Monthly Archives: June 2022

BY FELIX NYERHOVWO JARIKRE

When the majority of the people see the government to be adversarial and insensitive, their disenchantment manifests.

So, addressing how the poor majority can be defended or protected from marginalisation and oppression is the only way to prevent their disenchantment. To prevent the disenchantment of the poor majority is the only sure way to achieve political stability and national cohesion in any society. To be neglectful of this nexus is a recipe for sure disaster.

From the story of how the Kingdom of Israel in the Bible fractured into full-blown secession, a nation can only hope to survive on a sustainable level when its defining focus is how to enfranchise and restore the productivity of its weak and vulnerable segments among the populace. A sustainable ecosystem must be deliberately built by the government to facilitate the creative impulses and production capabilities of the poor people that usually fall through the cracks of neglect.

Its delusional to think that mere zoning or power rotation among ethnic groupings or regional configurations can achieve political stability and national cohesion in Nigeria. And to conflate zoning and power rotation as a resemblance or extension of the constitutional Federal Character Principle, I dare say, is plain mischief. Utterly deceitful. Zoning or power rotation is a leadership issue, albeit political. On the other hand, the Federal Character requirement in the constitution is a management issue. The success or failure of a political leader who helps to form a particular government will be judged by the degree of his adherence to constitutional requirements like the Federal Character principle, for example.

Power rotation or zoning of political leadership and Federal Character are not the same. Its baffling sometimes how our self-serving politicians and intellectuals can conflate these issues without batting an eyelid in the public space. Itd be helpful to calm themselves down and back off from misleading the people. That way, the misplaced tension thrown up by unnecessary acrimony over zoning can be doused. The poor defenceless masses do not gain anything meaningful from these overheated debates on power rotation except confusion and perplexity. These debates are all part of an elaborate elitist game. A scam. A self-preservative decoy put up by elitist, disengaged politicians from being asked hard, probing questions concerning their stewardship by people they are supposed to represent and lead.

For too long, Nigerias elitist politicians have betrayed with impunity the trust reposed in them by their followers. So, if we must recover our bearings or regain some semblance of balance, we must learn to properly focus the debate on how to achieve justice, equity and fairness in the running of our society. Nigeria is a country with over two hundred and fifty ethnic groups, some in majority, many in minority. There can only be one President and C.I.C., thirty six governors during a four-year term limit. Not to mention the senators, House of Representatives members, or State Houses of Assembly members. Needless to say, there are millions of Nigerians who will never attain these stated positions, intentionally or inadvertently. That many do not occupy these exalted political offices on an electoral basis is not to say they live less fulfilling lives than the fortunate politicians. As long as all are participators and contributors to a functional democracy while striving to achieve political stability and national integration.

To achieve justice, equity and fairness in the clear aim for political stability and national integration, every government must be resolved in its determinant focus to remove the poor, the weak and the vulnerable from marginalisation and oppression. Government is not about catering to the aggrandisement of those with political strength and power, but it is about how to enfranchise and empower the poor majority to become productive citizens.

Its in this light that we must situate Peter Obis enthusiastic resolve to turn Nigerias economy from consumption to production.

We must turn around the concept of government for the general good. If not, many will perish in ignorance. Nigeria as a country still struggling for definition does not have enough electoral offices to go round and satisfy the craving of power-mongers among our ethnic and religious groupings within every four-year term limit. But we all, citizens and government officers, can have equal access to good roads, decent and reasonable education, adequate health care delivery system, decent housing, public pipe borne water system, adequate electricity supply, free markets to buy and sell, etc. We must be mindful that hunger does not respect the religion of anyone. Bad health is totally indifferent and disrespectful of the ethnic origin, majority or minority, of anyone. Many of our deathtraps masquerading as roads dont care whether you are Hausa, Itsekiri or Ijaw, etc. At any slight mistake, the bad roads are potential killers.

Yet, in all this, what we must not fail to emphasise is that keeping the populace ignorant and insecure is very destabilising. Education is a fundamental part of human rights. Perhaps thats why late Chief Obafemi Awolowo said: The most important aspect of the campaign of the Action Group was free education, life more abundant for the generality of the people etc, etc. Our manifesto was centred on the development of man.

Within context and without controversy, we can judiciously paraphrase this greatly enlightened politician the greatest President Nigeria never had to mean: Our manifesto was centred on the development of leaders.

Indeed, one jarring note that stands out in the debate over zoning or power rotation is a deliberate ignorance of the leadership role in nation-building. And its this deliberate ignorance of the leadership role that has made Nigeria to stumble and totter on the world stage. And why, shamefully, its the World Headquarter of Poverty.

Every politician today in Nigeria, to be taken seriously, must learn to encourage their followers to cultivate the leadership spirit, and understand for themselves the principles of leadership. They must realise that education will not only make their followers to be technically competent, it will also open their eyes to see the expansive possibilities of leadership. Now, you can relate to why Peter Obi as Labour Partys presidential candidate would confidently say to the youths: Take back your country. Without access to education, no youth can develop the leadership capacity to take back their country from rapacious sit-tight rulers.

