time, though, IOC president Thomas Bach concedes:

The Olympic Games cannot prevent wars and conflicts.

Instead, he says, the games are unifying by way of symbolism:

[] they can set an example for a world where everyone respects the same rules and one another.

The inference here is that the Olympics, with a rule-based platform for nations and athletes to come together respectfully and cohesively, provide an opportunity for dialogue and friendship that resonates beyond sport.

The confluence of nations at the Olympics also underscores the IOCs much-vaunted position that the games must be politically neutral. Indeed, as a practical demonstration of that aspiration, both the IOC and the United Nations promulgate the goal of an Olympic Truce for a period of seven days before the Olympics until seven days after the Paralympics.

Thus, there is an expectation that UN member states will cease hostilities, ostensibly to protect athletes competing at the Tokyo games.

However, that anti-political idealism is confounded by a sobering reality: nations and athletes come together to compete at the Olympics, but they can hardly leave behind a range of tensions and conflicts in global geopolitics.

Indeed, beneath the hubris of Olympic evangelism, the realpolitik of corruption, conflict, domination or genocide permeate numerous countries that are an integral part of the so-called Olympic family. Among them, Myanmar and Iran provide compelling examples.

The Facebook site of the Myanmar Olympic Committee highlights an invitation to athletes at Tokyo to sign the Olympic Truce Mural. However, this hardly seems a straightforward matter for the three qualified athletes from Myanmar.

Back home, the countrys military dictatorship has shown genocidal intent against the (largely) Muslim Rohingya community, while Myanmars armed forces, reacting against pro-democracy activists, have reportedly killed more than 900 people since the coup and detained thousands.

The IOC, meanwhile, will welcome to Tokyo 2021 Myanmars deputy minister for health and sports, U Myo Hlaing, thereby providing sanction to the countrys repressive regime.

Read more: Explainer: why the UN has found Myanmars military committed genocide against the Rohingya

For Win Htet Oo, an expatriate swimmer living in Melbourne with his family from Myanmar, the hypocrisy of representing a country that is wantonly killing its own people proved too much to bear. Win Htet initially wrote to the IOC with a request that he be allowed to swim as a neutral athlete, independent of any country.

But this was denied, presumably because he was not a refugee. The politically neutral IOC was not about to allow a citizen-athlete to claim neutrality from their country. Unable to disassociate himself from a murderous regime, Win Htet withdrew from selection for the Tokyo games, declaring: I shall not march in the parade of nations under a flag steeped in my peoples blood.

By contrast, Thet Htar Thuzar, a badminton player, is committed to representing Myanmar at the Tokyo Olympics. In a social media post, she wrote that her long-cherished dream has come true. Thet Htar was not merely self-absorbed: she hoped to make her compatriots smile even for just a moment amid the hardships they are facing.

However, many respondents on social media were unimpressed, seeing participation in the games by local athletes as a gesture of subservience to the Myanmar military.

Unlike Win Htet, though, Thet Htar and her family live in Myanmar under a dictatorship. With the military regime talking up her role in the Olympics, she may have been in no position to talk it down.

Wrestling is a sport in which Iranians have performed extremely well. The countrys official news agency reports that six wrestlers will represent the republic at Tokyo 2021.

However, champion Greco-Roman wrestler Navid Afkari cannot be among them. In September 2020, he was executed by the Iranian government. The execution was widely seen by critics as retribution for Navids high-profile participation in mass protests against an oppressively authoritarian regime.

The IOC was deeply disappointed that its diplomatic representations to the Iranian government, seeking clemency for Navid, were ignored. Capital punishment is, of course, part of state power in many countries that take part in the Olympics. But critics contended that Navids trial was a sham. For them, this punishment amounted to a political execution.

Navid had aspired to be at the Tokyo Olympics. Exiled Iranian activists argued that, in the wake of this athletes execution, the IOC should ban their country from the 2021 games.

Yet this did not happen. Discussing the case, the IOC vice president, John Coates, personified the IOCs navet when he noted:

The difficulty for us is this execution didnt relate to a sporting event.

However, he pointed out that when Iranian athletes refused to compete against Israeli athletes, a suspension ensued. In terms of Navid, though, Coates sat firmly on the IOCs neutrality fence:

Weve been getting two sides to the story as to whether he got a fair go or didnt get a fair go.

Although the Olympic Truce is a public relations metaphor rather than a declaration with practical salience, the games environment may inadvertently provide safe haven opportunities for athletes from countries with repressive political regimes.

The best-known example of this was the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, which featured the defection of some 55 Hungarian athletes to the West in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Hungary. However, political asylum at the Olympics is relatively uncommon and, in the context of the Tokyo games, unlikely. The Japanese government has no appetite for political refugees, with long-term detention the norm.

The IOC, meanwhile, has conceived its own safe haven for a small number of Olympic athletes who have fled conflict and assumed the status of refugees. The IOC Refugee Olympic Team, which began at the Rio Olympics of 2016, has now been selected for Tokyo. It features 29 athletes, of whom four are originally from Iran. The best known of the Iranians is taekwondo star Kimia Alizadeh, who absconded during athletic competition in Europe.

Read more: The Olympics have always been a platform for protest. Banning hand gestures and kneeling ignores their history

Notwithstanding the IOCs commitment to political neutrality, Kimias claims of oppression by the Iran regime are manifest in their profile of her as a refugee Olympian. So, in a decidedly political pivot, the IOC welcomes Iran to the Tokyo Olympics, along with four Iranian athletes who fled to seek political asylum.

Notwithstanding the Olympic ideals of friendly dialogue during the games, the schism between political refugees and their original countries is hardly going to evaporate.

More generally, the IOCs selectively applied position of political neutrality is certain to provide ongoing consternation given that the worlds most repressive regimes are welcomed into the Olympic family. Arguably, the IOCs apolitical position actually emboldens dictatorships and human rights abuses. It offers no consequences except in the case of athletes prevented from playing sport.

Read more from the original source:

The Olympic movement claims political neutrality. In reality, that ideal is often selectively applied - The Conversation AU

Wed, Jul 21, 2021

UkraineAlertbyDoug Klain

I dont ask [the United States] to back me, I ask [it] to back democratic values, said Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of the democratic opposition in Belarus, during her first working visit to Washington, DC, to meet with high-level US government officials.

