Monthly Archives: July 2020

Mayawati 

New Delhi: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati launched a scathing attack on Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government in Madhya Pradesh over Guna incident saying the party talks about Dalit empowerment but indulges in their harassment.

He further said that the oppression of Dalits continue under the BJP and the Congress saying they need to ponder over the fact too.

A couple in MPs Guna consume poison after they were manhandled by police during an anti-encroachment drive.

The incident took place on Tuesday when the police tried to remove people who had encroached land allotted for college in the district.

Tehsildar N Singh said that the duo is in stable condition and claimed that the land which had been allotted for college was encroached upon by people and that the cops were there to remove it.

Taking to her Twitter, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BJP) chief said that the condition of Dalits remains unchanged under Congress or the BJP rule and said that they need to think about it.

Meanwhile, after the incident, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan directed immediate removal of Collector and SP of Guna and also ordered a high-level inquiry into the incident.

To force that couple to attempt suicide by forcing the couple to attempt suicide by borrowing the crop from the JCB machine in the name of encroachment by the Guna Police and Administration of Madhya Pradesh.

The nationwide condemnation of this incident is natural and the government should take strict action, tweeted Mayawati.

The video of the incident went viral on social media showed the police beating the man with batons severely.

Talking to the media, District Collector S Vishwanathan said that the farm was reserved for a government model college and said that Rajkumar Ahirwar (38) and his wife Savitri (35) were working on the land which was encroached by Gabbu Pardi.

See original here:

Oppression common under Congress-BJP rule, Dalits need to ponder over the situation: Mayawati on Guna incident - Times Now

It was an ordinary day for Palestinians under Israels rule. Ordinary, in the sense that the many ways that Israel oppresses Palestinians continued as usual, be it through military orders, court rulings, or direct state violence.

July 1 was the earliest launch date for Israels de jure annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank. Yet it was also a day that Israel simply continued doing what it pleases to Palestinians throughout the territory: Its infrastructure of oppression has already been in place for decades. But one thing is both certain and fixed: how oppressive, demeaning, and brutal this reality is.

The Israeli state has effectively annexed Palestinian lives. That on July 1 certain parts of the occupied West Bank did not switch their designation to de jure annexation was another arbitrary Israeli decision, in this case spelling out the occupying powers preference to continue to subjugate Palestinians in one certain way instead of through a novel approach. In that same arbitrary vein, this very decision may still changeor not.

More coverage of the Middle East

Though nothing changed on the ground, the political ground in Washington may be shifting.

Not at AIPAC. The so-called pro-Israel lobbying group has begun telling lawmakers that they are free to criticize Israels looming annexation plansjust as long as the criticism stops there, according to reports. Similarly, a leaked memo from the civil rights watchdog Anti-Defamation League offered parallel talking points: providing a space for local and national leaders to express their criticism of Israels decision while neutralizing anti-Israel legislative proposals, e.g. condemning and singling out its human rights record and conditioning its military aid.

In other words, it seems that the Israeli government and certain Jewish organizations have read the recent statement by some 50 U.N. experts, that [t]he lessons from the past are clear: Criticism without consequences will neither forestall annexation nor end the occupation. These American Jewish groups appear to be in agreement that genuine consequences may actually make a differenceand thus they are working diligently to keep the noise on a meaningless level, dialed precisely to allow criticism without leading to consequences.

Yet thanks to all the focus on potential de jure annexation, we can now see the difference between those still committed to expressing deep concern without taking any action and those refusing to continue with complicity.

In Washington, D.C., a letter signed by 191 House Democrats urge[d] the Israeli government to reconsider its annexation plans. The text is framed exclusively from the perspective of Israels interests; it fails to mention Palestinians human rights or their past, current, and future oppression. It also refrains from even hinting that there could be potential consequences if their urging is ignored.

But this business-as-usual acquiescence was soon eclipsed by a very different text, led by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pramila Jayapal, Betty McCollum, and Rashida Tlaib, and signed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, among others. Calling things by their proper names, the letter addresses the path toward an apartheid system. It details human rights violations from limitations on freedom of movement to continued demolitions of Palestinian homes. And it introduces meaningful consequences, leveraging the $3.8 billion of U.S. military funding to Israel.

