Monthly Archives: August 2022

In 2018, Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes called for a radical reimagining in how we respond to harm, writing, Its time for a jailbreak of the imagination in order to make the impossible possible. A new book of speculative fiction, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072, by M.E. OBrien and Eman Abdelhadi, is one such jailbreak.

OBrien and Abdelhadi imagine themselves as researchers in the future. Their future selves interview 12 fictitious people who played different revolutionary roles in recreating the world, including sex workers, scientists, student organizers and freedom fighters. In this future world, money, nation-states, prisons, militaries, police, borders and families as we know them are no more. Instead, people organize themselves through communes, councils and free assemblies. And it is beautiful.

Its not that there are no problems in this future characters talk about long-term effects of trauma, an incident of physical violence toward a child, tough ethical questions resolved in ways not everyone agrees with, and the ongoing disaster of climate change. But people are now free to respond to those challenges in ways that are creative, collaborative, interdependent and caring, rather than desperate, isolated, greedy or punitive. People flourish through building with each other in the absence of capitalism and colonialism.

But if you come to Everything for Everyone for the politics, stay for the writing. Barring Vladimir Nabokov in Pale Fire, I cant think of another author who uses an academic form to achieve a literary result so successfully. Each of the interviewees and interviewers has an entirely unique and authentic voice. The book is utterly plausible as the archival project it claims to be, while also telling gripping stories and slipping in details to delight sci-fi fans (a space elevator in Quito! Sentient algae-based AI! Augmented reality implants for dance parties!).

I have worked with both OBrien and Abdelhadi in the context of different political projects over the years, so I was delighted to get the chance to put together this exclusive Truthout interview with them about why they wrote the book, what influences helped to shape Everything for Everyone, and what they are working on next.

Gabriel Arkles: You offer this incredibly hopeful vision for our future in Everything for Everyone. I mean, things get even worse before they get better, and a lot of people get killed. But then this new world emerges as people all over the globe defeat police, military, fascists and the ultra-wealthy. They redistribute resources, and create ways of doing things that are infinitely more consensual, collaborative and compassionate, rather than hierarchical, alienated and exploitative. Why did you want to offer a utopian, not dystopian, vision?

Eman Abdelhadi: One of the great violences of the moment in history we are living is that it has extinguished hope. It truly feels like we are living at the end of the world, and that has left many of us unable to imagine a better world. Many are even debating whether reproducing a next generation of human beings is ethical. Our book reclaims hope as both a right and a political imperative. The fictional and speculative form allows that in unique ways. We let our imaginations do the work of conjuring a better world and therefore giving us, and hopefully our readers, hope. We imagine what it would be like to live and love without the rat race, without nuclear family forms, without the constraints of gender as we know them, without material scarcity. Without these constraints we thrive as both individuals and communities!

M.E. OBrien: So many people are dealing with consuming despair and a sense of resignation and powerlessness. To forge the kinds of collective emancipatory movements we desperately need, at some point, everyone has to discover in ourselves the sense that the world really could be better. This sense of positive aspiration, of revolutionary possibility, is something we need to find both in ourselves and in the relationships between us. Ive found that sense in moments of mass insurrection that Ive been a part of in my own life. Everything for Everyone is intended to encourage people to explore revolutionary vision throughout our lives. I hope people read the book and are inspired to write their own!

I hadnt read many radical works set in a hopeful future that comes after further breakdown in our current world order. But when I think of other examples, Im mostly thinking of books by Indigenous authors from Turtle Island/North America, like Rebecca Roanhorses Trail of Lightning, or various authors in Joshua Whiteheads Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction. Im curious whether and how Indigenous work informed your thinking in Everything for Everyone? And to make that more general, what other authors or thinkers contributed to your creation of this book?

OBrien: That sounds like great work, I would love to check it out. I read and appreciated Hope Nicholsons anthology of LGBT Indigenous science fiction, entitled Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time. In terms of Indigenous theorists, I have gotten a great deal from the works of Kim TallBear, Daniel Heath Justice and from my co-editor at Pinko, Lou Cornum. Indigenous theorists have been very helpful in shaping my thinking about settler-colonialism and the white family form. That research was in the back of my mind as I was writing my sections of Everything for Everyone. Broadly, I think I would have a hard time detailing all my influences. There is a range of current work engaged with questions of trans liberation, social reproduction, communization and racial capitalism that help motivate my current thinking. A few contemporary theorists of family abolition, or critiques of the normative family form, particularly stand out: Hortense Spillers, Sophie Lewis, Tiffany Lethabo King, Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Jules Gill-Peterson.

