Category Archives: Government Oppression

By PTI

CHANDIGARH: The BJP-led NDA on Saturday released its manifesto for the February 20 Punjab polls, promising a slew of sops including 75 percent reservation in government jobs and 50 percent reservation in private jobs for the state's youth.

It also promised an unemployment allowance, 35 percent reservation for women in government jobs and massive infrastructure development to revive the state's economy if it forms the government in Punjab.

As per the manifesto, a dope test will be made mandatory before the filing of nomination forms for the elections.

An unemployment allowance of Rs 4,000 per month for all graduates for two years after completion of their degrees will be provided, it said.

The manifesto promised 35 percent reservation for women in all government jobs including contractual jobs.

Fast-track courts will be established to deal with any kind of violence, harassment and oppression against women, it said.

A special act will be formed to deal with the cases of NRI abandoned brides, it further said.

The BJP is contesting the elections in alliance with former chief minister Amarinder Singh-led Punjab Lok Congress and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa's SAD (Sanyukt).

The Sankalp' document or the manifesto was released in Jalandhar in the presence of Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Som Prakash, BJP leaders Dushyant Gautam and Tarun Chugh and Amarinder Singh's son Raninder Singh, among others.

While the BJP-led alliance had earlier released an 11-point 'Sankalp' (pledge or commitment) for the assembly polls, and later another document for the rural sector, which among other things had promised a complete loan waiver for farmers with less than five acres of landholdings.

In the fresh document, key promises from the earlier ones have been incorporated.

Among the main features of the latest manifesto include 75 percent reservation for the youth of Punjab in all government jobs and 50 percent reservation in all private jobs.

Speaking on the occasion, Puri said the manifesto is not just a vision document but carries concrete commitments.

He talked of a massive infrastructure development to revive Punjab's economy, with an infrastructure development fund of Rs one lakh crore to be spent over a period of five years.

The document also promised zero tolerance to sacrilege and said fast-track courts will be set up to decide such cases in a time-bound manner.

The manifesto is an elaborate and comprehensive document that spells out the roadmap for revival and development of Punjab's economy, addressing the issue of drugs and law and order, Puri said.

This is the most progressive and pragmatic manifesto which will be implemented from day one after the formation of the government, he said.

To check the cross-border infiltration and smuggling of weapons and drugs, the alliance promised strict drone and CCTV surveillance, construction of electric fences and outposts.

Read more here:

BJP releases manifesto for Punjab polls, promises 75 per cent reservation to state youth in government jobs - The New Indian Express

As the Supreme Court evaluates abortion laws, states should bolster reproductive rights and better regulate CPCs.

The U.S. Supreme Courts decision to review whether Mississippis pre-viability abortion ban is still unconstitutional, and the Courts failure to enjoin Texass near-total abortion ban, have thrown a spotlight on the precarious state of abortion rights in the United States. These cases come after decades of abortion restrictionsmostly at the state levelthat have already made abortion inaccessible for many people, especially Black and brown people, individuals living in poverty, and people in rural areas.

For example, the federal Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of federal funding for abortion care, and Pennsylvania law prohibits the use of state funding. The resulting denial of abortion coverage for people in Pennsylvanias Medicaid program disproportionately harms Black and brown people who face structural inequities that make them more likely to live in poverty than white people.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania also diverts funding from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to anti-abortion, anti-contraception, and anti-LGBTQ+ organizations known as crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). Furthermore, it is one of a minority of states that not only diverts TANF funding to CPCs, it also directly funds them through a state contract.

There is little government oversight of CPCs. In 2017, at the conclusion of a rare audit, the Pennsylvania Auditor General found that Real Alternatives, the umbrella organization for the state-funded CPCs, inappropriately used Pennsylvanias money to promote itself in other states. Nevertheless, the Commonwealth renewed Real Alternatives contract to provide alternatives to abortion services. In addition to lingering ethical concerns about the way state-funded CPCs operate, there are also questions about the scope and quality of the services that CPCs provide, whether state-funded or not.

To shed light on these services, the Alliance, a coalition of state advocates for womens rights and gender equality, including the Womens Law Project, and the California Womens Law Center, reviewed CPC websites and analyzed the services they offer. In its recently released report, the Alliance found that the four most common services CPCs offer are: (1) pregnancy testsoften the same as the self-administered tests available at local drugstores; (2) free material goods such as diapers and other infant suppliesor opportunities for individuals to earn these goods by completing CPC programming; (3) peer-to-peer, anti-abortion counseling; and (4) non-diagnostic ultrasounds.

In Pennsylvania, CPCs outnumber abortion clinics by a ratio of nine to one. Pennsylvania CPCs offer the same services as CPCs in the other states, except that the most common service provided is free or earned goods, followed by pregnancy testing. Pennsylvania is one of two states in the study that funds CPCs directly, which has enabled researchers to uncover disturbing differences between state-funded and non-state-funded CPCs.

The researchers found that fewer state-funded CPCs refer clients for prenatal care than non-state funded CPCs. And more state-funded CPCs promote an unscientific practice known as abortion pill reversal, which involves the administration of progesterone to individuals who have taken the first, but not the second, of the two-pill medication abortion regimen.

CPCs regularly claim that abortion pill reversal is able to stop a medication abortion, but there is no evidence to support this practice. Indeed, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has deemed it unethical and unproven. Abortion pill reversal promotion is among many examples of misleading and medically inaccurate information that the Alliances study found on CPC websites.

Another finding in the Alliances report is that, although many CPCs portray themselves as medical facilities, they provide virtually no medical services. In addition to the fact that almost none of these centers provide or refer for prenatal care, almost none provide or refer for contraception or, of course, abortion. These failures raise questions about the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decision to permit the diversion of TANF funding to CPCs and the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services inclusion of funding for programs that promote childbirth instead of abortion in the TANF state plan.

