Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --

Statements by the Spokesperson

The European Union deeply regrets the execution at a federal level in the United States of the first woman in almost seven decades. The EU had called for clemency to be granted to Lisa Montgomery taking into consideration international law and internationally accepted minimum standards that should be respected regarding people with mental disorders.

Since the resumption of the federal death penalty in July 2020, after a 17-year hiatus, we have witnessed a high number of executions. The EU stands firmly and unequivocally by the victims of crime and their families and effectively prosecutes criminals in its territory. But capital punishment is incompatible with human dignity and the right to life, constitutes an inhuman and degrading treatment, and does not have any proven deterrent effect. Miscarriages of justice, inevitable in any judicial system, are irreversible. The EU calls on the US administration to reverse its decision to carry out the remaining federal-level executions during the last days of the current administration.

These executions contradict the growing momentum towards the abolition of the death penalty worldwide, as reflected by the recent adoption of the 8th Resolution calling for a "Moratorium on the use of death penalty" at the UN General Assembly on 16 December. The high number of federal executions also contradict the trend among individual States within the US, which performed the fewest executions in 37 years in 2020.

The European Union is strongly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances and will spare no effort to work towards its abolition worldwide in line with the new EU Action Plan for Human Rights and Democracy for 2020-2024.

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Infographic: Why and How the EU Opposes the Death Penalty

SOURCE Delegation of the European Union to the United States

eeas.europa.eu

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Statement by the Spokesperson on the first federal-level execution in the United States of a woman in decades - PRNewswire

Oregon U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley will again seek to end the legacy of a clause long used as a 'tool of control' over people of color.

America was founded on beautiful principles of equality and justice. And our nation was also founded on horrific realities of slavery and white supremacy. If we are ever going to fully deliver on our founding principles, we have to directly confront those gruesome realities.

One deeply disturbing reality is that when our nation ratified the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, it included an exception. In the second clause, often referred to as the "Punishment Clause," are the words that allowed thousands of Black Americans to be re-enslaved during and after reconstruction, and set off a chain reaction that has destroyed the lives of generations of Black Americans: "except as a punishment for crime "

Within weeks of the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865, Southern jurisdictions used the Punishment Clause to arrest Black Americans based on phony crimes, codified in so-called "Black Codes." The Black Codes only applied to Black Americans made it illegal for farmworkers to walk beside railroads; to speak loudly in the company of white women; to sell products from their farms after dark; and so many more absurd rules. Once people were arrested, the Punishment Clause was used by sheriffs to lease out imprisoned individuals to work landowners' fields, which in some cases included the very same plantations where they had been enslaved. The practice grew in prevalence and scope to the point that, by 1898, 73 percent of Alabama's state revenue came from renting out the forced labor of Black Americans.

This was no accident. John T. Morgan, a former Confederate General, spelled it out when he said in 1866, "[A]s the Constitution of the United States [gives] the power to inflict involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime, suitable law should be framed by the state jurists [to] enable them to sell into bondage once more those Negroes found guilty of certain crimes."

Re-enslavement through the Black Codes had the same elements that made slavery so evil: it tore parents away from their children; it destroyed the economic power of Black Americans; it dehumanized people, adding to the prejudiced myth that Black Americans were second-class citizens. And, imprisoned workers were treated just as cruelly as they were during slavery.

This is not a history lesson; we are still living with that legacy today. The Punishment Clause has facilitated and incentivized convictions for minor crimes, driving the mass incarceration of Black Americans for the last century and a half.

The Black Codes over time morphed into contemporary policies the War on Drugs, "three strikes" laws, harsh mandatory minimum policies that drove mass incarceration in America for generations, with a disproportionate impact on people of color. Now, the rate of American incarceration is nothing short of a crisis, with 2.3 million prisoners 20 percent of the world's incarcerated population residing in the United States.

In short: As intended, the exception to the 13th Amendment's ban on slavery corrupted criminal justice into a tool of racist control of Black Americans and other people of color. Since Confederate General John T. Morgan's time, we've seen that legacy in police encounters courtrooms, and prisons throughout our country.

Permitting slavery or involuntary servitude "as a punishment for crime" is not compatible with justice, especially given our nation's history and the origins of the Punishment Clause. At the end of 2020 I introduced, with U.S. Representative William Lacy Clay (D-MO-1), the Abolition Amendment, which would finish the job started by the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment, and finally end the stain of slavery within our Constitution. I'll be introducing it again in the new 117th Congress. It would send a clear message: in this country, no person will be stripped of their basic humanity and forced to toil for someone else's profit.

Last year saw a reckoning across America about systemic racism, especially in our criminal justice system. It's past time that we as a nation take action to make the beautiful principles on which we were founded equality and justice our reality. Slavery is incompatible with justice. No slavery, no exceptions. Let's pass the Abolition Amendment.

Jeff Merkley, a Portland Democrat, is Oregon's junior U.S. senator. He can be reached via his website at merkley.senate.gov/contact.

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OPINION: It's time to strip 'Black Codes' from the U.S. Constitution - Pamplin Media Group

Last year also marked the most civilian federal death penalties carried out in a single year since 1896, when 16 occurred under President Grover Cleveland.

Trump oversaw the federal executions of Brandon Bernard, Alfred Bourgeois, and Orlando Cordia Hall in the weeks after his failed reelection campaign. His administration has scheduled three more executions of Lisa Montgomery, Cory Johnson, and Dustin Higgs to be carried out before he leaves office. If these executions occur, Trump will hold the record for most federal executions during a lame-duck period, surpassing Cleveland, who oversaw three.

According to Cassandra Stubbs, project director of the ACLUs Capital Punishment Project, That President Trump has chosen to go forward with these executions even after his failed policies have been repudiated at the ballot box is indefensible.

Nearly half of U.S. states 22 in total have already abolished the death penalty. Krinsky says that the U.S. stands alone among Western democracies in continuing to engage in capital punishment, and a growing number of countries are abolishing the practice. According to Roger-Mark De Souza, chief movement building officer of Amnesty International USA, 142 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, equaling about three-quarters of all nations worldwide.

Since 2007, the United Nations General Assembly has voted eight times to adopt a resolution calling for a global moratorium on the death penalty, most recently in November 2020. Though the U.S. voted against it, public sentiment against capital punishment seems to be shifting in this country. A 2019 Gallup poll found that for the first time since they began asking the question, in 1985, a majority of Americans said that life imprisonment is a better punishment than execution for the crime of murder.

Many erroneously claim that execution saves taxpayer dollars in the long run. Ngozi Ndulue, senior director of research and special projects for the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), countered that argument, telling Teen Vogue, The death penalty costs more than life imprisonment. Period. She explained that the government spent at least $3 million on federal executions in 2020. Associated costs include extensive background checks to determine death-eligibility, segregated imprisonment of death row inmates, extra layers of jury selection, and paying to assign multiple federal attorneys to the case.

[T]his is a life and death decision where you really can't go backward, Ndulue continued. [W]e still see people who have been exonerated from death row after 30 years, after 40 years, after all of their processes have concluded.

COVID-19-related safety for inmates also became a widespread concern amid lockdown orders. According to De Souza, more U.S. death row inmates died of COVID-19 than were executed in the modern era of the U.S. death penalty.

According to the DPIC, approximately 100 individuals travel to a prison for each federal execution. Following Orlando Halls killing on November 19, eight members of the Federal Bureau of Prisons execution team and Halls spiritual advisor contracted COVID-19.

In some respects, the pandemic has emboldened calls to end the federal death penalty. According to the ACLUs Stubbs, As the nation faces enormous fiscal challenges in light of COVID-19, ending the federal death penalty will free critical resources to work to priorities that will make us safer and our nation more just.

