George Orwells Animal Farm debuts today as a PC and mobile game based on a classic work of literature.

The game was made by small collective of indie developers and they worked with estate of George Orwell, who wrote the classic allegorical book about totalitarian government in 1945. This game is the work of indie developers headed by Imre Jele and Andy Payne, who lead the mini-studio The Dairymen. They enlisted another indie, Nerial (creators of Reigns), to help make the game and writing veteran Emily Short wrote the narrative.

They describe it as an overtly political act of game development. It is a labor of love for Jele, who grew up in communist Hungary before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He felt the oppression of the government every day, and he was distressed to see the U.S. fall into the same parallels to living in totalitarian countries. He saw the same tactics of alternative truths, fact manipulation, and populism used, and he felt that Orwells allegory full of gaslighting, hypocrisy, corruption, and greed has never been more relevant.

August marked 75 years since the novels first printing. I read it along with Orwells 1984 and a host of other dystopian novels when I was young. And Animal Farm remains relevant today, but perhaps the medium of video games will bring it home better for young people, as games are great for showing what if scenarios. Jele convinced the Orwell estate to support the effort. The resulting narrative game is a choice-based adventure title that puts the player at the center of an allegorical revolution on a farm, where the animals overthrow the humans.

By choosing which of the animals wishes they follow and who is ignored or sidelined players will influence the critical events that define the fate of the farm. The game has six different destinies and eight different endings. The narrator is Abubakar Salim, who played Bayek in Assassins Creed: Origins.

I interviewed Jele and Short about the making of the game.Heres an edited transcript of our interview.

Above: Animal Farm co-creator Imre Jele.

Image Credit: The Dairymen

GamesBeat: Animal Farm is one of my favorites, as is 1984. I was curious how this all got started for you, how you went down this road.

Imre Jele: I was born in Hungary, behind the Iron Curtain. I was on the other side of the fence. I grew up in a family that was politically active, what was considered by the government to be the wrong side of politics. I grew up in what they called the soft regime, but there was still some nasty stuff going on. I was the last generation that was still clapping for the big leader. A white shirt and a little red tie, and we marched up and down in front of the school.

Animal Farm was read to me when I was a child, next to The Little Prince and Winnie the Pooh. I dont know how they define me, those three books, but thats how I started. I remember very early on that I wanted to make a board game out of it, because it was such an important book to me. I could relate to it. I understood the story in a way, because my family was affected by it. I found some notes of mine, actually, that I made when I was an early teenager, about that board game. Its awful, I can tell you. It took a few decades.

A few years ago I had this moment where you know how it is when you keep saying to yourself, I should totally do that! And then you have this list of hundreds of things and its never going to happen. I went through that list and I wrote it all down on little pieces of paper. I made three piles. One was, it must happen. One was, it should happen. One was, it could happen. And then I set the shoulds and coulds on fire. It was very cathartic. In the must-happen pile was Animal Farm.

We started chasing this. I felt that gaming was ready for it. We were always an art, but not always a great art. We grew up. Its time. The audience is ready. The developers are ready. I said the same thing to the Orwell estate. I reached out to them. Thats a long story in itself, but the short version is that when I first reached out I got back an email that said, Rights not available. That was it. I wrote back to them, because I knew the rights were available, and I wanted to continue pursuing them. It took months and months, and ultimately I managed to convince the estate. They did what they were supposed to do. Its their job to protect the estate. They cant allow it to be misused, so to speak. But it took a long time, and an even longer time after we convinced them to figure out what the game was going to be.

We had multiple false starts. We built a bunch of prototypes with different strengths and weaknesses, but nothing quite felt right. I remember I kept referencing Nerial and the Reigns game series. At one point Andy, who worked with us on the team, said, You always keep talking about them, but why arent we working with them? So I reached out, and they were immediately super-excited. They wanted to be on board. In fact, that was the story of this whole thing. Anyone we spoke with, when we asked them to suggest someone, the answer was usually, How about me?

Emily, who Id known for a few years, was the same. I came to her and asked, Who would you suggest to write this? And she said, I know some people, but what about me? It was amazing. Thats how this whole indie collective came together. A lot of people with different companies and different allegiances were excited about this. They felt that its more than just a game project. Its something where we feel we have a responsibility to do it.

Above: Emily Short led the narrative for Animal Farm.

Image Credit: The Dairymen

GamesBeat: How long has it taken to get to this point?

Jele: For the longest time, I never said this out loud, but I was told that I should. We originally wanted to release this alongside the 2016 election. Ill leave it at that. I felt that certain figures around the world, not just in America, emerged over the last decade in particular, who started to use these tools that were eerily similar to what I lived through. I recognized the language. You might replace some words. Instead of capitalist spies its immigrants or whatever. But its the same language.

The actual development, though, we only started very late last year. It was December, maybe. We properly got started in January.

Emily Short: We were doing some narrative design pitch docs in November, but I wasnt really writing until December.

GamesBeat: Was there a challenge in getting it funded? What led to that long gestation?

Jele: Thats one of the reasons. Its a modest indie project. Were not raising millions. But still, one dollar is one dollar. It was a tricky effort. We got some offers, but we had to be cautious. We have certain allegiances that we have to stay clear of because of the implications and what they mean to the community. Ultimately we had an individual benefactor who chose to privately fund the entire enterprise, which was an amazing opportunity. We dont have to respond to a big corporate entity. We still have the relationship with the estate and with this investor, but theyve largely left us alone through the entire process. Weve only gotten support from them.

GamesBeat: How big an effort did it become as far as team size?

Jele: Overall, its just five or six people.

Short: Some people have come on and off. We swapped out engineers at Nerial at one point. But yeah, its usually been me, an artist, an engineer, and a couple of other people whove been involved in art direction or additional support of various kinds.

Jele: We also had the audio, the composer, Morgan, who Ive worked with a few times. We recorded the voice-over with Abubakar Salim, who was Bayak in Assassins Creed: Origins. Kate Saxon was our director. Her CV is quite impressive. All these people were excited to come on board. But the core team was fairly small.

GamesBeat: The book is fairly short. I dont know how long the game is, but how did you deal with adapting that narrative?

Short: The way we approached that, we wanted to definitely be a game. At the same time, we wanted to be very much faithful to what the book was, and not insert a lot of other material or other angles on things. The first stage of that for me I have to say, this was easier because of the kind of book it is. Animal Farm is a particularly good book to make into a game because its so much about systems and processes and how people affect each other. How the farm is doing, how the politics work. And each of the animals on the farm, obviously they have a character and a personality, but theyre also tied to a particular style of political engagement. Its a very systemic book to start with, which made it a lot easier.

Looking at that as a first step, thinking about OK, well, what are the systems in this book? How do we bring those into game systems? Lets make it about youre looking after this farm. It has certain qualities, things you might recognize. Think of a farm sim type of situation. Have we planted crops? How are the farm animals feeling? Those kinds of things come into it. You also have the storyline trajectory of whos in power and how theyre using that power. And then we associated each of the animals or animal groups with a particular type of verb or interaction. Boxer gets lots of work done, but hes not very critical of the political leadership. Different animals on the farm have different strategies for dealing with things.