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In Europe, one can witness a similar divide. On the one hand, the letter signed by more than a thousand European lawmakers calling for commensurate consequences and resolutions demanding action by parliaments in Belgium and the Netherlands. On the other, op-eds published by the European Unions foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and several EU ambassadors to Israel. Borrells op-ed barely mentions Palestinians. Instead, he puts great effort into trying to explain to Israelis whats in their best interest (Annexation is not the way to create peace with the Palestinians and to improve Israels security), and goes out of his way to spell out that for Brussels the path forward is paved with carrots, not sticks: Peace cannot be imposed Peace can also bring new possibilities for EU-Israel relations to further grow. Europe, internally dividedand humiliatedthrough Israels open alliances with the rising authoritarian forces on the continent, seems, so far, unable and unwilling to wake up to realitythe very reality arrived at to no small extent as a result of Europes failed foreign policy to date.

July 1 proved to be a very ordinary day in our reality. Other ordinary days will follow, in a path paved by Israeli bulldozers, backed by Israeli courts, trampling over Palestinian homes and rights and dignity. The talk of de jure annexation might focus global attention, but that attention may fade if weeks pass and Israel decides that its preferred method of further oppressing Palestinians is by means of long-lasting de facto annexation, without adding to it a dash of de jure. For one way or another, it is the government of Israel that controls everyone and everything between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.

It is essential that this lesson does not fade awayand that the ongoing reality of de facto annexation is not further normalized. Dont wait for formal legalization, or release a sigh of relief if that possibility is set aside for now. Do commit to an action-based rejection of the existing, appalling, reality on the ground.

De jure or de facto, Israels oppression of Palestinians already demands consequences.

Link:

Waiting for Annexation - The American Prospect

MURRAY Though Robert E. Lee presided over the surrender of Confederate troops to effectively end the Civil War, Calloway County leaders signaled Wednesday they have no intention of surrendering in the fight over his likeness standing on the courthouse lawn.

In the face of a significant push over the last month and a half to remove the Confederate soldiers memorial thats stood for over 100 years at the courthouse, the Calloway County Fiscal Court voted unanimously Wednesday morning to leave the monument where it stands.

That evening, protestors again made their presence felt, with several dozen engaging in often heated exchanges with a small group of the statues supporters.

For hours, the two groups shouted back and forth about racism, history, crime, treason and the Civil War, with some interactions hostile enough that law enforcement officers removed participants from both camps at various times.

The only speaker at the fiscal court meeting, Murray State University Professor Kevin Elliott, told the governing body that the monument is bringing out the worst in our community.

In requesting the fiscal court to explore options for moving the statue, Elliott focused on its placement at the courthouse, lamenting that a statue honoring the Confederacy stands where everyone should feel their voice is heard.

The monument stands for the idea that the power of the government belongs exclusively to the white members of the community, Elliott said.

Throughout Elliotts time speaking, County Attorney Bryan Ernstberger routinely expressed skepticism at Elliotts estimation of the legal ease and simplicity of moving the monument.

After Elliotts presentation during which he also discussed the cost of the removal as likely less than people would expect, and potential placement at an abandoned cemetery that could easily be appropriated by the government, the fiscal court voted on a resolution that Elliott later said came as a surprise.

The resolution, which notes the negative connotations that the Monument may hold for some and unreservedly condemns slavery and racial oppression, also says the monument was erected simply to honor Calloway County residents who fought for the Confederacy and not as several have argued, for the purpose of promoting continued oppression.

Magistrate Paul Rister noted during the meeting that he took a survey of 280 people in his constituency, which he said he randomized by only approaching people who were outside during his survey. According to Risters calculations, 77% of his constituents supported leaving the monument where it stands.

Magistrate Don Cherry during the meeting said he believed the county was approaching the issue the right way, and lamented the idea of mob rule.

We cannot run our country that way. If we make decisions by mob rule then weve lost control of our government.

At that evenings protest, some urged supporters of the statue to consider racial disparities in the justice system and in health care.

Counter-protesters asserted that Black people commit violent crimes at significantly higher rates than white people, but said they werent claiming that Black people are naturally more violent or less civil than white people.

At times protesters brought up the prohibition on displaying Nazi symbols in Germany, but were not Germany came as a standard reply.