Critics of the death penalty, such as Krinsky, have also cited racial disproportionality as a reason to favor abolition of the practice. I think when you look at the track record in this country, that it's wrong-headed and foolhardy to assume that we can fix this flawed process," she said, "or that we can reach a point where we no longer see the dramatic [racial] disproportionality that has resulted.

Trumps spree of federal executions would be unprecedented in magnitude and circumstance alone, but the cases themselves are also novel: In recent history, Honken was the first person to be executed for a crime committed in a state where the death penalty had been abolished, and Lezmond Mitchell was the first Native American to be federally executed.

The Biden administration has promised to abolish the power of federal execution and work to abolish it on the state level as well. Stubbs, for one, expresses hope: By working to end the federal death penalty and prohibiting federal executions, President-elect Biden can banish the racist, costly, and failed federal death penalty to the dustbin of history where it belongs.

Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Republicans Like Betsy DeVos and Ted Cruz Are Cowards for Empowering Trump

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The Death Penalty in the U.S.: How It Works and Which Presidents Have Used It - Teen Vogue

This month marks the centenary of a remarkable (and successful) peasant protest in Uttarakhand. The British had inherited from native maharajas a system of forced labour known as begar, which they imposed on the peasantry. Under this system, villagers were compelled to carry the loads of British officials and European travellers, and also provide them with milk and vegetables when they were on tour.

It was an onerous and much-hated system, which so angered the peasants, that, after a series of petitions had been rejected, they went on strike in January 1921, refusing to carry luggage or supply provisions, and brought the system to an end.

Begar generally implies unpaid forced labour, extracted either by landlords or the state. In the agrarian system of British Kumaun, there were three distinct forms of begar in operation. Coolie begar meant forced labour without any payment. Coolie utar carried an obligation of a minimum wage payment, although this was often not given.

Finally, coolie burdayash referred to the extraction of different forms of produce food, fruits, milk, fuel and fodder for officials, soldiers, hunters, surveyors, tourists and their animals, again, generally taken without any payment.

The Kumaun Division had three administrative districts, Almora, Nainital and Garhwal respectively. Every landowner in thsee hill districts was obliged to render begar or compensation in lieu of it. About 85% to 90% of the local population consisted of peasants (kashtkars). Consequently, with the exception of some Brahmins, village heads (pradhans), nobles (thokdars), retired soldiers and officials, every adult male was subject to the practice of begar.

Kumaun came under the control of the East India Company in 1815. Forty-three years later, the Imperial government in London assumed direct charge of its Indian possessions. However, due to its geographical isolation, this hill region remained untouched by the numerous tribal and peasant revolts in other parts of the country. Till 1890, there was no organised movement against begar. Nonetheless, there were some individual acts of defiance, which stopped short of challenging the begar system itself.

For example, in 1820 coolies did not come to Lohaghat when called to do so. Two years later, a similar incident was reported from Pithoragarh. Army battalions faced a lot of problems in obtaining burdayash in Almora and Lohaghat in 1837-38. An Englishman travelling from Someshwar to Almora in 1844 also faced a shortage of coolies. A report of 1855 also spoke of enormous difficulties in getting coolies. In 1878 the peasants of Someshwar refused to serve begar and were heavily fined by the Commissioner, Henry Ramsay.

From the 1860s, the operations of begar steadily intensified. The Himalaya emerged as a land of sport and adventure for Europeans. More importantly, the expansion of the army and of survey operations, and the establishment of the forest department in the hills, accelerated the oppressive effects of this system. Colonial officials took forced labour and provisions as a matter of course.

From the late nineteenth century onwards, local newspapers are a most valuable source of information about the begar system and opposition to it. Samay Vinod, the first vernacular paper from the region set up in Nainital in 1868, was followed three years later by the more enduring Almora Akhbar.

Almora also witnessed the foundation of a Debating Club in 1870, in which the towns intelligentsia discussed social and political questions. In the neighbouring district of Garhwal, the Garhwal Union was set up in 1901. While the publications of newspapers like Garhwal Samachar (from 1902) and Garhwali (from 1905) was to provide a major impetus to the development of social consciousness in the hills.

Almora Akhbar published many articles calling the practice of begar improper, a source of great annoyance and loss to the people which adds to the miseries of the people. In its issue of November 23, 1891, Almora Akhbar very strongly wrote:

Nothing could be more reprehensible than the government officials receiving large salaries should take grass, firewood, milk and other things for their use from poor peasants without paying for it. What is worse is, that the official hirelings entrusted with the duty of providing supplies collect a larger quantity of everything than is required, and appropriate the surplus to their own use. The evil would be greatly checked if men were empowered to demand from them receipts for the things supplied, and if a full statement of the supplies collected for an officers camp at any place were laid before him prior to his departure.

Through the 1890s, questions about begar in Kumaun repeatedly figured in the provincial council. The matter was also raised in the council of the governor-general in 1893. A resolution against begar was passed in the Congress session in the same year.

This heightened urban consciousness was matched by independent peasant initiative against begar. In 1903 the peasants of village Khatyari (near Almora town) collectively refused to serve begar. Ramsay had crushed the Someshwar protest by imposing fines, and the villagers could not go to court. But in this case, the villagers of Khatyari continued their protests by other means.

The lower court had fined fourteen out of sixteen striking villagers of Khatyari Rs 2 each, with the option of simple imprisonment. However, the peasants, Gopia and others, filed a petition against this decision in the Allahabad High Court, which ruled in their favour.

The significance of the High Court verdict could not be realized in the absence of a mass organisation. Moreover, the verdict itself was not widely known in the villages. A more general consciousness had to await the formation of the Kumaun Parishad, in 1916.

Meanwhile, Gauri Datt Bisht of Giwar, and Mahant Narayan Das of Totashiling, presented a memorandum regarding the begar and forest issues to the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, on the latters visit to Kumaun in 1903.

In the first century of British rule, therefore, begar was opposed through sporadic protests by peasants and through petitions by the intelligentsia of the towns. This movement, reformist and localised in its nature, was transformed in a few years into a massive upsurge aimed at the abolition of begar.

One factor in this transformation was the smouldering resentment of the thousand of hill soldiers who returned from service in the First World War. At the same time, local newspapers began to campaign more vigorously. And a crucial role was played by the Kumaun Parishad, set up in 1916 to cope with the continuing repression as well as the rapidly changing socio-political situation.

Other significant developments included the assumption of the editorship of Almora Akhbar by Badri Dutt Pande (one of the future heroes of the begar abolition movement), a visit to Almora by the veteran nationalist, Lala Lajpat Rai, and the setting up of students fronts.

Meanwhile, Kumaun Parishad leaders like Laxmi Dutt Shastri, Hargovind Pant and Badri Dutt Pande began visiting the villages, calling upon the people to understand their problems and fight for their resolution.

Frequent visits by local leaders to Congress sessions and the effort of Kumauni students studying in the cities also helped the national movement to strike roots in the region. Around 1914-15, Almora became extraordinarily active, through meetings of the Indian club and the Shuddh Sahitya Samiti, the anti-begar writings of Prem Ballabh Pande in Almora Akhbar, efforts at social mixing between upper castes and Shilpkars (artisans), and the foundations of the student organisations and the Nayak Sudhar Sabha.

Meanwhile, in Garhwal, different socio-cultural organisations were unified in December 1914 and took a decision to ensure regular weekly publication of the Garhwali newspaper. Finally, in 1916, a branch of the Home Rule League was set up in Almora.

The first session of the Kumaun Parishad was held at Almora in 1917, under the chairmanship of a retired deputy commissioner, Jai Dutt Joshi. Two types of personalities participated in this inaugural session. On the one hand, there were pro-government retired officials and title-holders, and, on the other hand, there were nationalists influenced by Lokmanya Tilak and his Home Rule League.

