Category Archives: Transhuman News

Victoria Knight

In early April, YouTube took down a video featuring Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a group of controversial scientists at a March 18 coronavirus roundtable. The online video platform, owned by Google, cited as its rationale that the video contained false statements about the efficacy of childrens mask-wearing.

This story also ran on PolitiFact. It can be republished for free.

The decision has drawn public blowback on social media and from DeSantis himself.

DeSantis held another public roundtable on April 12 (which is currently available on YouTube), along with three of the same scientists who participated in the March 18 session, during which he blasted YouTube for taking down the earlier video, calling the action censorship.

He said Google and YouTube have not acted as repositories of truth and scientific inquiry throughout the covid pandemic but instead as enforcers of a narrative.

What were witnessing is Orwellian, DeSantis said. Its a Big Tech corporate media collusion.

And when polled by DeSantis during the second roundtable, the scientists defended the video, saying it should have been left up so that it could contribute to scientific debate. We checked with DeSantis office for more information and were referred to an April 12 press release, which summarized the events of the days roundtable.

In an emailed statement, a YouTube spokesperson pointed to the platforms policies on medical misinformation about covid: We removed this video because it included content that contradicts the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. We allow videos that otherwise violate our policies to remain on the platform if they contain sufficient educational, documentary, scientific, or artistic context. Our policies apply to everyone, and focus on content regardless of the speaker or channel.

The video, though no longer on that platform, can still be viewed on The Florida Channel, a website that posts recordings of Florida governmental proceedings.

So who exactly are these scientific panelists and what was said during the roundtable? And have social media companies ramped up efforts to crack down on medical misinformation recently?

Lets break it down.

DeSantis Panel Reflected Controversial Herd Immunity Movement

The scientists who spoke at DeSantis roundtable and gave their opinions about masks and lockdowns were Dr. Scott Atlas of Stanford University, Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University and Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University.

Three of the scientists, Gupta, Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, were the primary authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a contentious document that circulated in October. In it, the scientists argued that lockdowns should end, most people should resume their daily lives and only the most vulnerable should take precautions against covid. The document asserted that members of the public who resumed normal lives would then build up their immunity to covid through exposure to natural infection.

The Great Barrington Declaration received immediate criticism from scientists, including the top U.S. health official, Dr. Anthony Fauci; World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus; and the United Kingdoms health secretary, Matt Hancock.

Atlas was part of President Donald Trumps White House covid team and was reported to have promoted herd immunity views to the former president. After the reports about Atlas, Trump and his press team later walked back the idea that the White House was considering any type of herd immunity strategy to combat the pandemic.

Atlas tenure at the White House was also dogged by other controversies, including Twitter removing one of his tweets because it contained false information about face masks, and his urging of Michigan residents to go against Gov. Gretchen Whitmers public health recommendations. Atlas stepped down from the White House team in December.

The Panels Factual Mistake and Why YouTube Took It Down

During DeSantis almost two-hour March 18 covid roundtable, the governor and the scientists discussed a range of topics, including the efficacy of lockdowns and face masks for children.

According to YouTube, the video was removed because it violated the companys policy on medical misinformation. YouTube says it doesnt allow content that poses a serious risk of egregious harm, such as videos that contradict the consensus of local and global health authorities regarding the efficacy of masks.

The clips YouTube cited as violating its medical misinformation policy involved specific instances in which DeSantis and the scientists said face masks were not necessary for children statements the platform said were contrary to recommendations from U.S. public health authorities. Here are the specific clips in the format provided by YouTube:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that children 2 years old and older wear masks. The agency also recommends that children wear masks in schools, child care settings and any environment when they are around people who dont live in their home.

We know children of all ages are at risk for being infected with SARS-CoV-2 and are capable of transmitting the virus. This is particularly true of older children, especially middle-school and high-school aged kids, Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at KFF, wrote in an email. We also know that masking, when employed widely and effectively, helps reduce the risk of transmission of the virus.

Studies back this up.

The CDC published a study in February showing that different types of masks block cough particles and double-masking is the most effective at doing so. Another experiment from that study showed that a person in a mask emits fewer aerosol particles that can be passed on to an unmasked person. A multitude of reports also show, generally, that mask-wearing is effective at reducing the risk of spreading or catching other respiratory diseases.