Leadership is the willingness to use power to accomplish a purpose, an objective.

We all have the responsibility to install a government that should not presume to give or take away what we were created to be. Political leadership is the most powerful way to express that responsibility. Since a government can make it harder or easier for people to achieve their purposes or goals, it is not reasonable for people to pretend disinterested in how a particular government is installed. Democracy, therefore, is the necessary tool that requires the popular participation of every political leader within a sovereignty to install and maintain a government that is not adversarial or insensitive to the reasonable aspirations of the citizenry.

No man, therefore, should presume to proscribe, suspend or rotate leadership in any circumstance or clime. Because a wise man said: If the noble do not lead, the profane will. And if evil prevails in a time or place, it is because the initiative is seized while the good wavered.

As a function, political leadership is characterised by a combination of vision, courage, patience, resolve, purpose, initiative, internal motivation and humility.

To develop these indispensable characteristics of leadership comes with self-sacrifice and diligence. Its not a road many are eager to follow. The irresistible few like Peter Obi who come swinging from this road of discipline will cause a bloodless revolution.Concluded

Felix Nyerhovwo Jarikre, a leadership consultant and author of the successful book, How to be a Wealth Controller, lives in Lagos, Nigeria. He is the pioneer CEO, Perfect Report, a leadership training group.

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Assembly of the Cuban Resistance kicks off long-term public education campaign giving voice to the oppressed, setting the record straight on the island

Under the cover of COVID and the invasion of Ukraine, Cuba's regime has ratcheted up repression of its people

TORONTO, June 14, 2022 /CNW/ - Advocates of human rights in Cuba took to the streets of Toronto today to issue a plea to all Canadians reconsider your support of a totalitarian, undemocratic and fearful government that continuously abuses its people and denies them their freedoms. The call is part of a long-term public education campaign, #UnlockCuba, initiated today in France, Spain, Italy and Canada that will include a variety of facts-based activities aimed at shedding light on the realities of heavy-handed government action and injustices in Cuba. It also aims to increase awareness on how ordinary citizens from these and other northern countries can help Cubans achieve the basic human rights that should be afforded to every person, in every country. Visiting from the U.S. and Mexico, the activists also met with community leaders, human rights groups and media to discuss how Canadians, much to their surprise, have played an important role in funding a six decade-long military regime that has trampled on human rights and basic freedoms since coming to power in 1959.

"Cubans, like Canadians and everyone around the world, deserve universal rights and freedoms," said Dr. Orlando Gutirrez Boronat, one of the members of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, the coalition of human rights groups inside and outside Cuba that is leading the campaign. "We are convinced the timing is right for Canadians to consider the small but concrete actions they can take to help Cubans find freedom. Year after year, decade after decade, the regime has lorded over our people and has done so with the financial support of individuals, business and even governments that are not aware of the realities on the island."

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Through ad campaigns, social media, educational events and engagement with political and civic leaders, the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance will share accurate information a key element it believes is required to resist the intense form of communism that has a stronghold on the island.

Canadians represent more than 40% of tourists to Cuba. Trade between Cuba and Canada is at its highest levels in years, representing more than $1 billion per year.

"We see Canadians standing up firmly and valiantly in the face of injustice in places all around the world," said former Cuban political prisoner Luis Zuiga. "This is good. As your neighbours to the south, from our island that is so beloved by so many, we're asking you to take notice of how our people are suffering and to do something concrete about it, even if only a small gesture and to sustain it until we are freed."

On July 11, 2021, spontaneous non-violent protests broke out across the island. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans, especially youth, took to the streets in cities like Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Cienfuegos and Camaguey chanting "Libertad" in response to the country's worsening state of human rights. To quell the movement, the government engaged in indiscriminate mass arrests, sentencing some protestors to nearly two decades in prison.

"How many rounds and decades of repression must the Cuban people endure?" said Ren F. Bolio, Chairman of the Mexican Commission for Human Rights who travelled to Canada to participate in the demonstration. "The regime in Havana has taken advantage of the current crisis in Ukraine and, before that, COVID, to summarily sentence in secret scores of young Cubans to decades-long prison terms simply for asking for their basic freedoms. It's time we shine light on what's truly happening."

Courageous Cuban nationals, both inside and outside of the island, are increasingly raising their voices to invite members of the international community of nations to see the continuous political injustices prevalent throughout Cuban society that are only intensified by tourist dollars, trade, and the many forms of capital investments Canadians direct to the island.

"Most Canadians do not know where their dollars are going when they vacation in Cuba or invest there," concludes Dr. Gutirrez Boronat. "The military almost exclusively owns the resorts and hotels and are the ones who see 80 90% of the money, not the Cuban people."

The campaign's first images include prisoners of the July 11, 2021, protests who were sentenced to jail time and hard labour for expressing their discontentment with the communist, non-representative and undemocratic government.

Spanish speakers in Canada are invited to listen to the group's online radio channel, Radio Republica, to be connected to facts and real stories from and related to the island and its people.