That first step was just building out and mapping the books systems onto gameplay systems. And then the next thing was to take the text of the book and put it in a spreadsheet and break it into pieces. What are the beats here? Where do those map in terms of game states that could arise? This character is dead, so this beat becomes available, and so on. I added a few other things, which were just about things I think Orwell would have taken for granted that his audience already knew about. Harvesting and planting stuff. But basically it was those beats.

I looked through that to see where there were alternate game states that are clearly implied by choices in the book. This animal dies instead of that animal. Something goes differently in a key battle sequence. Those kinds of things. Thats where I needed to augment and create material that wasnt in the book. But I tried to be quite disciplined about not adding things that werent at least implied by that structure.

The most notable area where we needed to fill out a fair amount of content was around Snowball. If you play the game naively, or if we run through an auto-test and let it make choices automatically, most of the time youll end up with something close to the canonical structure of the book, where Napoleon winds up in charge. If you actually choose to push back on that and try to set up a situation where Napoleon is killed and Snowball takes charge, something like that we wanted to answer that question as well.

For things like that, I looked at other historical examples, especially from communist regimes, but also authoritarian regimes in general. What are alternate historical examples that, if they had happened before the writing of Animal Farm, might have inspired it as well? There are some elements of Snowballs regime that draw more from Maoist China attempts to industrialize in a way that arent particularly good for the inhabitants, to say the least so wed have something that felt like it was constructed with the same themes and the same thinking, even if it wasnt part of the original text.

Above: Animal Farm has a longer narrative than the book.

Image Credit: The Dairymen

Jele: The book is short. Depending on how fast you read it might take an afternoon. But its one of those books where Ive handed it to several people to read again, after they read it when they were much younger. They pick it up and say, This is it? I remember it being a lot longer. Everyone remembers more to the story because theres so much implied, and because of the historical context. With our knowledge of oppressive regimes we imagine that what weve heard about should have been covered in Animal Farm.

Theres a reason why Orwellian is a word now. People tie a lot of things together under that. Because of that, there are elements that people, when they play theyll think Orwell obviously wrote it. And I think Emily did a splendid job of matching the language and the phrasing and the wording used to the original book.

What I always say, though, we didnt want to make Animal Farm In Space. We just wanted to make Animal Farm. This book has, unfortunately, remained relevant for 75 years. Its 75 years old this summer.

We worked with the Orwell estate, but not just because of the licensing. They gave us insight early on, and a lot of feedback, which was very helpful. No one understands Orwell better. We also worked with the Orwell Society, which manages the Orwell Prize, and other organizations to make sure that we got it right. The estate wanted to make sure that we understood the work and had the right motivations.

Short: I didnt feel like they were constraining us at all. They were interested to know how we were approaching it thematically. We had quite a long conversation about other elements in Orwells work outside of Animal Farm. Essays, 1984, other things that might shed additional light. Some of that material I also read. But it was nice to have further background and further conversations around it. It was a useful process, also, to explain to them how the narrative design process did not change the story. They were interested in what we were doing to the story by making it playable, but that was a productive conversation in both directions.

GamesBeat: The book exists in everyones head. We all have our own imagination of what it would look like. How did you try to make something that would look right to people?

Jele: We had some art styles that we hope to release after the game comes out, because we had some crazy ideas. We had one that was based on Soviet brutalist propaganda posters. Its gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. But the reality was that again, we wanted to bear in mind that legacy of 75 years. We wanted to make sure we created an art style that isnt just a quick punch and then walk away, but something we believed could have that same legacy, that longevity.

We went back to book illustrations. You can see a couple here. My absolute favorite is Ralph Steadmans version. Its beautifully illustrated. Theres also a graphic novel version. There are some great versions. That was another source of inspiration. We kept going back to the old book illustrations, the woodcut look. What would that look like? Not trying to create something with the latest and shiniest effects we could put in, but something we felt would feel at home in a book.

Short: We were conscious throughout of the way that the bookit doesnt present itself exactly as a childrens book, but theres that quality of a fable. Its timeless. Its something that you could have read to you. The narrative voice in the book is very much the voice of an omniscient person who understands everything, even if hes not saying everything he knows. We tried to carry both of those things over in the art style, and also in our choice of who was voicing it and how the narration was done. We wanted to create that sense of being told the story.

GamesBeat: What is the age range youre targeting, if there is one?

Jele: Theres no target age as such. I think its going to be enjoyable for anyone whod enjoy the book. The book is usually taught in eighth or ninth grade in the states, but I read it when I was younger. I didnt understand everything in it, of course. But I dont think it calls for a specific age.

Short: A really young kid isnt necessarily going to follow the language. But we tried to keep the language itself simple enough that kids in that middle school age range would be able to follow it. Its the same with the gameplay. There are things you can try to pursue that would be more challenging. But if youre not playing with a great deal of tactical awareness, you should still be able to get an interesting story out of it.

Its meant to be something where you could sit down with it as a kid and get something interesting out of it, while as an adultyou can essentially ask it questions. Its a version of the story in which you can explore, well, what would happen in this story if Boxer died earlier or later, or we had a different person in power at this point? Which remains interesting even into later years.

Jele: I was talking to someone whos in education, and we were discussing what type of reading level we should go for in the game. He checked it and told me that, funny enough, it very closely matches an eighth or ninth grade curriculum in terms of the vocabulary. Later on he said he suspects that the curriculum was actually using Animal Farm as one of the books to establish what was readable at that age.

Short: In terms of what I did with the language, often Id have a piece of text that Id pulled into the spreadsheet, and usually Id need to edit it down to be a bit shorter and simpler. Usually, you end up with a sentence structure thats using a similar cadence to Orwell, but maybe fewer clauses, something like that.

Above: Animal Farm was co-created by Imre Jele, who grew up behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary.

Image Credit: The Dairymen

GamesBeat: How do you preserve or extend the satirical elements of the story as you try to expand it and make it interactive?

Short: Theres a couple of directions with that. None of the endings are what you would call a joyous, happy ending where all is well. Orwell didnt believe that was a viable outcome for this kind of government, and that made sense to us as well. But there are different ways that things can go badly.

You can get the canonical ending, or a variation on the canonical ending with Snowball. But then there are some other endings you can get if your farm management goes awry. Things like they wind up losing the farm in battle to the humans, or everyone goes hungry. The farm is depopulated for some reason like that. There, again, I was going back to historical examples to pull. When one of these regimes goes down, what are the people in power doing to save themselves? Things like that.

Theres one ending where, if youve leaned into having a surveillance state, you get the birds, who are your surveillance characters, announcing that they now run things. Its a bit KGB, that kind of stuff. Every time we had one of those things emerge whats a good mapping here? Whats something that feels like it would have felt right to Orwell?