Other studies have shown that children carry almost as much coronavirus in their upper-respiratory tract as adults, despite often having no or mild symptoms. And it is possible for children to pass the virus on to adults.

Also, multiple studies of schools that reopened in fall 2020 and had high compliance with mask-wearing have been shown to have low numbers of covid transmission. And the American Academy of Pediatrics said mask-wearing will not make it more difficult for children to breathe, nor will it interfere with a childs lung development.

Are Tech Companies Actually Increasing Their Crackdowns?

DeSantis protests regarding the removal of his roundtable from YouTube echo those of Trump, who railed against tech companies and their policies during his presidency.

Trump was eventually de-platformed from other online entities such as Twitter and Facebook, among others, following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Conservatives have since complained theyre being censored on social media platforms.

After the YouTube video removal, DeSantis used the opportunity to promote censorship bills that are moving through his states legislature and would prevent social media companies from blocking politicians from their platforms in Florida. (State attempts to regulate social media companies will face constitutional hurdles, including First Amendment protections, the Tampa Bay Times reported.)

Social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have introduced covid misinformation policies since the pandemic started, and even updated those policies in the past couple of months to take a harder line in removing posts and notifying users. However, the companies state that they arent targeting certain users when removing content, but rather anyone who spreads misinformation.

According to data shared by YouTube in March, the company has removed more than 800,000 videos containing coronavirus misinformation since February of last year. Facebook reported in February that the company and its sister platform, Instagram, had removed more than 1 million pieces of covid misinformation in the last three months of 2020. And last month, Twitter said it had removed more than 8,400 tweets and challenged 11.5 million accounts since the implementation of the covid guidance.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

This story can be republished for free (details).

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Censorship or Misinformation? DeSantis and YouTube Spar Over Covid Roundtable Takedown. - Kaiser Health News

China's former Premier Wen Jiabao leaves after the fifth plenary meeting of National People's Congress (NPC), at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 15, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Lee

Chinese internet firms blocked users from sharing a lengthy article written by former Premier Wen Jiabao in tribute to his late mother, censoring a senior member of the ruling Communist Party, possibly because he spoke out of line.

The obituary-style article written by Wen about his mother, who died recently, appeared in a small weekly newspaper called the Macau Herald on Friday and was posted on a public account on Chinese chat app WeChat on Saturday, but was swiftly restricted.

The heartfelt tribute includes details of Wen's mother's struggle during periods of upheaval in China, including the second Sino-Japanese War and the political purges of the Cultural Revolution.

"In my mind, China should be a country full of fairness and justice, always with a respect for the will of the people, humanity, and human nature," said Wen's article, which did not directly discuss China's current political environment.

China's ruling Communist Party (CCP) has sought to tighten control over how netizens discuss history on the country's heavily controlled internet in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the party's founding, in July.

Under President Xi Jinping, the space for dissent in China has narrowed, while censorship has expanded.

Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing, said the article represented an "alternative voice from within the party" that is out of step with efforts of the last few years to stifle dissent.

"The power of this article by Wen is that it challenges that, and this is the main reason why it has been banned from being shared," he said, noting the party's sensitivity around its anniversary.

Last week, an arm of China's cyber regulator launched a hotline for netizens to report "illegal" comments that "distorted" the Party's historical achievements and attacked the country's leadership. read more

When users tried to share Wen's article, a notice appeared saying that the content went against WeChat's regulations and could not be shared, a common censorship measure in China that is one step below purging articles completely.

On Weibo, the Chinese social media site similar to Twitter, there was scant mention of the article, and comments and sharing functions had been disabled. Links to articles on Wen's tribute posted on Weibo returned "404" messages on Tuesday morning, indicating they had been deleted.

The operators of WeChat and Weibo, as well as China's internet regulator, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Former Chinese leaders and high-profile politicians rarely cultivate public personas or share detailed biographical information in their retirement, and are expected to slip gracefully from the limelight.

Since assuming power in 2012, Xi's signature policies have been cemented in the party constitution and term limits abolished, putting him almost on par with Communist China's founder Mao Zedong in the pantheon of its leaders.