The delegation heads to Ottawa tomorrow for a first round of meetings with Members of Parliament.

The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance is a parliament in exile, made up of a host of non-governmental organizations working together to bring freedom to the oppressed people of Cuba.

The press event, delivered in Toronto, today, June 14, is available on the Facebook page of The Cuban Democratic Directorate (Directorio Democratico Cubano), or directly at https://www.facebook.com/directoriodemocraticocubano/videos/552480199808389/

Orlando Gutirrez Boronat, centre, from the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, stands in front of the Cuba Tourist Board of Canada in Toronto, June 14, with Ren Bolio, left, Mexican attorney and chairman of the Justice Cuba Commission and Luis Ziga Rey, human rights activist and a political prisoner who lived through 19 years of jail time in Cuba. The group travelled to Toronto to help promote freedom to the oppressed people of Cuba. (CNW Group/Assembly of the Cuban Resistance)

Orlando Gutirrez Boronat, centre, from the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, stands in front of the Cuba Tourist Board of Canada in Toronto, June 14, with Ren Bolio, left, Mexican attorney and chairman of the Justice Cuba Commission and Luis Ziga Rey, human rights activist and a political prisoner who lived through 19 years of jail time in Cuba. The group travelled to Toronto to help promote freedom to the oppressed people of Cuba.

SOURCE Assembly of the Cuban Resistance

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Advocates of human rights in Cuba launch campaign to inform Canadians, Western Europeans on realities of repression and oppression against the Cuban...

Over the past few years, Chinese authorities have been purging the influence of folk religion, which it refers to as xijio, sometimes translated as evil cults.

Two years ago, local officials in the village of Baofeng in the Chinese city of Gaoyou in Jiangsu province destroyed some 5,911 temples of traditional folk religion.

In 2020, a video emerged showing statues of the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi, being destroyed, apparently because of the Chinese states concerns about folk religious practices. Huangdi is the deity of the material world and civility and is the great shaper of society. He is considered the prime initiator of Chinese culture and holds wu() or shamanic sorcery.

Temple of Xuanyuan Huangdi in Xinzheng, Henan Province [Blowing Puffer Fish, Wikimedia Commons, CC 2.0]

Chinas oppression of folk religions stems from the implementation of Order No. 13, issued by the State Religious Affairs Bureau. Order 13 seeks to standardize the management of religious groups to promote their healthy development and actively guide religion to adapt to a socialist society. It is part of a plan to subjugate religious practices so they serve the state and ultimately produce and maintain social harmony.

As Cathy Sun notes inHarvard Political Review, Chinas persecution of religious minorities is part of a broader, systematic strategy to eradicate external influence in the social and political lives of citizens while harnessing aspects of religion that could serve the states interests. Its campaign of religious persecution is a not unprecedented effort to cement public recognition of the states authority and thereby generate political conformity.

Recently, the Chinese government has doubled down on efforts to limit religious expression and ensure that religious activity aligns with state interests. Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam, and Daoism, as regulated by organizations controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, constitute the religions sanctioned by the state in China.

Last year, President Xi Jinping lamented to national CCP leaders that prohibitions against using the Internet to advertise religion can be too easily circumvented. He noted that the government must do more to ensure that the Internet and social networks are not used as tools for religious propaganda.

In December, the State Administration of Religious Affairs, the National Internet Information Office, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of National Security were collectively empowered by new Administrative Measures for Internet Religious Information Services to promote the unity of safeguarding citizens freedom of religious belief and safeguarding national ideological security, the unity of safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of religious citizens and the practice of socialist core values, the unity of regulating Internet religious information services and the promotion of the healthy inheritance of religion.

The CCP suggests that the principles described in the measures will protect legality, prevent illegality, curb extremism, help resist infiltration, and combat crime. The measures also stipulate that online sermons should be organized by religious groups, religious schools, and temples and churches that have obtained the Internet Religious Information Service License.

The measures came into force on March 1, 2022.

In May, the Tibet Autonomous Region Cyberspace Administration (TARCA) announced that a special rectification work in the field of online live broadcasting and short videos in the whole region was needed to confront unspecified social threats. The new regulations ferret out activities undermining national religious policies, promoting harmful information about religion, and spreading xie jiao and feudal superstitions. These announcements are consistent with Order 13.

TARCA announced no religion or religious activity will be allowed in order to address the social threats now present in the region through the use of short videos and images. Those who do not have permission to send images or videos are subject to prosecution. The new measures effectively ban, for example, a personal post with the image of the Buddha. The CCP asks anyone coming to such illegal posts on the internet to report them immediately to protect the publics safety.

Temple of Confucius in Liuzhou, Guangxi [, Wikimedia Commons, CC 2.0]

In Guangxi last month, the Chinese government increased its surveillance of ethnic Vietnamese groups who speak the Hmong-Mien languages, as well as the Thai-speaking Zhuang, because the state believes they are infiltrating their folk religion into Chinese society. They are part of a syncretic faith that includes the worship of the very popular folk hero, Nong Zhigao, who led a revolt for independence against officials, fought against the rich, and protected villagers. Nong Zhigao is now venerated for his willingness to resist aggression and unify his people. Though the Party is aware of his popularity and is cautious to outright eliminating Nong Zhigaos veneration, the CCP is concerned that such practices could lead to social unrest.

