Category Archives: Government Oppression

The author of controversial race report has invoked Bob Marleys anti-oppression lyrics to deny that he attempted to glorify slavery.

Speaking at a panel event, The Sewell Report: Next Steps, hosted by rightwing thinktank Policy Exchange, Tony Sewell dismissed accusations of this as a vile misrepresentation .

In the 258-page document, Mr Sewell wrote: There is a new story about the Caribbean experience which speaks to the slave period not only being about profit and suffering but how culturally African people transformed themselves into a remodelled African/Britain, submitting that this should be taught in schools.

Referring to Sam Sharpe, an enslaved Jamaican man who led slave rebellions in the Baptist War slave rebellion of 1831-2, Mr Sewell said: What we want to do in this retelling, as it were, is to consider that that these people were not animals (as they were treated).

The data from Caribbean social historians tell a story of how these were real people who kept aspects of their African culture - religion, dress, dance, food preparation and managed to preserve inside that inhumanity their humanity. We wanted not only to speak of the inhumanity of slavery but how African people managed to retain their humanity and resist slavery

Mr Sewell, who chairs the government-backed Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (Cred), quipped that if he had a guitar on his person, he would perform Redemption Song by late reggae superstar Bob Marley, a song about overcoming adversity.

Opting to recite the lyrics, he said: Old pirates, yes they rob I, sold I to the merchant ships, minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit, but my hand was made strong by the hand of the almighty - we forward in this generation triumphantly.

Bob Marley is talking here about slavery, how African slaves retained the powerhouse of their imagination, that was the thing that the slavers couldnt take away (...). And this led to resistance, this led to us retaining our African culture right inside that horror of slavery, Mr Sewell added.

That is what I think Caribbean children need to know about that experience and that period. No glorification of slavery there, please. Its really telling a story of a people who are strong and it leads us right to where that culture is now.

The public culture of Britain is rich, diverse, a mosaic of different traditions. Each intricate segment tells its own unique story but step away and youll see that theyre each part of an overall chronicle which binds them together and gives them all a new meaning.

Mr. Sewell said that teaching these topics to children would also reflect the good and the evil of Empire and show penny by penny how that slave period built modern Britain.

The Policy Exchange panel featured director of British Future Sunder Katwala, journalist Sonia Sodha, epidemiologist Dr Raghib Ali and writer Ian Leslie.

No Black people, besides, Mr Sewell were involved in the discussion.

I do think its a shame that there isnt another Black person on the panel to respond to the report, given that Black people face some of the worse racial disparities in the UK, Ms Sodha pointed out.

The panel was chaired by David Goodhart who is Head of Demography, Immigration and Integration at Policy Exchange and has, he once said, grown accustomed to being accused of being a racist by his own children.

Mr Goodhart has a history of controversial remarks including describing concerns of systemic racism in the UK as statistically naive, supporting the Home Offices now-rebranded Hostile Environment policies which led to the Windrush scandal and defending white self-interest.

Last year, he was selected as a commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) - a body that Cred wants the government to grant more powers to.

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Author of controversial race report invokes Bob Marleys anti-oppression lyrics to defend slavery remarks - The Independent

(Editors Note: This article is part of a Just Securityseries on the Feb. 1, 2021 coup in Myanmar. The series brings together local and expert voices on the coup and its broader context. The series is a collaboration between Just Securityand theInternational Human Rights Clinicat Harvard Law School).

When protestors refuse to listen to our orders to disperse, we shoot at the protestors in accordance with the law.

These are the chilling words of a Tatmadaw soldier. Unfortunately, they are not isolated ones, and they show how the idea of law has been perverted to justify both the Feb. 1, 2021 military coup and the deplorable violence that has followed. The word law (or upaday in Burmese) has long been a tenuous concept in Myanmar. After decades living under a military dictatorship, in which laws were used as tools of oppression and could change at the whim of those in power, the people of Myanmar have, understandably, little trust in law. The recent actions of Min Aung Hlaing and the current junta have only further affirmed this perception. The concept of law and the related idea of the rule of law have been warped and manipulated by soldiers and police officers, many of whom believe they are enforcing the law to uphold order when they crack down on protests against the coup.

At a recent military tribunal, the law was weaponized as a tool to instill fear by issuing unappealable death penalty sentences to 19 young protestors for one soldiers death even though there were no eye witnesses to the alleged crime. In telling contrast, since early February, nearly 800 unarmed civilians have been killed at the hands of Tatmadaw. It is difficult to imagine a version of Myanmar further away from rule of law than this one. There instead needs to be an all-out effort to strengthen the true meaning of the rule of law in Myanmar by both returning the country to civilian rule and undertaking constitutional reforms to enshrine democratic rights instead of using the military-drafted 2008 Constitution as a tool protecting military might.

In Accordance with the Law

Phrases like in accordance with the law or in accordance with democracy have frequently been used by Tatmadaw leadership to justify their illegitimate coup. Major General Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for the ruling military council, has said:

We will abide by laws that do not supersede the Constitution. Many laws have to be taken into consideration in executing political processes. We will not do anything that is not in accord with the law.Police and other security personnel are carrying out their responsibilities in accordance with their manuals.

When a reporter asked whether the junta planned to arrest reporters, Zaw Min Tun continued: All I can say it we will act according to the law. I will not say we will arrest nor not arrest someone. But we will act according to the law as necessary. These empty claims are then parroted back by soldiers as they terrorize civilians across the country.

Since 1962, Myanmars successive dictators have used the military as the commander-in-chiefs personal army while the courts have been used to protect that army from any serious accountability. To the extent there has been any court action, the leniency of sentences only helps show the special treatment afforded the military. In one high-profile example, soldiers who massacred Rohingya civilians were released after less than a year of imprisonment, while journalists reporting on the atrocities have spent more time in jail than the perpetrators.