Even though diverting TANF funding to CPCs may be consistent with the paternalism and racism underlying the TANF program, which is tied to a long history of controlling Black womens bodies, it is inconsistent with the stated goal in the statute of preventing and reducing the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies.

The siphoning of funding for pregnant people and children living in poverty is emblematic of the broken safety net that CPCs exploit to prey on vulnerable people. Instead of addressing the factors that lead people to CPCs, including economic insecurity and inadequate access to comprehensive reproductive health care, states such as Pennsylvania fund fake clinics that promote misleading and harmful information, delay access to genuine health care, and collect information from clients who have no privacy protections available to thembecause CPCs typically do not qualify as health care providers and therefore do not need to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

CPCs have been notoriously difficult to regulate, as the U.S. Supreme Courts case of National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra shows. In this case, the Court held that a California law that required licensed clinics that primarily serve pregnant people to notify them that the state provides free or low-cost services, including abortions, and required unlicensed clinics to disclose that they are unlicensed likely violated the First Amendment.

The Alliance report, however, includes a number of state-based policy recommendations to regulate CPCs that can avoid the First Amendment questions raised in Becerra. For example, the report recommends the passage of laws that would extend HIPAA-like protections to people served by entities providing pregnancy-related services. It also recommends addressing the maternal and reproductive healthcare gaps that CPCs exploit. It is important for states to shore up reproductive rights so that CPCs are not more accessible than genuine reproductive health careespecially now that the Court is poised to overrule or gut Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

It is also important for states to implement antiracist measures to alleviate poverty and dismantle systemic oppression so that people do not undergo biased counseling at a CPC simply because they cannot afford a pregnancy test or infant supplies. Public funding should support evidence-based programs, not CPCs that regularly promote unproven and potentially dangerous treatments to low-income pregnant people.

The Alliance report is a call to action, highlighting the need to hold CPCs accountable amid the political landscape that has fueled and funded the CPC industrys growth while decreasing access to comprehensive, evidence-based reproductive health care.

Although there is a role for the federal government to play in the fight against CPCs, the battle is primarily in the states, which have the ability to bring back and improve reproductive rights and health care access regardless of the future for Roe and Casey in the federal courts.

Amal Bass is the Director of Policy & Advocacy for the Womens Law Project.

Originally posted here:

Crisis Pregnancy Centers, State-Funded Harm, and State-Based Solutions - The Regulatory Review

TEHRAN Commemorative ceremonies were held in Baghdad and Damascus to mark the 43rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

The Iranian embassy in Baghdad marked Friday the forty-third anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution with a massive public celebration, in the presence of political and cultural figures, including the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Iraj Masjedi, according to U News.

The ceremony began with a recitation of the Holy Quran, followed by the national anthems of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq, and then a video clip of a choral group, and then an Iraqi poet recited a poem inspired by the occasion.

Masjedi delivered a speech during the ceremony, in which he said, By God's grace, the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran was established according to Islamic and religious principles in the hands of a distinguished Islamic figure, and this sacred system continued in the hands of [Ayatollah] Seyed Ali Khamenei, who represents the religious authority.

Masjedi pointed out that the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran was established according to two principles, the first is the republican based on the people and the second is the Islamic one based on religion and the people are the main pillar of the revolution, the system and religion. And Islam is the content of this system.

He added: The title of our system is to rely on the people and also adopt religious principles. The Islamic Republic extends the hand of friendship and cooperation to all countries with all sincerity and seriousness.

Masjedi noted, The Islamic Republic wants its relations to be based on the principle of mutual respect with all countries of the world.In Damascus, there were also some celebrations to mark the 43rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. According to U News, a mass celebration was held in the prayer hall of Sayyida Zainab (PBUH) at the invitation of the office of Ayatollah Khamenei to commemorate the victory of the Iranian Islamic Revolution.

The speeches delivered on the occasion praised the greatness of the Islamic revolution that was launched and led by Imam Khomeini and its firm approach in supporting the weak and the oppressed in the face of arrogance.

Iranian Ambassador to Syria Mehdi Sobhani also delivered a speech at the ceremony. The ambassador stated that the Islamic revolution in Iran was one of the most important events in the last years of the twentieth century and was a comprehensive revolution in all aspects of life.

Sobhani pointed out that the forces of global arrogance have been conspiring against the Islamic Republic from the moment it was launched until today due to its resistance approach, firm support for the oppressed, and its firm position in support of the Palestinian cause.

In an interview with U News, the head of the Jaafari Islamic Council in Syria, Muhammad Ali Al-Miski, congratulated Ayatollah Khamenei, the state and the Iranian people on the victory of the revolution.

He highlighted the scientific status that the Islamic Republic witnessed under the revolution.

He described Iran as a country that exports technology. He also noted that the Islamic revolution transformed the Islamic peoples from defeated peoples into dignified peoples of resistance.

The embassy of Sanaa in Damascus also held an intellectual and political symposium on the 43rd anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, at the invitation of the Yemeni ambassador in Damascus.

The symposium was attended by intellectual, academic and media personalities and representatives of the Palestinian factions, at the embassy in Damascus, U News reported.

During the symposium, the Cultural Counselor of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hamid Reza Esmati, said that the revolution, whose foundations were laid by Imam Khomeini, had taken root and became stronger with Imam Khamenei. And the revolution of the weak remained in the face of the forces of arrogance.

Esmati stressed that the Islamic Revolution is a revolution of pride and dignity in the face of tyranny, pointing out that it stands by the oppressed peoples to achieve their just rights.