Finally, this week, the deployment of the measures evolved in a new direction. The CCP reportedly assisted elderly citizens in Guangzhou celebreating the 2022 Dragon Boat Festival by warning them against illegal religious activity, xie jiao, and the dangers of superstition. The CCP is concerned that elderly residents waste their money by making donations to religious organizations and temples, or by spending money on superstitious practices. The theme of the campaign was protecting your pension money.

In another event, the elderly were warned during a lecture against spending their money on psychic practices and the evils of illegal religion.

The CCP asked elderly participants to promise they would stay away from superstition, especially xie jijao and other illegal activities. Before sending them home, the participants were given pamphlets to study at their leisure.

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New government measures curtail folk religion in China - The Wild Hunt

Imagine it with me: a free world, but you're not a part of it. A land full of opportunities, but you have no access to them. A nation with liberty and justice, but somehow you still feel imprisoned and caged.

This is why telling the story of Juneteenth is so essential to understanding our nation's history. It goes like this: Though the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863, it wasn't until June 19, 1865, that roughly 2,000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas announcing that more than 250,000 enslaved Black Americans were free by executive decree.

They were already free, but they didn't know it, because they simply weren't told.

Freedom cannot be separated from knowing that our God-given liberties must be preserved against government intrusion. And that still isn't the case for so many Black people in our own country, even today, over 150 years since those Union soldiers arrived in Galveston.

If Black people are afraid to walk the streets of our own neighborhoods, are we truly free?

That question becomes even more stark when it comes to our criminal justice system and the death penalty. In Louisiana, the odds of a death sentence are 97 percent higher for those whose victims are white than for those whose victims are Black. In California, those convicted of killing white people are three times more likely to receive the death penalty than those whose victims are Black. In North Carolina, that likelihood is 3.5 times greater.

If government-sanctioned violence is so starkly unfair, are any of us truly free?

The state of Washington abolished the death penalty in 2018, mostly due to racial bias. "We are confident that the association between race and the death penalty is not attributed to random chance," the justices wrote in a majority opinion.

Other states should follow suit. But the death penalty is just the tip of the iceberg. The systemic racism that is embedded in our justice system resembles oppression and bondage, and it is difficult for us to fully celebrate Juneteenth without a full acknowledgement of that.

The tragic murder of George Floyd sparked universal outrage from people across the political spectrum. For Black Americans, it was another name added to a seemingly never-ending list of lives ended by police officers. The list of names includes: Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, Walter Scott, Breonna Taylor, and so many more. They are names that fuel pain, anguish, and trauma. Names that resurrect the wounds of history. Names that conjure the urgency to reevaluate how police officers interact with members of the community and the necessity for them to be held accountable.

Even Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), a Black United States senator, is not immune to the injustice in policing. He expressed his frustration about his encounters with law enforcement bluntly, explaining how he has found himself "choking on my own fears and disbelief when faced with the realities of an encounter with law enforcement."

Meanwhile, in prisons across the country, incarcerated people work under threat of force for pennies an hour. In places like Angola Prison in Louisiana, wardens ride on horses through fields of mostly Black men picking crops in the heat. If that sounds like the pictures of slavery we learned about in school, that's because it is.

For this we can thank an exception in the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery except for as a form of punishment. According to Right on Crime, states spend more than $50 billion per year on prisons. This excessive government spending is fueled by the idea that punishment is the only way to respond when someone makes a mistake. And it tends to disproportionately respond to Black peoples' mistakes. Does that make any of us more free?

But what if we as conservatives were to refocus our attention and resources on restoration, rehabilitation, services for victim's family members and equipping local communities to be best equipped to serve as violence interventionists and preventers?

As conservatives, we must ask ourselves this pressing question: Is freedom really a cornerstone of the American Dream if it isn't accessible to everyone? If people of color are still feeling victimized by our justice system, then the message of this Juneteenth cannot be a celebration of freedom alone. The message must also be we still have work to do to realize our dream.

Conservatives must become messengers of freedom and reformbecause there are some disturbing realities about our justice system that tell us that we're not really free.

Demetrius Minor is National Manager for Conservatives Concerned About The Death Penalty, a content creator for The Family Vision Media and a Project 21 Member.

The views in this article are the writer's own.

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My Fellow Conservatives: Let's Truly Embrace The Spirit of Juneteenth | Opinion - Newsweek

Canadas Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Bentwood Box, made of western red cedar, by artist Luke Marston, member of the Stzuminus (Chemainus) First Nation. Commissioned in 2009, the Bentwood Box traveled the country with the TRC, collecting items from Residential School survivors until reaching its home at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba. Traditional bentwood boxes were used for collecting and storing food and goods, such as medicine. Courtesy of United Church/Flickr.

by Gloria Y.A. Ayee|June20,2022

This essay is part of the Zcalo/Mellon Foundation editorial and public program series How Should Societies Remember Their Sins? Register for What Is Our Responsibility for Our Governments Wars?, taking place on July 12.