Todays military junta is attempting to operate the same way, believing it is above the law, changing laws to suit their needs, and suppressing human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and anyone daring to challenge them. All of this has led to injustice and pervasive lawlessness whereby Tatmadaw soldiers are acting as if they can do what they please in the name of upholding an ill-defined concept of the law while the gloss of legality is used to silence any and all forms of dissent.

For instance, the military added new restrictions in February to the existing telecommunications law to legalize military interception of all communications, including text messages and social media. The military also amended the code of Criminal Procedure by adding a new section 505(A) to enable the arrest of anyone expressing dissent about the coup or the military and to render such criticism, whether online or public protest, a criminal offense subject to imprisonment. Hundreds of activists including celebrities have been arrested without warrant under 505(A) since its adoption on Feb. 16, 2021.

Since Feb. 1, soldiers and police can march into any household to search and seize anything or anyone at will without a warrant. Arbitrary detentions happen daily; anyone can be held by military or police for any length of time without reason or charges. Security forces searching homes and businesses have been reported stealing cash and valuables including rice, cooking oil, sunglasses, shoes, and smartphones while holding residents, including children, at gunpoint. In one instance, security forces broke into a phone shop to steal smartphones; the shop owner stated that he did not report the incident because reporting a crime committed by security forces would land the person who reported it in jail. Likewise, unarmed civilians waiting at bus-stops have been kidnapped by police for ransom of 300,000 kyat (~USD 200) to be released. Civilians are left wondering who to call to report violence and theft when it is the authorities attacking and robbing them. With the exception of desertion, misconduct by security forces has again become acceptable behavior in accordance with the law at least in the eyes of military senior leadership.

Many elected representatives and civil society leaders are now in hiding, hunted by the military and police in the name of the law. Security forces have been committing extrajudicial killings of dissidents. Representatives from the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party that won a landslide majority of democratic votes, have been arrested, tortured, and killed.

Under this same guise of upholding the law, soldiers have met peaceful protests with brute force and indiscriminately shooting, wounding protestors and bystanders alike. Sexual abuse of women protesters has also been well documented by womens organizations in Myanmar. Journalists reporting on gross human rights violations have been arrested and the licenses of independent media have been revoked in the name of keeping peace.

The juntas declaration of martial law in Hlaing Tharyar, Shwepyithar, South Dagon, North Dagon, Dagon Seikkan and North Okkalapa townships in Yangon and parts of Mandalay townships only increased the militarys control and systemic violence. Such developments are terrifying. Under the Tatmadaws martial law, a military tribunal can issue an unappealable death penalty to anyone living in these townshipsprotestors, activists, and journalists included who is accused of committing one of 23 offenses, which range from sedition and treason to spreading false news, drug abuse, and vandalism, all in accordance with the law without any civilian oversight. These military tribunals can also impose indefinite jail sentences, hard labor, and other extreme punishments for the same offenses.

The Constitutional Roots of Lawlessness and a Response to Uproot that Lawlessness

The Tatmadaws sheer domestic might and tight control over its ranks enable it to commit even flagrant violations of the law and the Constitution without consequences. Military forces enjoy vast legal impunity under the military-drafted 2008 Constitution: Article 445 of Chapter 14 grants blanket immunity to members of the military government, protecting them from legal accountability.

But that position has now been challenged. The Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), a political body formed by democratically elected members of Myanmars parliament to challenge the Tatmadaws illegitimate claims to power, publicly voided the 2008 Constitution on Mar. 31, 2021 and put forward an interim Federal Democracy Charter to replace it. Other political actors have also supported the CRPHs position. The CRPH and others argue that the 2008 Constitution already widely considered to be an illegitimate tool of military control before the coup was rendered functionally obsolete when the Tatmadaw violated the documents core purpose and disrupted the nations democratic processes to seize control.

On Apr. 16, 2021, the CRPH announced a further step in the response to lawlessness the formation of the National Unity Government (NUG). The NUG cabinet includes the lawmakers elected in the 2020 election, members of the ethnic nationality groups, and key figures in the anti-coup protest movement. The NUG with is wide representation of the people of Myanmar stands in striking contrast with the militarys State Administration Council.

The Path Ahead: Achieving Genuine Rule of Law

There are many ways the junta can be pressured. The Civil Disobedience Movement has made great strides in weakening the militarys control over the State alreadybut the international community also has a key role to play in any successful effort to establish lasting democracy in Myanmar. Targeted sanctions at the bilateral and multilateral level have the potential to deprive the military of essential economic resources. A global arms embargo is also necessary to prevent the Tatmadaw from obtaining additional weapons that have been and will be used to oppress the people of Myanmar. A global jet-fuel embargo is needed to ground the militarys jet fighters from being able to conduct airstrikes against civilians.

In addition, the international community has an ongoing role to play in seeking accountability for past and current gross violations of human rights in Myanmar. There are already proceedings underway at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and investigations at International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking to hold Myanmar accountable for violations against ethnic minorities. However, the current ICJ case is limited only to violations of the Genocide Convention and the ICC investigation is limited to atrocities committed against Rohingya Muslims relating to illegitimate forced displacement to Bangladesh. As the last three months have made painfully clear, the Tatmadaw has violated the human rights of civilians across the country, and international accountability must capture the full gamut of these crimes. The international community must ensure accountability at the highest levels of the military, but taking action against the top brass alone is not enough. Perpetrators from the officer corps and foot soldiers should also be held accountable.

In tandem with international accountability processes, the State of Myanmar will need to be rebuilt, including creating an impartial legal system for the country. As part of this process, the U.N. and international community must recognize the NUG as the legitimate government representing the people of Myanmar. It is fundamentally necessary that the rebuilding process has a strong constitutional foundation, and with support, the NUG can begin that process.