Another place was the characterization of the individual animals. The core gameplay is often about choosing youre constantly selecting the animals themselves that you want to have react to a particular dilemma or situation. A lot of the choice mechanics are aboutthe hen will respond to this, the dog will respond to this, the cow will respond to this. Naturally that meant writing a lot of dialogue for all those characters, and not all of that dialogue exists in the book. But that was another opportunity to lean into different characters. Whats a funny thing they would say right now?

Jele: A great example pretty much everyone thinks they know all the commandments of Animalism. That every single one of them, you can read both versions, both the original and the tainted version. And actually you cant. The book doesnt cover all the tainted versions. Emily had this wonderful opportunity to complete Orwells work where he didnt finish it.

Short: [Laughs] It just wasnt necessary for him. But yeah, we had to come up with answers to all those questions.

Jele: The birds are a great example of how to meaningfully extend something. Its always tricky. You cant even read something without putting yourself into it. Adapting is a big challenge, how you adapt. The surveillance state thing is a good example. In the book they specifically talk about the birds being used to spy on neighboring farms. Of course, logically, they would also use the birds to spy on their own animals. We dont have to worry too much about whether Orwell would agree with that, because in 1984, he explores exactly that. We know that he understood the idea of the surveillance state, and wrote about it. Incorporating that into Animal Farm isnt that big of a stretch. It helped to look at his other work as well.

Short: That specifically is something its not pulling in the exact incidents of 1984. But its absolutely drawing on it.

GamesBeat: If there were a bigger budget or team available to you, is there anything you felt like you left on the table, that you would have done with more resources?

Jele: Its hard to answer that. Theres an old line about how you never complete a creative project. You just abandon it. We were very mindful of that from the beginning. There was a version we considered where it was going to be Animal Farm-meets-Uncharted. That just didnt feel right. A lot of ideas were abandoned not for financial, but for creative reasons.

This is a faithful adaptation of a book. Its not trying to be something else, to be a big action-adventure or anything else. Its a faithful adaptation of one of the most relevant and historically important literary works. I feel like we have to bear that in mind. Now that the deadline is closing in, do I wish we had an extra few months to polish? Of course. There are a lot of things I wish we did. But I also feel that I dont want to add huge amounts of extra stuff, even if I had all the time and money in the world. This game has achieved what we set out to do. Were very proud of the work.

Short: I always can find more things that I would tweak, because thats how it always is. But in terms of the creative concept of it, what we were trying to make I feel like if it had a lot more its not a story that needs lots of CGI. In fact I think it would be kind of distracting. Im happy with the shape that it wound up taking. It doesnt go too wildly far outside I dont feel like there are bits where, if we put it in front of Orwell, hed say, My god, what is this? If wed gone deeply video gamey about it, it would probably have that quality.

GamesBeat: The storys relevance to politics and history, do you feel like its there in the game? Have you said what you wanted to say about that?

Jele: I was raised to hate communists. When I say the word hate I mean hate. Not I hate chocolate ice cream. But a visceral anger. I said nasty things. They were the enemy, the Soviet communists.

I remember playing Papers, Please, and I realized, playing that game a number would come up. Do you have enough money to pay for medication? Or whatever it was. After a few rounds, I started to act like a machine, ignoring other humans. You could say that Im a gamer and Im playing it that way, and thats true. But how quickly did I become that person in a video game, who just runs the system and uses the excuse of just being part of the system? I remember that made me very emotional. What would I have done if it were my child, my parents? What decisions would I make in that scenario? It was very uncomfortable to match that up with the hate I was raised with.

That has to be reflected in the story, because Animal Farm does reflect that. The historical evils done to these animals were also done to real people in the real world. Talking about the facts of how people fail these systems or stand up to these systems its not just a great creative subject to talk about, but its also a responsibility these days, when we see powerful autocratic regimes seemingly rise up around the planet. Its important to talk about it, and I feel that Animal Farm, adapted very faithfully, needs to be done. It talks about where I grew up, and it talks about the millions of people who suffered specifically under the Soviet communist regime, but there are many other forms of oppression.

Above: Napoleon is Animal Farms bad pig.

Image Credit: The Dairymen

Its obnoxious to say this, of course. Do we match Orwells work? I dont know. We tried our best, as far as I can tell. A lot of effort went into getting it right, into making sure that we were channeling Orwells voice. We know that his voice still works. We always wanted to achieve that, and how successfully we achieved that you know how it is. After a while youre blind to your project. I cant tell anymore. But well see how players react.

Ultimately my hope is that people dont even talk about how well it was adapted. My dream would be that people just say, Yes, its Animal Farm. If we could manage to make people feel like the book did, if we can make even a single person say, You know what, Ive heard similar things in the news, whats happening in this game. If we could achieve that, Id be extremely proud. This was an inspiring, humbling, and terrifying project to work on, because of its importance.

Short: All of what you said, in terms of capturing those moments narratively there were also some things in terms of the mechanical design that I was quite happy with, how they embed message. One thing thats a subtler strand in Animal Farm its not only critiquing the pigs and the way they behave, but also things like Boxer is altruistic. Hes kind. Hes good. He works very hard. But his response also enables what happens. His constant desire to resolve systemic injustices and systemic problems by throwing his own labor into it and trying to work harder actually opens the door for Napoleon to be what he is.

Thats something the mechanical design reflects. There are certain things the pigs do that their ability to do that is numerically enhanced by Boxers behavior. There are things like that where we take elements that are thematic in the book and express them through the gameplay. Whether everyone is going to read that is another question. But I felt particularly strongly about getting that kind of thing across. It not only speaks to authoritarianism, but it also speaks to some of the problems with modern capitalism and the things it can do to people. The way it makes individuals responsible for their household and their well-being, but doesnt provide any social safety net. Again, Im throwing my own labor into filling a gap rather than addressing the problem at the level of system and politics.

Jele: As I say, this was inspiring, humbling, and terrifying, to do all this. Not just because of the 75-year legacy, but because of the importance of the work and how relevant it is. Its why I was so excited to have Emily on board, and to have Nerial with their mechanical thinking, bringing this collective together. Thats the kind of thinking it needed. If it was just down to me, it wouldnt have been possible to make this game. It needed these different perspectives not just on the book, not just on gameplay and narrative design, but every aspect.

Its exciting when theres a problem I cant solve, even a trivial one. Early on I asked, What should the voice be? Is it first-person, third-person? It was Emily who said, Well, the book has an omniscient narrator, so why dont we use that point of view? In the game, you dont make a choice about what I do, or point at someone to make them do something. Theres a narrator, and you choose who you listen to. The animals present themselves and you pick one.

All of these ideas came together in the process with the team. It was a very joyful process. But like any game launch, well see what people think.