The Yemeni ambassador in Damascus, Abdullah Ali Sabri, said in an interview with U News, We celebrate with the brothers in Iran the revolution because we see that it is a global Islamic revolution, and it is a revolution for the oppressed in all the world and it has supported the Palestinian cause as it established a strong state and an Islamic republic that we cherish and this republic has supported Yemen.

He pointed out that Iran stood by the oppressed people of Yemen in the face of the Saudi-American aggression. He stressed that the victory of the Iranian revolution is a victory for the revolution in Yemen.

Iranian President Ayatollah Seyed Ebrahim Raisi congratulated the people of Iran and the free people of the world on the victory of the Islamic Revolution.

Speaking on Friday in his speech before the Friday prayer sermon, the president described "independence-seeking", "freedom-seeking", "justice-seeking" as elements of the revolution and noted, "This revolution is justice-seeking within itself. The element of justice can never be separated from the Islamic Revolution, because within the Islamic Revolution, justice-seeking, anti-oppression and anti-corruption are institutionalized."

Regarding the characteristics of the despotic regime of the Shah, Raisi said, "That oppressive regime was the full manifestation of tyranny, dictatorship, submission to the dominating powers and arrogance against the will of the people."

Ayatollah Raisi stated, "The Islamic Revolution came to overthrow this corrupt regime, which was supported by the dominant powers, and to establish a system based on religion and what the people have repeatedly shouted "independence, freedom, the Islamic Republic".

The president added, "The glorious victory of the Islamic Revolution marked a civilization that was a new civilization in the name of Islam and the Republic, as opposed to the civilizations that formed the polarization of the world."

Raisi continued, "What is clear is that the slogans of the Islamic Revolution are innate and universal slogans and are related to the nature of all human beings."

He said, "What the Islamic Revolution is shouting is independence, national dignity, brotherhood, denial of domination and oppression."

Ayatollah Raisi added, "We neither seek to dominate anywhere in the world, nor we give up our independence, and we are not willing to oppress anyone in the world; these are among the principles of the Islamic Revolution that are still stable."

Raisi added, "These values are the ones that people have always emphasized, so you see Iranians everywhere in the world are proud of this revolution. Today, not only the Muslim people of the world, but also the non-Muslim people, but the freedom-loving and justice-loving people of the world, the deprived and the oppressed in all parts of the world, love this revolution".

He said, "The slogans of the Islamic Revolution are rational slogans, and today not only the great nation of Iran, but also the nations of the world have high hopes for this revolution."

The president stated, "The revolutionary spirit, vision and action and adherence to these principles are still emphasized by people all over the world."

The president continued, "The late Imam Khomeini and the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution presented a political school in contrast to the political schools of the world, which has some characteristics. The first indicator of this political school is sincerity."

Ayatollah Raisi said, "The second point in the political school is attention to the republic and the people. The late Imam and the Supreme Leader do not consider people as a political and ceremonial thing."

The president added, "Today, we are proud that in the popular administration, we have put the republic and the people and justice in the sense that the important goal of the Islamic Revolution is the main axis in the government."

Continue reading here:

Anniversary of Islamic Revolution marked in Baghdad, Damascus - Tehran Times

Olympic officials and the Chinese government have warned athletes at the Winter Olympics against staging any protests at competition venues or on the medal stand, saying they could violate Olympic rules as well as Chinese law. But if history is a guide, that message is likely to go unheeded.

The International Olympic Committee has long prohibited "demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda" at Olympic sites, although the rule was tweaked before last year's Tokyo Summer Games to allow for protests made "without disruption and with respect for competitors."

2 Related

But in the days leading up to the ongoing Winter Games in Beijing, China added an ominous new wrinkle. Yang Shu, deputy director general of Beijing 2022's International Relations Department, said any protesters that violate "the Olympic spirit" or Chinese law could be subject to unspecified punishment by the host country.

The warning -- which human rights groups have advised Olympians to take seriously -- comes during an era of rising demands for social justice that are echoed by activist athletes across the globe. China faces particular scrutiny for its human rights practices, including the detention of more than 1 million Uyghur and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province as part of what the U.S. government and others have labeled a genocide.

Some U.S. officials worry that American athletes could face harsh sanctions if any protest upsets Chinese sensibilities. "Being an American citizen is in itself not protection from adverse treatment by the Chinese government," read a Jan. 28 letter to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee from a congressional commission that monitors human rights abuses in China. "As the Commission has documented, Chinese authorities have imposed exit bans on U.S. citizens, and even jailed foreign nationals, for political or specious reasons."

Concern about the limits of free speech in China burst into the international spotlight late last year when Chinese tennis star -- and three-time Olympian -- Peng Shuai took to social media to accuse China's former vice premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault. Almost immediately, Peng's post was scrubbed from the internet, and she disappeared from public view, prompting concern for her safety. She resurfaced weeks later in videos where she withdrew her allegations and said she was safe -- a turnaround that some critics worry was coerced by the Chinese government.

Despite the warnings, protests tied to this year's Olympics have already begun, although it remains to be seen whether athletes will join in from Beijing. In December, the U.S. announced a diplomatic boycott of the event, meaning no top government officials are attending.

In October, as officials presided over the lighting of the Olympic torch that was ferried from Olympia, Greece, to Beijing's National Stadium, protesters with a Tibetan flag and a banner saying "no genocide games" found their way into the event.

In the weeks and months leading up to the Games, U.S. snowboarder Shaun White, a three-time gold medalist, posed on social media with a flag from Tibet, a region of China that activists say has long endured government oppression. Also, U.S. figure skaters Timothy LeDuc and Evan Bates have pointedly criticized China's human rights record in comments to reporters.

Researchers who study athlete activism say it is unclear what will happen if athletes speak up against China or stage protests that offend authorities in Beijing.