Counter-protesters, displaying an #alllifematters sign, routinely expressed concerns about erasing history and accused the protesters of not being Calloway residents that assertion drew guffaws and raised hands from many in the crowd proclaiming their local residency.

Though she was initially flanked by fellow protesters, as the night went on Murray resident Linda Arakelyan found herself surrounded by counter-protesters throwing rude hand gestures toward her TEAR IT DOWN sign and, she said, threatening her.

They tried intimidating me, Arakelyan said in a Thursday interview.

If anything, it kind of empowered me more, seeing how much they hated it.

Shawn Jackson, who moved to Murray from Mayfield, said that hes experienced a lot of racist stuff in the area, and said residents opposed to the statue have a right to have this taken down, the same right they have to keep it up.

People say put the past in the past, he said.

Were not putting the past in the past, because were still looking the past in the face.

Quintin Walls, who said he grew up in Murray before moving away then returning about a decade ago, said the statue doesnt represent anything good to me.

I ride by it, look at it and have bad thoughts about it, said Walls, who is Black.

It represents more dead American soldiers than any other war, and for a cause that wasnt good. It represents the losers and people who were really traitors to the United States of America.

Walls said that, if the statue remains up, the community could find potential business partners or residents less likely to move in.

People need to get involved, vote, protest peacefully and get this thing out of here, he said.

Im not saying destroy it. It just doesnt have to be on our court square.

Arakelyan said shes been involved in social justice movements before, but that she had never even known the statue topping the monument was an image of Robert E. Lee until Sherman Neal, a football coach at Murray State University, wrote a letter a month and a half ago that helped to spark the recent protests.

I definitely think its going to come down one day, whether its when were older or if its just right now through having meaningful conversations with those in opposition even continually pushing Judge (Kenneth) Imes and the magistrates to reconsider their opinion.

Arakelyan said near the beginning of the protest, two armed men stood atop a nearby building, which she perceived as intimidating, before police made them come down.

She called her experience protesting the statue eye opening in a good and bad way.

Im seeing people who, growing up, I would have never thought would be on the same side as me. Its also eye opening, the fact that theres still so many people who are so passionate and full of hate that they want something like that (statue) up.

Original post:

'Still looking the past in the face': Murray statue continues to draw protests - The Trib

The slugfest between China and the U.S. over the treatment of media workers in each country appears to have paused. Rather than expel each others journalists, as they did a few months ago, each side in early July imposed registration and reporting requirements on those remainingstill many more Chinese in the U.S. than Americans in China.

Many observers say the U.S. government has badly misplayed its hand, resulting in the decimation of American media operations in China while Chinese operations in the U.S. suffer much less impact. And, even though a group of experts is working on recommendations to repair the damage, prospects for recovery are dim.

I imagine China is pretty happy with the way things are now, said James McGregor, a business consultant, longtime China resident, and former Wall Street Journal reporter who chairs APCO Worldwides greater China operation.

The expulsion from China of prominent reporters from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal who had pioneered reporting on everything from COVID-19 to mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang was not the stated intent of the U.S. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in March, after the U.S. effectively expelled dozens of Chinese journalists: We expect Beijing to take a more fair approach towards American and other foreign press inside of China. Where the Chinese Communist Party has imposed increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation on our independent and world-class journalists, we will respond to achieve reciprocity.

Instead, The U.S., by taking on this issue the way they have, have played into the hands of all the bad actors in the Chinese system and given them carte blanche to get rid of American journalists, said Richard McGregor (no relation to James McGregor), senior fellow at Australias Lowy Institute, a private think tank. If the idea was to strengthen the leverage over a countrys nationals working in China, it has backfired spectacularly.

I think we fell into Chinas trap, said Minxin Pei, a Chinese politics specialist at Claremont McKenna College, arguing that China has long wanted to rid itself of the U.S. journalists.

As Richard McGregor, previously stationed in China and the U.S. for the Financial Times, said: The Chinese journalists in America, however many there are, add nothing to the greater universe of knowledge about America at all. If they stopped working tomorrow, I dont think anyone in China would be less wise about whats happening in the U.S. because the U.S. system is open, and well reported on by the locals.