Wen, who was premier under former Chinese leader Hu Jintao, was a leading figure behind the country's economic policies in the 2000s, and left office in 2013 when he was succeeded by current Premier Li Keqiang.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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China censors ex-premier's article ahead of Communist Party anniversary - Reuters

As China faces increasing global scrutiny on a slew of issues, including its inhuman treatment of Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang, it has launched an aggressive campaign to vigorously defend its policies in the region, and rubbish the allegations of repression being levelled against it.

Chinas Foreign Ministry last month issued the most assertive defence of its policies in Xinjiang to date, calling accusations of genocide in the region the lie of the century. The statement marks a stark shift in Chinas strategy to reshape the narrative regarding its treatment of Uyghurs.

Until now, China had been denying and dismissing the allegations of state-sponsored oppression of Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang. However, this has changed as Chinas strategy to counter such allegations has now evolved from outright denial to unabashed public defence. This hardened public posturing can be attributed to a growing sense of confidence in Beijing and its eager alacrity to be combative in taking on its critics in the West on issues ranging from COVID-19 cover-up, South China sea, its repression in Hong Kong or its subjugation of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Chinas shift to belligerence was precipitated by the onset of the coronavirus outbreak that first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, and from their spread across the world. The virus hit the Western nations particularly hard, with the death toll rising to hundreds of thousands. The outbreak also brought in its wake crippling lockdowns, causing indescribable economic hardships. It forced Western countries to reassess their relationship with China, which used its newly gained economic heft to browbeat nations that demanded an impartial inquiry into the origins of the virus.

Chinas menacing moves in the South China sea, its surreptitious activities in the greater Himalayan region bordering India, and its brutal crackdown of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong only served to embolden the several western nations to bell the cat and hold China responsible for its misdeeds that were so far swept under the rug, most glaringly its atrocities on the Uyghur population.

As a consequence, it drew a sharp response from Beijing, which then launched a propaganda campaign to control the narrative surrounding Xinjiang even as it staunchly denied the suppression of Uyghur minorities. State media reporters were hurriedly dispatched to Xinjiang to show that everything is hunky dory and to discredit the allegations of mistreatment of Uyghurs.

The glowing accounts of state media reporters were then firehosed on Chinese social media websites to disprove the allegations of the harsh treatment meted out on the Uyghur population and rally support from the Chinese masses against the Western nations, whom they accused of tarnishing the image of China.

The Chinese Communist Party also deployed censorshipone of the powerful tools that Beijing uses to control the narrative. Stories of Uyghur suppression by credible western media outlets were banned in China so that Chinese citizens do not have access to the articles that described in excruciating details Beijings cruel treatment of the Uyghur minorities.

Besides, a whataboutery campaign was also launched where the Chinese officials raised questions on the state of human rights in the countries that dared to question Chinas poor human rights record. This was most evident against the United States as Chinese diplomats known for indulging in wolf warrior diplomacy questioned America on its treatment of people of colour in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement.

When it fails to control the narrative by propaganda and censorship, it uses disinformation to achieve its ends. A case in point is thedisinformation campaignsurrounding the origin of the coronavirus. A senior Chinese spokesperson publicly called the US military the source of the coronavirus. Soon after the Chinese spokesman ascribed the virus to the US military, all the arms of the media warfare coalesced to amplify the disinformation that the US military was responsible for unleashing the pandemic.

Censorship, Propaganda and Disinformation are the pillars of the Chinese Communist Partys strategy to control the narrative domestically, as well as globally. China has one of the worlds most restrictive media environments and it relies heavily on thesethree pillarsto add ballast to the growing dominance of the CCP and Xi Jinping over the Chinese people.

From the last few years, several reports have emerged detailing the cruel treatment subjected to Uyghur Muslims living in the restive province of Xinjiang. According to a 2017 report by the head of the Institute of Sociology at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing considers the increasing Muslim population in Xinjiang a threat to its political hegemony.

It took elaborate measures to contain this threat. The strategy of the Communist Party of China (CCP) was to strip Uyghurs of their religious and ethnic identity and assimilate them into the dominant Han Chinese ethnicity. While Uighur Muslims are often subjected to re-educational programs, forced labour, and digital surveillance, their children are indoctrinated in orphanages.

Areportby theAssociated Pressshed light on the reasons and measures taken by the Chinese State to ensure a demographic genocide of its Uyghur population. With several draconian measures in place, China ensured a significant decline in the birth rates of Uighurs (mostly comprising of Muslims).