This is understandable for America. We are sharing common values like rule of law, human rights, democracy. The fight now is in Belarus locally, but its the problem of the whole world, she continued.

Tsikhanouskaya sat down in-person for an Atlantic Council Front Page event hosted by the Councils Eurasia Center, where she was interviewed by PBS NewsHour Chief Correspondent Amna Nawaz and was joined by US Ambassador to Belarus Julie Fisher and Eurasia Center Deputy Director Melinda Haring. The event came a day after Tsikhanouskayas meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other State Department officials, and hours before her meetings with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and members of Congress.

Asked by Nawaz what she wants from the Biden administration, Tsikhanouskaya replied Maximum pressure, and maximum support to civil society in Belarus, especially to those Belarusians still working to document human rights abuses and crimes committed by Belarusian authorities.

Send a clear message that the independence for Belarus is the highest value and that Belarus is not [up for deals]. Nobody can sign any deals with Lukashenka at the moment because he is illegitimate.

watch the event

Tsikhanouskaya rose to prominence challenging Belaruss longtime dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka during the lead up to the countrys 2020 presidential election. When her husband, political vlogger Siarhiy Tsikhanouski, was jailed by the government for trying to challenge Lukashenka for the presidency, Tsikhanouskayaan English teacher without political experiencestepped up and ran in her husbands place.

Lukashenka stole the election and forced Tsikhanouskaya to flee the country when she likely won. Belarusians took to the streets en masse in protests that ground the country to a halt for months and faced violent beatings and detentions from police, torture and assault in prisons, and one of the harshest authoritarian crackdowns seen in years.

Today, Tsikhanouskaya runs the Coordination Council for the Transfer of Power working to rally the international community to support the Belarusian people and hold Lukashenka accountable.

Our goal is holding new free and fair elections in Belarus, and observation of [the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] or different organizations to retain peoples right to vote, said Tsikhanouskaya.

But as the face of the movement for democracy in Belarus and the biggest voice against Lukashenka, would Tsikhanouskaya run again for the presidency herself?

Im not going to participate in new elections, she told Nawaz. I have a mandate only tobring our country to new elections. But I never wanted to be in power.

Since fleeing Belarus and finding refuge in Lithuania, Tsikhanouskaya has managed a balancing act of using her newfound prominence to elevate the issues facing Belarusiansespecially the more than 550 political prisoners still locked up, including her husbandwhile maintaining that success will mean her stepping away from the leadership role she now occupies.

One of the biggest concerns Tsikhanouskaya is facing is the ability for the democratic movement to sustain itself. While Belarusians took to the streets in the hundreds of thousands last year, the combination of massive state violence and a brutally cold winter have limited wide-scale protests.

Is the enthusiasm gone? Has Lukashenka won? asked Nawaz.

Of course people went to fight on an underground level People are continuing to fight, even though we cant go out so massively, said Tsikhanouskaya. This is bravery. When you are under attack, under oppression, but you are continuing to fight. People understand that they can be detained at any moment, you can be kidnapped on the street just because of the color of your socks or because you participated in peaceful demonstrations [last year], but you are going out and doing something.

Thats why in my meetings, I urge countries, Dont lead a picture-based policy, lead a values-based policy. Dont think that if you dont see those huge demonstrations, people lost intention for changes. Of course not.

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Another key issue is what a future Belarusian state will look like on the world stage. To stay in power, Lukashenka has relied heavily on support from Russian President Vladimir Putin as Western leaders have rebuked him. What does Moscow want in Belarus, and how critical is Putins support for Lukashenkas government?

Putin supported Lukashenka after fraudulent elections because the Kremlin also did not expect such an uprising of the Belarusian people, said Tsikhanouskaya. Its really a pity, because we have a wonderful relationship with the Russian people. Lukashenka is not the whole of Belarus, hes only one person.

I have a question, said Tsikhanouskaya. Why are we talking about Russia in this case? This is not a fight between West and East, our fight is between the past and the future. This is a fight inside our country for bringing people their right to choose whoever they want.

Our country is in crisis, and if Russia wants to play a constructive role, just dont interfere in the policy of our country.

When the conversation concluded, Tsikhanouskaya left for the White House to meet with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and then on to Capitol Hill where she met with the leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and other members of Congress, and later with USAID Administrator Samantha Power.

While her appearance at the Atlantic Council occurred on day three of her trip, Tsikhanouskaya also plans to travel to New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles for further meetings.

Doug Klain is a program assistant at the Atlantic Councils Eurasia Center. Find him on Twitter @DougKlain.

Related content

Wed, Jul 7, 2021

The autocratic regime of Belarus dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka is intensifying its ongoing cold war against Europe via a series of threats to block trade routes along with ongoing moves to flood the EU with illegal migrants.

UkraineAlertbyBrian Whitmore

Read the original:

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Belarus' future and her place in it - Atlantic Council

In 1979, Assata Shakur of the Black Liberation Army achieved a near-impossible feat: She escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women, where she was serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster after a shootout on the state turnpike.

She has remained a free woman ever since, having been officially granted political asylum by Cuba in 1984, five years post-breakout.

Shakur's story serves as something of a symbol for the relationship between some American social justice movements and Cuba's authoritarian regime. Take the statement released last week by Black Lives Matter (BLM), addressing the ongoing protests in Cuba amid the government's inability to provide basic food and medicine: "Since 1962, the United States has forced pain and suffering on the people of Cuba by cutting off food, medicine and supplies," the group wrote, referring to the U.S. embargo on trade. "The people of Cuba are being punished by the U.S. government because the country has maintained its commitment to sovereignty and self-determination.Instead of international amity, respect, and goodwill, the U.S. has only instigated suffering for the country's 11 million peopleof which 4 million are Black and Brown." The statement also mentioned Cuba's protection of Shakur.

It's true that U.S. trade policies have exacerbated Cuba's woesinsomuch as the communist island has been unable to reap the rewards of American capitalism. Apart from that, the "sovereignty and self-determination" of the country's government has led to mass oppression of those 11 million people, who are only equal in that they are equally starving.

But don't take it from me. "[Black Lives Matter is] using the situation in Cuba to club their own government over the head," says a 35-year-old black Cuban activist, whose identity has been redacted as he participates in the nation's first protests in more than 60 years. "What's wrong with them?"