"I definitely think that athletes are going to be even more cautious headed into the Games when it comes to protest and using their voice, given the messaging from the IOC and China," said Yannick Kluch, director of outreach and inclusive excellence at Virginia Commonwealth University's Center for Sports Leadership. "But I also think if there are athletes who are outspoken, they are not going to be deterred."

Any action taken by China to punish protesting foreign athletes would quickly escalate beyond sports and become a diplomatic incident, he added. "I don't know if that pressure would be enough to protect these athletes," Kluch said. "I do think protest is very real possibility, but I also think the outcry globally would be very intense" if the Chinese were to exact any punishment.

Whatever protests do occur in Beijing would be in keeping with a long Olympic tradition. Irish track and field star Peter O'Connor staged perhaps the first act of political protest in Olympic history at the 1906 Games in Athens. He had entered the Games to represent Ireland, but newly enacted Olympic rules forced him to compete for Great Britain. To protest, he climbed a flagpole in the Olympic stadium and waved a green flag emblazoned with the words "Erin Go Bragh," or "Ireland Forever." Days later, O'Connor went on to win three gold medals.

Probably the best-known Olympic protest took place in 1968, when American sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their gloved fists in what they called a human rights salute from the medal stand in Mexico City.

Other athlete protests have followed. Among them: At the 2004 Games in Athens, Iranian judo world champion Arash Miresmaeili refused to fight Israeli athlete Ehud Vaks, to protest Israeli treatment of Palestinians. In Rio de Janeiro in 2016, as Ethiopia's Feyisa Lilesa crossed the finish line to win silver in the marathon, he crossed his arms in an X gesture made in support of the Oromo people. And just after the IOC revised its rules governing protests last year, numerous athletes in Tokyo protested, including all the players from the Japan and Great Britain women's soccer teams, who took a knee on the pitch to support Black Lives Matter.

The IOC has never stripped medals from protesting athletes, Olympic historians say, but it has sent some home and banned others from future competition for demonstrations the committee determined crossed the line.

The stakes are raised in Beijing, where the government has a record of imprisoning dissidents for political protests and even social media critiques. Most observers think it unlikely that foreign athletes would face similar sanction, but the Chinese have not publicly ruled that out.

"What the Chinese are saying is 'well, you have to respect the laws and rules of the host country,'" said David Wallechinsky, an Olympic historian. "But the thing is you're not going to know until you get to the airport to leave the country if you're being detained."

Continued here:

Olympics 2022 -- China has warned athletes not to protest in Beijing. What happens if they do? - ESPN

PESHAWAR: Like other parts of the country, rallies, seminars and other functions were held across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in connection with the Kashmir Solidarity Day on Saturday where the participants urged the international community and human rights organisations to take notice of the brutalities being carried out by the Indian government against innocent Kashmiri people in the India-held Kashmir.

Carrying banners and placards inscribed with demands for the UNs intervention to play its role for liberation of Kashmiris from the illegal occupation of India, the participants shouted slogans against the barbaric incidents of human rights violations.

They condemned the prolonged curfew and aggression by the Indian army and asked for an immediate end to the genocide of Kashmiri people.

Waving Kashmiri flags, the people urged the international community to take notice of the violence against the oppressed people, including women and children, in the occupied territory.

Rallies, functions held across KP to show solidarity with Kashmiris

In Peshawar, the main official rally was led by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan and Governor Shah Farman, which started from the CM Secretariat and culminated at the Governors House.

The rally was also attended by the provincial cabinet members, Chief Secretary Shehzad Bangash, civil society members and students.

Talking to mediapersons on this occasion, the governor and chief minister said that the government and public fully expressed solidarity with the innocent people of Kashmir and they stood by them in their struggle for freedom.

They urged upon the international community to come forward and play its role for peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue. They said that durable peace in the region was linked to the resolution of the Kashmir issue as per the UN resolutions.

They said that the right to self-determination and independence was the basic right of the people of Kashmir and the people and government of Pakistan would continue to extend moral, political and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri brothers in their struggle for freedom.

Another rally was organised by Jamaat-i-Islami wherein its chief Sirajul Haq said that it was the time for UN to implement its resolutions on the occupied Jammu and Kashmir. He stated that India was being run by a savage and fascist regime, which was responsible for the genocide of Muslims in India.

He expressed unwavering support and solidarity with the Kashmiris, saying the Pakistani nation fully supported the Kashmiris struggle for their right of self-determination and asked the government to avoid double standards about the Kashmir issue.

The KP Directorate of Culture held a seminar and photo exhibition at Nishtar Hall, Peshawar, followed by a rally to show solidarity with the Kashmiri people.

Pakistan Study Centre of University of Peshawar, Pakistan Thinkers Forum and Press Information Department also arranged seminars and rallies, showing solidarity with the Kashmiris.

The traders community held separate rallies while PML-N held a gathering at its provincial secretariat which was addressed by its provincial president Amir Muqam.

Rallies and functions were also held in Lakki Marwat, Bannu, Kohat, Shangla, Lower Dir, Upper Dir, Battagram, Mansehra, Upper Kohistan, Lower Kohistan, Bajaur and other district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to express solidarity with the oppressed people of India-held Kashmir.

Different government departments, educational institutions, political parties, business community and private organisations played active part in organising functions to draw the attention of international community to the plight of Kashmiri people.

The speakers vowed that the people and government of Pakistan would continue their political, diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiris till liberation of India-held Kashmir.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2022

Read the original:

World urged to take notice of Indian oppression in held Kashmir - DAWN.com

Justin Guerra| Guest columnist

Voting rights fails in Senate along with filibuster changes

Senate Democrats come up short on a last-ditch effort to change the filibuster rules in order to advance on voting rights.