Read this article:

George Orwells Animal Farm interview Making a game inspired by totalitarian oppression - VentureBeat

Regulatory Review, a publication affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania Program on Regulation, has just posted my new article on how immigration restrictions harm US citizens, as well as would-be immigrants. Here is an excerpt:

Immigration policy is often framed as pitting the interests of would-be immigrants against those of native-born Americans. It is indeed true that immigration restrictions seriously harm potential migrants, many of whom end up being relegated to a lifetime of poverty and oppression based merely on having been born to the wrong parents or in the wrong place. But restrictions also often inflict severe economic harm and injustice on current American citizens. These harms are often given short shrift in public discourse, and they are often excluded from standard estimates of the burden of government regulation on the U.S. economy. But they are real nonetheless

The successful development of two COVID-19 vaccines (one just approved by regulators in the United States and elsewhere, and one that will likely be approved soon) could put an end to the epidemic that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States and around the world. Importantly, both vaccines were developed by firms led by immigrants or children of immigrants

Few immigrants are likely to make contributions on the scale of the COVID-19 vaccines. But the exclusion of large numbers of migrants inevitably means barring some who could make extraordinary advances. And the loss of even those few is a huge cost.

Moreover, even "ordinary" immigrants collectively make enormous economic contributions.

Perhaps we should let in migrants who seem likely to become valuable workers but keep out most others. This reasoning, however, assumes that government can do a good job allocating labor and predicting which people will make useful contributions. That assumption is unlikely to be true. If it were sound, the Soviet Union would have been a great economic success.

Many of the greatest immigrant scientists and entrepreneurs came from humble origins and would have been excluded under current proposals for so-called "merit-based" immigration. The world is full of people with modest initial credentials who could achieve great things in a society that offers them a meaningful opportunity to do so. By excluding them, we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Economic harm is far from the only cost of migration restrictions to American citizens. The law enforcement apparatus established to keep out and deport undocumented migrants unavoidably threatens the civil liberties of all Americans.

Because of weak due process protections in the immigration enforcement system, the federal government detains and sometimes deports thousands of U.S. citizens every year after mistaking them for undocumented immigrants.

The last part of the article briefly summarizes ways in which potential negative effects of migration can be addressed without excluding people. I discuss that issue in much greater detail in Chapter 6 of my book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom.

Read more:

My New "Regulatory Review" Article on How Immigration Restrictions Harm US Citizens - Reason

Lashing out at the Mamata Banerjee government over Thursdays attack on the convoy of BJP national president JP Nadda, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar said on Friday that any political activity by the opposition is ruthlessly oppressed by the state government with police assistance.

The Governor also said that he has a list of 21 senior public servants who are acting as political workers. This list includes names of some senior IPS officials who have been appointed as advisors by the Mamata Banerjee-government, he said.

Any political activity by the opposition in West Bengal is ruthlessly oppressed with police assistance. Alarmingly, police are always on political mode in support of the ruling party. Such oppression climaxed yesterday, he said while addressing the media at Raj Bhavan on Friday.

Taking on the chief minister over the issue of branding a section of political leaders as outsiders, Dhankhar cautioned the chief minister and said that his responsibility come into play when the chief minister deviates from the Constitutional path.

Also read: Situation at border over last 6 months result of Chinas actions - India

I wish to caution the chief minister. What is meant by outsiders? Where are we heading when we tag Indians as insiders and outsiders? Please dont play with fire. Stop this game of outsiders and insiders. My responsibility starts when you deviate from the Constitutional path, he added.

A day after Mamata Banerjee and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, also a TMC MP, attacked Nadda, Dhankhar urged the chief minister and the MP to take back their words and advised that it would increase her stature.

How could a responsible chief minister talk the way she did? In my tweet, I have urged her to think about the grace and depth of Bengali culture and withdraw the video (of her speech) as that would enhance her dignity. Withdrawal of the video with an apology will raise her stature, he added.

For the chief ministers nephew, the Governors advice was, He was talking about a person much older to him and occupying a senior political position. It was unavoidable. I am sure he would heed my advice. He has a long political career ahead of him. He must be part of a system of setting high standards.

The chief minister had mocked Nadda in her speech on Thursday saying, They (BJP) have no other work. At times the home minister is here, other times its Chaddha, Nadda, Fadda, Bhaddha. When they have no audience, they call their workers for doing nautanki.

The Governor also accused the chief minister and the state administration of favouritism and corruption.

Non-responsive approach of the CM to critical issues raised by the Governor is a pointer that governance is not in accordance with the rule of law and more importantly this is a cover-up for corruption, nepotism and favouritism, he added.

Read more:

Opposition is ruthlessly oppressed with polices assistance in Bengal: Governor - Hindustan Times

Unprecedented. No word has been used more often to describe this remarkable year. At some point in the distant future, medical students of this era will recall being summarily removed from clinical rotations, uncertain if we would be asked to stay home or serve on the front lines of the fight against a global pandemic.

We will recall when, during the summer of 2020, the moral and political duty to engage with the most momentous anti-racist movement since the 1960s reanimated a nation paralyzed by fear. By the fall, cataclysmic wildfires on the West Coast poisoned the air from San Francisco to New York City. Coronavirus, cultural upheaval and manifestations of climate change all bore down on us as we entered the most consequential and divisive national election in living memory.

As medical students were taught to keep our personal politics out of the clinic. And yet, the nations politics seep into nearly every aspect of medicine. The structural determinants of health that make our patients sicker and harder to treat are consequences of political decision-making; radical expression of political concepts like freedom and self-determination have dramatically worsened Americas experience of COVID-19. Insofar as politics fundamentally shape how medicine is practiced, our responsibility to patients requires that we develop and maintain an expansive political consciousness.

With political consciousness-building in mind, the remainder of this essay will review the history of another period in American history defined by a simultaneous struggle against government oppression and communicable disease: The American Revolution. Our review will expose the origins of American interpretations of freedom and self-determination. Well end with a discussion on why political systems defined by a single, narrow conception of freedom are ill-suited to combat many modern public health threats, and what we as medical students can do about it.

Before we begin our analysis, its important to acknowledge that the lofty appeals to freedom that defined the American Revolution are invariably complicated by the periods malignant racism, sexism, systematic oppression. The War of Independence was never meant to secure the Enlightenment principles of freedom and equality for anyone but white men. Keeping the periods intellectual contradictions and limitations in mind will help distinguish the periods problems and solutions from our own. With that caveat in place, lets turn to the events that laid the foundations for the political troubles we face today.

By 1775, many American colonists were fed up. The American colonists understood themselves to be British citizens, entitled to the full rights and freedoms afforded them by law and custom. King George III and his government seemed to disagree when they failed to explicitly extend protections enjoyed by British citizens in Britain. To them, it appeared the colonies were unique entities, which entitled the Crown to keep a standing army stationed in cities up and down the Atlantic Coast during peacetime, even if the English Bill of Rights of 1689 expressly forbade such an action. Besides, the young colonies had proven unruly; a standing police force might help keep things in order.