The measures included regular pregnancy tests, sterilisation, abortion, forced insertion of IUDs (intrauterine devices), huge penalties, and incarceration in detention camps for having three or more children. Reportedly, the number of people held up in such camps range from hundreds and thousands of ethnic minorities to millions.

Another report published by The Intercept threw light on the lengths that China goes in not only scrutinising the minority Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang but also their relatives and friends, along with those who are living abroad. Artificial Intelligence, sophisticated surveillance systems, new-age technology and human intelligence are all employed by the Chinese Communist Party to track and monitor the Uyghur Muslims and those associated with them.

To counter these damning reports, the CCP scrubbed all the Western reports that detailed the horrors meted out on the Uyghurs in the internment camps. Multiple foreign journalists who reported on the forced incarceration of the Uyghurs were expelled from China, while academics, activists and survivors who sought to expose Chinas chicanery were denounced and harassed. Those who dared to speak against the illegal detention of Uyghurs inside China have been silenced or detained.

The crackdown against the Uyghur Muslims was accompanied by a propaganda campaign, where the internment campaigns were portrayed as vocational training education centres, with choreographed media tours for state outlets, who interviewed the graduates lauding the system. Simultaneously, the CCPs disinformation arm also swung into action, terming the persecution of Uyghur minorities as a figment of Western imagination and sowing confusion about the scale of the education centres and abuses experienced by the detainees, while also painting Beijing as the victim of violent extremism and Western propaganda.

Initially, the CCP was secretive about its concentration camps for Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. When the news about their existence started making the rounds in the global media, Chinas first response was to use censorship to limit its spread in the Chinese media and vehemently deny their existence.

When the mounting evidence to the contrary became irrefutable, China flip-flopped and launched a propaganda campaign to claim they were just education centres to impart valuable skills to the backward Uyghur people. The Chinese government portrayed the camps as humane and launched a disinformation blitz to paint the criticism as a Western conspiracy meant to vilify China.

Excerpt from:
From censorship to propaganda and disinformation: Heres how China seeks to reshape the narrative on the repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang - OpIndia

Liberation ends long period of industry restriction

There is a sentence from the Italian director Dario Argento which says: in Italy, the censor is very old and there are many judges and psychiatrists who analyze you. The filmmakers speech is important because his works and those of many others (and this list includes names like Federico Fellini and Bernardo Bertolucci) were somehow affected by the then current censorship of Italian cinema.

It was only recently that the Italian government banned legislation which gave public bodies, more specifically the Interior Ministry, the power to edit or ban films containing material deemed inappropriate. In a statement on the decision, the Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini underlined the new change where the system of control and intervention which still allows the state to intervene in the freedom of artists is definitively closed.

The practice of censorship in Italian cinema is very old, going back even before fascism. It was from May 1914, by Royal Decree No. 534 (at the time when the country was ruled by King Victor Emanuel III until the adoption of a republican model in 1946) that the objective To prohibit the public from watching: shows offensive to morality, public decency and private citizens; shows which are contrary to national reputation and decorum or to public order, or which may disrupt the good relations of international events .

Cinema was already a reality for Italy at the start of the 20th century

The Italian scenario of this type of decision, at the beginning of the 20th century, already provided somehow an adequate climate for such a decision to come into force in 1914. The processes of increased control of all cultural material produced had existed since 1910, where the mayors had the autonomy to regulate works deemed immoral. Ironically, as noted in Marco Grifos article The Early Phases of Film Censorship in Italy, the request for a regulatory office came from an unexpected source.

The request to have a single central office to grant film releases was made by the producers themselves, in order to limit the financial losses they could suffer due to the individual tastes of the mayors. It was also a hope to restore order in a climate of confusion.

From 1913, this regulation was broadened with the bill of parliamentarian Luigi Facta in which a single office would have the power to censor or publish all Italian or foreign productions that would be shown to a wide audience. The following year, the real censorship process was put in place throughout the country, where the evaluations would be carried out by two committees made up of officials from the General Directorate of Public Security and politicians in general.

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1913 The Italian Parliament voted to adopt the first censorship measures

When Mussolinis fascist government rose in 1922, it initially kept the system of regulatory commissions in place until then with a few small introductions of new elements that should also be weighed. Roberto Gul, in his film Censorship during Fascism, gives an interesting perspective on the relationship of the then new fascist regime with the already established habit of censorship.