In a conversation recorded and sent via WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging service, two Cuban demonstrators, who are both black, responded to the claim that the 4 million black and brown people of Cuba are truly free. After I reached out via an intermediary and asked them to react to BLM's statement, the clip of the two speaking to each other was sent to DADE magazine's Nicols Jimnez, who translated and shared the transcription with Reason.

The correspondence was dispatched via encrypted messaging because Cubans cannot talk openly about the Cuban government. In fact, the conversation heavily features the two protesters going back and forth on whether it is safe to respond to my press request at all. "You have to respond in a way that doesn't screw you over," says the other activist, who is 25 years old. "They're arresting people at their homes."

"That's why I tell people not to screenshot my messages," responds the 35-year-old. "I've reviewed and I think I'm safe with all my Instagram content, but I'm not sure." He adds that he would have liked to respond with a video, but "I can't expose myself like that," he notes, "because it's true that they're rounding people up."

The Cuban Revolution sought to engineer forced equality via communism following the overthrow of the brutal military dictator President Fulgencio Batista. But that equality is a myth, say the activists, who argue that the Cuban government tries to hide the lingering effects of institutionalized and systemic racism.

At a recent university protest, the 35-year-old relays that special forces "went directly after black people." The 25-year-old agrees. "The idea is that only people on the margins protest against the government. Only delinquents," he says. "In fact, they used to call it a revolution for the poor, and now they use words like marginalized and delinquent to describe what's happening, which is a way of hiding all their racism and all their classism, right?"

Riquet Caballero, a black Cuban immigrant to the U.S., also takes issue with the assertion that the country is equal, a claim made by the Democratic Socialists of America and journalists like The New York Times' Nikole Hannah-Jones.

In an interview, Caballero describes his confusion after coming to the U.S. in the late 1990s and noticing various differences between the two nations. He no longer had to make his own kites out of reeds and newspapers, and, to his surprise, kids no longer played baseball with broomsticks and bottle caps. Other differences were more dramatic: When Caballero came to his Cuban public school in an American Olympic '96 basketball jersey, his teacher threatened him with reeducation unless his mother stole Coca-Cola from her factory job and turned it over for a school party.

"I also used to steal light bulbs and sell them for candy," he adds.

He was able to ditch that side hustle upon moving to the U.S. "I would say that what I have thanks to Cuba is to be grateful for having opportunities," he says, having mounted a Libertarian bid in 2018 for the Florida House of Representatives. "I realized that here in America, you could basically make anything of yourself.The pursuit of happiness is something that is really central to my core."

That mentality is not welcome in Cuba. On the contrary, it's actively discouraged, and punishable by law. "There was a man that was arrested who produced illegal cheese," notes Caballero. "He didn't report all the milk that the cows were producing, even though they were his cows.He only reported the milk production, started making cheese and selling cheese on the side.The government found out and they confiscated his cheesemaking operation." The man was then sent to jail, says Caballero.

Like the two activists in Havana, Caballero also altogether rejects the claim made by American leftists that Cuba has been able to construct racial equality. "They really made sure to control the black population because we have a history of being fighters."

BLM in particular has been criticized by the right for having Marxist roots. While it is certainly not true that every person involved with or sympathetic to BLM is also a Marxist, the group's support of the communist regime in Cuba has cost it support from people who otherwise identify with the broader civil liberties goals of the movement.

"When they killed George Floyd I remember that all of [the Cubans] in Miami were accusing BLM of being Marxist, of being communist. And I defended them, bro. I would say, 'Look, it's more than that,'" the 25-year-old Cuban activist says in the voice recording. "And now I see that no, it's actually less than that. It's like they have this ideological starting point from which they see the world instead of standing alongside allies and people who are going through the same things they are."

"You feel alone," he adds. "You feel likeI don't know. It's a letdown. It's horrible, really."

Excerpt from:

In Their Own Words, This Is What It's Actually Like for Black and Brown People in Cuba - Reason

I recently heard about a group that was praying for Alabama and the nation. Praying that governments will repent of their sins. That sinners will come to repentance.

But the sinners they have in mind arent trans youth or women entering abortion clinics. Not undocumented immigrants or same-sex couples.

The sinners they are targeting seek to undermine democracy by suppressing votes. These transgressors are indifferent to the needs of the poor. Some of them even profit from poverty.

This prayer group includes Christians, Jews and Muslims. Blacks, whites, females and males. They belong to the National Poor Peoples Campaign, launched several years ago by the Rev. Dr. William Barber and other clergy. Their prayer calls are open for the public to observe.

And according to the Rev. Carolyn Foster, one of the co-chairs of the Alabama faction of this movement, the stakes are high for many in our state.

About 45 percent of Alabamians are poor or low income, Foster told me recently. Poverty is not the fault of the poor. Poverty is a systemic problem.

That 45 percent figure may seem astronomically high, especially since other organizations such as Alabama Possible put the poverty rate at 16.9 percent. But Foster and the other movement leaders define poverty more broadly than the bureaucrats.

We define poverty as being one emergency away from a catastrophe or a disaster, she said. So that means one car accident. One hospital stay. The death of a breadwinner. Or a divorce that splits one modest, two-income family into two, poorer one-income families.

We are trying to work with the federal government to redefine poverty, Foster said.

And, as people of faith do, they are praying. I was on the line for the July 12 call earlier this month.

We say no, said the Rev. Dr. Beth Johnson of Palomar UU Fellowship in Vista, CA, to autocrats who make their money off the backs of the poor.

Rabbi Alana Suskin, co-chair of the Maryland Poor Peoples Campaign, spoke of the sin of Sodom, which she described as excess not homosexuality. Hoarding resources, wealth, is a theft from God. One who oppresses the poor blasphemes God.

Imam Khalid Griggs, vice president of the Islamic Circle of North America, challenged the institutionalization of poverty while referencing Islams Mecca pilgrimage, where the rich and poor are indistinguishable. It is our demand of this government to address the inequitable distribution of resources, he said.

140 million are crying out, said Rev. Kazimir Brown, deputy director of religious affairs for the Poor Peoples Campaign.

In the Christian context, this is a red-letter, least-of-these gospel. It stands with the historically disenfranchised as Jesus did when he championed widows, children, women and Samaritans.

This gospel comforts the powerless and makes the powerful uncomfortable. Powerful folks like elected officials. Business, civic and religious leaders. Media titans. Celebrities. Anyone with access and opportunity whos accruing power and wealth without concern for the least of these.