When Badri Dutt Pande recited a poem, Raja wahi rahenge shreeman George Pancham, pratyek swet charma raja naa ban sakega (George V will remain the monarch, every white man cannot be the ruler), aimed directly at the colonial bureaucracy, this aroused the dissent of Rai Bahadur Badri Datt Joshi.

Now, Laxmi Dutt Shastri was deputed to organise the branches of the Parishad and propagate its views in the villages. Independent protests by peasants also began coming to the surface. In November 1917, when a peon beat up a peasant of Bironkhal for bringing burdayash late, the villagers, in turn, beat up the peon. In Berinag, peasants refused to carry the load of a tehsildar from Berinag to Thal. Chamoli and Gangoli also witnessed similar protests in May and October of 1918.

In the month of March 1918, Almora Akhbar was compelled by the district authorities to close down. Although holding very mild views for much of its existence, this 48-year-old newsweekly had gained clarity and sharpness in the last few years, playing a crucial role in creating an environment against begar.

It was widely believed that its criticism of the deputy commissioner for firing upon a coolie was the reason behind its forcible closure. The popular feeling against begar continued to grow. October 1918 saw the publication of the weekly Shakti. The last editor of Almora Akhbar and founder editor of Shakti, Badri Dutt Pande played a very important role in the begar abolition movement as a campaigning editor and activist-leader of the Kumaun Parishad.

The second session of the Kumaun Parishad was held in Haldwani in December 1918 under the presidentship of the lawyer-scholar from Garhwal, Tara Dutt Gairola, who proposed a resolution for the gradual abolition of coolie begar. Despite opposition by some elders, a resolution moved by Hargovind Pant which asked for the total abrogation of begar within two years was passed. In the same year, 1918, one of the Parishads main leaders, Badri Dutt Pande, went to Calcutta to persuade Mahatma Gandhi to visit Kumaun, but Gandhi declined the invitation owing to other commitments.

The third session of the Kumaun Parishad was held in December 1919 at Kotdwar in Garhwal. The resolution on begar, when debated upon, appeared to split the Parishad into two groups. Some members wanted the deletion of the time limit given to the government the previous year for the abolition of begar, and of the word satyagraha from the resolution.

But the resolution was finally passed in its original form, with both groups continuing to co-exist in the Parishad. The government was still expected to respond favourably to the anti-begar sentiments expressed by the Parishad.

After returning from that years Amritsar session of the Congress, the leaders and activists of the Kumaun Parishad started consolidating their work in the villages. Laxmi Dutt Shastri, Badri Dutt Pande, Hargovind Pant, Mohan Singh Mehta, Mathura Dutt Trivedi etc, opened units of the Kumaun Parishad in different places. In their speeches, they called upon the peasants to organise against begar.

The last few months of 1920 saw much activity on the anti-begar front. In one village, Surna of Patti Kairarao, peasants refused to serve as coolies or pay the fine. Local representatives in the United Province political conference, held at Moradabad in October 1920, succeeded in passing a resolution to abolish begar.

Following this, Mukundi Lal and Hargovind Pant, in articles in Shakti, called upon the people not to render begar and burdayash. In November 1920, the Garhwal Parishad too started telling the peasants that the practice of begar was illegal.

The fourth session of the Kumaun Parishad was convened in Kashipur in December 1920 under the presidentship of the Almora lawyer, Hargovind Pant. It was, notably, the first session of the organisation not presided over by a Rai Bahadur or former government official. This session also bore visible marks of the non-cooperation movement which was now active all across India.

By this time Hargovind Pant himself had emerged as a symbol of the progressive and nationalist elements in the Parishad. Pant not only called for the abolition of coolie utar, he wished the anti-begar upsurge would assimilate more fully with the non-cooperation movement itself. Despite some dissent, the meeting of the Kumaun Parishad passed a resolution in favour of non-cooperation.

Members stood up and took a pledge that they would not render begar and would work to abolish that menace. Pro-government elements tried unsuccessfully to stall this resolution and ultimately walked out of the meeting.

The sentiments against begar were powerful on account of the growing peasant consciousness, as expressed by the village representatives at the Kumaun Parishad sessions. The chairman of the Katyur branch of the Kumaun Parishad, Shiv Dutt Pande, its Secretary, Ram Dutt and Mohan Singh Mehta, Keshav Dutt Pande and others requested the main leaders of the Parishad to come to the Uttarayani fair to be held at Bageshwar next January.

This fair, on the banks of the river Saryu, was attended annually by thousands of people, making it an ideal venue for intensifying the movement. Senior Kumaun Parishad leaders such as Hargovind Pant, Badri Dutt Pande and Chiranji Lal were quick to recognise the significance of village sentiments in the matter and resolved to attend the Uttarayani mela.

A major manifestation of village opposition to begar was the meeting on January 1, 1921, in the Haru temple of Chami village (of Katyur, close to Bageshwar). More than 400 people attended the meeting and took an oath not to give begar. Shakti also gave a call to its readers to come to the Bageshwar fair and abolish begar.

The consciousness against begar was at its peak around this time, particularly in villages around Katyur. In the first week of January 1921, senior officials of the Forest Department were not served with coolies in Dwarahat and Ganai. Despite these signs, the civil authorities did not anticipate any serious trouble, and the Deputy Commissioner of Almora, WC Dible, proceeded with what he believed was a routine visit to the annual fair at Bageshwar.

Meanwhile, nearly 50 activists, led by Hargovind Pant, Badri Dutt Pande and Chiranjilal reached Bageshwar town from Almora on January 10, 1921. Situated at the confluence of the Saryu and Gomti river, Bageshwar was famous for its annual Uttarayani fair.

In the festival town, Shiv Dutt Pandey, Ram Dutt, Mohan Singh Mehta and dozens of village activists had made preparations for the meeting. For the first time, the nationalist slogans of Bharat mata ki jai, Mahatma Gandhi ki jai and Vande Mataram were heard in the Katyur valley and in Bageshwar town. Some demonstrators wore cotton Gandhi caps brought from the Congress held in Nagpur the previous month. A banner with the caption coolie utar band karo (abolish coolie utar) was carried by a procession on January 12.

The procession itself ultimately turned into a huge meeting on the banks of the river Saryu, attended by more than 10,000 people. Here Badri Dutt Pande gave a stirring speech, whose English translation in the colonial archive includes these sentences:

After abolishing coolie utar they would agitate for the forests. He would ask them not to extract the resin, or saw sleepers, or take forest contracts. They should give up service as forest guards which involved insulting their sisters and snatching their sickles.

The meeting then took an oath not to give utar. The next day too, a large meeting was held on the riverbank. Here more criticisms of the colonial administration were presented, along with a review of the socio-political situation with specific reference to Kumaun. The oath not to give forced labour was repeated, and more spectacularly, village headmen threw their coolie registers into the Saryu.

The deputy commissioner, Dible, came to know on January 14 that these public meetings had had a great impact on the people. Village headmen had lost control over the area around Bageshwar, and could not carry out the orders to make coolies available for officials.

Dible threatened the protesters and asked them to leave Bageshwar but to no avail. In fact, the leaders, influenced by the militancy of the peasants, delivered even more provocative and anti-government speeches. On this day too some coolie registers were floated in the Saryu, while the assemblage pledged not to give begar while taking the water of the river in their hands.

The meetings and processions continued on January 15, 1921. Dible could not take recourse to any repressive measures owing to the limited means at his disposal 21 officials, 25 soldiers, and 500 bullets. To his dismay, the DC found that even hitherto loyal headmen and village officials were now under the influence of the abolitionists. His own assurances to reform the utar system and the oppressive forest administration failed to have any impact.