Because Myanmar has had such a dubious relationship to the law for over fifty years, there is a need for international assistance from constitutional law experts. Through input from constitutional law scholars, human rights lawyers, and other brilliant legal minds, Myanmar can design a constitution of its own that protects the people. Such a constitution would establish a federal democracy with equal rights for all people of Myanmar, guarantee citizenship for all ethnic and religious communities, and declare an end to military impunity. Protecting civic space and rebuilding the legal system to serve as an essential check on those in power will also be crucial. Within a functioning domestic legal system, impartial courts could eventually investigate and prosecute security forces internally, further building trust in the judiciary and leaving military impunity firmly in the past.

With these broad reforms in place, the cultural shift toward genuine rule of law could finally begin in earnest. International legal organizations, institutions and scholars could work with legal educators in Myanmar to ensure access to high quality legal education and produce well trained lawyers and advocates. Encouraging young students to critically engage with the law would start to shift public perception of the law as a tool of enshrining peoples rights rather than a tool of the powerful.

For decades, the sight of men in uniform has sent fear down the spine for the general public, and instead of houses of justice, courtrooms have been places of persecution of innocent civilians and political activists. Our hope is for a future where those in uniform are not to be feared but instead serve and protect every citizen by upholding an impartial rule of law for all of Myanmar and its people.

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Beyond the Coup in Myanmar: In Accordance with the Law How the Military Perverts Rule of Law to Oppress Civilians - Just Security

The Australian government has left the door open to toughening up the nations laws against modern slavery amid concerns about human rights abuses in Chinas Xinjiang region.

Officials also revealed at a Senate hearing on Tuesday that the government was in regular discussions with all China-facing businesses and had used those conversations to highlight the risks of forced labour in supply chains from Xinjiang.

Uyghur community representatives told the same hearing Australia had been too slow to respond to severe oppression and atrocities in the region, possibly because the government was afraid of facing further trade sanctions from Beijing, which denies the accusations.

British MPs voted last week to declare that China was committing genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, following the passage of similar motions in the Canadian and Dutch parliaments and in line with the US governments position.

The Australian government signalled it would consider tighter restrictions as part of a forthcoming review of the Modern Slavery Act, which critics say is weak because it doesnt carry fines for breaches.

The legislation that passed the parliament in 2018 is limited in its scope, with only Australias biggest companies those with annual revenue of more than $100m required to submit annual statements on the steps they are taking to address modern slavery in their supply chains and operations.

Vanessa Holben, an Australian Border Force group manager, said the government would review the law next year to ensure it is delivering a targeted, effective response.

The government will continue to monitor reports of forced labour globally, including in Xinjiang, and assess Australias policy settings and engage with stakeholders and partners with a view to supporting international efforts to reduce the risk of modern slavery, including forced labour, in Australias supply chains, she said.

The Senates foreign affairs, defence and trade legislation committee is investigating a bill proposed by the independent senator Rex Patrick, which would prohibit the importation into Australia of goods from Xinjiang as well as goods from other parts of China that are produced by using forced labour.

But Holben pushed back at the sweeping proposal, saying Patricks bill conflates distinct policy matters and does not take into account the practicalities of implementation. She questioned the suggestion that it was possible to identify goods produced by forced labour or the regional and provincial origins.

Holben said the Australian government was deeply concerned about reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang, noting the foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, had described the situation as amongst the worlds most egregious human rights abuses.

Senators asked officials why the Australian government had not yet joined the UK, US and Canada in issuing written advice to the corporate sector on the risk of doing business with suppliers in Xinjiang.

Alice Cawte, an acting first assistant secretary at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the government was in regular discussions with firms that traded with China and there can be no doubt that the businesses we speak to are aware of the Australian governments concerns.

No, we dont have written advisories but we have had companies come to us and we tell them of our concerns about human rights and supply chain integrity in terms of forced labour and other issues in China and in Xinjiang, Cawte said.

Patrick raised concern that the government had not examined in detail a US government-issued blacklist of companies, to see if any Australian companies were working with those suppliers or importers. He contended the government was sitting on its hands.

The president of the Australian Uyghur Tangritagh Womens Association, Ramilla Chanisheff, called for urgent action, saying as a community leader she was constantly reminded of the atrocities occurring to the Uyghurs and other Turkic people living in East Turkestan, also known as Xinjiang, China.

As Uyghur Australians, we have all become activists, she told the Senate committee.

Without training or guidance we are finding our path to be the voices and faces of the millions who are being held in camps and/or living under severe oppression in China.

Chanisheff said Uyghurs were held in secure compounds, working extremely long hours and under constant surveillance and with political indoctrination as part of their daily routine.

They have limited or no communications with their families, mothers have been separated from their babies and families have been torn apart, she told senators.

Every single Uyghur in Australia have family members and/or friends in these concentration and/or labour camps.

Australia needed to coordinate its actions with like-minded countries, because it had been slapped with a lot of tariffs for calling for an independent inquiry into Covid-19 without public backing from other partners, Chanisheff said.

She was hopeful that a united international effort would persuade China to back down a little bit and open its doors and hopefully, hopefully let these people out from these concentration camps and let them live a dignified and humane life.

We are already falling behind: people are disappearing, are dying and we need to take action, Chanisheff said.

Be Slavery Free, a coalition of anti-slavery campaigners, said consumers deserved to know when imported goods had been made with forced labour.

Our values need to be infused in our trading relationships, Carolyn Kitto, the co-director of Be Slavery Free, said.

The Chinese ambassador, Cheng Jingye, has warned Australia against following its counterparts in sanctioning officials over an issue he considered disinformation, saying Beijing would not swallow the bitter pill of interference in its internal affairs and would respond in kind.

During questioning by Australian journalists at an event organised by the Chinese embassy earlier this month, officials in Xinjiang said the estimate that at least 1 million Uyghurs and members of other minority groups were in concentration camps was a fabrication but declined several requests to reveal a current figure.

The authorities in the region characterise the sites as vocational education and training centres and insist there are no concentration camps but say they have been cracking down on alleged terrorists and separatists.