Abdelhadi: The Indigenous struggle that most influenced my writing is the Palestinian one. Palestinians imagine liberation every day and locate ourselves in both the lineage and future of struggle. For those of us who are critical of capitalism and the nation state, a common saying is, The Palestinian flag is the only one I would ever raise. And the day Palestine is free, I will stop raising it. That is, we understand nationalism as a temporary necessity forced upon us by the system in which we currently live. At the end of the second chapter of Everything for Everyone, in which we liberate Palestine, you can drive or take the train from Beirut to Jerusalem for a day trip. That is, we are imagining Palestinian liberation as intrinsically tied to liberation from the nation state and from capitalism as well.

Are there any political projects happening now you want to talk about, especially if they somehow prefigure the future of Everything for Everyone?

OBrien: In Everything for Everyone, we depict a new social institution as the basis of day-to-day life: the commune. People live in collective communes of several hundred people spread out across several buildings. They eat together as a commune, make decisions in big meetings, and get most of their day-to-day care through the commune. People can still form families or family together, as one character puts it but these families are not an economic unit and not the sole close social relationships. If a family chooses to separate, it doesnt have as massive an impact as it might in our world.

Importantly, I do not think what we call communes today could prefigure this society. Communes today largely depend on property ownership and wealth for their stability, like normative families do. Without it, it can be difficult to maintain collective living. Treating each other well is extraordinarily difficult to maintain in a capitalist society. The basic features of racial capitalism like racist state violence, or the pressures of reproducing ourselves through paid work all create contradictions and conflicts within households, even within the most radical communities.

What I would instead point to are the examples of insurgent social reproduction: moments where people in the middle of mass rebellions collectively address issues of sleeping, food, safety, education, in radically new ways. I am thinking here of protest camps like Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline, rare brief moments in the urban camps of Occupy Wall Street, and mass urban uprisings like the Oaxaca Commune of 2006. These are necessarily temporary and precarious, because they are in direct confrontation with the state and capital. I imagine these being the beginnings of new practices of social reproduction.

The interview with Connor Stephens on the fall of Colorado Springs was in some ways my favorite, even though (or maybe because) it was uncomfortable to read. One thing Ive come to understand in my work as a lawyer is that I have a professional and cultural expectation that people will relate their stories in a linear, chronological way. But thats not really the way most people tell their stories. You showed Stephens resisting the chronological framework OBrien wanted, and some tension between them. Id love to hear some about why you chose to include those moments of tension, refusal or critique of the approach your future selves took to the interviewing process? And then conversely, why you chose to include moments of connection and alignment, like in the interview between Abdelhadi and Kawkab Hassan on liberating the Levant?

Abdelhadi: I am a Muslim American who mostly does oral histories with Muslim Americans for my academic research. This experience has stripped me of the fantasy of the neutral interviewer. In social sciences, we like to believe that everyone would be able to access the same data using the same methods. Thats simply not true for this method. People tell me things they would not be willing to tell someone who wasnt also Muslim or Brown or a woman. Who I am matters to the people I interview. I tried to write these fictional oral histories with that in mind, thinking about the interaction between the interviewer and interviewee about the moments when the interviewer would be drawn into the story and when they would be more of a receiver of it.

OBrien: I tried to write Connor Stephenss interview closely based on both my reading of Indigenous oral histories, and from research into how trauma shapes narrative. These each have slightly different influences on the text, but what came out reflects them both. Overall, I think oral history is an especially rich form in allowing for contradiction, misremembering and agency by the narrator. In my three years coordinating the NYC Trans Oral History Project, I found that the best oral histories were not packaged and clean, stripped of contradictions. The richest interviews were when people were discovering something new and unexpected in themselves as they talked, and that always meant a certain shaking up of our assumptions of what narrative and truth looks like.