Associated Press, USA TODAY

As Senate Democrats struggle to pass their legislative agenda with the midterms quickly approaching, they have considered the nuclear option abolishing the Senate filibuster. The death of the filibuster would leave them free to push their policy goals through Congress, setting them up to claim victories to their constituents as they seek reelection, but at what cost for the future of the national legislature?

Democrats efforts seem short-sighted they wont be in power forever, a reality that is becoming increasingly evident as Nov. 8 draws ever closer. In order to protect both the future of their party and the country, Senate Democrats would do better to abandon their fight to abolish the parliamentary procedure.

First, the filibuster embodies the republican principal of protecting the rights of the minority despite majoritarian rule. Although majoritarian governments areknown to be more productive and efficient, people like former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers argue that they are also equipped with the power to pass the flurry of legislation so commonly associated with authoritative regimes.

Even James Madison noted this potential defect in Federalist Papers No. 9 and 51, arguing that majoritarian rule, although an expression of the majority of interests involved, may also concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression against minorities. This threat, Madison observes, is particularly evident in cases of competitive political factions. He argues that when the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may … truly be said to reign.

Although not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, the Senate filibuster nonetheless embodies the constitutional theme of restrained power. In this case, the filibuster offers an additional check on the majority party in the Senate, protecting the interests of the minority.

As a majority party unchecked by the filibuster, Democrats can force any bill on their legislative agenda to a vote, omitting participation from Republican senators in the legislative process. Therefore, without the filibuster, the rights of the minority will be insecure.

While Senate Republicans stand to suffer from the abolishment of the filibuster today, Democrats efforts are short-sighted given that they are the victims of tomorrow. Midterms rarely benefit the office-holding party. In fact, the presidents party has gained seats in Congress during a midterm election just three times in the last century, as the American public checks the presidents power.

In 2022, with majorities already razor-thin (with just a nine-seat advantage in the House, and a single tie-breaking vote in the Senate), Republicans are poised to retake the majority in one or both chambers. And even if Democrats do manage to keep the majority this year, they wont have it forever. Sooner or later, the Senate will return to Republican hands the United States could see a united Republican government as early as 2024.

Democrats, as they indeed have done in the past, will once again be praising the filibuster as a shield protecting the country from the unitary will of a united Republican majority. In the past, party leaders have often praised or cursed the filibuster depending on their partys majority or minority status in the Senate, only to flip their position in a few years when that status changes.

We all recognize the threat that failing to pass necessary and overdue legislation on voting rights, womens reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ equality will have on our democracy. However, I write in support of the filibuster to ensure that when those changes are made, that they endure, and are built from deliberation. Otherwise, those very bills, which we profess will save our democracy, will doom it once congressional majorities change every two years.

While these issues without a doubt deserve attention, any future Congress might repeal those legislative efforts and replace them with an agenda focused on reversing those policy goals. The only sure way to guarantee lasting legislative change is to guarantee that legislation passes the criticism of robust debate and hard-won consensus.

In summary, we must heed Madisons warnings, lest the Senate succumb to the whim of an interested and overbearing majority. The filibuster must be preserved.

Justin Guerra is a political science student at the University of Florida.

Send a letter to the editor (up to 200 words) to letters@gainesville.com. Letters must include the writer's full name and city of residence. Additional guidelines for submitting letters and longer guest columns can be found at bit.ly/sunopinionguidelines.

Get a digital subscription to the Gainesville Sun. Includes must-see content on Gainesville.com and Gatorsports.com, breaking news and updates on all your devices, and access to the Gainesville.com ePaper. Visit http://www.gainesville.com/subscribenow to sign up.

Read the rest here:

Democrats should abandon their fight to abolish the filibuster - Gainesville Sun

KHARTOUM, Sudan In a bare, dusty field in a neighborhood north of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, about a hundred people gray-haired men in white robes and turbans, young women in jeans and T-shirts, mothers with their children in tow gathered on a recent evening to discuss what they see as their nations most pressing need: democracy.

For more than six hours, over sweet milky tea and doughnuts, they debated how to dislodge the military from its grip on power, cemented on Oct. 25 when a military coup suddenly put an end to Sudans two-year-old transition to democratic rule.

Across this vast nation of more than 43 million in northeast Africa, hundreds of similar groups, known as resistance committees, are convening regularly to plan protests, draw up political manifestoes and discuss issues like economic policy and even trash pickup.

They are committed to nonviolence, though they have paid a high price. On a makeshift stage in the dusty field, in the Kafouri neighborhood, 16 photographs were on display one woman and 15 men, martyrs from the neighborhood. They are among 79 people who have been killed in the protests since Oct. 25, according to a doctors group.

People have been killed, injured and detained so that we stop organizing and protesting, said Reem Sinada, 34, a veterinary medicine lecturer at the University of Khartoum, one of the local organizers. But we wont.

The neighborhood resistance committees are led mostly by young organizers, and they make a point of meeting in the open in tea shops and under trees rejecting the closed-room negotiations and top-down, male-centered leadership that have defined Sudanese politics for decades.

The movement does not have a single leader, relying instead on a decentralized structure in which individuals and communities organize their own events. They announce protest dates and demands on social media, in pamphlets and through graffiti and murals scrawled on walls. A media committee shares plans through a unified Twitter handle, but individual committees also manage their own social media accounts.

The military wish they were dealing with a few political parties and elites, and not this large network of people all over the country, said Muzan Alneel, a nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington.

The Sovereignty Council, Sudans ruling body, led by Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, did not respond to multiple interview requests.

The standoff between the people and the generals has largely unfolded in the streets. The resistance committees have organized at least 16 major demonstrations since the military takeover, and plan to hold four more in February.

On a recent afternoon in Khartoum, protesters thronged bus stations, parks and squares before marching toward the countrys seat of power the presidential palace. Retail businesses and banks had closed at noon. And demonstrators, waving the Sudanese flag, blocked roads, beat drums and waved banners with anti-coup slogans.