Can democracy stand the test of time? Many factors have triggered the deep schism in American politics today. But a root cause of our faltering democracy may be our failure to grapple with the truth about the nations history of discrimination and institutionalized racism. Because Americans cant even agree on basic truths about our history of exclusion, slavery, and Jim Crow segregation, we have become mired in contentious debates about what role, if any, the government should play in addressing past injustices and their present-day legacies. To forge a path ahead, Americans must acknowledge our problematic past and collectively commit to upholding the principle of liberty and justice for all.

Where could we possibly start? As a first step, we can look to other nations that were once deeply divided, and learn from their efforts to address their difficult histories in pursuit of accountability and justice. The United States might do well to consider transitional justice approachesthe political, social, and legal processes societies use to respond to legacies of systematic or serious human rights abuses, primarily during periods of political transition like changes in leadership after a period of civil war or conflict, or the transition from an authoritarian to a democratic political system. These temporary judicial and non-judicial mechanisms and practices include criminal trials and prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations, and institutional reforms to help transform a society and reestablish the social contract. The United States is not undergoing a political regime transition, but transitional justice tools can still help us promote national reconciliation and reinforce our democracy as we reckon with the truth of our history and legacies of systemic harm and oppression.

The Human rights, universal challenge room at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile, showing a map of human rights abuses around the world. Courtesy of Warko/Wikimedia Commons.

The truth commission is a widely used transitional justice instrumentand one that can offer the most insight to Americans looking to reshape the collective memory and conscience of our nation. These official fact-finding bodies investigate, document, and disseminate accurate information about past wrongdoing and human rights violations authorized or carried out by the state. The United States can certainly learn a great deal from the successes and failures of these commissions in countries like Argentina, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Morocco, Peru, South Africa, South Korea, and Timor-Leste (East Timor).

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is one of the best-known national truth-telling and reconciliation processes and has been the model for several other truth commissions. In 1995, South Africas newly elected democratic, multicultural Government of National Unity established the TRC to investigate serious human rights violations perpetrated under the apartheid regime from 1960 to 1994. Apartheid was a brutal system of white minority rule and legally enforced racial segregation that formalized and expanded white supremacist and segregationist policies that had existed since the period of colonial rule. Institutionalized racism stripped Black South Africans and other non-whites of their civil and political rightsincluding their citizenshipand created extreme inequality and poverty. Anti-apartheid protests, demonstrations, and strikes organized by freedom fighters were met with swift and ruthless repression, and an estimated 21,000 people, the majority of whom were Black South Africans, were killed in the political violence during the apartheid era.

The primary purpose of the TRC was to promote reconciliation and forgiveness among all South Africans, while holding perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable for their actions. The commissions work involved a systematic process of investigating human rights violations, organizing public proceedings where victims and perpetrators could testify, offering reparations to victims, and granting amnesty to perpetrators under specific, limited conditions. The TRCs mandate covered both violations committed by the state and by anti-apartheid liberation movements. In its comprehensive final report, which the government endorsed, the truth commission outlined detailed recommendations for reforming the political system and civil sector, which included financial and symbolic reparations. President Nelson Mandela also apologized to victims on behalf of the state.

It is intriguing to consider the possibilities of a national truth and reconciliation process that could apply these approaches of truth-telling, restorative justice, and healing to address Americas legacy of slavery and racial discrimination.

The TRC faced some criticism for its amnesty provision and the limited identification of perpetrators, among other things. Many South Africans later railed against the government for its delay in implementing the TRCs recommendations, including the reparations program. But despite these critiques, the TRC succeeded in making sure the crimes of apartheid would be fully documented so that South Africas horrific history would never be forgotten. And in the decades since, the TRCs broader emphasis on truth-telling, social transformation, and national reconciliation have made it a standard for other justice and accountability efforts around the world.

Inspired by truth and reconciliation processes in other countries and recognizing the need to educate Americans on the historical context for current racial inequalities, in early 2021, Rep. Barbara Lee (CA-13) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) called for the establishment of a national truth commission in the U.S., proposing legislation to create the United States Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation. The history Americans must reckon with is not as immediate as South Africas, and our political system is not in a moment of democratic transition. But similar efforts have succeeded in non-transitional societies, notably in Canada, which established a truth commission in 2008 to investigate, document, and educate Canadians about the abuses that occurred in the Indian residential school system for Indigenous children over the 19th and 20th centuries (between 1894 and 1947 attendance was made compulsory). These residential schools are a legacy of Canadas colonial system and have been described as a form of cultural genocide because of their explicit goal of cultural erasure, and forcible assimilation of Indigenous peoples. The Canadian TRC documented widespread physical and sexual abuse in these schools, and officially recorded the deaths of 3,201 students, though concluded the actual toll is much higher. As part of its work, the commission hosted national events in different regions across Canada to support public education about the residential school system, pervasive discrimination, and the lasting trauma for survivors and Indigenous communities.