Police states are touchy. A slight bump here or an accidental nudge there can send matters spiraling out of hand. Such volatility helps explain why in 1770 a simple disagreement near the Boston Custom House quickly escalated into a violent confrontation between British soldiers and the townspeople, leaving five Bostonians dead. The sentiments soured by the Boston Massacre would be further spoiled by the Coercive Acts, a series of laws that both robbed Massachusetts of its right to self-governance and kept British officials from having to stand trial in colonial courts.

Every British transgression, no matter how small, served to remind the colonists that they were not, in fact, protected by the rule of law as they were led to believe. To make matters exceedingly worse, colonists were being taxed for the privilege of living under imperial rule.

While many colonists held out hope for a peaceful resolution of grievances with King George III, Patrick Henry, a leader in the powerful state of Virginia, had enough. He made his sentiments known to delegates of the Second Virginia Convention late in 1775, offering a simple solution to the colonies woes: raise a force of Virginians to ensure Virginias defense. Such a force would eliminate the justification for His Majestys soldiers and the high taxes their presence demanded. Henrys provocation sent the convention into a heated debate about whether such an action would invite war with the British. In defense of his resolutions, Henry delivered his now-famous speech with an ultimatum that grabbed the delegates by their spiritual collars and refused to let go: Give me liberty or give me death! A month later, a milestone in the fight to reform government, according to Enlightenment ideals, began in two villages north of Boston.

Just as the colonists took up arms to tear down the police state in which they lived, North Americans of all backgrounds began facing down a second, even deadlier enemy to freedom: smallpox. The variola virus, present in the Americas since Columbuss arrival in 1492, had chosen this particularly fraught moment to resurface in the British colonies of North America.

With no known treatments and an understanding that close contact with the infected increased the chance of falling ill, colonists implemented quarantine and self-isolation programs. Some opted for inoculation (also known as variolation), a forerunner to vaccination that required inserting pus from a smallpox patient into an incision made in the healthy recipients arm. Variolation caused disease in the recipient, in some cases even leading to death. Despite these dangers, the prospect of immunity was enough to convince Abigail Adams to inoculate herself and her family. George Washington reached the same conclusion for his troops after watching, helplessly, as the disease ravaged soldiers on both sides.

Today, Americans once again find themselves beset by the challenges of 1775. We are pushing back against the dual threats of police brutality and a deadly communicable disease in the midst of deep political division. Like a people besieged on all sides, attention to one threat raises the possibility of a sneak attack by the other. Our shouts of protest against police violence and systemic racism are muffled by the masks protecting our faces, lest we inadvertently invite the coronavirus into our lungs, then families, then communities. Despite a raging epidemic, Americans of 2020, like the colonists of 1775, have been left with little choice but to risk illness and violent ends in order to secure the full rights and freedoms afforded to us by law.

We are still years away from being able to fully reckon with the lessons of this year. Certainly, the events of 2020 have reinvigorated civic involvement. Theyve also reminded us that democratic politics and medicine take as their goal the same basic ideal: the enhancement of human freedom.

The overbearing nature of our current challenges might lead us to believe that our freedom depends on ridding ourselves of forces that restrict our freedom (i.e. structural and implicit racism, police violence, gross income inequality, climate change, coronavirus). This is what philosophers call negative freedom. Those who advocate for small government do so for the same reason as those who advocate for police reform: fear that an over-empowered state is a threat to human freedom (and sometimes, to life itself).

While history is rife with justifications for building political systems to protect negative freedom, the costs of decentralized power become evident when a nation is met by challenges as harrowing as war or pandemic. Like an invading army, a communicable disease cannot be defeated by the uncoordinated, undisciplined effort of even a powerful nation, at least not without incurring incredible losses (Soviet losses during the Nazi invasion of Russia serve as a poignant reminder of the costs of being unprepared for a powerful enemy).

In order to push back against an adversary as powerful as coronavirus, the best of American ingenuity and will-power must be organized and overseen by a government able and empowered to lead. Yes, by empowering government in times of crisis we invite the possibility of future tyranny, but what sense does it make to invite significant, perhaps fatal, injury now to avoid the risk of possible injury later? True existential challenges in the present not only warrant but demand such risks be taken.

National emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic help us see the shortcomings of building a political system too focused on limiting government power to protect negative freedoms. A significant portion of the nation is currently so suspicious of federal overreach that they would rather risk exposure to a deadly pathogen than invite the vague possibility of tyranny and oppression down the road. However, if we dont give the government the power it needs to effectively organize the fight against COVID-19, we threaten not only the lives of fellow citizens, but also the political economy on which we all rely.

Can we escape this dilemma with our health and freedom intact? Yes, but only if we acknowledge the reality that certain problems cannot be solved by individuals and decentralized governments. As medical professionals who regularly deal with death and disease, we are well-positioned to advocate for balancing negative freedom with positive freedom, which means providing individuals the power and resources needed to manifest their will. How do medical students start down the road to becoming effective advocates for positive freedom? First, and most importantly, by recognizing our position. As the incoming workforce for a profession desperately short on staff, our will, if expressed collectively, can reshape medicine into a force for the advancement of positive freedom.

Second, students must organize and work locally. Get involved in your local chapter of White Coats for Blacks Lives, or find a community organization working with individuals experiencing homelessness or food insecurity. However you choose to develop your political consciousness as a medical student, be sure the experience requires you to intertwine some amount of your own well-being with the well-being of those suffering from the shortcomings of our political system. Consciousness grows when we have an emotional stake in the matter at hand.

Lets hope for our own sake, and for our patients sake, that the sacrifices of this year inch us closer to an America courageous enough to admit that a political system obsessed with negative freedom can itself be an enemy of freedom.

Image Credit: Small Pox Cemetery(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)byKayla Nicole

Contributing Writer

University of California, San Francisco-University of California, Berkeley Joint Medical Program

Adrian Anzaldua is a fourth year medical student at the UCSF/UC-Berkeley Joint Medical Program, class of 2021. In 2009, he graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy. He also holds a Masters of Science from UC-Berkeley School of Public Health. After medical school, Adrian will pursue a career in Psychiatry.

Link:

Precedented: Historical Guidance on Freedom and Health in the Age of COVID-19 - Pager Publications, Inc.

China will not face a case at the International Criminal Court over its treatment of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang -- for now.

Beijing is accused of numerous crimes against Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups in the far western region, including a mass detention system, forced labor, and claims of genocide and human rights abuses.

As China is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, prosecution at the court has always been a long shot. But activists had hoped to bring a case based on actions taken against Uyghurs living in Tajikistan and Cambodia, both of which are ICC members.

In a report released Monday, however, the office of ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said the "precondition for the exercise of the court's territorial jurisdiction did not appear to be met with respect to the majority of the crimes alleged" since they appear "to have been committed solely by nationals of China within the territory of China, a State which is not a party to the Statute."

Bensouda's office has left the file open, meaning the ICC could still pursue a case provided more evidence was presented.

Speaking to the Guardian, Rodney Dixon, the lead barrister in the attempted ICC case against China, said his team "will be providing highly relevant evidence ... in the coming months."