I read After the Revolution by Robert Evans shortly before I read your book. I found it interesting that both included a white character assigned female at birth who at one point really believed in and advocated for a Christo-fascist state (Sasha in Evanss novel and S. in yours). And in both, that person finally violently rose up against that society, partly because of the violence they witnessed toward other white people assigned female at birth and partly because outsiders helped them question their beliefs. I wonder if you can reflect on S.s role in your book, and why other authors might also find these sorts of narratives interesting to explore in this moment? I should also acknowledge that these narratives probably interest me partly because I am a white person assigned female at birth who held some conservative beliefs when I was younger that I no longer support.

OBrien: S. is a white nonbinary character. They grew up in a fascist Christian cult that took over Staten Island, and S. was eventually involved in a massacre of the cults patriarchs. For them, this rebellion was made possible by an ongoing online communication with a Black revolutionary who later becomes their spouse. In the interview, S. is still struggling with trauma shaping their sexuality and their relationship to love. We are currently living in a moment of rising fascist threat. Sexual violence, attacks on reproductive freedom, and the imposition of narrow family and gender norms [are some of the ways] fascist social relations organize power and authority. Throughout the book, we were trying to explore the diverse paths that may lead our narrators to become revolutionaries. In S.s case, this was based on facing the violent gendered contradictions immediately around them.

Im interested in how you made choices about what to make explicit and what to leave implicit at various points. For example, in the first interview with Miss Kelly on the insurrection at Hunts Point, you had pretty detailed discussion of how she and others transformed sex work and the distribution, production and consumption of food, as well as how she and others navigated some of the tensions with other organizations that initially had a problem with them as trans women. And while race seemed very present in that interview Miss Kelly refers to uprisings against police murders, for example you chose not to explicitly name and explain in that interview ways Miss Kelly dealt with anti-Black racism or how racial dynamics shifted with communization. And in other interviews, while there was careful attention to the impact of emotional trauma and the type of support people give and get around that, there wasnt as much discussion about how people in the post-revolutionary world support each other around physical disabilities, including those acquired through traumatic injury. Could you say a little about how you decided what to make explicit, what to leave implicit, and what to cut?

OBrien: Eman and I are each the primary authors of those interviews where we present ourselves as the interviewer. What I hear you pointing to is the limitations of my own thinking and experience. This is an inherent part of oral history interviewing outside of these fictional interviews. My identities and experiences as an interviewer shape what people are comfortable sharing, and shape where the conversation goes. In my experience interviewing BIPOC people as a white interviewer, racial violence and racial capitalism was always in the background shaping their story, but rarely explored directly and explicitly. No doubt this was tied up with me being white, and in how I listened, asked questions and held space. Similarly, in my years working with people dealing with a variety of disabilities in the AIDS movement, a lot of my attention was more focused on mental health and trauma, and I likely wasnt listening as deeply around other kinds of disabilities. These experiences of listening as a therapist, and as an oral historian then shaped my writing, in both good and problematic ways.

Abdelhadi: Gabriel, thank you for pointing this out! The question of physical disabilities is definitely a limitation of the book. One of the difficulties of writing a polyphonic novel is that we have to inhabit multiple characters psyches. There is always the question of how to do that given the limitations of our own positionalities. Of course, as M.E. points out, being oral historians helps. We have had to listen to and empathize with people of multiple identifications that do not overlap with our own, and I think we both draw on that. But these experiences, too, are inherently limited. I think its important to acknowledge limitations such as this one and own up to them. We hope this book inspires a lot more hopeful speculative fiction, and I hope others wiser than us and more well-versed will fill in the gaps!

I have to ask: The book refers several times to how there is a much larger oral history project that will be available in various ways, but not in print. Do you have additional interviews that will be available online? I can also imagine fans wanting to create and contribute their own interviews.

Abdelhadi: The allusion to more interviews was mostly a stylistic choice, to help convey the world of an actual oral history project. I would imagine that such a project would have many more interviews than could be printed. But I love the idea of fan fiction generating more interviews or even a second volume later down the line! Well see!

OBrien: I hope this book inspires many, many more efforts at revolutionary speculative fiction. We never imagined this as a plan or a definitive guide; it is an effort at imagining and thinking that is meant to be collaborative, shared and transformed by others. I have many more interviews I could easily imagine writing in this same world, and hope to have the support and opportunity to do so someday.