Link:

Australia examines modern slavery laws amid concerns over products linked to Uyghur abuse - The Guardian

Joyce Xi, Opinion contributor Published 7:00 a.m. ET April 27, 2021 | Updated 5:07 p.m. ET April 27, 2021

Hate crimes are on the rise against communities of color. In 2019, they reached their highest level in more than a decade. Heres why. USA TODAY

My dads wrongful prosecution is emblematic of anti-Asian violence by the U.S. government.

In response to horrific attacks against Asian Americans across the country, the Biden administration has announced a new initiative to combat anti-Asian violence, xenophobiaand bias. Days later, a federal court denied my family recourse for the anti-Asian violence and xenophobia the Obama-Biden administration subjected us to several years ago, when the Justice Department and FBI falsely accused my father of sending sensitive technology to China and treated him as a Chinese spy.

Mainstream narratives around anti-Asian violence have often overlooked a simple fact: The same federal government that recently expressed sympathy for Asian American communities has long perpetuated harm against our communities, and continues to do so.

As the country moves from righteous outrage toward the longer-term work of protecting our communities, we must also look at the bigger picture. Truly combating anti-Asian racism will require addressing the governments role in it.

In 2015, the FBI raided my familys home one morning, woke us up at gunpointand dragged my dad,Xiaoxing Xi, away in handcuffs in front of my mom, sisterand me. We were confused and terrified. Later, we found out that the Justice Department was accusing my father of illegally sending sensitive technology to China. They threatened him with 80 years in prison and $1 million in fines.

After the Justice Department publicized its charges against my father, newscasters surrounded our home and tried to film through windows to get a glimpse of our family. The FBI rummaged through all our belongings and carried off electronics and documents containing many private details of our lives. For months, we lived in fear of FBI intimidation and surveillance. We worried about our safety in public, given that my dads face was plastered all over the news. My dad was unable to work, and his reputation was shattered.

The governments accusations were entirely false, and based on emails about academic collaboration between my dad and his colleagues that had nothing to do with the technology the government claimed. Eventually, the Justice Department dropped the case, but not before leaving us traumatized and saddled with enormous legal fees. To this day, we carry many scars from our experience. The government has never explained why it got things so wrong.

Xiaoxing Xi in Washington on Sept. 15, 2015.(Photo: Saul Loeb, AFP/Getty Images)

These were anti-Asian acts at the hands of the U.S. government. My dad, an American physics professor, is nothing close to a spy. He does not even work on sensitive research. Yet prosecutors recklessly charged him with crimesbased on his Chinese heritage, as part of a broader effort to crack down on China and its supposed spies. Without legitimate evidence, the government was able to deploy its powerful national security apparatus against us, including intrusive and secretive surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In the process, it upended a family. We pursued a civil rights lawsuit to seek some semblance of justice, but now our legal claims for damages have been dismissed.

The unjust prosecution of my father was not an isolated incident, but one of several targeting Chinese American scientists. People like Wen Ho Lee and Sherry Chen, among others, have been painted as spies and had their lives turned upside down, only to have their cases dropped by the government.

Under Donald Trump, this problem grew more pernicious. FBI Director Christopher Wray publicly doubled down, casting students and researchers of Chinese descent as potential spies and stating that the FBI views China not just a whole-of-government threatbut a whole-of-society threat, requiring a whole-of-society response. Trumps Justice Department launched the China Initiative in 2018 to target these supposed spies. Many more individuals and families have already been impacted.

The Biden administration has continued this initiative, despite civil rights groups calls to end it.

Beijing's oppression: Why is Chinese leader Xi Jinping so afraid of Hong Kong and Jimmy Lai?

While there are legitimate concerns regarding the Chinese government, there is a major human cost to casting suspicion on entire communities based on national origin. The FBIs record of racial, ethnicand religious profiling has left a devastating trail, including in Muslim, Blackand Indigenouscommunities. As anti-Asian particularly anti-China sentiment and bias continueto grow, I fear the U.S. government will cause many more people to experience what my family did, especially if there is no opportunity to challenge the governments wrongdoing in court.

Joyce Xi in San Francisco in December 2018.(Photo: Family handout)

The governments scapegoating of people like my father is part of a broader history of anti-Asian violence and xenophobia. Asian communities in America have long been viewed as perpetual foreigners and national security threats, dating to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Act of 1917, which barred people from China and the Asia-Pacific region from immigrating to the United States for decades.

During World War II, the government infamously incarcerated 120,000 Japanese Americans in the name of national security. The United States has promoted wars and militarization in places like the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodiaand Laos that have dehumanized Asian people in the public imagination, and that have killed, traumatizedand displaced many.

Now, the U.S. government is deporting Southeast Asian refugees who fled these wars. After 9/11, law enforcement vastly expanded its surveillance, harassmentand criminalization of Muslim, Araband South Asian communities, discriminating against them in the name of national security. And when COVID-19 hit, Trump resorted to blatant racism, calling it the China virus and kung flu.

Against this backdrop, countless Asians in America have been subject to violence and vitriol. The recent anti-Asian attacks have various causes, but with the governments own xenophobic actions and rhetoric, it is no surprise these assaults on our communities have been widespread.

Like many, I worry for myself, friendsand family amidst these hyper-visible attacks. But I take no comfort in the federal government saying it will protect Asian Americans by increasing the power of the very agencies that helped create conditions for violence. To meaningfully address anti-Asian violence, the U.S. government must end its own racist policies and account for past wrongdoing. And my family will be appealing the courts dismissal of our claims. We will continue to fight to end racialized targeting of our communities.

Joyce Xi is the daughter of Xiaoxing Xi, a Chinese American scientist who was wrongfully prosecuted by the U.S. government.

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The FBI wrongly accused my father of spying for China. Government has a role in anti-Asian violence. - USA TODAY

The president also addressed accusations of persecution on religious grounds.

president.gov.ua

President Volodymyr Zelensky has responded to the allegations Russian leader Vladimir Putin voiced during his annual Address to the Federation Assembly of the alleged oppression of the Russian language in Ukraine.