After the success at Bageshwar, it was imperative for the abolitionists to carry forward the decisions taken there to all parts of Kumaun. Movement leaders went from village to village explaining what had happened at Bageshwar and outlining the future course of action. Thus, Hargovind Pant went to Ranikhet via Someshwar, Badri Dutt Pande to Almora via Takula and Mohan Singh Mehta to his own region of Katyur. Mass contact work was conducted in an organised and highly effective manner, and a movement, earlier confined to Bageshwar and its surrounding villages, soon spread all over the Kumaun Division. In the second half of January 1921, a series of well-attended meetings were held in more than a hundred villages of Kumaun and Garhwal.

Prior to the Bageshwar incident, the Commissioner of Kumaun, Percy Wyndham, had written to the provincial government about the likelihood of a movement against begar. However, the matter was taken seriously in official circles only after the shows of defiance at Bageshwar. The manner in which both peasants and leaders refused to carry out the orders of the Deputy Commissioner was the first incident of its kind in the history of British-ruled Kumaun.

Unnerved, Dible wrote off to the Superintendent of Police to be alert. The Deputy Commissioner was greatly alarmed by the participation of school-teachers in the movement. Writing to Wyndham on January 22, Dible complained that he did not have an adequate police force. The intelligence department was asked to keep an eye on Swami Satyadev and other Congress leaders who had come up from the plains.

The police superintendent reached Almora (the district headquarters) with an armed contingent on January 24. He found the situation alarming due to the non-cooperation of headmen and village officials. Meanwhile, orders were issued to block the march of Satyadev beyond Haldwani. Interestingly, Dible appeared more frightened of the movement than his superiors. When students wore Gandhi caps and there was talk of a strike in the Ramsay School at Almora, Dible felt that the situation was out of his control. But the provincial government was more worried about the peasant movement then raging in the plains districts of Awadh. Even Wyndham told Dible that Kumaun was a small part of a vast country. He suggested that begar be deployed only in outlying regions. Attempts were also made to restrict the tours of district officials and to make the system of paid coolies compulsory.

However, in the following weeks and months, the district administration did resort to repressive measures. Threats of eviction from their land were made on the failure to make coolies available. In March 1921, Badri Dutt Pande was disallowed from attending meetings or speaking in them. Section 144 was imposed in the towns of Almora, Pithoragarh, Ranikhet, and Nainital, while leaders were threatened with arrest and in some cases deprived of the freedom to speak at meetings. In pursuance of this policy of repression, meetings without permission were not allowed in Almora district, except in places of worship. In the third week of March 1921, Mohan Singh Mehta was arrested, though he was released on May 21. The gun licences of many villagers in Ramnagar were also seized.

Meanwhile, in Garhwal, the movement was at its peak in April 1921. There was continuous activity in upper Garhwal under the leadership of Anusuya Prasad Bahuguna, and in lower Garhwal under the leadership of Keshar Singh Rawat. Even the Deputy Commissioner of Garhwal could not obtain coolies. As in Almora, several peasants were evicted from their land owing to the refusal to supply coolies, and the guns of villagers seized.

Back in Kumaun, Shakti was asked to stand security of Rs 6,000 for articles it had published between November 1920 and April 1921. By now, the anti-begar movement had largely merged with the non-cooperation movement. The protests and repression continued simultaneously. There were massive arrests in December 1921, which continued till the middle of the next year. However, in the meantime, the United Province government had finally decided to abolish the begar system, a significant victory for the peasants of Kumaun.

In terms of its spread and mass base, the anti-begar movement was unprecedented in the history of Kumaun. An evolutionary sequence can be discerned in the transformation of uncoordinated individual protests into an organised movement.

In the first phase, merely reforms were demanded in the begar system, with village protests being added to urban requests. The second phase was dominated by direct action, with the submission of memoranda being replaced by an aggressive mass movement. Moreover, during this period the movement did not remain confined to the begar question.

The latter was closely linked to the governments oppressive forest policy, and the neglect of Kumaun with respect to education and political representation. These varied issues and demands, with begar very much in the forefront, crystallized into a broad-based movement encompassing different classes and social groups.

The movement itself saw the participation of all sections of rural and urban society former government employees, ex-soldiers, teachers, students and above all, all types of peasants. It was no longer confined to meetings of the Parishad or of the intelligentsia in the towns. With amazing rapidity, it spread from the Tarai to the Bhot country, and from Sor valley in eastern Kumaun to lower and upper Garhwal.

Participation in the movement continuously increased, and after the Bageshwar protest, the number of those who supported the government position on begar became negligible. The latter were scared of expressing their views in public. In fact, the village headmen who did not throw their coolie registers into the Saryu at Bageshwar later destroyed them in their homes.

At a time when Gandhi had abandoned the Non-cooperation movement and the Khilafat initiative too had proved to be unsuccessful, the begar abolition movement in Kumaun reached the peak of its success. The end of an exploitative system served to deepen the confidence of the peasantry. It brought in a new wave of self-respect and self-consciousness among the people and accelerated their opposition to colonial rule and their desire for independence.

Noting its hatred of officials and challenge to the authority of government, the district magistrate of Almora called the movement a revolutionary one. Talk of swaraj in the villages had become common. As one missionary wrote to Dible: As far as the public was concerned, British rule was as good as finished.

Despite its resounding success, one major weakness of the movement cannot be overlooked. This was the non-participation of the artisanal lower castes (shilpkars) in the movement. Suppressed and exploited since time immemorial, and deeply affected by begar, this community stayed away from all anti-colonial movements before 1930. Spurned by the upper castes and their representatives, the Shilpkars looked to the British government for patronage and support.

This weakness apart, the begar abolition movement was unmatched for its strength and organisation in the history of British rule in Uttarakhand. The vitality of the movement can be gauged by its notable successes.

Apart from the abolition of begar by the government, the forest policy was made more liberal with a freer collection of fuel and fodder allowed, coolie agencies established, roads developed, wages increased and a permanent coolie gang started for the forest department. Its impact was also felt in the neighbouring princely state of Tehri, where efforts were made by the state to minimise the impact of begar.

The majority of the abolitionists remained active throughout the freedom movement. Some of them died before independence while others continued in politics or social work after 1947. However, in later years it was claimed that only God, Gandhi, Badri Dutt Pande, Hargovind Pant, Govind Ballabh Pant, Mukundi Lal and Chiranji Lal were responsible for ending the begar system in Kumaun.

In such leader-centric accounts, the contributions of peasants and village activists were continually underplayed. Ironically, when he visited Almora and Bageshwar in 1929, Gandhi had himself stated that the people of Kumaun had themselves abolished the oppressive begar system. Yet, writings on the movement continued to attribute the abolition of the system to a few select leaders.

But as this essay has shown, it was the popular upsurge in the villages rather than the initiative of a few leaders that delivered the decisive blow to the system of forced labour in British Kumaun, at the Uttarayani mela held in Bageshewar exactly a hundred years ago.

Shekhar Pathak taught history at Kumaon University. His most recent book is The Chipko Movement: A Peoples History, published by Permanent Black.

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A hundred years ago, a fiery speech in Uttarakhand escalated the protests against forced labour - Scroll.in

'Chases Cascade'

My eyes are tranced in beauty; soft young leaves,

Moist mossy rocks and sparkling sunlit water;

The murmurous plunge my passive ear receives,

Magic Cascade! The green-woods loveliest daughter.

The hours glide by, the spell leagues every sense.

The world fades far away and has no worth;

How shall I break a magic so intense?

How leave thee, Undine, for the common earth?