I was thinking about sending this book to some collaborators in prison, and then realized that with all the discussion of liberating jails, this book will probably get seriously censored. Do you have any thoughts on how best to share some of the ideas in the book if were prevented from sharing the book itself with our comrades on the inside?

OBrien: I would love to hear your thoughts on this! I imagine through your legal advocacy you know a great deal more than I do through my occasional correspondence with political prisoners.

Its tough thats part of the whole point of prisons, right? To suppress dissent and keep communities separated? I would still try to send the book it might get through in at least some systems. Another option Ive seen used is reprinting excerpts in newsletters that go to people in prison, being a bit selective about what is excerpted to avoid censorship of the whole thing. And people can talk about other parts in video, in person or phone visits. But because all of those conversations are recorded, its important to make it obvious youre talking about ideas in a work of fiction, youre not actually planning a prison break or armed uprising (especially if you might like to).

You wrote your publisher and yourselves seamlessly into the story you each play the role of interviewers documenting an oral history 50 years from now. Im curious what it was like to write your future selves?

Abdelhadi: We have been close friends and comrades for 10 years now! We used to always joke that we were just waiting to be little old ladies. It was fun for me and maybe even a little selfish to write a future I could plausibly live to see. There was grief in the temporal placement as well knowing I likely wouldnt be the hero of these events. But in such desperate times, it was wonderful to imagine getting to the other side. As people have been reading the book, the reaction we are getting most frequently is that it filled folks with hope, and I think maybe placing ourselves so close to the events is part of that. That if we can be close, our readers can be, too.

OBrien: Overall, writing with Eman was an immense pleasure. The book was a joy to write, in both its content and form. I am not really a beach person, but being queer in NYC Ive ended up at Riis many times, a well-loved queer beach spot easily accessible from Brooklyn and Queens. Walking through the immense decayed parking lot at Riis, Ive always had a grim image that it would be a perfect place for the military to detain people. So I wrote that into the book as my own unfortunate trauma. But even horrible details like that are held by the book overall as a testament of joy and possibility.

What are you working on next?

OBrien: I just finished a draft of my next book. It is a nonfiction exploration of revolutionary efforts to rethink the family, entitled Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care. It will come out from Pluto in Spring of 2023. It is a close companion text to Everything for Everyone, trying to outline some of the underlying theoretical principles about what social reproduction may look like in a more free, post-capitalist society.

Abdelhadi: I have to try and get tenure at my day job! This book was primarily a pandemic weekend project for me. My academic research has been ongoing, and I am deep into writing a book manuscript for an academic press. The working title is Impossible Futures: Why Women Leave American Muslim Communities while Men Stay. Stay tuned!

Continued here:

Feel Like Everything Is Crumbling? This Oral History of the Future Offers Hope. - Truthout

Without women and people of color, Philadelphia would not have become the home of the American ice cream standard. The contributions they made resulted in both the popularity and accessibility of ice cream, paving the way for the Breyers and Bassetts of the world.

When ice cream entered the market in Philadelphia at the end of the 18th century, it was sold as an exotic treat, available only to the wealthy. That changed, however, when in 1819, Eleanor Parkinson opened Parkinsons Ice Cream Saloon on Chestnut Street, next door to her husbands tavern. Soon after, Parkinsons business skyrocketed, forcing her husband to join her because of intense demand. Her success was a result of her sensational yet simple Philadelphia-style ice cream.

Philadelphia ice cream, made only of cream, sugar, and flavoring, set the standard nationwide. Other recipes included milk, eggs, gelatin, salt, and preservatives. The Philadelphia method was generally safer to eat, since it did not include eggs and always used fresh cream from local dairy farms. It also supposedly tasted better because it did not include preservatives.

Parkinsons location in Philadelphia provided convenient access to local dairy farms, lessening the cost of expensive cream. A variety of cookbooks from the time featured her recipe, uplifting it as the preferred method of ice cream-making.

Ice cream was made more widely available by women who transformed their domestic knowledge into scientific advancement. In 1843, Nancy Johnson revolutionized ice cream production when she invented and patented a hand-cranked ice cream churn. Not much is known about Johnson. Her only invention was her ice cream machine, which she patented several times. She was an abolitionist and her husband was a scientist.