"Historically, people are really educated and speak different languages fluently. Now there's a new generation, and all kids speak excellent English, better than our generation. Everyone knows Russian, but we remember that our state language is Ukrainian. I believe this [allegation] is a continuation of the narrative claiming the oppression of Russian speakers. I don't see any problem here," the president said, speaking at a briefing on the site of the ISF-2 dry-type spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Chornobyl, an UNIAN correspondent reports.

Read alsoPutin responds to Zelensky's offer to meet in DonbasRegarding church issues, Zelensky noted that in Ukraine, the church is separated from government.

"I've never used church leaders to influence the population in terms of electoral support and so on. They are absolutely free here, and our people are free, so people go to whatever church they choose. This is a right thing, too," Zelensky emphasized.

However, the president added, if he gets to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and these issues come up, he is ready to discuss them.

"But even if these issues are brought up at the meeting, if it does take place, then please, we will discuss this. I don't see any problem with that," Zelensky summed up.

Translation: Yevgeny Matyushenko

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Zelensky responds to Putin's allegations of "oppression" of Russian speakers - UNIAN

The Cipher BriefsAcademic Incubatorpartners with national security-focused programs from colleges and Universities across the country share the work of the next generation of national security leaders.

Joshua Stone is a U.S.-China relations specialist and Ph.D. Political Science student with the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. His research concentration centers on U.S.-China security relations, U.S. foreign policy toward China, and methods of coercion in international affairs. Stone is a combat veteran of the United States Army.

ACADEMIC INCUBATOR Chinas great power status has ebbed and flowed over the centuries. Its last hegemon, the Qing Dynasty, lost its Mandate of Heaven and collapsed in 1911 as resentment mounted over the imperial courts failures to meet domestic and foreign challenges, creating a political, ideological, and security vacuum in China.

In the 20th century, China attempted to fill these vacuums that had once led the country into turmoil. Now, China is looking outward to ensure its survival and restore its preeminence. International scholars need not speculate whether Chinas rise to great power status will be peaceful: its past and present are prologue. Nor should nations misperceive the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) position. Indications of violence by the CCP at home and the regimes tendency to lash out abroad signal a desire to subvert East Asias institutions and stability. The CCP is interested in primacy, not peace. The United States must lead an international coalition to push China back from coercion to compliance. American passivity will prove fatal to the liberal order.

Today, many actors across East Asia benefit from a hub-and-spoke system with the United States at its center, informing the conduct of the regions affairs in favor of cooperation and absolute gains. China aims to replace Washington as the hegemon of this system; to reform this status quo in favor of a hierarchy with China at the top feeding its interests to the detriment of others. Chinas cyber espionage activities, Beijings actions against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang, the CCPs walled-ff response to COVID-19, and its territorial aggrandizement on land and sea demonstrate its intentions.

No Beijing-led misinformation campaign can distract from the evidence that China is on the offensive abroad. It has violated the territorial sovereignty of India, Taiwan, and other neighbors. Intellectual property theft and Chinas foreign investment practices with regional actors demonstrate its pursuit of relative gains. Economic stratagies that pull developing nations across Asia into Chinas sphere of influence with promises of mutual prosperity come with coercive debt-traps to enhance its position over others. Chinas recent expansionary preferences do not reflect the adoption of a good neighbor policy. They signal an approach to foreign affairs consistent with offensive realism. China is maximizing military capabilities for primacy in the international system, while at the same time using economic rewards in the form of development initiatives to pacify its neighbors concerns about mounting security threats.

If the present picture of Chinas moves in the region are still insufficient indicators of its aggressive intentions, perhaps East Asias recent history provides evidence of a turbulent future. The U.S. strategy to contain perceived communist dominoes from falling across East Asia after the Second World War culminated with conflict in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Though the United States is responsible for the many just and unjust actions it took to establish a new order in East Asia, the U.S. supplanted a hierarchical system with a more favorable liberal order that now breeds cooperation across the regionprimarily for the purpose of predictability to prevent conflict. Should China continue attempting to upend this status quo, regional actors, including China, will suffer from loss of trade, investment, and security.

The United States cannot sit idly by under these circumstances, nor forgo its role in providing stability in East Asia. China, like its neighbors, continues to benefit tremendously from transfers of industrial knowledge from one leading economy to laggards downstream seeking development and take-off. Moreover, Chinas neighbors are no longer kowtowing members to dynastic rule or some disparate community of nations throwing off shackles of colonialism following the Second World War. Hierarchy across East Asia evokes memories of days not romanticized over. Like China before them, India, Singapore, South Korea, Vietnam, and others will preserve at any cost the gains of a long-fought struggle to reclaim their territorial and administrative autonomy.

The Cipher Brief is proud to present an all-virtualInternational Summit. Join us for three days of expert-led sessions on China, western alliances, Intelligence, Space, and emerging technologies. Registration isfreefor Cipher Brief members.See how$10/monthbrings the most experienced national security experts to your inbox.

In response to the CCPs aggression the United States should lead Southeast Asian nations, India, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others to decouple from China in areas of manufacturing and trade. Consequences are important in a rule-based order. Crafting economic coalitions of the willing to isolate China, such as reviving negotiations with Pacific Rim countries over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, will make clear the benefits cooperation has afforded China.

Decoupling from China will in turn spur domestic dissatisfaction in China that can prompt reforms. The CCP, like other authoritarian regimes remains hyper-vigilant of public support because of its tactics of oppression and its suppression of civic participation. Citizens of China have grown accustomed to the regional status quo built by cooperation. As economic growth in China slows domestic dissatisfaction will rise, forcing the CCP to oscillate from its use of coercion back toward a posture of compliance. This is how the regime worked night and day to ensure its survival in the aftermath of Tiananmen, the Ladakh Standoff, and its fait accompli aggrandizement after construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea.