-- By Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The poem was written to celebrate the beauty of a waterfall just south of todays Cotton Mill Hill Road. These days the waterfall is hard to find, hidden behind the brush that has grown up over the past 100-plus years since this photograph was taken.

In order to accommodate the construction of a new cotton mill, the town voted to build a road from South Main Street to Vernon Road in 1911. This became known as Cotton Mill Hill. The newly constructed road acted as a replacement for Cascade Road, located a little south of Cotton Mill Hill.

The dirt trail known as Cascade Road had existed for centuries. In the 1700s the road crossed the meadows from the Fort Dummer trading post on the Connecticut River and climbed the hillside along Venters Brook to the pond located at Richardsons farm, next to Old Guilford Road. Chases Cascade was part of Venters Brook. This road, the oldest road in what later became Brattleboro, ran south to the Mohawk Trail in Massachusetts.

Before Cascade Road had been used by Europeans it had been a connecting path to the major trade route between the Native peoples of the Connecticut River Valley and the Hudson River Valley. It has been suggested that the name for Venters Brook came from a Dutch fur trader named Van de Venter who camped at the pond in the 1600s.

Fort Orange, where Albany, N.Y. is located, was a Dutch trading post established in 1624 -- 100 years before the construction of Fort Dummer. The Dutch, and their Native allies, traveled the Mohawk Trail to trade with Natives of the Connecticut River Valley. It may be hard to imagine, but the present spot where South Main Street turns into Old Guilford Road and connects to Sunny Acres was a major crossroads for centuries.

The author of the poem was Thomas Wentworth Higginson. He was from Massachusetts and a product of the Boston Transcendentalism Movement. Transcendentalism was a philosophical, literary and religious movement which believed that society had corrupted the goodness of people, and that people could overcome this corruption by connecting with the simple, spiritual existence found in the natural world. Henry David Thoreaus book, "Walden," is a good example of these beliefs.

In the poem, Chases Cascade, Higginson writes about the serenity of the waterfall. He relates how the sounds, sights and smells of the cascade connect him with the spiritual side of nature, as represented by Undine, the green-wood's loveliest daughter.

In ancient mythology, Undines are female water spirits. Undines can fall in love with humans but will die if the human they fall in love with is unfaithful to her. An interpretation of the poem could be that the cascade is represented in the Undine and the author is attracted to the spirit. The authors time spent with the waterfall is wonderful but he does not know how he can leave her for the common world. He is torn because returning to society means hurting the Undine. This interpretation forms a connection with the authors Transcendentalist beliefs. The wonder of poetry is there can be many valid interpretations.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson was the youngest of six children. He was born in 1823 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and his oldest sibling, his brother Francis, had been born 17 years earlier. Thomas father died when Thomas was just 10 years old.

In 1841 Thomas graduated from Harvard College and began studying to become a minister at Harvard Divinity School. After a year he left his studies to join the Abolitionist movement full-time. He followed the teachings of Thomas Parker and joined a more extreme branch of Abolitionists who favored expelling slave-holding states from the country. In 1843 his mother and sisters moved to Brattleboro. They relocated here to be near Thomas older brother, Francis, who had become a doctor and moved to town a year earlier.

Thomas began to spend time in Brattleboro with his family while also continuing his abolitionist work. Eventually he went back to Divinity School and graduated in 1847. He married in 1847 as well and brought his wife, Mary Channing of Boston, to Brattleboro. His first job as a pastor was in Newburyport, Massachusetts but he was asked to leave because of his radical sermons and beliefs. He preached against slavery but he also complained about the working conditions in the local cotton mills. His sermons were very critical of southern slavery but they were just as critical of those who lived in the north and did nothing to stop the practice.

Higginsons radical beliefs went beyond abolition. He also favored labor rights and rights for women. In 1852 he was appointed pastor of a church in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1853 he spoke at the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention in favor of womens voting rights. He was a close friend of abolitionist and womens rights advocate Lucy Stone and worked with her on many campaigns.

The Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850 and Higginson joined a group that actively defied the law by protecting fugitive slaves. In 1854 his extreme views found him leading an attack on a Boston federal courthouse in an attempt to free a captured slave. In the violent skirmish he received a saber wound.

The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed for the possibility of slavery expanding into newly established northern territories of the United States. Higginson found this unacceptable and began raising money and organizing to populate Kansas with people opposed to slavery. He traveled to Kansas and brought supplies, including weapons, to the anti-slavery factions in the territory.

While in Kansas Higginson became a believer in John Browns radical approach to ending slavery through organized military-style uprisings. Higginson raised money to support Browns efforts and when Brown led a violent anti-slavery insurrection in Virginia, Higginson raised money for Browns trial defense. Higginson also began plans to help Brown escape from prison but Brown got word back to Higginson that he did not want to be rescued.

During the Civil War Higginson joined the Union Army and became a colonel in one of the first regiments of freed slaves mustered into service, the Thirty Third United States Colored Troops. Higginson wrote about the experience of leading escaped slaves, We, their officers, did not go there to teach lessons, but to receive them. There were more than a hundred men in the ranks who had voluntarily met more dangers in their escape from slavery than any of my young captains had incurred in all their lives.

While all of these events were occurring, Higginson continued to visit his family in Brattleboro. Letters he wrote to John Brown were sent from his familys Brattleboro address. Mary Cabot wrote in her "Annals of Brattleboro" that Higginson visited his family often. She further wrote, He was chiefly remembered here by his contemporaries for his preeminent social gifts, which included dancing.

After the Civil War, Higginson supported himself through writing and editing. He wrote many books. Some were about his experiences during the war and others advocated for womens equal rights and opportunity. In 1875 he wrote a history book for schools called, "Young Folks History of the United States." During this time Higginson also struck up a relationship with a writer named Emily Dickinson. He corresponded with her and encouraged her writing. After her death he became an editor of her first two collections of published poems.

Higginson was a writer on many subjects but some of his projects were left undone. He passed away in 1911. In his younger years Thomas had planned to publish a collection of poems with his sister, Louisa. This was never completed but his poem, Chases Cascade would have been a good addition to the collection.

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Fierce abolitionist connects with the spiritual side of nature - Brattleboro Reformer

Two communities at opposite ends of Vermont are pushing forward with efforts to reform their police departments. The moves come in the wake of last year's national reckoning with racial equity and policing, following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last summer.

Today, we're checking in on where things stand in these efforts in Brattleboro and in Burlington.

VPRs Henry Epp spoke with Vermont Public Radio reporters Liam Elder-Connors and Howard Weiss-Tisman for an update on these parallel pushes for reform. Their conversation below has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Henry Epp: So, Howard, the Brattleboro Selectboard met on Tuesday night to have their first real discussion about a report that the town commissioned on what it called community Safety" and this is over 200 pages. So what did the board do on Tuesday?

Howard Weiss-Tisman: Well, the board mostly listened on Tuesday. They heard from the public and continued hearing from some of the folks who put it together.

Most immediately, the board has to make a decision about the upcoming town budget. There's something in there about police training, and the committee is asking the town to zero out any training in the coming year. This is what Lana Devers said she is a member of the committee who put the report together:

Just like the abolition of slavery, the abolition of the police force is going to be heavily disagreed upon by a subset of the population. But we cannot allow ourselves to listen to those people, because they are doing the work of slavers. They are doing the work of oppressors at the risk and at the detriment of the lives of Black people."

- Lana Devers, Brattleboro

Howard just remind us: how did we get here? Why did the Brattleboro Selectboard commission this report in the first place, on policing and racism in the department? And what did we learn from the report?

Weiss-Tisman: Right. So this goes back to earlier this year, when Black Lives Matter protests sprang up across the state, including in Brattleboro.