Johnson obtained her patent prior to the passage of the Married Womens Property Act in Pennsylvania in 1845; after the laws passage, women could own property and earn a wage without their husbands permission. Johnson intended her invention to be an at-home appliance, and since she could not afford to produce the device commercially, she sold the rights to Patent No. 3,254 in 1848. This allowed the invention to be mass-marketed. Johnsons Artificial Freezer streamlined production and decreased ingredient costs so greatly that ice cream became affordable.

Prior to Johnsons invention, ice cream was typically made using the pot freezer method. Ice cream makers would place a smaller, metal bucket into a larger bucket filled with ice, usually extracted from a lake or pond. They would stir the ice cream mixture by hand in the smaller bucket. This process was extremely labor intensive, and often resulted in lumpy ice cream. Johnsons hand-crank made it easier and faster to consistently produce quality ice cream.

As ice cream became more popular and accessible, more people became ill from unsanitary practices. Lack of refrigeration and ice cream distribution in unwashed, reusable glasses elicited concerns, particularly among the government. The City of Philadelphia finally acted in 1908 when Mary Engle Pennington, a bacteriological chemist, was hired to monitor Philadelphias dairy industry. She worked directly with both farmers and ice cream distributors.

Her work improved cleanliness of machinery, tools, and ingredients, which lowered the risk of sickness. Pennington completed the degree requirements for a bachelors of science in chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, but the school denied her a degree on the basis of her gender. Ironically, she later obtained a Ph.D. from Penn. (Pennington completed undergraduate coursework in 1892, but received only a certificate of proficiency because the university did not bestow bachelors degrees to women until 1895. However, Penn granted women graduate degrees beginning in 1880.)

During her long career in health administration, Pennington developed sanitary methods for processing and storing perishable foods, founded the Philadelphia Clinical Laboratory, and went on to head the U.S. Department of Agricultures Food Research Lab.

The history of ice cream would not be complete without also acknowledging the contributions of the Black community. Referred to as criers, Black confectioners reduced production costs and increased accessibility. The primary peddlers of ice cream in Philadelphia were Black men who walked the citys streets, carrying tin containers full of the most popular flavors at the time like vanilla and lemon on their shoulders. They are said to have sung songs and couplets while hawking the dessert, perhaps serving as the blueprint for modern-day ice cream trucks, and possibly providing a hint into the origins of the saying I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

Several Black confectioners appear in the Pennsylvania Abolition Societys 1838 Black census, which is held at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Among these men is Augustus Jackson, a White House chef who worked under three presidential administrations in the early 1800s. Jackson, a Philadelphia native, returned to his hometown in 1837 to open a confectionery. He not only sold single servings to the public but also tins of ice cream to other Black vendors. Jackson also pioneered a new ice cream-making technique by adding salt to his recipe, which both increased flavor and extended the shelf life of the sweet treat.

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The development of the ice cream market in Philadelphia occurred as a direct result of the contributions of these women and people of color, who succeeded despite societal constraints. Recognition of their contributions is the cherry on top of an already intricate history.

Without the recipes of Parkinson, the innovation of Johnson, the advocacy of Pennington, or the entrepreneurialism of Jackson, Philadelphia would not have been able to become renowned for its ice cream.

The work of these ice cream pioneers proves that innovation requires participation of all members of a community. History as told through dessert demonstrates that innovators come from diverse perspectives and backgrounds, and cities that cultivate them become great business centers.

Selena Bemak is the programs and communications coordinator at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

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Love ice cream? Thank these Philadelphia women and people of color. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

She was an ill-fated figure whose name has become synonymous with aristocratic profligacy and pitiless indifference towards people. In modern political discourse, Marie Antoinette, who was the queen of France before the French Revolution and is known for having been overthrown by revolutionaries and publicly guillotined in 1793 following the abolition of the monarchy, is used by the media and politicians across the world to paint women public figures often, politicians themselves or high-profile politicians partners as cold-hearted.

Antoinette recently found mention in Indian politics in the aftermath of Mondays discussion on price rise in the Lok Sabha. As Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar rose to speak, her party colleague Mahua Moitra shifted her bag from the seat to the floor. The BJP noticed this, with party spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla claiming that Marie Antoinette Mahua Moitra was hiding her expensive bag.