The parameters for evaluating films according to their merits remained unchanged: listeners continued to seek moral skills, the presence of violent, disgusting or cruel scenes even those that could incite hatred among different social classes . Part of the apparent lack of interest in the dawn of fascism in film censorship was that Mussolinis biggest concern was, as we know, more about controlling news and information than fiction films.

The author goes on to indicate that this apparent lack of interest was put aside from 1934 with the creation of the Under-Secretary of State for the Press and Propaganda, when the responsibility for the evaluation of audiovisual productions went to the Under Secretary of State who had his own film department.

The arrival of Mussolinis fascist government only intensified the control that already existed

According to Gul, the fascist censorship was different because it reinforced the so-called preventive censorship, that is to say in the pre-production phase, in particular by keeping control over the script; and the gradual transfer of powers that restrict review boards to older employees .

With this in mind, the state control machine worked with pre-visualized targets, that is to say that some works did not even need to go through commissions to undergo bans such as those coming from the United States. , France and the USSR. Indeed, the censors mainly targeted works containing messages that went hand in hand with the ideas defended by the government.

One example is The Great Illusion, a 1937 French film by Jean Renoir, which even won the award for best performing arts at the Venice Film Festival brought a story that criticized the idea that war is something that should be targeted (going against the thought of militarism fascism) and that which set up in central scene a camp of prisoners of war where the dialogue between soldiers of different nationalities dismantled the previous prejudices.

The Great Illusion brings a strong pacifist message

Another memorable case is what happened to the Great Dictator of 1940, Charles Chaplins definitive satire that explicitly ridiculed the Italian fascist and Nazi movements. Most of Europe will not have access to the work until after World War II, but in the case of Spain in particular, the work will not be published until after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. .

In this way, the end of the war marks a moment of reassessment of Italian censorship, even if it has not been eradicated. In the part of the country which had been occupied by the allies, care was taken to eradicate all works that would make excuses for fascism, while in the former Republic of Sal (located in the north of the country, which was the territory that Mussolini maintained control between 1943 and 1945) the structure of the existing enclosure has remained intact.

Even with the approval of new laws which in theory should reform the cinematographic evaluation system, the decree of 1945 which stipulated the creation of a new body called the Central Film Board was still living the habit that in Italy, it was necessary for the existence of a representative of the State to determine which films should be banned or shown; not showing much variation from what has been practiced since 1914 or 1922.

The film Chaplin remained banned in many European countries until after the war

It was in the confusion of the Italian power of the time that the Church entered as a sometimes decisive element of cinema. In the article It did indeed exist it was everywhere in the newspapers: the memories of the film censorship in the 1950s in Italy by the duo Daniela Treveri Gennari and Silvia Dibeltulo are indicated as the Vaticans control over the cinema consolidated.

This was only possible thanks to the centralization of power achieved by Giulio Andreotti who operated according to the wishes of the Vatican Andreotti reminds Montini of all the operations he has undertaken to consolidate the Catholic presence in Italian cinema. These interventions included a financial contribution to the Catholic Film Center; the presence of a Catholic representative in the jury of the Venice Film Festival

The estimation of works removed during the censorship period is discussed by Nick Vivarelli in his article Italy Abolishes Film Censorship, Ending Government Power to Ban Films for the Variety in Which He Believes, Through Source original from the Cinecensura portal, that 247 Italian films, 130 Americans and 321 works from other countries have been removed from Italy since 1944 (not counting the period prior to that year) and more than 10,000 works have been forced to cut scenes.

Despite the siege around creative freedoms, Italian cinema managed to thrive during the second half of the twentieth century; between the 1950s and 1970s, the country witnessed the flourishing of the best era of comedy with works such as The Eternals Unknown and Amarcord by Federico Fellini. It is also the period when the big names of the Italian audiovisual industry are born; not only from the aforementioned Fellini (who occupies the top of the names), but also from Sergio Leone (who would conquer Hollywood by reshaping the Western genre), Dario Argento (who combined the horror genre with a refined aesthetic sense), Roberto Benigni (reference in comedy) and many others.