Their chants echoed the graffiti on the walls: Our revolution is peaceful, and, Even a tank cannot stop the breaking dawn.

But security forces blocked roads and lobbed tear gas to stop the demonstrators from reaching the palace on Al Qasr Avenue. As some protesters coughed and retreated, a young man in blue swimming goggles screamed out to them, Retreat is impossible!

More than 2,000 people have been injured during these protests, according to the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors. Of those who were killed, the majority were shot in the head, chest and neck, the group said. Security forces have also raided hospitals, intimidated health care workers and arrested patients, according to interviews with doctors and eyewitnesses.

The crackdown has not deterred protesters like Akram Elwathig, a 29-year-old hospital worker with an Afro and a toothy grin, who composes catchy chants and poetry to lead processions.

Democracy is life, Mr. Elwathig said. Right now, we are like the dead. So we have to go to the streets so that we can get our lives back.

In one recent poem that turned into a protest chant, he beseeched his mother not to worry that he might be killed for demonstrating: I need your tears to turn into prayers, he said. I refuse military rule. I refuse the rule of someone ignorant.

Sudan erupted in celebration three years ago after popular protests ousted the countrys longtime ruler, Omar Hassan al-Bashir. Then a civilian-military power-sharing deal ushered in hopes for a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democratic governance.

But those yearnings were cut short at dawn on Oct. 25, when the military seized power and detained the civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok holding him at the home of the countrys military chief, General al-Burhan. A month later, Mr. Hamdok cut a deal with the military that was widely rejected by people on the streets, and he finally resigned in early January.

With billions of dollars in foreign aid suspended after the coup, rising fuel and food prices and increasing violence in the restive Darfur region, Mr. Hamdoks departure scrapped hopes that one of Africas largest countries would quickly emerge from decades of repression, international isolation and American sanctions.

Some of the participants in the resistance committees said that their involvement was giving them a ray of hope in a bleak time. Ms. Sinada, the university lecturer, said that for four days after the coup, she was so depressed that she could not get out of bed. But the meetings have afforded her rare moments of connection and purpose.

The resistance committees are writing a new chapter in Sudans political history, she said.

The committees have grown to become a loosely networked, grass-roots movement, transcending class, age and ethnicity and spreading in both rural and urban areas.

They first surfaced in 2013, said Ms. Alneel at the Tahrir Institute, with students and opposition activists mobilizing to protest rising gas prices. Then in 2018, after the popular uprising against Mr. al-Bashir, the Sudanese Professionals Association, a pro-democracy coalition of trade unions, helped raise their profile through a public call in order to spread the demonstrations countrywide.

Catering to the needs of their neighborhoods, they provided cleanups and garbage collection, tutored students and organized health checkups. They grew politically vocal: demanding justice for those killed during the anti-Bashir uprising, challenging the transitional civilian government on its new economic policies and holding mass rallies against the military days before they carried out the coup.

In the months since the Oct. 25 coup, they have rejected any compromise with the military establishment that has dominated Sudan for most of its independent history, and insisted on civilian rule. Resistance committees have also been blocking the road north to Egypt for several weeks over rising electricity prices.

As their numbers and influence grow, observers say, the resistance committees face numerous challenges.

Political parties or the security forces could co-opt them. And their geographic spread, also an asset, makes it hard for them to unite, Ms. Alneel said.

Women in the movement report discrimination, too.

Sara Mouawia, 23, from the Almulazmeen area in Omdurman city, said some men thought she was less knowledgeable about revolutionary politics or Sudans history, even though she grew up actively discussing such things.

In one protest in December, she said, several young men went so far as to beat her for being on the front lines as they faced security forces.

Ms. Mouawia was hit in the forehead by a tear-gas canister during the protests on Jan. 30, but she insisted that nothing the men do will stop me from marching to the palace.

For now, the resistance committees continue to draw more young people across Sudan.

Bassam Mohamed, 22, grew up in Saudi Arabia but moved back home to Sudan to attend university. He is from the Jabra area in southern Khartoum and said one person was killed from his neighborhood and dozens were injured during the anti-coup protests. Mr. Mohamed said he was determined to not only organize and fund-raise for the cause, but also to die in order to realize a Sudan where there was equitable distribution of power and wealth.

Somewhere beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see? he asked in a roadside tea shop on a recent afternoon, quoting a line from Les Misrables, the musical about injustice and oppression in revolutionary France.

Taking a sip of black tea, he answered: Yes, there is. And we are going to march there.

Read more:

Sudan's 'Resistance Committees' Take On the Generals - The New York Times

In December, Indonesian authorities gave the green light to accept a boat of about 120 fleeing Rohingya Muslims into the country. The move comes after the group was stranded in the ocean for days right near the coast of Indonesias northernmost province of Aceh. Conditions onboard the boat were reportedly so abysmal to the point that, according to the Indonesian official Armed Wijaya, the Indonesian government felt prompted to take action.

The Indonesian government has decided, in the name of humanity, to accommodate the Rohingya refugees currently adrift at sea, Wijaya said in a statement. The decision was made after considering the emergency conditions the refugees are experiencing onboard the boat.Despite the empathetic response from Indonesia, its government was initially adamant about accepting the Rohingya Muslims. Local officials told Agence France Presse (AFP) that Indonesian fishermen first encountered the refugees about 70 nautical miles off Indonesian shores a couple of days before. However, when alerted about the issue, military officials told Al Jazeera that they could not simply bring them [the Rohingyans] in as refugees due to the fact that they were not Indonesian citizens.