Furthermore, one of Chinas greatest domestic challenges is shifting its export-led growth model to one of import led-growth. Sub-national industrial transfer is currently underway to achieve this goal, as industries along Chinas coast are being relocated to its interior to make room for emerging service economies in places like Shanghai, Shenzhen, and elsewhere. The CCPs legitimacy hinges largely on the success of this enterprise, and they need the outside world to achieve it. When the United States helps markets to close doors to China by finding comparative advantages in trade and manufacturing elsewhere, business elites in China will respond. Unlike the disaffected poor who have nowhere else to go, self-inflicted wounds that affect the bottom line and pocketbooks of Chinas business class will prompt capital-flight, which will undermine GDP growth, forcing the regime to reform in ways amenable to responsible cooperation in the region.

The United States must lead an international coalition to push China back from coercion toward compliance. Reacting to China ex post facto allows Beijing to continue to move the goal posts. Therefore, a persistent pacification program must be adopted: The United States should marshal an international response to frame Chinas hostilities as violations of sovereignty, incentivize economic partnerships with dignity, and maintain a fixed posture of military presence patrols in East Asia to induce China to comply with norms of responsible behavior in the liberal order. The question of whether Chinas transition to great power status will be peaceful has been answered. Chinas rise has left in its wake all the evidence we need. It is no longer a matter of if but when China will be hostile. Contending with that hostility means pulling on all available levers to push the CCP back from coercion to compliance.

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Contending with China's Rise to Great Power Status - The Cipher Brief

If youre listening to what others are talking about, my mother said the other day, and you get excited or worked up and start scratching your hands, theyll fire you.

The them in question is the management at my local Tim Hortons. After a year-and-a-half of job searching and applying, Im finally an actual working 17-year-old woman. However, as mothers often do, mine had some reservations, including me unknowingly stimming in the workplace. Because self-stimulatory behavior is a common characteristic of being autistic, Tim Hortons cant legally fire me on that account, contrary to my moms belief. The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is the reason for preventing this discrimination. Still, on a local level for the disability community, the bare minimum required isnt supportive enough.

According to the ADA government site, The Americans With Disabilities Act Of 1990 prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation, and telecommunications. It also applies to the United States Congress. Despite this, the ADA can only realistically be applicable if theres enough funding to back it up.

As an Ohio citizen and neurologically disabled resident myself, Ive been able to receive benefits from my countys Board Of Developmental Disabilities for a few years now. One of these benefits is $600 per year of Family Service Support (FSS), which can be spent for approved activities, services, and events. This is about a third less than the FSS offered from Franklin County, the largest county in the state, with $2,000 per year. This may seem like a lot at first, but expenses can add up quickly, especially when it comes to mental health counseling or large conferences.

Ive been running into this problem more recently with my 18th birthday coming up in just a few months and different leadership conferences Ive always wanted to attend before I go to college. Lets be blunt here: disability is a varying degree of expensive, anywhere from $1,000 to $7,000 depending on the condition. If you have been raised in poverty or have a low-paying job, where you live doesnt only determine what opportunities are available to you as a disabled person, but also whether you can even financially afford those opportunities. This is a huge issue because most counties nationwide only offer support based on the county population instead of the disabled county population. Suppose there are more disabled people in a smaller county than there are in a larger county. In that case, the larger county will still get more attention and funding from the state budget regardless of the community who needs that the most.

Its important to know that this inequality wasnt unanimously decided by some greedy politicians operating in a shadowy government building. Similar to sexism and racism, this is due to ableism, a systemic issue. One thing to note from the past year is that systemic issues arent just light switches you can flick on and off; theyre more like weeds, deeply rooted and invasive. These deep roots grow to internalized ableism, the invasive self-oppression of non-disabled people over disabled people. From personal experience, I can tell you that internalized ableism strongly impacts your mental well-being, in addition to your perception of others in the disability community. In my situation, with every setback my mom finds, she dives head-first into whatever research she could find, regardless of its accuracy.

Im not extremely autistic, I used to think when I was approaching middle school, Im high-functioning. Im a savant. Im better, smarter, and more mature than those other disabled kids. Yet, I still had an Individualized Education Plan (also known as an IEP), which many disabled students across the country have when theyre in K-12 schooling. The dichotomy I was performing between heresy and hierarchy, between capability and codependency, between neurodivergent and normal was more exhausting than I wanted to admit.

This toxic mindset has bred competition, elitism, and overall division in my life and plenty of others. Further accelerating this division is societal attitudes towards disability, which has been magnified significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This past year has been informed by ableism, disability writer and keynote speaker Imani Barbarin wrote in a recent Instagram post. So even now, as I am vaccinated, it feels hollow. This is no time to celebrate the absolute rot that is society. It never had to be this bad. None of it. Thousands of disabled people died because of peoples selfishness.

All of these factors compound into a cycle of lacking disabled representation in local governments. Inadequate state funding creates barriers (sometimes literally) of entry into political arenas, causing disabled people not to advocate against those blockades because of internalized ableism. They wont feel like they should need anything since theyre in a better situation than someone else. When this occurs, it fuels pre-existing societal attitudes toward disability by a lack of government representation. The cycle repeats itself.

This dilemma is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on, but Ill leave you with this: educate yourself and advocate for change, whether through a state senator or a dean of students. If youre disabled, this is a step towards making a place for others like you in your local community. If youre an ally, this is a step towards being part of the solution.

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How the Americans with Disabilities Act Impacts Me In Real Life - YR Media

Justin Welbys suggestion corrupt politicians should be forgiven misses the need for reparations in Christian teaching, explains Reverend Joe Haward

There is a danger that the sheer weight and regularity of political corruption we are currently witnessing in the UK will begin to desensitise us to its reality.

Day after day, week after week, story after story emerges of cronyism, dodgy contracts, and lobbying scandals. Such is the regularity of these revelations it can leave us exhausted with frustration, numb to its ongoing impact.

But it is because of this avalanche of corruption that we must continue to hold the powerful to account never letting up, never looking away until justice rolls forth like a mighty river.