"We are engaging with the office of the prosecutor as these proceedings go on with the aim of opening a full investigation," Dixon added.

The message is clear: while Bensouda's decision may seem like a win of sorts for China, it highlights the growing pressure over Xinjiang and the determination of Uyghur groups and other activists to hold Beijing to account.

Leading that charge at an international level is Washington, where being tough on China is by now bipartisan consensus and numerous hearings have been held on the situation in Xinjiang. US President Donald Trump has taken a hard line towards Beijing, and his government has sanctioned multiple Chinese officials allegedly responsible for human rights abuses against Uyghurs.

Ahead of the US election last month, some activists had expressed concerns Joe Biden would take a softer approach. But in a statement on Xinjiang, the now President-elect denounced the "unspeakable oppression" against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, which he said amounted to "genocide."

Responding to those comments, Elijan Anayit, a spokesman for the Xinjiang government, said last month that claims of genocide were "a completely false proposition and a vicious attack on Xinjiang by overseas anti-China forces."

Anayit pointed to the historic genocide of Indigenous Americans to argue the United States had no standing in this matter, and accused Washington of committing "a serious violation, sacrilege and manipulation" of the United Nations convention against genocide by targeting Beijing in this manner.

Yet while the US may have geopolitical motivations for holding China to account -- and little room to argue the ICC decision, given Washington too is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and has even sanctioned Bensouda -- it is not alone in speaking out over Xinjiang.

In a speech at the UN General Assembly in September, French President Emmanuel Macron called for an official investigation into Xinjiang. European lawmakers have also pushed for concerted action over the issue, including potential sanctions against Chinese officials.

"We will not hesitate to use our democratic clout and put these values of human rights high on the agenda in dialogues with our partners, just as we did at the two summits with Chinese leaders this year," European Council President Charles Michel said last month. "We devoted a substantial part of our discussions to the issues of the rule of law in Hong Kong and the protection of minorities in Xinjiang."

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China -- a grouping of hundreds of lawmakers across Europe, North America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific -- has also lobbied for international action over Xinjiang, supporting the case at the ICC and calling for a UN investigation into the matter.

The pressure comes with China's global reputation plummeting in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. A Pew survey in October found that unfavorable views of China had reached historic highs in many countries, with a majority in all 14 countries polled expressing negative opinions of Beijing.

The most immediate effect of all this lobbying could be on international businesses that source materials and labor from Xinjiang. According to a new report from Adrian Zenz, a leading scholar on the oppression of Uyghurs, Chinese government documents and media reports show that "hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority laborers in Xinjiang are being forced to pick cotton by hand through a coercive state-mandated labor transfer and 'poverty alleviation' scheme."

Earlier this month, the US blocked cotton imports from Xinjiang over forced labor concerns -- allegations China has consistently denied. In his report, Zenz argued there was "evidence for coercive labor related to all cotton produced in Xinjiang," and said "companies should be required to thoroughly investigate the role of Chinese cotton in their supply chains, even if any related production takes place outside China."

Numerous major clothing retailers use cotton sourced from Xinjiang, and have already come under pressure for this practice. The latest findings could spark some to reevaluate their supply chains, or prompt other governments to take action and force companies' hands.

The likelihood of growing international criticism having an effect on Beijing is far smaller, however.

In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping defended his policies in Xinjiang as "completely correct." And as the ICC decision this week shows, holding countries to account is often easier said than done.

Read more from the original source:

China avoids ICC prosecution over Xinjiang for now, but pressure is growing - KCTV Kansas City

COMMENT

This year will be forever associated with one story that affected every single country in the world: the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time of writing, more than 68-millionpeople had been infected with the virus and more than 1.5-million people have died of it, according to the World Health Organisation. As the virus continues to spread, these numbers will only increase with the second wave already underway in Europe, the United States and South Africa.

While the worlds attention has focused on the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been another pandemic that has spread in its shadow human rights violations. From Angola to Botswana, Uganda to Zimbabwe, people have suffered untold horrors, abuses and injustices in the past 12 months in East and Southern Africa.

The African Unions theme for the continent in 2020 was silencing the guns. But as 2020 draws to a close, the sound of gunfire tragically became a feature of life in Ethiopia where hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands more forced to flee into neighbouring Sudan to escape fighting, after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military operation against the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, which controls Ethiopias northern Tigray region.

Amnesty International has established that the conflict has already resulted in a massacre of civilians, and calls for an immediate thorough, independent and impartial investigation that will identify perpetrators and hold them accountable for human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law. All sides to the conflict must urgently prioritise the protection of civilians, allow access to human rights monitors, and give humanitarian organisations unfettered access.

More than three years after the fighting began in Mozambiques Cabo Delgado province, by an armed group calling itself Al-Shabab, victims of the conflict which has killed more than 2 000 people and displaced more than 300 000 others are no closer to justice, truth and reparation. Authorities have failed to bring to justice all those suspected of crimes and human rights violations under international law. Government forces have been accused of crimes under international law, as well as human rights violations in pursuit of those suspected of being involved with the armed group, including extrajudicial executions, torture and other ill treatment.

Also underreported and unrelenting has been the neglected war being waged against women and girls, as reports of gender-based violence shot up during the first few months of the pandemic. In South Africa, the nationwide lockdown announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on 23 March to control the spread of the virus, meant that many women and girls were unable to escape from abusive partners and family members. By mid-June, 21 women and children had been reported killed in the country.

Elsewhere, increased incidents of violence against women were reported during lockdowns in Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe, in a chilling reminder that many countries are still a dangerous place for women. Their shocking deaths reflect governments failures to prioritise the protection of womens rights both in law and practice, and there have been many calls for urgent measures to be taken to correct this.

Freedom of expression was another casualty across the continent this year. In Uganda, authorities continued to clamp down on free speech, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, including by indiscriminately using deadly force on protesters.National Unity Platform presidential candidate and musician Robert Kyagulanyi, commonly known as Bobi Wine, was regularly harassed and intimidated in a clear attempt to limit his political reach, a violation of his rights, ahead of elections next year. The Ugandan authorities targeting of Bobi Wine and his political activism through repeated arrests and detention is persecution, plain and simple. Recently, he started campaigning with bullet-proof gear as he has felt that his life is under considerable threat.

In Tanzania, the country went to the polls on 28 October under a climate of heavy repression and suppression of opposition voices. An Amnesty International report found that President John Magufulis government had weaponised the law to silence opposition and critical voices in the run-up to the vote. Opposition candidates were arrested on spurious charges that stripped them of their right to freedom of assembly, association and movement. At the same time, the government tightened censorship rules to exert significant control over what local and foreign media publish, violating the right to freedom of expression.

In Zimbabwe, it was a difficult year for journalists, opposition leaders and human rights activists. Those who demanded accountability, decried their declining socioeconomic status or exposed government corruption faced intimidation and harassment, including abductions or arrests. Investigative journalist Hopewell Chinono was arrested twice and held in lengthy pretrial detention for exposing corruption.