The TMC MP responded in her inimitable style, citing the jholewala fakir remark that Prime Minister Narendra Modi made in 2016 to describe himself. Sharing a collage of her pictures holding bags, Moitra wrote the following day, Jholewala fakir in Parliament since 2019. Jhola leke aye the jhola leke chal padenge (Came with a bag, will leave with it).

Here is a look at a few instances when the name of the French queen, who was nicknamed Madame Deficit as she was blamed for the financial crisis France was going through, has been invoked to attack women public figures across the world:

Nirmala Sitharaman: Moitra is not the only Indian politician to have been referred to as Marie Antoinette. In 2019, when Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman came under attack during a discussion on rising price of onions, she said that her family has little to do with onions. Referring to it, Lok Sabha MP Karti Chidambaram of the Congress tweeted, Our own Marie Antoinette. Sitharamans office later issued a clarification, saying her comment was misconstrued and taken out of context.

Carrie Johnson: Then incumbent, and now caretaker, British Prime Minister Boris Johnsons wife Carrie was the subject of social media derision earlier this year as she was blamed for the Partygate scandal and dubbed Carrie Antoinette. Johnson and his wife were among those who were fined by the police for attending illegal parties at Downing Street during the pandemic. The first comparison between Carrie and King Louis XVIs consort appeared on social media in 2020 after the Johnsons refurbished their Downing Street flat. The British PM receives an annual grant of 30,000 (approximately, Rs 28.79 lakh at current exchange rate) to spend on his living quarters. But, according to the BBC, the work cost at least 112,000 (Rs 1.07 crore approximately). Antoinette herself was known for constantly renovating her palace Petit Trianon, which is located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.

Michelle Obama: Even one of the most well-liked faces in the world did not escape comparisons with Antoinette. In 2010, she was compared to the profligate queen when she and her daughter took along a group of family friends on a vacation to Costa del Sol in southern Spain. Her office dismissed the criticism, pointing out that Obama was a private citizen who was on a private trip.

Nancy Pelosi: The US House Speaker, now in the news for her visit to Taiwan, is a much-reviled figure in American conservative and right-wing circles. She was equated with the decadent French queen in 2020 when, during an interview with a late-night talk show host during the lockdown, Pelosi showed off the ice cream in her refrigerator, saying, And we just restocked the ice cream for Easter Sunday because we were, shall we say, enjoying I dont know what I would have done without ice cream.

Carla Bruni: In 2008, the then French First Lady was branded the modern-day Marie Antoinette by news magazine Marianne as she prepared to release her third album. Ahead of a state visit to Britain, Christies auction house released nude photographs of Bruni and the French First Lady gave interviews in which she discussed her love life.

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Mahua to Carla: There's always something about Marie - The Indian Express

The Committee against Torture this morning closed its seventy-fourth session after adopting its concluding observations on the reports of Botswana, Nicaragua, State of Palestine, and the United Arab Emirates.

Going over some of the main aspects of the concluding observations, Claude Heller, Committee Chairperson said, on Botswana, that the Committee regretted that the State party had not yet been able to incorporate the Convention against Torture and other human rights treaties to which it was a party into law. The Committee was also concerned that the State party had yet to establish a definition of torture as a specific offense, and that the death penalty continued to be practiced for certain offences. The Committee urged the State party to establish torture as a specific offence, to commute all death sentences already handed down, and to establish a moratorium on the death penalty, with a view to its abolition.

On Nicaragua, the Committee regretted authorities refusal to submit written replies to the list of issues and the absence of the State partys delegation during the scheduled dialogue. Mr. Heller said that the letter sent by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua to the Chair of the Committee, had included unacceptable statements that challenged the integrity of the Committee.

The Committee was particularly concerned about the lack of effective procedural safeguards provided to detained persons in the context of the protests initiated in April 2018. The Committee also expressed concern at the criminalization of these protests and acts of repression carried out against protesters. The Committee urged Nicaragua to guarantee legal safeguards for all detainees, and to prevent acts of repression and violence against human rights defenders, journalists, and political opponents. It further urged Nicaragua to ensure that conditions of detention were in full compliance with United Nations standards.