It is therefore discouraging that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, in an interview for the BBCs Political Thinking podcast, would seek to downplay the scale and seriousness of the corruption that is being witnessed within UK politics right now.

In the interview, Welby rightly contests that the public must hold politicians to standards whilst at the same time not despairing. He also says that its not right to help out your chums or lobby inappropriately. But then goes on to say that political standards are better now than they ever have been and lets not pretend that politicians are worse; if anything theyre better.

Welby argues against nostalgic ideas of what politics used to be like, asking: Isnt this the golden age myth syndrome? Churchill was given huge amounts of money by his mates. He helped people out, they helped him out. Its how politics works.

He went on to say that, if standards are raised, you need to have a strong ethic of forgiveness, and compassion, and understanding. Youve got to be able to forgive when people mess up.

What is remarkable about this interview is Welbys lack of insight (or deliberate denial) into the political reality we are faced with here in the UK. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have been used by the Government to bypass parliamentary democracy and line the pockets of colleagues and friends with billions of pounds of public money. Every single day they lie and deceive in plain sight, overflowing with arrogance because they know they can get away with it as the mainstream media and political opposition engage in distraction and denial.

Welbys moral and ethical duty, as someone in a position of power and influence, is to declare that political standards are not better that there appears to be widespread corruption throughout the Government. To say its how politics works is an abdication of moral duty, remaining silent on the mendacity oozing out of every pore within the corridors of power.

Forgiveness is foundational to the teachings of Jesus. Yet his call to forgive is not a call to ignore injustice.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus named the systems, and the people within those systems, that perpetrated violence to others. To those in power he said: Alas (woe) for you scribes and Pharisees, charlatans, because you tithe and have neglected mercy Alas for you scribes and Pharisees, charlatans, because you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear lovely, but within are filled with the bones of the dead.

Forgiveness demands that the truth is brought into the light for all to see so that justice can prevail. Forgiveness does not mean that there are no consequences to actions. Justice means to put things right. Sometimes that means experiencing the reality of what we have done.

Jesus was always on the side of the outcast and vulnerable, defending them against the rich and the powerful and the systems of oppression that stripped them of their humanity. That is not to say that he hated those in power. Indeed, it was quite the opposite: love alone has the power to bring transformation and justice. Love does not ignore the suffering of our fellow humanity but seeks ways to relieve such suffering and implement transformational actions, out of words of change.

When Jesus famously told those under oppression to turn the other cheek, he was not saying accept your lot and be trampled on. Jesus told his listeners that whosoever strikes you upon the right cheek, turn to him the other as well. In the right-handed culture of Jesus time, a strike on the right cheek would require a back of the hand slap, the normal way those in power admonished inferiors.

Who is Jesus audience? Victims and the powerless, those who knew what such a strike meant. So why did he counsel them to turn the other cheek? Because this action robs the oppressor of their power to humiliate. To strike the left cheek would require a fist or open palm, an action of equals in that time. In effect, Jesus was saying try again, your first blow failed to humiliate me and I deny you your power to do it again. I am a human, just like you. It is non-violent subversion against those in power.

Justin Welby must use his position to speak out against the reasons why people are suffering and suggest ways to shame those in power. As the German pastor and Nazi resistor Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said: Christianity has adjusted itself much too easily to the worship of power. It should take a much more definite a stand for the weak than to consider the potential moral right of the strong.

Reverend Joe Haward is a community and business chaplain

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Archbishop of Fantasy: Political Corruption and the Ethic of Forgiveness Byline Times - Byline Times

Governmental and journalistic propagandists for journalists who take this selective approach to oppression are no better than propagandists can see that they are open to the charge of hypocrisy. People ask them how come that the mass incarceration, disappearances and torture suffered by the Kashmiris is so different from similar draconian punishments inflicted on the Uighurs?

This is a very reasonable question, but propagandists have developed two lines of defence against it. The first is to claim that whoever asks what about Kashmir or Yemen is fostering whataboutism, culpably diverting attention from crimes committed against the Uighurs and Syrian civilians. The nonsensical assumption here is that denouncing atrocities and oppression in once country precludes one from denouncing them in another.

The real purpose of this gambit from the point of view of those waging information wars is to impose a convenient silence over wrongdoings by our side while focusing exclusively on theirs.

The second line of defence, used to avoid comparison between the crimes committed by ourselves and our friends and those of our enemies, is to demonise the latter so thoroughly that no equivalence between the two is allowed. Such demonisation sometimes called monsterisation is so effective because it denies the other side a hearing and means that they are automatically disbelieved. In the 1990s, I used to write with copious evidence that UN sanctions against Iraq were killing thousands of children every month. But nobody paid any attention because sanctions were supposedly directed against Saddam Hussein though they did him no harm and he was known to be the epitome of evil. The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was justified by claiming that Saddam possessed WMD and anybody who suggested that the evidence for this was dubious could be smeared as a secret sympathiser with the Iraqi dictator.

Simple-minded as these PR tactics might be, but they have been repeatedly shown to be highly effective. One reason why they work is that people would like to imagine that conflicts are struggles between white hats and black hats, angels and demons. Another reason is that this delusion is fostered enthusiastically by parts of the media, who generally goes along with a government-inspired news agenda.

With President Joe Biden seeking to rebuild the international image of the US as the home of freedom and democracy in the wake of the Donald Trump presidency, we are back to these classic information strategies. For America to bounce back unsullied in the eyes of the world, it is essential to portray Trump, with his embrace of autocrats and denunciation of everybody he disliked as a terrorist, as an aberration in American history.

Yet much of the planets population will have watched the film of Derek Chauvin slowly asphyxiate George Floyd and may not look at America in quite the same light as before, despite the guilty verdict in Minneapolis this week.