In many instances, the state of emergency introduced by African governments to take measures to contain Covid-19 was used as a cover for outrageous human rights violations. In Angola, an investigation by Amnesty International in August revealed that security forces tasked with enforcing Covid-19 measures to mitigate against the spread of virus, repeatedly used excessive and unlawful force and killed at least seven boys and young men between May and July. The youngest victim was just 14 years old. One teenage boy was shot in the face by security forces while he lay injured; another was killed when police fired on a group of friends at a sports field. Angolan authorities are also cracking down on dissent. Last month, peaceful demonstrations against the high cost of living in Luanda were disrupted by the security forces, with a number of activists arrested and later released.

As Covid-19 spread, millions of people across the region faced hunger as lockdowns meant that they were unable to work and access food. The vast majority of people in the region make their living in the informal economy, for example as street vendors or manual labourers. Under lockdown measures, these were considered non-essential roles and people in this sector were prohibited from working. Women and children were the most affected by hunger. It is not too late for governments to urgently put in place social protection measures to uphold the right to food.

But there is reason for optimism. Activists and human rights defenders are pushing back continuing to speak out and organise peaceful protests to claim their human rights.

In Namibia, youth-led protests have challenged longstanding gender-based violence and deep-seated patriarchy under the hashtag #ShutItAllDown, inspiring the region to take a stand against the scourge. The youth courageously demanded immediate political action to end the scourge.

In Zambia, civic action and advocacy made sure that the Constitution Amendment Bill 2019, also known as Bill no 10, was defeated as it failed to garner the support of two-thirds of MPs.

After street protests challenging last years vote, a fresh vote was held in Malawi after judges on Malawis Constitutional Court found that there had been widespread irregularities in last years election. The re-run election, ushered a smooth political transition from former president Peter Mutharika to President Lazarus Chakwera.

In 2021, people must continue to stand up and defend their hard-won freedoms in the same way they fought against colonial oppression and apartheid. History has taught us that freedom will not be given easily to the people; it must be fought for and we must fight very hard.

Read the original post:

Pandemic of human rights abuses haunts governments in East and Southern Africa - Mail and Guardian

Indyref2: Sturgeon warned Scotland would 'suffer' by Miklinski

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has resumed calls for a second referendum for Scottish Independence in recent months. With a No-Deal Brexit looming, the leader raised her concerns about the nations stance within the European Union. In a previous demand to breakaway from Britain, the dictator Idi Amin sent a threatening letter to Her Majesty to demand for freedom.

Amin served as the President of Uganda for eight years from 1971, when he quickly became known as the Butcher for his deplorably brutal tactics.

Before his rise to power, he was a trainee cook in the Kings African Rifles battalion and later enlisted as a private in 1946.

He grew fond of Scotland during his time in the army after being taught to play the bagpipes by the militarys pop major.

Chris Mikul, author of My Favourite Dictators, claimed that Amin was often seen wearing a kilt and tartan forage cap after that point.

His notorious rise to power happened after Uganda gained independence from Britain in 1962.

Amin took over as President nine years later and was described as the biggest buffoon on the world stage.

He gained a reputation for barbaric torture methods and brutality, which led to the deaths of between 300,000 and 500,000 people during his reign.

Before he rose to power, a British officer was reported to have described the 6ft 4in recruit as virtually bone from the neck up.

JUST IN:James Bond fury: Sean Connery's outburst at being called 007 off-set

He claimed that Amin needed things explained in words of one letter due to his poor education and lack of English.

Despite this, Mr Mikul claimed that the Kings African Rifles loved him because he was strong as an ox, fiercely loyal to his superiors and funny.

Years later, Amin lunched with Prime Minister Edward Heath and also dined with the Queen at Buckingham Palace according to Mr Mikul.

During his trip to the UK, Mr Mikul claimed that Amin also visited his beloved Scotland and felt connected to the nation.

READ MORE:Sturgeon 'to exploit no deal' as SNP plots to defy No10 with vote

After Amin became President in 1971, he sent a number of surprising messages to world leaders including the Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere.

He wrote: I love you very much and if you were a woman I would even consider marrying you, although you have grey hairs on your head.

Not only that, he sent a fiery message to The Queen about Scottish Independence, where he boasted: Many of the Scottish people already consider me King of the Scots.

I am the first man to ask the British government to end their oppression of Scotland. If the Scots want me to be their King, I will.

READ MORE:Shame on Sturgeon for royal snub of Kate and Wills, says NICK FERRARI

In another surprising move, he announced the formation of a Save Britain Fund.

Mr Mikul recounted: At one point, he sent a cable to Prime Minister Health urging him to send a pane to pick up some wheat and vegetables collected by farms before it goes bad.

In 1978, Amins troops mutinied and fighting broke out along the Ugandan-Tanzanian border.

Later he was forced to flee into exile, where he lived between Libya and Saudi Arabia until his death related to kidney failure in 2003.

Chris Mikuls book My Favourite Dictators was published by HeadPress in 2019 and is available here.

Excerpt from:

Scottish independence: Dictator threatened Queen to 'end British oppression' in letter - Daily Express

For Formula One fans around the world, the news that world champion Lewis Hamilton has recovered from coronavirus and will be fit to race in Abu Dhabi this weekend will be met with jubilation. F1s management, on the other hand, might be feeling ambivalent.

Over the course of a season marred by Covid-19, Hamiltons increasingly firm stance on social justice, sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement, has frequently overshadowed the racing. And last month, before the Bahrain Grand Prix, he made the incendiary claim that F1 has a consistent and massive problem with human rights abuses in the places it visits. Chase Carey, the head of F1, hit back, saying we are very proud of our partnership here in Bahrain, but this has done little to quell the uproar.

Hamilton, who has won more races than any other driver and is now a record-equalling seven-times champion, is far from alone in questioning F1s relationship with these regimes. Last month a cross-party coalition of British MPs wrote to F1s management, expressing concern that they were being exploited by Bahrain to sportswash its dismal rights record. When asked on CNN whether 30 British MPs had got it wrong, Carey was adamant, stressing that F1 was in fact working with partners to improve and advance the human rights issues. The Bahrain government denied that hosting the race was sportswashing and rejected claims of human rights abuses. Yet, with the final race of the season taking place in the United Arab Emirates tomorrow, and a first-ever race scheduled for Saudi Arabia next year, F1s position appears more and more indefensible.

While many associate the UAE with high-rise hotels and luxurious shopping malls, behind the shimmering towers lies an authoritarian state with a dire human rights record. Just 20km from the Yas Marina grand prix circuit, human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor sits in prison, serving a 10-year sentence for criticising his government on social media.

Yet F1 appears happy to take abusive regimes at their word. When challenged by CNN on the state of human rights in its Gulf partner states, Carey pointed to clear publicity about increased rights for females in Saudi Arabia. To choose the last state on Earth to allow women to drive for a motorsport event always seemed distasteful and in appearing to side with the regime, has F1 betrayed those who genuinely fought for womens rights in the kingdom? Indeed, just days before that, Saudi Arabia transferred the trial of Loujain al-Hathloul, who led the campaign for womens right to drive, to a court reserved for terrorism suspects.