Citizens march for justice following the Greensboro Massacre of 1979. Twenty-five years later, community leadership organized the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Project to uncover the full harm done to victims of the domestic terrorist attack. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

In the United States, there have been similar initiatives, organized by grassroots groups, to address abuses and wrongdoing at the local level. In 2013, the state of Maines Office of Child and Family Services with the support of the Wabanaki Tribes established the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission (MWTRC) to investigate and document state child welfare policies, their compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act, and their effects on the Indigenous Wabanaki people. The commission collected testimony and found compelling evidence of public and institutional racism toward the Wabanaki people, documenting how Native children in Maine were placed in the foster care system at a rate of more than five times that of non-Native children, and concluding that the administration of child welfare by the state constituted a form of cultural genocide. The commission wanted to provide opportunities for truth-telling and healing, give voice to the Wabanaki people, establish a more complete account of the history of the Wabanaki people, and foster deeper understanding and reconciliation between Wabanaki people and the state of Maine.

The city of Greensboro in North Carolina also embarked on a notable truth and reconciliation effort, modeling the 2004 Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the South African TRC. Greensboro created its commission to investigate and document the underlying causes and consequences of a single event: the Greensboro Massacre, a confrontation between members of the Communist Workers Party, the American Nazi Party, and the Ku Klux Klan on November 3, 1979. During a Death to the Klan rally, Klansmen and neo-Nazis shot into the crowd, killing five demonstrators and wounding 10 others. Suspiciously, there was no police presence at the rally, even though the Greensboro Police Department knew about the planned attack. Despite eyewitness accounts and videotaped evidence, the Klansmen and neo-Nazis claimed self-defense and were acquitted of all charges by all-white juries in two separate criminal trials. During a civil trial in 1985, the Greensboro Police Department, the Klan, and Nazi Party members were found liable for one of the deaths.

After about two years of collecting evidence and holding public hearings, the commission concluded that the decision of the police to stay away from the rally was a significant factor in the violence that unfolded. The commission also found that the police department and city managers deliberately misled the public in order to absolve the police department of any responsibility. They found fault in the two criminal trials as well: Neither jury was representative of Greensboro residents and community members, which contributed to impunity for the killings, distrust of the police department, and further strained race relations. The Greensboro truth commissions goals were multifacetedto pursue the truth about racially motivated political violence; to foster healing, reconciliation, and social transformation; and to learn from other truth and reconciliation processes.

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Could a Truth and Reconciliation Commission Unite America? - zocalopublicsquare.org

Veteran human rights lawyer Michael Vidler decided it was too dangerous to work in Hong Kong the moment a judge designated to handle national security law cases implied offering legal support to democracy activists could be a crime.

Judge Stanley Chan cited a contact card naming two law firms, including Vidlers, as evidence of how organized the 2019 anti-government camp was in his judgment for an unlawful assembly conviction earlier this year. As to whether the lawyers named were accomplices to that crime, Chan said he couldnt comment.

It was deeply disturbing for me as a lawyer to be, in essence, accused of inciting a crime because a potential client had a piece of paper on him which listed my firm as a source of legal advice and assistance, said Vidler, who previously defended now-jailed democracy activist Joshua Wong and won a landmark appeal that recognized spousal visas for same sex couples.

There was no longer space for my firm to continue its public interest litigation work, he added, without an increasing risk of serious adverse consequences for my team and myself.

Vidler left Hong Kong in May after almost two decades working in the former British colony, and closed his law firm shortly after. His experience reflects growing concern that Hong Kongs rule of law, for decades a foundational pillar of its standing as an international financial center, is becoming more influenced by the mainland where the Communist Party controls the courts.

A government spokesperson said Hong Kongs rule of law remained solid and robust after the security legislation Beijing imposed on the city in June 2020, crediting it for restoring a peaceful and stable environment. The spokesman said Chan made his comments outside the context of a national security law case, and denied that he suggested a lawyer could be criminally liable for simply providing legal services.

Authorities have ramped up pressure on lawyers whove defended some of the 10,000 protesters arrested during the 2019 unrest. Prominent barrister Margaret Ng was arrested over her work with a fund providing financial aid to activists, with police reporting other lawyers to their professional bodies for misconduct unearthed in that investigation. She has denied the charges and a court hearing is set for Sept. 19.

Former Hong Kong Bar Association chief and human rights lawyer Paul Harris left the city in March after being questioned by national security police.

Any degradation of Hong Kongs strong rule-of-law tradition by hollowing out rule-of-law-related institutions will not be favorable to the security of international investments and finance, said Michael Davis, a professor of law and international affairs at O.P. Jindal Global University in India, and former law professor at the University of Hong Kong. Presumably, investors who carry on despite these growing limitations will demand a higher premium on their investments as associated with higher risks.

The changes strike at a central pillar of Chinas 50-year promise to maintain Hong Kongs liberal institutions and capitalist markets until at least 2047 under a framework called one country, two systems. The city will celebrate the halfway mark of that guarantee on July 1, in a ceremony that could be attended by President Xi Jinping.