Asked about the impact of that verdict internationally, the US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that America needed to promote and defend justice at home if it was to credibly claim to be doing the same abroad. But he dismissed as whataboutism and unacceptable moral equivalence the suggestion that US protests about the jailing and mistreatment of Alexei Navalny in Russia and Chinas actions in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, was being undermined by the fact that the US holds 2.4 million of its citizens in prison, one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.

Contrary to what Sullivan and other establishment figures say about refusing to compare the US with Russia and China, whataboutism and moral equivalency can be strong forces for good. They influence great powers, though not as much as they should, into cleaning up their acts out of pure self-interest, thus enabling them to criticise their rivals without appearing too openly hypocritical.

This happened during the first Cold War, when the belief that the Soviet Union was successfully using America racial discrimination to discredit the US as a protagonist of democracy, played an important role in persuading decision-makers in Washington that civil rights for blacks was in the governments best interests.

Once whataboutism and equivalence become the norm in media reporting, then the US government will have a powerful motive to try to end the militarisation of Americas police forces, which shot dead 1,004 people in 2019. This also holds true for how the police handle race.

Cold War competition between global powers has many harmful consequences, but it can also have benign ones. One forgotten consequence of the Soviet Union launching Sputnik, the first space satellite in 1957, is that it led to a spectacular surge in US government spending on scientific and general education.

For the most part, however, the first Cold War was an arid exchange of accusations in which human rights became a weapon in informational warfare. Can anything be done to prevent the same thing happening as the second Cold War gets underway?

It would be nave to imagine that governments will not go on maligning their enemies and giving themselves a free pass unless propelled to do better by public opinion. And this will only happen by going beyond selective reporting of human rights abuses and demonising all opponents of their national governments as pariahs.

Continued here:

Focusing Purely on Injustices in China and Russia with a Cold War Mindset Damages Human Rights Everywhere - CounterPunch.org - CounterPunch

The Chinese government is committing crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, where it has escalated its oppression of Turkic Muslims to unprecedented levels, Human Rights Watch has said, as the NGO called on governments to take direct action against officials and companies that profit from labour in the region.

HRW also recommended the EU delay ratifying its recent trade agreement with China until forced labour allegations were investigated, victims compensated, and there was substantial progress toward holding perpetrators to account.

In a report produced with Stanford Law Schools Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, HRW called for stronger UN investigations and responses, and for allied countries to impose further sanctions as well as visa and travel bans, and to use domestic laws to prosecute perpetrators.

HRW said the governments oppression of Turkic Muslims, including Uyghurs, was not a new phenomenon but had reached unprecedented levels.

Since Xi Jinpings rise to power in 2013, the Chinese government has aggressively pursued assimilationist policies in ethnic minority regions, increasingly insisting on the Sinicization of those communities, driven by nationalism and in many instances Islamophobia inside and outside China, it said.

Defining crimes against humanity as serious specified offences that are knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population, the report found the strongest evidence in relation to enslavement, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, torture, persecution, and enforced disappearances.

The report says the extent to which other violations were being perpetrated including sexual violence against women and coercive fertility controls was unclear, and the gravity of sexual violence allegations warranted further investigation.

The HRW report draws on new and recent research documenting the enactment of government policies in Xinjiang, and alleged human rights violations, finding many were supported by vast amounts of documentary evidence.

Chinese authorities have continued to deny due process and have arbitrarily detained an estimated 1 million people in hundreds of facilities, subjecting them to political and cultural indoctrination, torture and other ill-treatment, the report says. Outside the detention facilities Beijing operates a a pervasive system of mass surveillance, controls on movement, arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearance, cultural and religious erasure, and family separation.

HRW said it had not yet documented the existence of the necessary genocidal intent to make a finding of genocide, as the Canadian, Dutch and Belgian parliaments, the US state department, and legal groups had done. Nonetheless, nothing in this report precludes such a finding.

China resolutely denies all accusations of wrongdoing in Xinjiang, and runs an increasingly vociferous global campaign to discredit accusers, deny allegations and findings, and promote the region as a wonderful land where minority communities are protected and celebrated. It refuses journalists and human rights groups free access to the area and repeatedly dismisses investigative findings as lies.

Chinese authorities have systematically persecuted Turkic Muslims their lives, their religion, their culture, said Sophie Richardson, the HRW China director. Beijing has said it is providing vocational training and deradicalisation but that rhetoric cannot obscure a grim reality of crimes against humanity.

HRW noted the difficulties in investigating abuses in Xinjiang and ensuring justice. Beijing frequently claims sovereignty to reject accusations against it, or coordinates letters of support to counter joint statements at the UN.

China is also not a signatory to the international criminal court and so the ICC has no jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute individuals alleged to have committed international crimes. The only way for the ICC to assume jurisdiction is if the matter is referred to it by the UN security council, of which China is a permanent member with veto powers.

To address the worsening situation, HRW called for more coordination by world governments, which it described as increasingly critical. This could include targeted and other sanctions of government officials and agencies and companies implicated in violations of peoples rights, and joint government statements. These sanctions will be more effective if pursued collectively, it said.

Domestically, HRW recommended individual countries consider pursuing criminal cases under universal jurisdiction laws that permit a prosecution of certain crimes committed elsewhere if the victim was one of their own.

Government agencies should also review all investments in Xinjiang and impose trade sanctions, including divestment, in sectors facing credible allegations of serious abuses such as forced labour, it said, and on technology companies contributing to Chinas mass surveillance operations. Any company operating in Xinjiang should also be subject to legally binding requirements for human rights due diligence.

To countries with Turkic Muslim diasporas, HRW called for guarantees of a fair asylum assessment and support process, the facilitation of family reunions, and an end to refoulement and other forced returns of people back to China.

Given the gravity of the abuses against Turkic Muslims, there is a pressing need for concerned governments to take strong, coordinated action to advance accountability, HRW said. It suggested the creation of a UN commission of inquiry, consisting of experts with a mandate to determine facts, identify perpetrators and make recommendations.

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Campaigners call for global response to unprecedented oppression in Xinjiang - The Guardian