The controversial decision sparked an international backlash, as it was clear that the Indonesian government fully intended to send the Rohingyans back to sea despite their dire need of help. The Rohingya ethnic group is a vulnerable, stateless group of people that should be given protection, the Civil Society Coalition, a coalition of nine Indonesian human rights groups, said in a statement to Al Jazeera. As a country that upholds human rights and a member of the UN Human Rights Council, Indonesia should set an example for other countries.

The Rohingya people are an ethnic Muslim minority group originally hailing from Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country. The difference in religions, as well as culture and language, has always made the group victim to government discrimination since the 1970s. As the Council of Foreign Relations puts it, Myanmar has institutionalized discrimination through legislation, effectively restricting all aspects of life from denying citizenship to even restricting how many children Rohingyans can have. Since then, the government-sponsored oppression has only increased.

In 2017, the group garnered international attention after the Myanmar military began attempting an ethnic cleansing on the group in response to attacks from a terrorist organization. Rohingyan villages were burned and government forces accused of mass rape, murder, and destruction. According to the CFR, a UN fact panel released a report detailing Myanmars genocidal intent to wipe out the group. The persecution has prompted a mass migration of Rohingyan Muslims to the neighboring countries of Bangladesh, Malaysia, India, Thailand, and Indonesia. While major powers such as the United States have sanctioned military officials and sent aid and support to the Rohingyans, the governments of the previously mentioned countries have been extremely wary of accepting them as refugees and have even sent groups back to Myanmar.

Many human rights groups and international organizations are hoping that Indonesias actions can influence the rest to welcome more refugees into their country. Some have already applauded its acceptance of the group. We are extremely grateful to the Indonesian government it is a decision that we have not seen other governments take with regard to other boats, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative Ann Maymann told Al Jazeera. It is an example for other countries to follow, both in the Asia Pacific region and also in other parts of the world where boats are being pushed back. The UNHCR has already expressed its intention to assist the host country with the arrival and processing of the refugees. Indonesias actions have certainly been a positive win for refugee rights however, it remains to be a breakthrough case within the recently turbulent history of the Rohingyans.

The rest is here:

Breaking Ground: Indonesia Welcomes A Group of Rohingyan Muslims Stranded At Sea Despite Initial Rejection - The Organization for World Peace

Since his in Nairobi in 1999, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan has endured almost 23 years of imprisonment. For much of that time he has been confined on Imrali island, in the Sea of Marmara, without any contact with family or friends.

His jailers hoped that by slamming shut the prison doors, the world would forget about Ocalans existence. But for millions of Kurds and their supporters around the world, Ocalan is a living symbol of resistance to .

According to the Turkish government, Ocalan is a terrorist. The Australian government agrees, .

The listing was originally made in 2005 by the John Howard Coalition government after a visit by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the autocratic Turkish leader. It has been periodically renewed since then, including by Labor governments. The listing was made for purely opportunistic political reasons. Government justifications simply do not add up.

The PKK is not and never was a threat to the security of Australia, nor that of any other outside of the Turkish state. Several European courts, , have ruled that the PKK cannot be treated as a terrorist organisation. Instead, it is a party to an armed conflict with the Turkish state.

Under Ocalans leadership, the PKK launched an armed struggle against the Turkish state in 1984. It has since declared several unilateral ceasefires and, in 2013, Ocalan was permitted to join peace talks. He continues to advocate for a peaceful solution to an intractable conflict.

Originally formed as an orthodox Marxist-Leninist party with the aim of creating an independent Kurdish state, the PKK has since taken a different approach under Ocalans intellectual guidance. Ocalan argues that given the ethnic plurality of Turkey and the Middle East, the solution to the century-long oppression of the Kurds and other non-Turkish populations lies in what he calls autonomy with full rights for all peoples.

This shift did not, however, cause the Turkish government to back away from its determination to maintain Turkey as the ethnically pure political-cultural organism envisaged by Kemal Ataturk at the time of the inception of Turkish Republic in 1923. Ever since, the Kurdish people have endured cultural and, at times, physical genocide.

In recent times, the Erdogan government has stepped up repression both and the boundaries of the Turkish state. Thousands of Kurds have been arrested and many killed, especially members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party. Cities in heavily Kurdish areas have been bombed.

The Turkish military has also invaded and occupied the mainly Kurdish regions of Rojava in northeast Syria, ethically cleansing towns and cities and collaborating with Islamist terrorists, including ISIS. The Kurdish-speaking Yazidis over the border in Iraq have also been targeted by Turkish troops.

Yet world governments and much of the media continue to avert their eyes from Turkeys war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Kurds have a well known saying that they have no friends but the mountains. But they do have many friends around the world, including in , , and other : people who have seen the injustice heaped on the Kurdish people and are determined to help end it.

Key to fighting such oppression is to demand governments take the PKK off the terror list and call for the immediate release of Ocalan, so that he can lead the struggle for peace with justice for the Kurdish people in Turkey and neighbouring states.

Prison has not broken Ocalan, nor stopped his brain from working. In his prison cell, he has written a stream of original books and articles dealing with many aspects of Kurdish freedom and broader human emancipation.

Central to this is his insistence that a society can never be free without womens liberation. His watchword is that you must believe before everything else that the revolution must come, that there is no other choice.

[John Tully is a historian and activist with Australians For Kurdistan.]

See the original post:

Abdullah Ocalan: Symbol of 100 years of Kurdish resistance - Green Left

Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm

A German nongovernmental organization in special consultative status with the United Nations called for member states to stop cooperating with the Turkish intelligence agency over threats to exiled critics.

The Society for Threatened Peoples (Gesellschaft fr bedrohte Vlker, STP), a Gttingen-based NGO, submitted a written statement to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) In Geneva highlighting the role of the Turkish intelligence agency (Milli stihbarat Tekilat. MIT) in systematic attacks, threats and intimidation of Turkish opposition members in exile.