Lawyers in Hong Kong are operating in an environment where many are debating whether even recognizing the accomplishments of the accused could run afoul of the security law. The stakes are high, since authorities havent dropped charges against any of the at least 114 people so far prosecuted as part of national security cases.

Keith Richburg, head of the Foreign Correspondents Club, Hong Kong, said the board suspended its longstanding Human Rights Press Awards earlier this year after lawyers advised him the police would probably investigate the organization for aiding, promoting or celebrating sedition, according to a recording of a meeting with local journalists to explain the decision. The winners included Stand News, which shut down in December after police arrested seven people connected to the publication on a colonial-era sedition law.

You wont get a fair hearing before an NSL judge, Richburg said a lawyer told him, referring to the national security law.

How many people arrested on the sedition or national security law have gotten off? he added. You think theyre getting a fair trial in Hong Kong and China? Arresting people means that youre guilty. Richburg declined to comment further.

The Society of Publishers in Asia, which is also based in Hong Kong, last week gave out a human rights reporting award to Chinese-language publication Ming Pao for a series on the legal risks involved in commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Its unclear if Stand News submitted entries for the SOPA awards. SOPA didnt respond to questions.

Bloomberg is currently represented on the board the FCCHK, and the editorial committee of SOPA.

The national security law altered the citys legal system in several ways: It enabled the citys leader to choose which judges in the city can handle security law cases, diminishing the impartiality and independence of the judiciary, and allowed certain cases to be tried across the border, in vaguely defined circumstances a power yet to be exercised.

Perhaps most significantly, it changed the rules for bail by removing the presumption of innocence, a precedent thats seen scores of defendants jailed for more than a year without a trial and has since been expanded to other crimes with a security element.

So far, all four security law cases that have come to trial have resulted in guilty verdicts, with the sole defendant who fought charges denied a reduction in sentence in part because he chose not to plead guilty. Those outcomes have likely put defendants off trying to clear their names, said one senior lawyer, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the subject matter.

These changes have already impacted Hong Kongs international reputation. Two British judges withdrew from the citys Court of Final Appeal earlier this year, after the U.K. government said their roles risked legitimizing oppression, while seven U.S. lawmakers have called on President Joe Biden to sanction judges and prosecutors handling national security cases for enabling Beijings crackdown on freedoms.

Hong Kongs global ranking on the World Justice Projects Rule of Law Index fell three spots to 19th out of 139 countries surveyed in 2021, after holding the No. 16 rank for the past four years, with a decrease in legal accountability for government officials one of the biggest factors for the drop. The citys legal system still ranks the fifth highest in the region.

Officials used a symposium organized by Hong Kongs Justice Department last month to defend the citys legal system, with Chinas top local diplomat, Liu Guangyuan, arguing that countries that claim to promote democracy were the ones undermining the rule of law around the world by interfering in the affairs of others.

Hong Kong boasts an independent judiciary and fundamental rights and freedoms fully protected under the Basic Law, Carrie Lam, Hong Kongs outgoing chief executive, told the event. That is why Hong Kong is often the preferred choice for multinational cooperation when it comes to legal and dispute resolution services.

Despite fears for the legal protection of civil liberties, four lawyers who either currently practice or recently worked in Hong Kong said there appears to be an expectation in the business community that other areas of law wont be eroded, which they considered to be misguided. All four spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Commercial law wont be interfered with because thats one of the pillars of Hong Kong being an international center for business, trade, and finance, said George Cautherley, vice chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce in the city. Maintaining that reputation will be crucial to Hong Kongs stated goal of expanding the city as an international center for legal and arbitration services.

Thomas Kellogg, the executive director of the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, cautioned that mainland Chinas system showed such a bifurcation between public law which governs relations between people and a government and private law that manages contracts is difficult.

China ranked 98th globally in the World Justice Projects index last year, due to a lack of governmental institutions subject to checks and balances, among other things.

The situation in Hong Kong is becoming all too reminiscent of the Xi-era crackdown on rights lawyers in China, Kellogg said, referencing the 709 crackdown that saw some 300 human rights lawyers arrested in 2015. Many are still imprisoned, while others lost their licenses.

The pressure being put on lawyers who take security cases makes it even harder for lawyers to step forward, Kellogg said. I worry such cases will only handled by pro-Beijing lawyers, who will press their clients to cut a deal with the prosecution, even if they have strong human rights claims they could make in a defense.

2022 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Hong Kong lawyers are the next target of Xi's national security law - Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

On Friday, British Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that she has approved WikiLeaks founder Julian Assanges extradition to the United States. Assanges family, including his wife, Stella Moris, immediately declared that they would fight the decision, including through a further British legal appeal.

If Assange is extradited, he faces 18 charges under the Espionage Act and 175 years imprisonment for publishing what the American government and the British courts acknowledge was true information exposing US foreign policy.

When it comes to Ukraine, the US and its allies continuously claim that they are defending democracy against Russian authoritarianism. On the basis of these assertions, the Biden administration has funneled tens of billions of dollars in weaponry to the Ukrainian government, in what has become a US-NATO proxy war against Russia.