This gospel doesnt bully trans students. Doesnt see mass incarceration as a profit-making opportunity.

This gospel thinks the Jesus who healed the sick at practically every opportunity would want to see Medicaid expanded. Would promote wearing masks, social distancing and getting vaccinated.

Some wont recognize it. Or like it. Their gospel stars a Jesus who was a capitalist. A Jesus who didnt give a damn about the disenfranchised. A Jesus for whom oppression is synonymous with manifest destiny.

I almost dont blame them. When the Moral Majority hijacked Jesus in the 1970s, many of us who knew better watched quietly, as though we were powerless to reclaim him.

Its past time some of us started speaking up, so thanks to the National Poor Peoples Campaign. And Im glad they had the savvy to join with like-minded folks of the other two ancient Abrahamic faiths.

Jews, Christians, Muslims and everyone else, believers or not need to know that capitalist, bigoted Jesus aint our Jesus. His gospel aint our Gospel.

We are taking action, praying and becoming in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King an unsettling force.

Original post:

Opinion | And, as people of faith do, they are praying - alreporter.com

Canada relies on extractive industries and the colonial land-theft that sustains them. My relationship with extraction, as a Canadian, is complex. I believe Canada should respect the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and thus Indigenous law; I believe Canada should live up to our commitments to address global warming and thus not build new oil pipelines; we should fulfil the explicit and implicit treaty agreements that founded the nation; we should end military interventions in other nations (including within our borders); and much more.

As a Canadian, I pay into an unregulated pension plan that invests heavily in oil futures which promote global warming, as well as tobacco advertising, and migrant detention facilities on the US-Mexico border; I cannot change this investment. My taxes pay for military interventions and fund the politicians who ignore treaty relationships. I drive a car, turn on heat and lights, and fly to conferences. Im complicit in Canadas protection of resource extraction from pretty much any angle I think of, simply by virtue of the complex web of relations in which I live and breathe.

I benefit differentially as a white immigrant mortgage-owner from histories of and present social relations of land theft and colonial oppression. In complex situations like, well, simply being alive, we make all sorts of compromises and become complicit in all sorts of things we would like to wash our hands of. Its unsettling.

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I used to teach a class called Unsettling Canada. Students learned about the internment of Japanese Canadians, current indefinite migrant imprisonment, military action in 1990 at Kanehsat:ke, and Indian Residential Schools, among other things. After class one day, one of my non-Indigenous students said to me, I just dont know how to carry on, now that I know these things about Canada. Ive always been a proud Canadian, and I dont recognize myself in this history. I feel so ashamed. Another student, gathering her things after class, said, I often wonder what it is like learn about these things for the first time. To me, they have always been something I knew about. She was Indigenous, and most of her family either had kids taken away and put in genocidal institutions or had been forced to be in the institutions themselves. None of this was news to her.

When people charge someone with being complicit, frequently the result of that charge is a particular kind of immobility. When we are charged with complicity, we tend to turn inwards in shame, or be overwhelmed by a feeling of how impossible it would be to extract ourselves from currently ubiquitous relations of domination. Often, the feeling of being complicit means we give up on action. Indeed, frequently the charge of complicity is meant precisely to entail the claim that if you are complicit in something, you do not have standing to oppose that thing. This is worth investigating, because if calling out complicity is meant to prompt effective ethical or political action, but instead derails precisely that action, the charge of complicity may itself produce further complicity or, at least, it may not help to further the goal of reducing the relevant harm or wrong.

The question is, then: can identifying complicity produce collective solidarity instead of individual immobilisation?

This summer Indigenous communities in Canada have begun using ground-penetrating radar to locate hundreds of unmarked graves long known to be at the sites of former Indian Residential Schools. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed my non-Indigenous students feeling of shame when he said that he is appalled by the shameful policy that stole Indigenous children from their communities. And Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller characterised it as shameful that Pope Francis has declined to apologise for the Catholic Churchs role in running the schools on Canadas behalf.

Scholars make a distinction between guilt and shame. Guilt is the name for when I recognise that I have done something wrong. So, when Ive hurt someone, or broken a friends favourite mug because I was being careless, I might feel guilt. Shame, in contrast, is the name for a feeling of being wrong, or bad it is sticky, and it attaches to our sense of self rather than our actions. For the most part, shame is the kind of negative feeling about ourselves that we should reject, because it has been forced on us about things in which there is no inherent shame our bodies, our faith traditions, our sexuality, and so on. However, there is a place for naming the feeling of being implicated in collective wrongdoing as shame as long as we dont stop there.

I am a white settler immigrant; and like many non-Indigenous people in what is currently Canada, I am in an ongoing process of learning about Canadas genocidal practices. Gary Kinsman writes about the social organization of forgetting, through which ruling institutions attempt to make both oppression and the struggle against it un-remembered. But only non-Indigenous people are surprised to discover the realities of genocide; Indigenous people, such as my former student, have never forgotten being targeted for erasure. The Tkemlps te Secwpemc First Nation relatives of the children buried at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, where the first 215 bodies discovered this summer were found, always knew they were there and so did the people who ran that school, who buried them. So, what can an ordinary non-Indigenous person grappling with shame about colonialism do with these feelings?

The first thing is to recognise guilt and shame when they arise, rather than trying to deny them. My research has demonstrated that many white people started what became valuable contributions to collective anti-racist transformations when they felt shame about benefiting from racism or racist structures.

Shame is one feeling we white people might have when we look back at the past and recognise all the horror that has been done on behalf of whiteness and by white people to others. We didnt do those things ourselves, personally, so the feeling we have isnt really guilt. But we recognise that we inherit their legacy, that those things were done by our ancestors.

In the present, many white people see that white supremacists are organising and recruiting, and that they enact racism in our name, against our will. Many of us who want to refuse to benefit from structural and interpersonal racism may feel shame and anger about colonialism, police murdering racialised people, and more. This is a starting point for making a different future, changing what we inherit and what we benefit from into something else.

Shame is a common response to the feeling of being complicit in a situation we find ethically objectionable. Awareness of complicity can take the form of identifying the complexity and interrelatedness of our world, or of highlighting the inescapable embeddedness of our being in the world. This can freeze us. The vast and complex nature of the problems confronting moral agents today can make it seem that no one in particular is responsible for taking them on. Dispersed responsibility is one common response someone else will do it!