F1s apparent acceptance of the Saudi line is familiar to many Bahrainis. We have long experienced brutal government suppression of protests against the Bahrain Grand Prix. On the eve of the 2012 race, police killed father of five Salah Abbas Habib. To this date, there has been no accountability for his death.

Few have a more intimate knowledge of the lengths Bahrain will appear to go to protect their lucrative relationship with F1 than Najah Yusuf, a Bahraini activist who was tortured, sexually assaulted and jailed for three years for criticising the grand prix on social media. When the UN declared Yusufs imprisonment arbitrary last year and called for her to receive compensation, F1 pledged to raise her case with Bahrain. However, Yusuf says that F1 has made no attempt to has not contacted her and she continues to face harassment from the regime to this day. Her teenage son, Kameel, now faces over 20 years in prison for attending protests, in what Amnesty International deems a reprisal against his mother.

My organisation, the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy, has campaigned for many years for F1 to take responsibility for where it chooses to race, with little success. However, Hamiltons comments have offered the regions beleaguered activists a glimmer of hope. In November, Yusuf joined two other torture victims in writing directly to Hamilton in the hope that he might draw attention to their plight.

As the worlds greatest F1 driver, when Lewis Hamilton speaks, Formula 1 has no choice but to pay attention. While Hamilton admitted last month that he needed to learn more about countries like Saudi Arabia, he has a unique opportunity to ensure his sport is no longer used as a vehicle to sportswash human rights abuses. For Loujain al-Hathloul, Ahmed Mansoor, Najah Yusuf and thousands of other victims of oppression in the Arab Gulf, his voice will be more important than ever.

Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei is the advocacy director of the UK-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy

See the rest here:

Lewis Hamilton has spoken out on human rights. Formula One will have to take a stand - The Guardian

Dear esteemed members of the Academia!

Given that you are not intimately familiar with Slovenian state of affairs, internal political struggles and media manipulations we are not blaming you, that you were so thoroughly mislead by the Slovene radical left academia in believing that academic freedoms in Slovenia are being eroded.

What is described in your petition has no common denominator with real life.

You write that since rightist politician Janez Jana came to power, the government has refused to reappoint several museum directors and one director of a research institute and further state that scholars must be allowed to work without this kind of political and governmental interference.

The Government is thoroughly committed to following due process and pays utmost attention to rules and regulations that govern appointments of the directors of public institutions. A public competition has been carried out for each appointment, with strict standards and rules governing who can apply for the position. After the Selection board of the Ministry of Culture has suggested the most appropriate candidates (based on competency) to the Minister, he has always diligently followed its proposal. The Minister steadfastly preferred the candidate which was objectively found to be the best on merit. However, when it comes to appointments of directors of public institutions, the law states that the selection of candidates selected by the Selection board must always be sent to Councils of the public institutions, which are eligible to give their opinion on which candidate is more suited for the function. Due to sheer number of years left-wing coalitions have been in power, those councils have always been selected by left governments, so they tend to negate the Ministers preferences (which is, as a rule always the top candidate in the selection process) and give their opinion that another candidate is more suitable - usually the current directors or a candidate aligned by left-wing centers of power. The government is not trying to undermine the professionalism of such Councils; however, it is important to note that they have been indeed nominated politically and their role as an independent consulting institution is at best doubtful. Another thing to stress is that the Minister of Culture in not bound by their opinions. Their role is purely advisory. This is due process in Slovenia, and it has been the same for three decades. In fact when the Minister uses his power of discretion it is exactly a tool which eliminates the potentially politically biased opinions of the Councils of the public institutions.

The system is inherently political, since the Councils themselves are appointed politically, yet the left-wing governments never took issues with it in the past. Accusations of political interference only surface once a right-wing government is in power and never during a quarter of a century when left-wing governments have governed. The Ministers reliance on due process of picking the best candidates is the only line of defense against a politically appointed apparatus.

The new appointments of various directors have been slandered in public by the media (which by inertia is predominately left-wing) and leftist academia alike. Accusations have been made that candidates are professionally incompetent; some even go so far to call them apparatchiks and SDS shills. This is an enormous insult to these prominent candidates, who came through the selection process with all the required competencies required for the position. These are highly regarded experts in the field, known both domestically and internationally, yet they do not fit into the inner circle of political candidates appointed to these positions in the past.

Next, the petition talks about plans to establish a new Museum of Slovene Independence, claiming that the new museum would bea propaganda institution, promoting nationalist narrative about the past aimed mainly at buttressing the ideological agenda of the ruling Slovene democratic party.A statement like this is insulting, outrageous, preposterous and an outright attack on Slovenian sovereignty.

National independence and freedom it espouses is not an ideology. It is a universal value shared not only by Slovenians, but all humanity. The museum will be part of the celebration of the 30thanniversary of Slovenian independence. It will be subject to international standards and curated by professional historians with no political affiliations, to ensure proper representation of Slovenias struggle to break loose from the communist dictatorship.

Many post-communist countries that broke the shackles of oppression, have a museum dedicated to those fateful times in a nations history. Croatia has its Homeland war museum, Latvia has the Museum of the occupation of Latvia, Lithuania has the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights etc. It has nothing to do with nationalism. It is a celebration of freedom and humanity. Independence was a project of all Slovenian citizens (not just ethnic Slovenians!), who have decided by an overwhelming majority to live in a free, democratic society during the 1990 Slovenian independence referendum. This event is the only one in history that properly united all Slovenian citizens. To say such a museum would be a propaganda institution is an outrage.

In closing, we fail to see, how appointments of directors of public institutions and an establishment of a Museum of independence would have any effect on academic freedom in Slovenia. It seems like a complete non sequitur. For decades appointing new directors has been a routine during left-wing governments. It is a political process, but a process that requires regular transitions of power, which Slovenia sadly lacked for most of its independent history. It is highly curious that matters put forwards in the letter are precisely the same matters which professional left-wing Slovenian activists had issues with, in the past. In fact, they have written a very similar petition to Slovenian media outlets. Therefore, we strongly suspect that the undersigned have no proper understanding of internal goings-on of our country and have merely signed a letter which was written in Slovenia, by Slovenians and for Slovenians.

Yet, it is important to highlight that the Government of Slovenia firmly believes in autonomy and freedom of the academia, which has never been undermined or threatened during the course of this Governments mandate.

Finally, we would also like to highlight that the Government lead by Prime minister Janez Jana is not a rightist government, as the petition is suggesting. It has two liberal left-wing coalition partners, both members of the ALDE European alliance. Slovenia only had homogenous governments when left-wing parties formed coalitions. In fact, during the last decade the left-wing coalitions have been in power for 9 out of 10 years.

Original post:

The response to the petition of 150 foreign academics | GOV.SI - Gov.si