In short, the official end of censorship in Italian cinema has considerable weight both practical (although many films historically banned a long time ago have already been seen by the public) and symbolic because it represents the sigh of relief of an industry that will now be able to determine for themselves which films are suitable for which segments and whose filmmakers no longer have to live the experience of seeing their works constantly edited and cut according to censorship.

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End of censorship Italian cinema free of restrictions - Designer Women

While the West was preparing for the long Easter holiday break, a royal family feud erupted in Jordan. King Abdullah II put his half-brother, Prince Hamzah bin Hussein eldest son of the late King Hussein and his third wife, Queen Noor, and Crown Prince from 1999 to 2004 under house arrest for his role in an alleged conspiracy to "undermine the countrys stability."

Videos posted on social media showed Jordanian security forces in the affluent neighborhood of Dabouq in West Amman, where several royal palaces, counting Hamzahs own, are located. Hamzah published two videos accusing the ruling elite ofcorruption, nepotism, and incompetence, constituting a "breakdown in governance."

The Jordanian chief of staff warned him in person to stop amplifying criticism of the government; 16 people, including a high-profile former head of the Royal Court and members of the large and influential Majali tribe, were arrested or detained. The court darkly accused the plotters of "foreign ties."

Days later, with wall-to-wall backing from the U.S. and Arab world ringing in his ears, the king declared victory over the "seditionists."

So, what is going on really in Jordan?

The short answer is: nobody really knows. As Jordan expert Professor Sean L. Yom explained to me in an email interview, commentary on the nebulous coup is layered with rumor and innuendo. "The signal-to-noise ratio is terrible on understanding Prince Hamzah's circumstances; we might get the full story in a decade or two in some memoir."

A coup plot raises fears of violence in a nine million-strong kingdom that has emerged over the years as an oasis of stability in an otherwise-turbulent region, and where the autocratic Hashemite court portrays itself as a moderate and unified regime.

Abdullah II has dealt with discontent, which has been simmering for decades, with a hard hand, but he benefits from one winning card that many Jordanians, frustrated and angered by their declining economic circumstances and prospects, acknowledge. The king is not popular nowadays, but many still view his continued reign as preferable to more extreme alternatives.

Those unpalatable alternatives include an Islamist rule, civil war, or worst still, especially for beneficiaries of the status quo, a terminal loss of power for Jordanians of East Bank descent in favor of Jordanians of Palestinian origin.

Whether the alleged coup plot was real, or the Jordanian state "invented" it to silence growing dissent, it is particularly significant that members of the royal Hashemite family moved so publicly against each another. Its hardly news that Abdullah II and his close allies are not on the best of terms with Queen Noor, her kids and that side of the family altogether.

But what is captivating in the controversy is the arrest of Dr. Bassem Awadallah, the former head of the Royal Court, ex-minister and longtime confidante of Abdullah II. Even if their bromance had petered out, being named as a participant in this "conspirators coup" is shocking, to say the least.

Dissent on the Rise

For over a decade now, criticism of the royal regime, constricted but biting, has broken the taboo against openly voicing discontent with Jordans ruling family.

For years, Hamzah has raised the ire of the state by openly criticizing corruption, which remains rampant in Jordan despite lip service to the contrary.

Other prominent voices, including some from the Eastern side of the river traditionally a key support bloc for the regime have also condemned the regime and its policies. In 2010, a group of retired military officers issued a statement that accused the king and queen of corruption, and attacked them for their neoliberal economic policies and handling of the Palestinian issue.

That was the first such public airing of dissatisfaction with the King from within loyalist circles. But an increasing number of people have been criticizing King Abdullah in recent years, although doing so breaks several domestic laws.

Successive governments have tried to silence this growing dissent, including on social media, through harassment and draconian changes to the kingdoms anti-terrorism and cybercrimes laws, and Jordanian intelligence officersseek anyjustificationtostamp onfree speech, arresting and detaining citizens for trivial acts framed as provocation. More recently, pandemic restrictions on public gatherings have provided another pretext for further arrests.

Why Now?

Jordanians have taken to the streets in large numbers on several occasions since the major anti-austerity protests of May 2018. This is because the effects of the crisis, triggered by tax rises, price increases for essential products, the economic pressure of hosting a million Syrian refugees and a drastic reduction in Saudi aid, have not receded.