Alternatively, when there are actions we can take, for example, to oppose systemic racism, or to use less plastic, or to support libraries and education workers, or to reduce our carbon footprint, many of us succumb to a kind of moral fatigue there are so many things we know we would like to do or stop doing, so many ways we are connected to the suffering of the world, that we just get tired. Being overwhelmed can lead to a kind of counterphobic reaction to, for example, thinking about global warming, rising seas, climate catastrophe, and the extinctions of so many nonhuman beings: since I cannot solve all of these things, I may as well fly as much as I like, eat as many single-servings of high-fat yogurt as I want, and so on.

Conservatives and liberals alike particularly the subspecies whose primary political work is trolling people on the internet are fond of charging people with complicity. They cry hypocrite! at people who are now speaking out about something when they did not raise an objection in the past. They delight in pointing out inconsistencies, as when trolls tweeted at a friend that she could not both oppose human-fuelled global warming and drive her car. Or they say that if someone benefits from something, they cannot protest to it.

Each of these criticisms deploys what we can call purity politics: because the person expressing the desire for another world is complicit or compromised, they are supposed to give up. Conservatives and liberals alike use purity politics to try to close down critique and action.

Purity politics points to a problem with the way we normally think about complicity. Only an individual can aspire to be pure, to know everything that it might be important to know. Or perhaps it would be better to say: only the conceit of a delimited individual, sovereign in his skin, independent and unreliant on others, sufficiently potent to be able to make any needful changes in the world around him, capable of knowing in advance what the correct course of action might be and not deviating from it, capable of knowing everything relevant to any given situation, someone who does not make mistakes only such an individual would be invulnerable to charges of complicity.

No such individual exists. All of us are open to one another, offer one another the possibility of mutual regard and recognition, are interdependent and needy, relatively helpless to change things we care about, quite limited in our knowledge and understanding but educatable, changeable in light of new circumstances, and routinely err. Beyond that, of course, the scale and scope of problems we collectively face are laughably far beyond any individuals capacities to solve.

Not every horrible thing that happens in the world is a site of complicity. Perhaps we should be understood as complicit only in horrible things that could be prevented and to which we are in some way connected. When someone dies in a landslide or an avalanche, I may be sad for the people grieving their loss, but barring unusual responsibilities for avalanches I am likely not to be complicit. When a miner dies at work in a cave-in beneath my city which the mining company could have prevented with more investment in safety infrastructure, which they chose not to build because they calculated that the cost of life insurance for one miners death per year was cheaper than the infrastructure, and when my government provides that company with substantial tax-write-offs to keep them in the country, I likely am complicit in that death.

However, there are degrees of complicity and responsibility. I am less implicated than the person in the company who made the decision based on a profit-loss ledger that weighs peoples lives against insurance claims. Complicity is very much a matter of degree of connection, capacity to change the circumstances, and the distribution of power. Thus, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expresses shame, he has much more responsibility to address his complicity than an ordinary Canadian.

Recognising the shame-worthiness of complicity in genocide and racism can be an important starting place for non-Indigenous white people indeed, a much better approach than trying to claim innocence or non-involvement. And we can refuse to allow complicity to sap our will to change things. But what comes next?

Taking connection, complexity, and complicity as a starting point for action rather than a reason to give up opens possibilities for ethical decision-making. Complicity can produce solidarities oriented towards collective action. Although we may not be able individually to solve something, we may still be morally responsible to try solve it as best we can which, often, is going to mean making collective, social, or systemic change.

This kind of ethics is always political, in the sense that moral decisions in conditions of complicity depend on factors beyond the scope of the individual. Political decisions refer outside the individual to receive their weight. They do not depend on innocence for their decision-making. Rather, they depend on the understanding that we confront hard problems problems that always leave what Bernard Williams thought of as a moral remainder. Lisa Tessman characterises us as living a kind of moral trouble that comes from existing in a complicated world. Perhaps we can begin to truly confront moral trouble only once we give up on the idea of innocence and purity, only once we begin from complexity and complicity, only once we regard collective ethical decisions as inherently political.

In the case of addressing the Canadian states genocidal policies, many suggest that settlers educate themselves. They can read the reports of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), follow investigative initiatives, watch films and read books from the viewpoint of survivors. Self-education includes understanding the lines of continuity between past harms and current practice we can see connections between stealing Indigenous children and imprisoning them in residential schools and the Trudeaus government decision to fight Indigenous kids in court today, between starvation policies of the past and undrinkable on-reserve water in the present. A next step would be to demand accountability from the Canadian government by writing to elected representatives and lobbying for legislative change. And non-Indigenous people can donate money to support survivors or for reparation work.

Self-education, donating money, and lobbying can all be parts of building a genuinely transformative approach. However, white settlers in particular may have a tendency to focus on ourselves when confronted with racism and colonialism our self-education, our political self-expression. Feeling complicit, or ashamed, tends to turn people inwards, and self-abnegation is not actually helpful to political change.

So, we can consider what have been historically effective roles for white people in the struggle against racism: participating in collective work against racism. Non-Indigenous people who arent white might also find some traction in these approaches, but because racialised people have been and are themselves targeted by both the Canadian state and white racists, their collective work will be different.

Quite often, instances of shame such as an implication in genocide are points of connection in our lives. They might show us things we are genuinely moved to work on. If someone is deeply committed to their church community, for example, and discovers that it was directly involved in residential schools, educating their congregation and initiating its responses to the TRC Calls to Action might be a natural next step.

A person who cares about the environment might turn towards supporting Indigenous land defenders in places they care about, both in Canada and abroad. Someone who cares about teaching and education can support school-centred actions.

Non-Indigenous people have been involved in solidarity work for many years in ways that might be instructive for responding to the legacies of Indian Residential Schools. In the 1990s, there were examples like Settlers in Solidarity with Indigenous Sovereignty, Anti-Racist Action members in Toronto who fought against white supremacist fishing and hunting groups and Raction SIDA members who supported the Kanienkehka people as they defended their land from development during the Oka Crisis at Kanehsat:ke.

Today, we see some settlers protesting alongside Wetsuweten, Secwepemc and Pacheedaht, Ditidaht and Huu-ay-aht First Nations in their efforts to defend their land against logging, chemical spills from mining slag and the effects of petroleum pipelines. Showing solidarity and getting involved are connected to the work of actively responding to the TRC Calls to Action. We can be more effective working together than alone.