On the State of Palestine, the Committee noted that torture was explicitly prohibited under Article 13.1 of the Palestinian Basic Law, and that a comprehensive definition of torture was included on the National Commission against Torture. However, the Committee expressed concern that torture was considered a misdemeanour, and urged the State party to ensure that acts of torture were punishable by appropriate penalties. The Committee also expressed concern that persons in custody, including in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, were subjected to torture or ill-treatment, and that the mechanisms established by the State party to receive and investigate complaints of this nature, failed to protect complainants and witnesses. The Committee recommended that the State party immediately undertake investigations into complaints through an independent mechanism and punish offenders with appropriate penalties.

The Committee further expressed concern about allegations of excessive use of force in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It recommended that the State party ensure that investigations were undertaken into all allegations, that perpetrators were prosecuted, and that victims or their families received full redress. In addition, the Committee expressed concern regarding the continuous use of administrative detention by the State party under the Jordanian Crimes Prevention Act of 1954 in the West Bank. It was also concerned that administrative detention was used against women and girls who were victims of violence. The Committee recommended that the State party amend or repeal the Jordanian Crimes Prevention Act of 1954 to abolish the practice of protective custody in cases of gender-based violence and ensure that all detainees were afforded all fundamental procedural safeguards. It also recommended that the State party develop and implement alternatives to administrative detention.

On the United Arab Emirates, the Committee expressed concern that no definition of torture had been incorporated into the State partys legislation, and that legislation regulating torture was insufficient. It urged the State party to bring its legislation in line with the Convention and ensure that the absolute prohibition of torture was upheld. The Committee welcomed legislation, policy, and institutions implemented to combat sexual and gender-based violence. However, it expressed concern that victims of domestic violence were required to consider conciliation settlements before prosecution took place. It was also concerned by the continued practice of female genital mutilation and the lack of legislation expressly criminalizing it. It recommended that the State party increase its efforts to stamp out gender-based violence and other harmful practices. Further, the Committee expressed concerns over allegations of torture and ill-treatment by the State partys armed forces in Yemen. The Committee called on the State party to investigate and prosecute these offences and ensure that victims had a viable pathway to redress, rehabilitation, justice, and compensation.

Mr. Heller announced that, at its seventy-fifth session, the Committee would adopt lists of issues for Ethiopia and Kazakhstan, and lists of issues prior to reporting for Cyprus, Latvia, Niger, Tunisia, and Maldives. At its seventy-sixth session, it would adopt lists of issues for Burundi and Egypt and a list of issues prior to reporting for Portugal.

Turning to the complaints procedure, Mr. Heller noted that during the seventy-fourth session, the Committee had examined 13 individual complaints and adopted 10 decisions on the merits and three decisions on admissibility, while four complaints were discontinued. It also examined progress in implementation of four previous decisions and decided to keep follow-up dialogue open in all of them.

During the session, the Committee continued its discussion on the possibility of allowing third-party interventions in the context of the individual complaints procedure. The Committee requested the Secretariat to develop a non-paper for the seventy-fifth session for further in-depth discussions.

Mr. Heller then reviewed the Committees activities on follow-up under articles 19 and 22 of the Convention, and in relation to reprisals. Further information is available in the meeting summary.

Mr. Heller also reported that, on 18 July 2022, the World Organization against Torture provided a briefing on the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on persons deprived of liberty. The briefing emphasised the key role civil society organisations played in filling the gaps left by the slow and highly restrictive response provided by many criminal justice and detention authorities.

In closing, Mr. Heller thanked all non-governmental organisations, national human rights institutions, Committee Experts, members of the secretariat and other stakeholders for their contributions to the session.

Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found here, while webcasts of the public meetings can be found here. The programme of work of the Committees seventy-fourth session and other documents related to the session can be found here.

The Committee is scheduled to hold its seventy-fifth session from 31 October through 25 November 2022, during which it will review the reports of Australia, Chad, El Salvador, Malawi, Somalia, and Uganda.

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Committee against Torture Closes Seventy-Fourth Session after Adopting Concluding Observations on Botswana, Nicaragua, State of Palestine, and the...

As the world faces heightened risks of nuclear weapons being used, the international community is opening discussions on Aug. 1 about how to contain this threat before us.

The 10th Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the only comprehensive framework aimed at preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and promoting disarmament, will be held in New York for nearly one month.