In a statement circulated for the 48th regular session of the UNHRC, held between September 13 and October 11, 2021, the German NGO asked the UN to call on member states to prevent any cooperation with MIT to exchange information because such action would lead to violence, kidnapping or persecution of critics, opponents and dissidents who live in exile.

Time and again, anti-government Turkish journalists, writers, activists and politicians have been threatened and attacked. Recently, the German government confirmed the existence of so-called death lists, on which up to 55 Turkish exiles are said to be named, the statement said.

The advocacy group noted that Turkey plays a leading role in transnational oppression while many European Union and NATO governments continue to support to Turkey and remain silent on the Turkish governments actions against exiles.

The statement gave a detailed account of attacks and threats against Turkish journalists in Germany, listing the cases of journalists Engin Enes Sag, Fatih Akalan, Cevheri Gven, Erk Acarer, Gkhan Yavuzel and Celal Balang, who were subjected to violence or threats over their critical coverage of Turkey.

Society for Threatened Peoples submitted a statement to the UN Human Rights Council on threats against exiled critics of Turkey:

The German NGO recalled in its statement the kidnappings MIT perpetrated in Kosovo and Kyrgyzstan and said those who were forcibly taken to Turkey faced torture and ill-treatment.

It also pointed out the denial of consular services to critics by Turkish missions abroad, saying that such practices have negative repercussions for regime opponents and their family members.

The witch-hunt against exiles of Turkish origin continues unabated worldwide. Those who have been targeted by the TR security authorities no longer receive any consular services at Turkish consulates general and embassies. This also applies to their spouses and, oftentimes, their children. Anyone who dares to go to the Turkish missions abroad will have his or her passport taken away, the STP said.

This denial of any consular services has fatal consequences for those affected: Those who cannot show a valid passport will not have their visas extended in the respective host countries. As a consequence, they face deportation, it added.

The German NGO asked the UN to reprimand Turkey for its persecution of exiles; call on member states to grant asylum status unproblematically to exiles of Turkish origin given the denial of consular services; call on member states to prevent any cooperation with the Turkish secret service to exchange information; condemn attacks on exiles by Turkish nationalists; and call on member states to intensify their protection of exiles.

The Glen movement, a group that is opposed to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoan, and the Kurdish political movement have been receiving the brunt of the crackdown in recent years. The witch-hunt is not just confined to Turkey, since the Erdoan government has escalated the campaign in foreign countries, with MIT kidnapping and forcibly returning critics, in particular members of the Glen movement.

The kidnappings of critics abroad has long been on the agenda of UN special committees. In May 2020, UN rapporteurs Luciano Hazan, chair-rapporteur of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; Felipe Gonzlez Morales, special rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants; Fionnuala N Aolin, special rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism; and Nils Melzer, special rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment sent a joint letter to the Turkish government to express their concern about the systematic practice of state-sponsored extraterritorial abductions and forcible return of Turkish nationals from multiple States to Turkey.

The rapporteurs also requested information on the role of Turkeys intelligence agency and other institutions in those kidnapping operations. The Government of Turkey, in coordination with other States, is reported to have forcibly transferred over 100 Turkish nationals to Turkey, of which 40 individuals have been subjected to enforced disappearance, mostly abducted off the streets or from their homes all over the world, and in multiple instances along with their children, the letter said.

Turkish embassies were also used venues to plot the kidnappings in coordination with MIT agents, according to multiple reports published in recent years.

For instance, Turkeys Pristina embassy, according to local sources in Kosovo, was key to the logistics and planning of an abduction and served as the detention venue for the abduction operation. The Turkish nationals Cihan zkan, Kahraman Demirez, Hasan Hseyin Gnakan, Mustafa Erdem, Yusuf Karabina and Osman Karakaya were kept for a time at the embassy chancery or the residence of then-Turkish Ambassador Kvlcm Kl on March 29, 2018. It was alleged that MT was instructed to kidnap five Turks but that zkan was added to the list in Pristina by Ambassador Kl. The Cumhuriyet daily reported that pictures were taken on the Turkish Embassy premises in Pristina by the state-run Anadolu news agency after their arrest.

The former Turkish ambassador in Pristina was rewarded for her services in Kosovo by President Erdoan, who appointed her director-general for the Council of Europe and Human Rights at the foreign ministry.

The joint UN letter also revealed how the Turkish Embassy in Phnom Penh attempted to deceive Cambodian authorities in order to request the extradition of Mexican citizen Osman Karaca, who is of Turkish origin. According to the UN document, the Turkish diplomatic mission reported to the Cambodian police that Karaca was holding a fraudulent Mexican passport, after which the authorities arrested Karaca. The Turkish Embassy then demanded his deportation to Turkey due to the lack of an international travel document. It is also alleged that the Turkish authorities have bribed local officials to secure their cooperation in illegal actions to arbitrarily arrest him, the letter said.

To secure his release from detention and ward off an attempt at an illegal extradition, the Mexican Embassy in Hanoi, accredited to Cambodia, had conveyed a note verbale to prove Karacas Mexican citizenship and attached a copy of his passport in its communication to Cambodian authorities.

However, Karaca was detained based on the embassys fabricated argument. The Turkish Embassy then pursued a smear tactic against Karaca and demanded his deportation due to the lack of an international travel document. Since Aydan nl, the Turkish ambassador in Phnom Penh, was well aware of Karacas status and the political nature of the demand, she didnt hesitate to violate both international conventions and the regulations of the receiving state by submitting falsified arguments to Cambodian police in order to win the praise of President Erdoan.

Go here to read the rest:

German NGO wants UN's help in halting cooperation with Turkish intelligence against critics abroad - Nordic Research and Monitoring Network