Many of us will never have been part of a collective response to something we have identified as requiring change. And since every aspect of settler Canadian life in some way connects to Canadas genocidal practices, we might feel not only ashamed but also overwhelmed. White people who have contributed to collective action against racism share some key practices that we can emulate.

The most effective non-Indigenous participants in antiracist work resist the impulse to act like individual heroes, martyrs or white saviours. They support and stand by Indigenous people instead of making it about themselves. For people getting involved in ongoing projects of which there are many key starting points include listening more than talking, not trying to introduce big new ideas, taking up the non-glamorous work, and not speaking for others.

People who dont burn out by trying to do everything, who are in it for the long haul, and who help build useful collective organisations those whom other people can count on for years of support and collaboration turn out to be the most effective contributors to social transformation at the scale needed for addressing Canadas treatment of Indigenous people.

I return to the work of social movement scholar Gary Kinsman, and his conception of a politics of responsibility which he defines this as involving those of us in oppressing positions recognizing our own implication within and responsibility to actively challenge relations of oppression. A politics of responsibility recognises our relative, shifting, and contingent position in social relations of harm and benefit; it enjoins us to look at how we are shaped by our place in history. We can take responsibility for creating futures that radically diverge from that history, seriously engaging that work based on where we are located, listening well to the people, beings, and ecosystems most vulnerable to devastation.

The question, then, is not: How can we be innocent of implication in complex and distributed harms? The question becomes: What forms of implication will we take up as points of connection for anchoring our activities? With whom will we become complicit? Whose side are we on?

Asking which side we are on raises the prospect of binary, purist thinking about politics, as though it was easy to delimit sides. If we take that approach, complicity would make it impossible for us to be on the side of justice. Its probably clear by now that I believe were complicit no matter what we do, that we cannot excuse ourselves from implication, that were always connected. It is precisely these political features of ethical decision making in complex and relational contexts that makes this ethically interesting terrain.

The good news when there are no easy answers is that we have the capacities to elaborate the stakes and reasons for our decisions; we have the capacities to make strategic decisions and to know when we are effectively fighting shameful situations.

Ive learned the most about how to approach this in training in activist strategy notably in the model of a spectrum of allies. Picture a rainbow, with yourself and the people with whom you thoroughly agree on one end; directly across from you, 180 degrees away, are the people with whom you disagree and who you oppose. Following the arc of the rainbow are people on a spectrum of agreement with you and your opponents. There is a tendency to think that we should direct our attention and work towards the people we most oppose, the people most directly responsible for the harm we have identified as the problem at hand. In the case of Canadas ongoing incursions into Indigenous land, I might address my moral and political work to the provincial government, the chief of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or the Prime Minister of Canada. Or I could work on changing the heart and mind of the most racist fellow Canadians I can find (usually in the comments section of my national paper).

But the spectrum of allies approach is interested in what causes the people with decision-making power to make different decisions about the things in which we are mutually implicated. A key shift in the spectrum of allies is to stop addressing oneself to people who directly or ideologically oppose one, with the idea that they will reverse their position solely through moral suasion. Taking a spectrum approach, one aims to move people from where they are one or two positions over to move people who are passive allies to become active allies, or people who are passive opponents to be oblivious neutrals.

Crucially, the spectrum of allies approach assumes that we are all connected, that no one is essentially or fundamentally pure or evil, and that anyone can change their minds through changing their activities. Grounded in nonviolent communication, it also emphasises listening to others both those who are passive allies and those opposing us on an issue. Listening to people different than us, and especially listening to people we consider complicit in evil, is perhaps unpopular in our moment. But it is an ethically and politically interesting proposition. The kind of listening were interested in here remains political, however, in the sense that it is committed to certain worlds and not others.

Because we are complicit, we can act in solidarity and stand with some people and not others. As Katrina Shields puts it:

Although listening to the oppositions point of view is important it is equally important to put your position and be heard both by the opposition and by the public. This can be quite an anxiety-provoking experience when you are not used to doing it. Something I have found useful is imagining those I represent standing behind me whether they be environments, creatures, or humans, including those of the future. They require me not to betray them by giving up my power in these situations. This has been a source of strength enabling me to speak up and not compromise.

This approach is a kind of brave relation, building the capacity to stand in relation even to situations and evils with which we would like to cut off relation. We should cultivate such brave relations. Even when we are complicit or ashamed, and maybe because we are complicit and ashamed, we can still act to change things.

Alexis Shotwell is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, where she is cross-appointed with the Pauline Jewett Institute of Womens and Gender Studies and the Department of Philosophy. She is author of Knowing Otherwise: Race, Gender, and Implicit Understanding and Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times.

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After complicity and shame: Effective political action for non-Indigenous people - ABC News

As U.S. troops draw down in Afghanistan, Chinese officials have stepped up contacts with the Taliban as it surges across the country and builds strategic footholds against Afghan government forces.

On paper, Beijing and the Taliban are strange bedfellows.

China is an atheistic, communist state that is running an internment camp system in its western Xinjiang Province that is believed to have detained more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. The Taliban, meanwhile, is a fundamentalist militant group that previously governed Afghanistan as an Islamic caliphate.

So whats driving the two sides together?

While there is little shared ideology, both sides are managing to forge a transactional relationship based on mutual self-interest.

China -- which is positioning itself to play a defining role in the region -- sees the group as an undeniable part of Afghanistans political future, while the Taliban views Beijing as crucial for its international legitimacy and a much-needed potential investor in the country.

In recent weeks, Taliban representatives have said China is a welcome friend in Afghanistan and gone out of their way to signal that they will not interfere in Beijing's domestic affairs, while promising that territory under the Islamist groups control would not be used against other countries.

This outreach may seem abrupt but is actually the product of a complicated, decades-old relationship that experts say is defined by pragmatism and an underlying distrust of the other. As the political reality in Afghanistan continues to shift quickly, both Beijing and the Taliban are looking to explore how closely they can cooperate.

Theres a lot of skepticism of one another in this dynamic, Raffaello Pantucci, a senior associate fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute, told RFE/RL. The foundation of it is that each side views the other as a means to an end.

Stability, specifically its own, is the top concern for China.

Central to Chinese worries in Afghanistan is the country once again becoming a haven for extremist groups with international ambitions like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Beijing is particularly focused on Uyghur militants that have their sights set on China and could cross the country's 76-kilometer border with Afghanistan.