The COVID-19 pandemic canceled out Brattleboros representative town meeting, and so, the town had to adopt an emergency budget in June. And at that point, the police department had a 12% [budget] increase. This was happening while the protests were happening. And a lot of people wanted Brattleboro, at that point, to zero out the police budget.

More from VPR: Steffen Gillom: 'I Think What We Are Watching... Is The Fall Of White Supremacy'

A lot of people were upset about that, and so the board decided to go ahead and commission this report. They came up with some really radical proposals. They said that the town is really lacking in data collection. If an officer is facing discipline, they want to withhold pensions for the officer and not have any more paid leave. They're talking about things like not sending police out on welfare checks. And when police are out doing things like this, they don't want them to be armed. And most radically, they're calling for mostly disarming the police force within five years.

So some big changes being discussed there. Liam, let's go to Burlington. There's been a big debate about police accountability there and some major protests over the last couple of months. Can you remind us what's happened in terms of the size of the police force since last summer?

Liam Elder-Connors: Yeah, I mean, kind of similar to what Howard was talking about in Brattleboro, Burlington's also seen a huge debate go on over what sort of police reforms should be enacted after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

In the summer, the city council, led by Progressives, decided to adopt a measure that would cut the size of Burlington's police force by 30%, and it would do that through attrition. So as officers leave the force, they wouldn't be replacing them.

Actually, in the months since the council passed that measure, the department has seen nine officers leave. And five of them have said that actually the city council's decision around reducing the police force was one of the reasons why they decided to go.

The department in recent weeks has been sort of sounding the alarm that they're getting to low staffing levels. But as it stands, they can't really do anything about their staffing.

Democratic Mayor Miro Weinberger and the Progressive-led city council have pretty different ideas of who should be overseeing the police department. Is that right?

Yeah, that's right. Kind of after the issue of staffing, this has been the big one of the big issues debated in Burlington is: who should be in charge of oversight. And there is a police commission in Burlington, but its role is largely advisory.

More from VPR: Montpelier Police Chief Braces For Potential Extremist Violence, Calls For 'More Civil Discourse'

And so, the most recent effort was the Progressive-led city council decided to pass a proposal that would create a separate, new, independent police oversight board that would have sweeping powers to investigate and discipline officers accused of misconduct.

When this passed the council, Mayor Weinberger vetoed the measure, saying that he had issues with the proposal and said he wasn't opposed to creating a new, stronger police oversight board, but the proposal as passed wasn't one he could support.

And for both of you, just looking ahead Liam, let's start with you what are we expecting with these proposals in this debate in Burlington in the next few months?

Elder-Connors: Well, progressives on the council tried to override Mayor Weinberger's veto. They were not able to do that. And so the measure won't go in front of voters. They're kind of back to the drawing board.

The mayor has proposed several things that they could do more immediately, like empowering the current police commission with the ability to do more investigation and discipline of officers.

But I should also note, you know, this is a year where Mayor Weinberger is up for reelection and the Progressives are running a candidate, City Council President Max Tracy. So that's another thing that could really change the direction of police reform, is who wins the March election.

And Liam, you've also been tracking some broader reforms being discussed at the state House. Is there anything in the works there that could change policing in the state?

Elder-Connors: There are several things that are kind of on the table right now, some of which were actually initiatives that Gov. Scott has been pushing, through an executive order he signed in the fall. And those are things like developing a statewide body camera policy. There's even, actually, a proposal to create some countywide citizen oversight boards.

So some of these things that Burlington and Brattleboro are talking about are also being discussed on a statewide level, although there still haven't been any concrete proposals put forward yet. Those are still in kind of in draft phases.

More from VPR: Vermont Police Girding For Armed Protests In Runup To Biden Inauguration

And just finally, Howard, let's go back to you in Brattleboro. What are we expecting on the police reform front in the next few months?

Weiss-Tisman: So remember, all of these discussions are happening with so much uncertainty in our country and the violence that we saw down in Washington, D.C. and a lot of questions about what this upcoming weekend and inauguration might look like.

At the meeting in Brattleboro, Franz Reischsman, who's a resident who wasn't involved in writing the report, he said this:

There are things going on in our country right now that I think demand police presence. I insist that our police here are ready to deal with what happens next Wednesday, when the inauguration takes place. Will there be some kind of crazy reaction to that by dangerous people in Brattleboro? I sure hope not. But I expect our police to be ready if it does happen.

- Franz Reichsman, Brattleboro

Weiss-Tisman: And just one last thing I wanted to mention, is that three seats on the five-member Brattleboro Selectboard are up for election on Town Meeting Day. So it will be interesting to see if either side of this discussion puts a candidate forward, and ultimately what the people of Brattleboro decide.

Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message or get in touch with reporter Henry Epp @TheHenryEpp.

We've closed our comments. Read about ways to get in touch here.

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Reporter Debrief: Two Vermont Communities Embarked On Police Reform. Here's How It's Going - Vermont Public Radio

For the good of the USA, get it together

I am 74 years old and considered myself to be mainly a Republican until the 2016 presidential election. I have in the past voted Democrat on a few occasions when I did not like the GOP candidate running for an office.

To say I did not like nor support the current president is an understatement.

However, he did not alone bring us to where we found ourselves on January 6, 2021.

To be sure, he contributed heavily to that outcome. And the GOP did also by enabling him as they did right up to the end and the fact that some in the party are still unbelievably supporting him and his dishonesty.

But in truth, both parties are equally to blame for the divisiveness they have been building in this country for many years and which created the gridlock we see today and frankly have already had for many years.

This has to end for this great country to be able to step back from the edge of the precipice we are poised on and not end as the Greeks, the founders of democracy, did many years ago. The United States has already outlived the number of years that their democratic society existed.

Can we keep it going? Not without major changes in our two parties, which probably are philosophically not the party you once thought they were anymore anyway. I hope and pray they prove otherwise and finally start working together for the good of all of us and the United States of America.

Charlie Hendrickson, Columbus

For the last four years, President Donald Trump has been pushing to build a wall on our border with Mexico. But on January 6, we discovered that the wall was in the wrong place. We needed it around the U.S. Capitol.

Curtis Dahlin, Roseville

In the Sunday, Jan. 3, Pioneer Press, Dora Jones-Robinson wrote a great opinion piece detailing the difficulties many of our youth are facing, but the headline misled many readers by labeling violent actions of some youth as gun violence.

In the Jan. 7 edition, another letter writer tried to use Dora Jones-Robinsons piece as the backdrop for repeating many of the gun-control crowds tired talking points.

Lets be clear: Inanimate objects, such as firearms, knives, bricks or motor vehicles are not violent. A small number of people are violent, and a much larger number of people use a firearm to commit suicide. We dont have a gun violence problem. We have a gang-violence problem and totally inadequate resources for people suffering from depression and mental illness.

Gun confiscation in defiance of our Second Amendment rights will never work anyway. Take out the word gun and insert drugs to get a clear understanding of how well control efforts will work. Although, Im sure the drug cartels would be more than happy to have a new commodity to market.

P. Eggimann, Hastings

Enough already! We all know (unless living under a rock) whats been going on in Washington, D.C.

Trump is on his way out. He has lost the election or Biden wouldnt be ready to be installed as the next president of the United States. Stop giving Trump air time attention. Unless you havent noticed, he craves it. Concentrate on the American people getting vaccinations and ridding this country of another unwanted virus. Thank you.