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) limits possession of nuclear arms to the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, while requiring those countries to engage in disarmament talks. The NPT review conference is a regular meeting to verify the implementation status of those objectives. Almost all countries and regions in the world get together for the conference.

The confab's focus this time will be on Russia, as it continues its invasion of neighboring Ukraine. The world is keenly aware of the horror of the nuclear threat made by Moscow.

Yet international opinion has been split in two over the issue. The rift between nuclear and non-nuclear states is only deepening, as the former is bent on boosting their nuclear capability to respond to "a nuke with a nuke," while the latter group perceives nuclear arms as "absolute evil" and is pressing for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The NPT regime is facing this crucial test of whether it can set a common goal toward nuclear abolition.

-- The reality is far from nuclear abolition

The current state of world affairs is far from the NPT regime's ideals. Following the expiration of the bilateral Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the U.S. and Russia resumed their development and deployment of those weapons.

The two superpowers are also deploying low-yield nuclear weapons with less explosive power. Due to their lower hurdles for use, they are called "usable" nuclear arms, making them even more treacherous weapons.

Meanwhile, China has an advantage in the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles and has been reinforcing intercontinental ballistic missiles to boost its ability to attack the U.S.

North Korea has been developing sophisticated hypersonic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to vie with the U.S., while Iran is capable of producing nuclear weapons at any time.

Of particular concern is the movements of Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. Russia has made it clear that it would use nuclear arms in the event its national interests are undermined.

In the face of such serious circumstances, however, the international community is not all unified.

Since the previous NPT review conference was held in 2015, the situation has drastically changed, with the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entering into force in 2021.

The treaty, which places a comprehensive ban on the possession, deployment and use of, as well as the threat to use, nuclear arms, was introduced at the initiative of non-nuclear states after they were exasperated over nuclear powers not fulfilling their disarmament obligations.

Though the treaty's ideals may be lofty, harsh realities lay ahead. No matter how much parties to the treaty call for nuclear abolition, whether it can be made a reality is up to the whims of nuclear powers.

Nuclear nations and their allies have taken the position that it is unrealistic to rush ahead with nuclear weapons abolition. Those countries have one after the other boosted military spending to strengthen deterrence capabilities in the wake of Russia's military aggression in Ukraine.

But if nuclear powers push for a military buildup, it raises the risk of nuclear warfare. If there are more countries trying to rely on nuclear deterrence, nuclear weapons will proliferate across the globe, triggering the NPT regime to fall apart.

What is essential is to draw a blueprint for developing an environment where nuclear powers are discouraged from using nuclear arms, as well as for preventing the spread of such weapons by restricting their development and production, thereby leading to disarmament.

It is necessary for nuclear states to make it clear to non-nuclear states once more that they will not use nuclear weapons. If it is decided that the international community will be united against nations that have used nuclear arms, it could work as acting as a brake on the use of nuclear arms.

-- Fusing deterrence with disarmament

The NPT scheme is based on an "incremental approach" in seeking nuclear weapons abolition in steps, and nuclear powers have supported this method.

Under the initiative, it has been proposed that rules be made to ban all nuclear tests and prohibit the production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons use, but all these moves have hit a snag.

While laying out such goals, nuclear powers are also called on to take the initiative in implementing what they can.

It is undeniable that Russia's military invasion in Ukraine has undermined the momentum for nuclear disarmament.

There is a growing sense of distrust between the U.S. and Russia, and it will take yet more time to restart disarmament talks.

Yet disarmament is a responsibility that nuclear powers must fulfill. Their resolve on that must be reconfirmed and concrete action plans presented.

The framework for individual negotiations is not limited to the U.S. and Russia, but the U.S. and China have also agreed to initiate informal consultations themed on nuclear strategy. Even if their talks are not directly linked to disarmament, it would help them build trust if the two countries share mutual information on nuclear arms and enhance transparency on the issue.

Nuclear abolition will not be viable by being exclusively devoted to deterrence or clamoring for disarmament. By linking the two moves together, a road map needs to be drawn from deterrence to disarmament. Whether participants can achieve this will determine the success or failure of the NPT review conference.

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Editorial: NPT confab's role more crucial amid growing nuclear threat - The Mainichi - The Mainichi