By contrast, he said, restrictions on the local press in China are severe, leaving it to foreigners to dig into news and trends.

James McGregor agrees: Most of what you know about China that China doesnt want you to know comes out of those journalists [who are now expelled]. He adds that its a loss for the business community that needs to know what is happening in China.

The conflict has brewed for years, as China abused and oppressed foreign journalists, or those trying to gain entry. CPJ has documented repeated cases of China delaying or refusing to grant visas to those who wrote stories that China found embarrassing. On the ground in China, reporters frequently face harassment from security officials who do not accept rights of foreign correspondents to travel freely and interview anyone willing to talk to them. The number of Chinese willing to talk to a foreign journalist has also declined, as interviewees can face harassment or even arrest. Every year, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China documents the sad deterioration of the working environment for foreign correspondents in an annual report.

Meanwhile, as China blocked access to The New York Times and other news websites, the U.S. freely admitted hundreds, possibly thousands, of Chinese journalists and allowed them to roam the country and do what they wanted. (While the State Department apparently wasnt counting, the U.S. government should now have access to data on Chinese journalists, since forcing them to register as foreign missions.) China Global Television Network (CGTN) set up its own U.S. broadcast operation. Some Chinese outlets were openly propaganda controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

Or worse: Some of them are spies; thats a fact, Pei told CPJ.

How to rectify the imbalance has long vexed journalists, China specialists and U.S. diplomats. Keith Richburg, head of the media program at Hong Kong University and a longtime foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, recalled a conversation with a U.S. diplomat in Beijing from 2011 where Richburg suggested casually that the U.S. go for reciprocity and get tough on issuing visas to Chinese. The diplomat responded that the U.S. could never win by going down that road. And, Richburg said, Whats happened so far was what all the people opposed to reciprocity always said would happen.

China described its retaliatory measures as entirely necessary and reciprocal countermeasures that China is compelled to take in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the U.S. It did not mention the history of its mistreatment of foreign correspondents in China.

Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society, told CPJ that the rupture over media personnel was inevitable.

The Chinese had us in a stranglehold, Schell said. China was just flooding the place with journalists, executives, spies, you name it. We had limited numbers of journalists, constantly getting expelled and threatened. Its just total madness and total inequality and totally lacking in reciprocity.

The Trump administration said this was not sustainable, said John Pomfret, a former Washington Post Beijing bureau chief. And to that extent, I agree with them.

This isnt to say that either Schell or Pomfret applaud Trump administration tactics, which Schell calls inept and clumsy.

Whats next? Schell heads an Asia Society task force drawing up recommendations for the U.S. government. He suggests looking back to the Soviet era to see how the Soviet Union and the U.S. managed differences. Pomfret, part of the task force, suggested that each side cap media visas at a number, perhaps 100, and that under the cap each side would have total freedom to decide who gets the visas to send into the other country. If more U.S. journalists want China visas than allowed, a non-profit entity would decide who gets them. Pomfret then suggested that issues such as Chinese broadcasting in the U.S. and websites or broadcasts by U.S. outfits be negotiated as a trade issue.

Susan Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego, said a further round of expulsions that could reduce the headcount to zero in each country is a real possibility. At the same time, drawing on her experience in the State Department during the Clinton administration, she said the key is to start with something simple and achievable, such as a cap on visa numbers, on the assumption that China values the presence of its media operations in the U.S. enough to overcome its distaste of hosting foreign correspondents in China.

While Minxin Pei sees no prospect for movement under the Trump administration, he said a truce followed by agreement on stationing journalists in each country could be a relatively easy win for the two countries if they want to patch up relations, given the complexity of other issues of conflict.

Others are more skeptical, especially on the idea of reciprocal numbers. China probably would not go for it because they have far more journalists in the U.S. operating freely than they would allow in China, Richburg said.

James McGregor said Chinas media outlets can easily replace expelled reporters with experienced, out-of-work U.S. journalists.

What pressure point could you put on the Chinese to get them to treat American journalists better? Richburg asked, unable to provide an answer. It was better to have journalists working in China under those conditions rather than having them all kicked out.

No one knows how to roll back the clock, much less broadly improve the treatment of foreign correspondents in China.