Ensuring that fighting or chaos from a potential power vacuum wont spill over is paramount to Chinese policymakers.

The existence of Uyghur extremist groups -- based in Afghanistan and elsewhere -- have been part of Beijings justification for its sweeping dragnet against Muslim minorities in neighboring Xinjiang.

The Talibans recent gains indicate it could well be part of Afghanistans political equation or perhaps topple the government in Kabul. With this in mind, Beijing has moved to engage the Taliban to ensure that its security interests will be protected.

The Chinese can see that the Taliban are likely to cement power and Beijing also doesnt want to get sucked in and overextended in Afghanistan, so that means they need to have a working relationship with the Taliban, Pantucci said.

The militant group has taken Chinese concerns to heart and tried to show goodwill, calling for talks on reconstruction and drawing in Chinese investment to begin as soon as possible.

The Taliban has also signaled that it has little current interest in getting involved with events in Xinjiang.

We care about the oppression of Muslims, be it in Palestine, in Myanmar, or in China, and we care about the oppression of non-Muslims anywhere in the world, a senior Taliban representative told The Wall Street Journal. But what we are not going to do is interfere in Chinas internal affairs.

This isnt the first time the two sides have been pushed together by events on the ground in Afghanistan.

In the late 1990s, China decided that the best way to manage a potential extremist threat from the country was to engage with the Taliban.

In 1999, a group of Chinese officials flew to Kabul and opened diplomatic and economic relations, with Chinas ambassador to Pakistan seeking a meeting with Taliban commander Mullah Omar.

That meeting took place in 2000, at which Beijing pressed Omar to stop harboring ethnic Uyghur militants allegedly operating in Afghanistan with a group called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). In exchange, the Taliban hoped China would provide diplomatic support at the United Nations and help roll back sanctions placed on the group.

While analysts say Mullah Omar did restrain ETIM in the country, he did not expel the group. No deal with Beijing on the matter was ever formalized, and the Taliban was pushed out of Kabul following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the invasion of Afghanistan.

Theres always been a level of mistrust that the Chinese have toward the Taliban, Andrew Small, a fellow with the German Marshall Fund, told RFE/RL. Regardless of what deals they strike and whether they are kept, [Beijing] is also concerned that the groups success could provide inspiration to other groups.

Following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, the Talibans top leadership relocated to Pakistan. According to Small, Islamabad -- the groups chief patron and a close Beijing ally -- helped facilitate Chinese-Taliban ties over the following years.

Those talks picked up steam in more recent years and once again centered on the Taliban denying Uyghur militants safe haven and curbing the activities of ETIM.

Starting in 2014, Taliban delegations began to publicly and regularly visit China, culminating in secret talks that China facilitated between Kabul and the Taliban in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

The Taliban have been dealing with the Chinese for decades now and [the militants understand] their concerns, said Small. Its an unusual relationship, but it's been one of the Talibans most consistent since it's been in exile in Pakistan.

Central to Beijings engagement with the Taliban are concerns over Uyghur militants -- specifically ETIM -- gaining a home base in Afghanistan.

But the group has a complex and disputed history. While Uyghur militants do operate in Afghanistan, their size and sophistication has been a source of disagreement among analysts and governments.

As George Washington Universitys Sean R. Roberts writes in his book, The War On The Uyghurs, no group ever used the name ETIM, but it became associated with a small band of Uyghur militants who relocated to Afghanistan in the late 1990s with the goal of launching attacks against Beijings rule in Xinjiang.

Beijing would go on to accuse the group of helping to orchestrate attacks inside China and, in 2002, as the U.S.-led war on terror was ramping up, the group was officially recognized by Washington as a terrorist organization.

Little was heard from the group throughout the 2000s, especially after its leader was killed in 2003, until a group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) issued an online video in 2008 in which it threatened to attack China during that year's Summer Olympics. TIP said it was a successor to ETIM, although Beijing still refers to it by the older name.

TIP has since developed into a larger militant group based in Syria, but as Roberts wrote for The Guardian in 2020, there is no evidence that this group has ever orchestrated violence inside China itself.

This has led critics to accuse Beijing of exaggerating the connections between militant groups and developments in China in order to justify its repressive policies against Uyghurs and the ongoing crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang.

As Beijing currently engages in talks with the Taliban with a focus on Uyghur militants, several hundred fighters are believed to be in Afghanistan, according to a 2020 United Nations Security Council report.

But the administration of President Donald Trump removed ETIM from its terrorist organization list in 2020, saying it believed there was no credible evidence the group still existed.

Despite its growing ties with the Taliban, Beijing still recognizes President Ashraf Ghanis government and has also engaged with Kabul in monitoring Uyghur militants in Afghanistan.

Beyond security, Beijing also has some longer-term economic hopes for the country, with Chinese firms involved in the massive Aynak copper mine and exploration in the Amu Darya oil field.

For the time being, however, China is looking to strengthen its relations with both sides and use that leverage to push for a political solution between Kabul and the Taliban. Beijing is also dangling future investment and deeper efforts to integrate Afghanistan into its Belt and Road Initiative as a way to bring both sides to the negotiating table.

Its one of the few levers that China has to push for a stable political settlement in the country, Small said.

Those strengthened ties give Beijing a special role to play in any future peace process, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on July 13 during a tour of Central Asia.

China has also stepped up its security engagement and cooperation with Afghanistans neighbors in Central Asia, as well as with Pakistan, as part of what Pantucci calls a hedging strategy to prepare for any possible outcome from the current situation in the country.

The Chinese are negotiating with the Taliban, and the Taliban are being receptive so far, he said. "But the Chinese have actually built themselves an insurance policy by building a strong regional security presence [to cover]" for any outcome.

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Explainer: Why Is China Talking To The Taliban? - Gandhara

Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has argued reforms to the Official Secrets Act would mean a future Edward Snowden-style whistleblower would be forced to avoid mainstream UK publications to spill secrets.

Instead they would avoid fears of stricter sentences for publication in the public interest by sharing information with a foreign title or website or putting it online themselves, he said in his submission to Government.

His stance puts him in rare agreement with the likes of the The Sun as the industry unites against the proposed reforms in fear they could deter whistleblowers from coming forward and have a chilling effect on investigative journalism in the public interest.