Marjorie Orris, Shoreview

The reason I want the abolition of abortion is the same reason for the abolition of slavery in the 19th century and, more recently, the abolition of racism. The slave owner may have thought he owned the slave and thus, could do whatever he wanted with the slave. However, all conservatives and progressive liberals agree that morally he most certainly does not own another person, including any slave. Similarly, a woman can not own an unborn baby and decide to do whatever she wants with the unborn. There is no moral distinction between the value of someone who is a slave, a member of a racial minority or an unborn baby. They all are humans and have value apart from what society might think and say.

I want equal treatment for all, progressives do not. Liberals want equal protection for minority races, for minority religious groups and for every kind of gender group. And rightly so! However, why do liberals make an exception for the unborn child? Yes, every human has innate value, and even science can demonstrate that the unborn are also human beings. So, let us end this hypocrisy and give equal protection for all human beings.

Hal Tetzlaff, Maplewood

Since insurrection day at the Capitol, a number of people in close orbits of Mr. Trump have resigned their positions, ostensibly in protest over his incitement of his supporters to riot.

Does anyone actually believe these resignations are in protest? In the cases of Cabinet secretaries, they are potentially faced with a 25th Amendment decision that they are loath to make. So, its much easier to resign than grow a spine. These people should not be praised for their resignations, they should be recognized for what they are; rats deserting a sinking ship.

MarkWolters, Woodbury

Police officers assume risks every day. Friday we heard of the death of a Capitol Police officer at the hands of a mob. Unlike many risks and subsequent deaths and injuries suffered by police officers, this one was avoidable. President Trump chose to incite the mob that formed at our capitol.

Our president could have taken the high road when he addressed the crowd before they chose to riot. He is responsible not only for that officers death but the others who died as a result of this stain on our countries history. U.S. Reps. Hagedorn and Fischbach of Minnesota have also demonstrated their lack of concern for the mob actions as evidenced by their decision to continue to vote against ratification of the electoral votes. The reasoning for the necessity of a delay and inquiry into so-called vote fraud was based solely on lies perpetrated by Trump. Their vote shows they still support the lies the president has espoused. The same lies that fueled the rage demonstrated by the mob. That rage and subsequent actions lead to those deaths, including that of the police officer. With so-called supporters of police like Hagedorn and Fischbach, who needs enemies?

Greg Johnson, EaganThe writer is a retired police officer

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Letters: Trumps bad. But he didnt do this alone. Am talking to you, too, Democrats. - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

By Mimi Lang

On Jan. 22, the Ban the Bomb movement is coming to a town, city, state or country near you. This is a momentous occasion in relation to protecting the world from the disaster of nuclear weapons. Since the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago, countries throughout the world have been advocating for a ban on nuclear weapons. It has been 51 years since the United Nations General Assembly passed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. 191 countries signed it. The treaty is reviewed and renewed every five years. It does not ban nuclear weapons.

Under the treaty, nonnuclear countries agreed never to acquire nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons-owning countries agreed to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue nuclear disarmament and the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. Although nuclear arsenals worldwide have decreased, as of 2019 there were approximately 3,750 active nuclear warheads and 13,890 total nuclear warheads in the world.

To relate to the excitement generated by the importance of the new Ban the Bomb plan, you may have to familiarize yourself the alphabet soup of acronyms surrounding nuclear disarmament. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental, international organizations whose goal is to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. Their work involves inspiring countries to adhere to and implement the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, TPNR.

ICAN won the Noble Prize for Peace in 2017 for its work helping the world come to terms with the catastrophic harm and existential threat of the most inhumane and indiscriminate weapons ever created. ICAN is a broad, inclusive campaign, inspired by the urgency and feasibility of abolishing nuclear weapons. Its members focus on mobilizing civil society around the specific objective of achieving, entering into force, and implementing a global nuclear weapons abolition.

In July 2017, 122 nations signed on to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, TPNW. In order for the treaty to become official, it had to ratified by 50 nations. Honduras was the 50th state to sign on Oct. 24, 2020. The date for implementing the TPNW, the first international treaty banning nuclear weapons, will take effect Jan. 22.

The commitment for the U.S. to disarm is questionable, as we know that current planning includes at least $1.7 billion to rebuild the U.S. nuclear arsenals. Prior to the TPNW, documents were written to prevent the use of biological and chemical weapons, land mines and cluster bombs, but no restrictions were provided for nuclear weapons.

The United States and the eight other nuclear weapon states have refused to sign the TPNW. Along with the U.S., Russia, the UK, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel did not sign the treaty. The U.S. discourages its allies from signing the treaty and demands that countries it protects through NATO also not sign it. It is discouraging that the nuclear-armed states continue to resist disarming. However, it is felt that pressure from the 122 signing countries and 50 ratifying ones will eventually pressure cooperation from non-signing states, especially as more countries ratify the TPNW.

You might wonder, how this can happen? The challenge to those dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons is to keep disarmament in the public eye. We need to be aware of the investments that corporations and organizations make in the nuclear industry, especially indirectly. For example, Honeywell is a producer of nuclear weapon components but its website doesnt mention nuclear weapons. A country that has ratified the TPNW can divest from Honeywell aircraft or other Honeywell materials. Countries, cities, universities, banks, pension funds can also divest from any of the 26 companies that have a role in producing nuclear weapons and/or support nuclear weapons research.

Local activists from the LEPOCO Peace Center will be visiting mayors and councils in the Lehigh Valley to ask them to sign on to the TPNW. Consider asking your religious group or school to sign on.

You might notice several signs throughout the Lehigh Valley celebrating Ban the Bomb. To join the effort or find out more go to https://www.icanw.org/ or lepoco@fast.net

Mimi Lang is a member of LePoCo and a Lehigh Valley Quaker. She lives in Bethlehem.

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On Jan. 22, take a stand against nuclear weapons | Opinion - lehighvalleylive.com

By Emma Foster

On 1st January 2021 the so-called tampon tax was abolished in the UK, a result of the country leaving the EU on 31st December 2020. This marked a significant event in a 20-year fight to rid ourselves of a law which, lets face it, was inherently sexist.

Since 1973, sanitary products have been classified as a luxury item under EU legislation and thus incurred a minimum 5% tax. This is despite contraceptive methods such as condoms and birth control, along with hygiene products (even mens razors!) bearing no tax at all. This begs the question; if recreational sex (that is, sex without the purpose of reproduction) and the upkeep of mens facial hair is classed as essential then why have products for periods been deemed as non-essential for so long?

Perhaps this can be attributed to the fundamentally patriarchal society we live in, along with the long-standing taboo with regards to the subject. As Gemma Abbot, lawyer and campaigner for Free Periods Group put it, any tax that characterises period products as non-essential is absurd and has no place in a society that is seeking genuine gender equality. Periods are not a choice, they are natural; sanitary products are not a luxury, they are a necessity.

This advancement is a result of the governments initiative to end period poverty. Period Poverty, according to the Royal College of Nursing is, the lack of access to sanitary products due to financial constraints. According to a representative survey of 1,000 girls and young women aged 14-21 by Plan International UK, one in ten girls cant afford to buy menstrual products, while one in seven have struggled to afford them.

Periods are not a choice, they are natural; sanitary products are not a luxury, they are a necessity

One of the direct problems of period poverty is the effect it has upon a girls education. Plan International research estimates that 49% of girls have missed an entire day of school due to their period and therefore predict that if a girl misses a whole day every time she has a period she will be 145 days of education behind her peers. This doesnt take into account her reduced ability to concentrate and perform to her usual standard whilst at school when experiencing period pain, a side effect of menstruation which draws very little attention, let alone an effective treatment.

While not addressing the problem of period pain itself, the governments action includes rolling out free sanitary products to schools, colleges and hospitals, alongside the abolition of the tampon tax. In 2015 they also established the Tampon Tax Fund with the aim of allocating the money made from VAT on sanitary products to projects which support vulnerable women and girls. This means the money made is given back to women most in need, a fund which we all must hope will be continued despite the end of the tax.