Since those protests, which forced the resignation of the prime minister and which rocked the kingdom, taxes have actually risen, unemployment has spiked even higher, and state subsidies have been slashed, thanks to repeated, albeit much-needed, IMF-dictated cuts. The crisis has been sharpenedby COVID, and the associated disintegration of the country's tourism industry.

All of this hardship, and bubbling anger, is the backdrop to why, when at least seven COVID patients diedin March when a multi-million dollar hospital in the city of Salt ran out of oxygen, there was such an explosive public reaction.

Among the East Bank-dominated security apparatus, small divides have emerged in recent years in the form of quiet criticism of the king. In East Bank circles more broadly, some have suggested that Abdullah may be the countrys last monarch, and a few even have more explicitly called for an immediate end to the monarchy.

Hamzahs name occasionally comes up in those discussions as a possible alternative to Abdullah. After the deaths in Salt, there were reports that protestors took to the streets chanting, "Oh Hamzah, son of Hussein, the country is lost, where are you?"

However, while Hamzah has been a vocal critic of state corruption in the country, Bassem Awadallah, Jordans chief economic architect in the early and mid-2000s, was not. On the contrary, protesters have widely and repeatedly criticized Awadallah of corruption in overseeing the countrys privatization of state-owned enterprises. But he too was arrested.

Looming behind this, as well as interacting with it, are what are generally seen as broken government promises. Take the example of protests by Jordanian teachers that started in 2019. The government had promised teachers a 50 percent pay rise back in 2014.

That pledge was later adjusted downwards before stalling entirely, when all public-sector pay increases were frozen in 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. By the middle of last year, the Jordanian government had arrested dozens of leading members of the Islamist-influenced Teachers' Union, and banned the organization altogether.

Adding to the frustration is the paucity of "legitimate" avenues for public policy debate. Jordan has a bare minimum of democracy and reforms often come from the top down. The king appoints and dismisses the prime minister and the Cabinet, as well as members of the upper house of parliament, at will. Even though members of the lower house are elected every four years, they tend to have comparatively little sway, and, in any case, elections are a sad joke.

But, recently, parliamentarians and other opposition figures are testing the limits. They have openly criticized Ammans agreement with Washington, inked without the National Assemblys approval. The agreement gives American military forces, their weaponry and equipment the formal right to enter, pass through and operate on Jordanian territory, and allows U.S. ships, aircraft and military personnel visa-free entry.

Without any meaningful independent media in Amman, and a media clampdown announced on the crisis, banning the "publication of anything related to (the case)," Jordanians are speculating on social media. The gag order means we are dealing with 500 theories by Jordanians on social media, and the Biden administration is keeping its cards close to its chest.

According to a Washington Post editorial, Amman charged foreign elements with encouraging "sedition," with many pointing the finger at Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). It is noteworthy that Awadallah was formerly a special envoy to Saudi Arabia before becoming MBS personal adviser.

Others suggest that perhaps the Jordanian regimes goal was to use the supposed foreign conspiracy to silence Hamzah, while also taking the opportunity to arrest the highly unpopular Awadallah, who is of Palestinian origin.

My own speculation would be that Awadallah being lumped into the Hamzah camp is pure political opportunism. Clearly, he had a falling out with the King, but again nobody knows what that falling out was about.

Speculation about Awadallah working closely with MBS and his Israeli contacts is probably true, but that is hardly exceptional. MBS and Israeli third parties have their hands in many pies, everywhere, and he is not the only Jordanian they have ever called up and asked about what Jordan might be like post-Abdullah.

My guess is that the Jordan Armed Forces intel or the Mukhabarat probably got hard evidence of their chatter, and the king wanted leverage in case he needed to embarrass Israel or Riyadh in the future.

That seems to be the reason the Saudis are so desperately trying to get him back, with a "solidarity" delegation led by the Saudi foreign minister, reportedly accompanied by the director of Saudi intelligence director and MBSs chief of staff, visiting Amman. The trip's implicit aim was to win Awadallah's release.

As for the letter Hamzah supposedly signed pledging loyalty to Abdullah, it is not clear why or how Abdullahs uncle, Prince Hassan bin Talal, was able to extract that from him. Perhaps it was thanks to blackmail; perhaps it was a strategic decision between Hamzah and Queen Noor, who decided that now was not the time for a full confrontation with Abdullah, at least not with the U.S. being so pro the incumbent King. Or it was a combination of the two.