[Read more:UK journalists could be jailed like spies under proposed Official Secrets Act changes]

Press Gazette drew attention on Tuesday to Home Office proposals to increase maximum jail sentences for journalists, potentially in line with foreign spies, for publishing leaked information.

The Government also dismissed pleas for a public interest defence and said it could remove the need for an unauthorised disclosure to have caused damage before any prosecution instead a journalist would only need to have realised publication could have been damaging.

The News Media Association, which represents the UKs news industry, said this could open the regime up to widespread abuse by those seeking to hide embarrassing truths from public view.

It urged the Government to reconsider all the factors that put press freedom at risk, including the replacement of fines with jail sentences as this could inadvertently worsen the already weak position of journalists and whistle-blowers through harsher sentencing.

It added that a public interest defence was absolutely essential.

The proposals are out for consultation until 11.45pm on Thursday (22 July).

The NMA said it understood the need to adjust the law around state threats as technology and behaviours evolve, but said this must not come at the expense of press freedom. The UK is signed up to the Global Media Freedom Coalition and hosted the first Global Media Freedom Conference in July 2019.

NMA legal policy and regulatory affairs director Sayra Tekin said: As part of any thriving democracy, the public and a responsible press must be free to shed light on the states injustices.

The proposed measures will deter whistleblowers from coming forward with vital information which the public have a right to know and place a chill on investigative journalism which holds power to account.

We strongly urge the Government to reconsider these measures and instead work with the industry to place appropriate protections for journalism at the heart of the Official Secrets Act so that freedom of speech is enhanced by the new regime rather than weakened further.

In his submission to the Government, Guardian editor of 20 years Rusbridger said the changes could have far-reaching consequences for public debate, open government, whistleblowing and journalism.

I agree that the present collection of laws is haphazard and out of date, but I would place a different emphasis on the protection of disclosure in the public interest.

Rusbridger said the prospect of serving a longer jail sentence over the Snowden material would not in the least have deterred him.

He went ahead with publication after taking advice and having read a large proportion of the information despite knowing then he could have faced prosecution.

Rusbridger said he was certain the material still would have been published if the British government had beforehand launched a prosecution against himself and the Guardian, and pointed out others around the world also had the information.

[Read more: Guardian agreed to symbolic destruction of Snowden hard drives after pressure from government]

But he warned that the proposed reforms would effectively give the state power to decide what is in the public interest, if no such defence is enshrined in law.

He said: The intelligences agencies would have had virtually no power (through conversations or contacts or the DA Notice system) to make representations about possible harm in publication.

And the next time a whistleblower emerged he/she would certainly avoid any mainstream British publication and either share the material with a foreign publication or website or else publish it themselves. Is this really the outcome the government or the Law Commission desires?

In its leader on Wednesday, The Sun warned such legislation could have prevented it from revealing the CCTV that showed Matt Hancocks office affair with an aide, leading to his resignation as Health Secretary.

It said the chilling proposals were a licence for a cover-up of disastrous failures, criminal negligence or career-ending hypocrisies like The Suns Matt Hancock revelations.

[Read more: Media law of Matt Hancock snog scoop which was sleazy, sensational and in the public interest]

It is sinister enough that the Information Commissioners Office carried out raids trying to uncover our source for that exclusive. This law change could outlaw such reporting entirely.

Some sensitive data must of course remain secret. But if journalists and whistleblowers are jailed over leaks unassailably in the public interest, we are in the grip of oppression.

Scoops that have changed the way the UK operates for the better, such as the expenses scandal exposed by The Telegraph, which highlighted some of the extraordinary claims made on the taxpayers purse by MPs, could have seen reporters jailed under the proposed changes.

Times chief reporter Sean ONeill warned that the changes would severely restrict the ability of journalists to report on misconduct and wrongdoing in the police, the military, the NHS, the intelligence services and Whitehall departments.

Other stories he warned would have been under threat as damaging, dangerous and criminal under these laws includedsubstandard military equipment for frontline troops and the recent Times scoop on alleged bullying in the royal household.

This is a precarious moment for press freedom in Britain, ONeill wrote. If Johnson really believes the media is the lifeblood of our democracy and must be able to report the facts without fear or favour then he has to rein in his home secretarys authoritarian instincts.

Mail columnist Mick Hume said the proposals, if implemented, mean Britain risks joining the unsavoury club of authoritarian regimes that treat journalists as if they are enemies of the state.

The idea of giving the whistleblower and journalists years in jail for the Suns Hancock scoop was an affront to democracy, he said.

BBC journalist John Simpson warned he probably would have been prosecuted if the reformed law was in place at the beginning of his career.

The Centre for Investigative Journalism said the plans show an overarching public interest defence for investigative reporting in law is long overdue.

New York Times UK investigative correspondent Jane Bradley described the proposal as an incredibly worrying authoritarian move from the UK government this isnt only about journalism, its about what they dont want the public to know, even when they have a right to.

Comparisons were made with Hong Kong, where the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was forced to close last month and eight senior staff members have been arrested in a month.

At the time Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab described the closure as a chilling blow to freedom of expression and national security laws were being used as a tool to curtail freedoms and punish dissent rather than keep public order.

In response to the Home Office proposals, City University journalism lecturer and Hongkonger Yuen Chan said: Let the plight of the press in Hong Kong today be a cautionary tale for the free press everywhere.

TheCampaign for Freedom of Information, which said it would submit a joint response with free expression group Article 19, said: These plans are disproportionate and oppressive. A whistleblower revealing information, or a journalist or blogger publishing it, would commit an offence even if there was only the remotest possibility of harm.

The worry spread across journalism specialisms. Harpers Bazaar royal editor Omid Scobie, who wrote the book Finding Freedom about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle last year, warned: This is how democracies die, as he encouraged others to respond to the consultation.

A Home Office spokesperson said:Freedom of press is an integral part of the UKs democratic processes and the government is committed to protecting the rights and values that we hold so dear.

It is wrong to claim the proposals will put journalists at risk of being treated like spies and they will, rightly, remain free to hold the government to account.

We will introduce new legislation so security services and law enforcement agencies can tackle evolving state threats and protect sensitive data. However, this will be balanced to protect press freedom and the ability for whistleblowers to hold organisations to account when there are serious allegations of wrongdoing.

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Sun: Hancock 'snog' would be covered up under Official Secrets Act reform - Press Gazette