If successful, these new measures should have a major impact on the school attendance of girls during their period, but most importantly it should go some way to reducing and removing the stigma and embarrassment surrounding periods. A survey carried out by Sex Ed Matters on 150 teachers and students revealed that 100% believed there to still be a stigma attached to periods.

This is vital in the fight to end period poverty: if a girl is embarrassed about her period, how comfortable will she feel asking for the products and help? Nevertheless, it seems it is also down to schools to acknowledge the elephant in the room. According to Gemma Abbot, as of last term (Autumn 2020), only 40% of schools had signed up to the scheme to provide free sanitary products in schools. It is pivotal that the other 60% sign up to the scheme in order for every girl to be an equal benefactor of the help provided. Without the support and drive from schools to help the girls under their provision,the changes we wish to see will not happen.

The next step should be the introduction of subsidies for sanitary products

Chancellor Rishi Sunak, when addressing the abolition of the tax, said Im proud that we are today delivering on our promise to scrap the tampon tax. Sanitary products are essential so its right that we do not charge VATthis commitment takes us another step closer to making them available and affordable for all women. Hearing a male member of the cabinet talking with openness, compassion and even passion about womens issues seems like a new and promising horizon which should fill us with hope.

So, what financial difference will this make for women? The treasury has predicted that this will save women approximately 40 over their lifetime with a reduction of 7p on a box of 20 tampons and 5p on a pack of 12 pads. While the abolition of the tampon tax marks a theoretical shift in perceptions and stigma around periods, these stats show that it is questionable whether it does enough practically towards helping women. Thus, further to the abolition of the tax, the next step should be the introduction of subsidies for such products.

We only need to look north of the border to Scotland to see an example of a country which is respecting and dignifying its women by being the firstin the world to provide free sanitary products. A true landmark in the struggle to end period poverty, as the government has acknowledged it is their duty to carry the burden of paying for these products to empower their female citizens to be better equipped to deal with menstruation.

A potential solution to the financial issue faced by women could be the recent emergence of environmentally friendly, sustainable sanitary products. Due to their sustainable nature, the use of menstrual cups and reusable sanitary pads and tampon applicators would mean a significant decrease in money spent by women on sanitary products over their lifetime. While a menstrual cup costs around 20, it lasts for several years, meaning after six to eight months, it pays itself off, according to mooncup. Furthermore, the significant impact the reusable products have on decreasing the sickening amount of waste created by sanitary products is undeniable.

Around a fifth of the plastic found on Britains beaches is from sanitary products

The specific impact of sanitary products on the environment is unknown, but when you consider the vast amounts of plastic used in every single one, from packaging, to applicators, to leak-proof bottoms of sanitary pads, and even the string of a tampon, the picture doesnt look good. Around a fifth of the plastic found on Britains beaches is from sanitary products with the vast majority being single-use and unrecyclable.

Anna Borowski, who researched the ecological impact of sanitary products, put it concisely: I dont want to contribute 40 years of garbage to a landfill just to manage something that shouldnt even be seen as a problemIt seems like something we should have a little more control of by now. I dont want to have that kind of burden on the planet.

This is not to say that these products appeal to all women. From the many conversations Ive had about reusable alternatives with friends and family, these products often insight words such as disgusting, unhygienic and untrustworthy to name a few. While they may provide a solution to both financial and environmental problems created by periods, they have quite a way to come yet before being trusted and accepted by many women.

So, despite the abolition of the tampon tax, its clear there needs to be far more done in order to truly have any hope in ending period poverty. Scotland leads the way in their actions, but for change to happen we must work to de-stigmatise periods so that girls and women can progress on the path to gender equality.

Image: Josefin via Unsplash.

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Abolition of the tampon tax: does it go far enough? - Palatinate

Of all the States failures in the century since independence, there is at least one from which we might take reasonable pride. In the decades before the death penalty was abolished, an Irish government never managed to hire a native hangman. Nor did they even try, much. Instead, they continued to rely on English practitioners, most notably the uncle and nephew team of Tom and Albert Pierrepoint.

It was the latter who hanged Michael Manning, the Limerick rapist and murderer who in 1954 was the last person to be executed in the State. In the meantime, Pierrepoint jnr had also been involved in an abortive attempt to train in a local man. This was abandoned, eventually, after the candidate proved too squeamish and timid.

I owe that and other insights on the subject to Katherine Ebury, a senior lecturer in modern literature at the University of Sheffield, and her contribution to a new book of essays about Flann OBrien, entitled Gallows Humour.

Her piece on the authors relationship to the death penalty is the most literal interpretation of the collections title. The other chapters range widely in subject matter, including GAA violence, venereal disease, and a literary defence of alcohol abuse. But execution was a recurring theme in the real-life Brian ONolans fiction, especially his surreal novel The Third Policeman, where the narrator is condemned to death and a bicycle is hanged for the crimes of its owner.

Meanwhile, wearing his newspaper columnist hat, ONolan also wrote at least twice about a supposed actual meeting he had once with Tom Pierrepoint, in which they discussed the finer points of the grim trade.

As Myles na gCopaleen in a 1959 column for The Irish Times, he claimed they were drinking pints together and even named the Dublin pub where it happened, Fannings in Lincoln Place. He misspelt the hangmans name slightly, but the rest of the detail, including a flavour of Pierrepoints accent, sound plausible: Of Mr Pierpoint [sic] it could truly be said that milder-mannered man never scuttled ship nor slit a throat. He was most gentlemanly and had no hesitation whatever in discussing [] the nature of his craft, its skills and difficulties, and mildly deploring the squeamishness of certain Irish warders. The fee he was paid per neck that is the technical term was a mere twelve guineas, plus expenses. Our Treasury Department on one occasion, he told me, tried to settle for expenses only when Mr Pierpoint had arrived in Dublin to be told of a last-minute reprieve. Nao, he said, he would not ave that. The Treasury clerks paid up.

The problem with Myless tale is that Pierrepoint could hardly have drank so openly in a Dublin pub. He was himself a potential target for execution, of the IRA variety, and travelled under pseudonyms. Ebury thinks the conversation unlikely, though possible. Yet ONolan repeated his claim in print a few years later, when writing as George Knowall (he was himself a man of many pseudonyms) in the Nationalist and Leinster Times.

By now he had added Albert Pierrepoint to the meeting, while still misspelling the family name. And this time he had them broach the question of whether what they did was inhumane: Pierpoint [sic] told me that he personally did not accept the widely believed and indeed propagated view that death by hanging was instantaneous by fracture of the spinal column []. Many men he had hanged had shown many signs of life for up to ten minutes after the launch into eternity.

This was not a problem Ireland would henceforth need to fret about, because that column coincided with abolition of the death penalty in 1964, except for specified capital crimes, and in practice it would never be used again.

It was not just post-independence that we grew squeamishness about carrying out the act, by the way. In the same article, Knowall marvelled that within the longest memory Ireland has never had a native hangman. But in the early years of the Free State, this delicacy didnt extend to a reluctance about execution per se, or about having English visitors do the job for us.

For a time, even as the cult of martyrdom surrounding the executed 1916 leaders grew, men who had carried out one of those sentences were still in line for work here.

Ebury quotes a 2012 history of execution to the effect that John Ellis, who had hanged Roger Casement, remained on a State-approved list until his retirement due to mental illness in 1924. As late as 1934, perhaps even more shockingly, the governemnt hired a Robert Baxter who, as Elliss assistant, had helped despatch Casement from the gallows.

Go here to read the rest:

No Irish Need Apply Frank McNally on the national hang-up about capital punishment - The Irish Times