Of course, Biden's support for Abdullah is conventional U.S. foreign policy, period. Every president since Bill Clinton has backed the current Jordanian king. Even Donald Trump, despite sidelining Abdullah on the Israeli-Palestinian front, never publicly attacked him in the way that he decried other world leaders.

The U.S. feels very tight with Jordan, but only through Abdullah and the military. They do not trust other family members, unless it is his son or wife, and thats typical of U.S. behavior with client states, exemplified by its relations with the Shah of Iran.

The overall situation is not exceptional to Jordan as a dynastic autocracy. In these regimes, rulers often sacrifice their kin for political expediency. More than half the Arab royal families have sanctioned, over the past decade, assaults physical, financial, or legal on male royal relatives whose political beliefs are deemed threats to autocratic order; and this also goes for business partners and close friends of the throne. No bromance lasts forever. These systems eat their own.

Equally, when an American "client" state wins a strong signal of support from its patron, its emboldened to undertake drastic repression. And Jordans recent defense agreement with the U.S. is exactly that kind of support.

U.S. forces have already been stationed in Jordan for nearly two decades, but the treaty upgrades American military rights to the point where Jordan is now, functionally, an overseas base and bridge for U.S. military operations across the MENA region. Jordans effective sharing, or even transfer, of sovereignty with the U.S. means the kingdom is now, in essence, an American "protectorate" very much like what it was under Britain in its first post-independence decade, when it was technically "sovereign," but served as a piece of empire.

On the Defensive

Conspiracy or not, the Jordanian regime is throwing its security services full force into suppressing widespread political dissent, adding Amman to the growing list of nations that are becoming more repressive and less democratic. Many international organizations have spotted this trend, too. Freedom House, the U.S.-based NGO that measures how "free" a democracy is, reduced Jordan's ranking from "partly free" in 2020 to "not free" in 2021.

Meanwhile, Reporters without Borders, a media freedom watchdog, also noted that hundreds of local websites have been blocked since Jordan overhauled its media laws in 2012. The Paris-based NGO went on to underscore the fact that posts on social media in Jordan are now potentially punishable with jail sentences.

Despite that, Twitter use for the first three months of the year, perhaps as a result of the thirst for uncensored news, jumped from a tiny 1.3 percent of the population to nearly 10 percent. Also noteworthy is the growing number of Jordanian opposition activists agitating for change, via social media, from outside the country, where they have self-exiled or found refuge.

Reading Between the Lines

For ordinary Jordanians and Amman-insiders this jaded observer included recent events remain opaque. Amid swirling rumors about international conspiracies and security services who went too far to stop the popular prince, the citizenry and media in Jordan wont discuss the crisis openly for fear of retribution.

The question is whether this is just the beginning of a deeper crisis for Jordan one that could inevitably change the country's political landscape and reputation for stability for the long term?

The situation in Amman seems to have calmed down somewhat now. For one thing, Prince Hamzah reaffirmed his loyalty to King Abdullah a week after the crisis, signing a letter in which he promised to abide by the norms and approach of the ruling Hashemite monarch family. For another, both men made their first joint public appearance on April 11th, when members of the Jordanian royal family marked the centenary of the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan, the British protectorate that preceded the Kingdom.

The best and safest statement to make today is that there is more popular dissent than ever before in Jordan, and it is fueling plenty of protests, but nobody is predicting revolution. Thats because all this opposition is not unified around a single set of goals.

Some Transjordanians want to roll back neoliberal economic policies, while democratic activists want a constitutional monarchy. While the influential tribes are displeased by Hamzahs humbling, the majority are not calling for any radical change. At the same time, elite support for the king remains strong. Simply put, there is no agreement on the street.

For Abdullah II, this division could well be as pertinent to his continued rule as his own efforts to repress dissent and control the narrative of the April putsch and its quashing.

Marwan A. Kardoosh is a development economist with 22 years of experience working in the Middle East and North Africa. Jordan expert Professor Sean L. Yom contributed to the drafting of this article

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Fake coups, Saudi sedition and spin: The real dissent behind Jordans royal crisis - Haaretz