The State Department declined to comment when CPJ asked whether it had proposed negotiations to China. The Chinese Foreign Ministrys International Press Center and the Department of Consular affairs did not respond to CPJs emailed requests for comment.

There are no good answers here, James McGregor said.

See the article here:

Prospects bleak for recovery of US media presence in China - CPJ Press Freedom Online

Around 30 U.S. lawmakers and officials have decried the Chinese communist regimes 21-year-long campaign to eradicate the spiritual practice Falun Gong, resulting in the brutal suppression of millions of adherents.

Marking the 21st anniversary of the start of the persecution on July 20, Sam Brownback, U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom; Gary Bauer, commissioner at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF); and 29 bipartisan lawmakers expressed support for Falun Gong practitioners and called on the Chinese regime to stop its assaults on the practice.

For 21 years, the Chinese Communist Party has been waging an intensive, comprehensive, and unforgiving campaign against those who practice Falun Gong, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote in a letter.

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) wrote: Falun Gongs followers have been subject to abuse, torture, illegal imprisonment, and extremely cruel practice of organ harvesting.

This brutal persecution is intolerable and must stop.

The U.S. officials were among hundreds of lawmakers around the world who issued or signed statements condemning the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) suppression of Falun Gong. More than 600 current and former lawmakers from 30 countries signed a joint statement demanding an immediate end to the persecution and the unconditional release of all detained practitioners and other prisoners of conscience in China.

The Chinese Communist Party is at war with faith. It is a war they will not win, Ambassador Brownback said in a video statement. A persons belief is stronger than somebody that seeks to oppress them.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that includes meditative exercises a set of moral teaching based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Since its introduction in 1992, the practice spread widely in China with around 70 million people practicing by the end of the decade, according to government estimates at the time. Threatened by this popularity, the CCP banned the practice on July 20, 1999, launching an expansive campaign of persecution.

Since then, vast swathes of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained or imprisoned as a result of their faith. Millions of adherents have been detained, and hundreds of thousands have been tortured, according to estimates by the Falun Dafa Information Center. More than 4,000 practitioners are confirmed to have died from torture, according to Minghui.org, a clearinghouse for information about the persecution of Falun Gong. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining information from China, the true death toll is likely to be many times higher.

USCIRF Commissioner Bauer denounced the CCP for continuing to detain Falun Gong practitioners earlier this year when it should have been focused on containing the coronavirus pandemic.

Many officials also expressed outrage over the Chinese regimes practice of forced organ harvesting from detained Falun Gong practitioners. Evidence of this grisly practice has mounted since allegations first emerged in 2006. An independent peoples tribunal in 2019, after a yearlong investigation, found beyond a reasonable doubt that the CCP hasand continues tokill imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners for their organs for sale on the transplant market.

There is no place in the 21st century for forced organ harvesting, Bauer said in a recorded statement.

Brownback said the administration would continue to raise this issue before international bodies and ask Beijing to open its organ transplant records to let the rest of the world see where their organs are coming from in the transplants that theyre doing.

A November study published in the scientific journal BMC Medical Ethics found that there was highly compelling evidence that the Chinese regime was systematically falsifying its organ donation data. It found that the official figures conformed almost precisely to a mathematical formula, a quadratic equation.

Bauer said the USCIRF urges the United States to conduct a thorough investigation into Beijings state-sanctioned organ harvesting.

We believe an official U.S. government investigation will help shine a greater spotlight on this issue, and mobilize the political support necessary to take concrete action against Communist China for its crimes, he said.

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) was among many who expressed hope that the persecution would not be extended into the 22nd year.

I hope that one day soon Falun Gong practitioners in China and all over the world may exercise their principles free of oppression, she wrote in a letter.

Other U.S. lawmakers who issued statements expressing solidarity with Falun Gong practitioners were: Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.); and Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Ron Kind (D-Wis.), William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), Bill Foster (D-Ill.), Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), Van Taylor (R-Tex.), Angie Craig (D-Minn.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), David Trone (D-Md.), Daniel Crenshaw (R-Texas), Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), Ron Wright (R-Texas), Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), and Del. Eleanor Norton (D-DC).

From The Epoch Times

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US Lawmakers Decry Beijing's 21-Year-Long 'Unforgiving' Persecution of Falun Gong - NTD