In the Asia-Pacific, Washington and its allies similarly assert that they are defending freedom in opposition to Chinese autocracy.

The persecution of Assange exposes all of these statements as complete lies used to justify a program of aggressive militarism and war.

In the heart of Britain, Assange, a journalist, is imprisoned in a maximum-security prison without charge, while the US seeks his extradition for exposing its war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assanges legal and democratic rights have been continuously attacked. There is clear evidence that the US oversaw a massive spying operation against Assange, while he was a political refugee in Ecuador Londons embassy. This included illegal surveillance of his privileged communications with lawyers.

Last September, Yahoo! News reported that in 2017, the Trump administration and the CIA discussed kidnapping or assassinating Assange in London. The article was based on the statements of 30 former US officials.

Outgoing United Nations Rapporteur Nils Melzer has repeatedly branded the US and British treatment of Assange as torture. Hundreds of doctors have demanded Assanges freedom and warned of his deteriorating health.

Despite all of this, the Biden administration has continued the prosecution and the British courts have facilitated it. The contradiction between the supposed US-led campaign for freedom in Ukraine, and its determination to lock Assange away, is a staggering display of imperialist hypocrisy.

What is Assange accused of? The American charges against him cover WikiLeaks 2010 and 2011 publication of the US armys Iraq and Afghan war logs, its Guantanamo Bay detainee files and 250,000 diplomatic cables.

Together, the documents are one of the most powerful exposures of imperialist war in recent history. They exposed all the lies about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan being about democracy and human rights. Instead, these wars were shown to be bloody neo-colonial operations involving daily killings, torture and mass oppression.

The Afghan war logs detailed atrocities that had never seen the light of day, from NATO bombings of school buses and weddings, to the existence of a US hit squad tasked with assassinating opponents of the occupation.

The Iraq war logs recorded the deaths of 109,000 Iraqis, 66,081 of them described by the US army as civilians. 15,000 of those murdered would have left no trace in history but for Assange, because their killings had been completely covered up by the US and its allies.

American soldiers gunning down civilians at military checkpoints, their contractors opening fire in crowded markets, the torture of thousands of detainees by the US puppet government were all registered in the logs as the norm, not the exception.

The Guantanamo Bay detainee files exposed the global dragnet of the war on terror. The files showed that those being subjected to the most horrific forms of incarceration were overwhelmingly innocent civilians, an 89-year-old Afghan farmer with dementia was one, a 14-year-old boy another.

The diplomatic cables revealed that the illegality of the wars was standard operating procedure for US imperialism all over the world. In their pages was proof of US sponsorship for innumerable dictatorships, the plotting of coups, the cultivation of agents in governments, friendly and hostile alike, and spying on United Nations officials.

All of the revelations were summed up in the Collateral Murder video, the footage of US soldiers in an Apache helicopter gleefully gunning down a crowd of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists. No other video, in recent decades, has played such a role in activating the mass anti-war sentiment that exists among workers and young people.

For all of these crimes, the only person in the world facing prison time is Julian Assange, who exposed them. Meanwhile, the war criminals walk free.

George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and has the blood of a million Iraqis on his hands. But he has been rehabilitated by the Democrats and the corporate media, and is presented as an elder statesman of US politics.

Tony Blair, the former Labour Prime Minister who oversaw Britains participation in the invasion of Iraq, is a figure of mass popular hatred. But this month, Blair was provided with a knighthood.

The attempt to prosecute Assange is an exercise in retribution for his exposure of imperialist lies. It is also part of the preparation for new and even greater crimes.

The neo-colonial wars that WikiLeaks exposed have metastasized into a global conflict that threatens nuclear war. The US is waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and is confronting China in the Asia-Pacific.

This program, which threatens a world war, is incompatible with even the trappings of democracy. Assanges persecution is intended as a precedent for broader frame-ups and victimisations targeting opponents of imperialism.

In other words, the stakes are immense and the fight for Assanges freedom is more urgent than ever.

In this struggle, nothing would be more fatal than illusions that moral appeals to Assanges persecutors will convince them to end their decade-long attacks on him.

What is required to free Assange and to bring the war criminals he exposed to account is the mobilisation of the international working class.

All over the world, workers are entering into struggle against the very governments that have spearheaded Assanges persecution. In Britain, the US and everywhere else there is immense hostility to the herd immunity COVID policies, which have resulted in mass infection and death. And now, mass strikes and protests are developing in opposition to the massive price rises, continuous cuts to wages and cuts to social spending.

In Britain, 50,000 rail workers are going on strike this week. Many of them will be only a few miles from where Assange is imprisoned. In the US, there are struggles brewing among auto workers, nurses, teachers and other sections, as there are in Australia.

This emerging movement of the working class provides the constituency for a fight for Assanges freedom, the defence of democratic rights and the struggle against war. We appeal to all workers and youth to take up the defence of Assange, as part of the fight for all of your social and democratic rights.

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Julian Assange faces extradition and state murder while the war criminals he exposed walk free - WSWS