Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

LAHORE : Minister for Social Welfare & Bait-ul-Maal Syed Yawar Abbas has expressed his resolve to address the issues of brick kiln workers for whom law exists but is not complied with.

Speaking at a seminar organised by Bonded Labour Liberation Front Pakistan (BLLF) here on Saturday, the minister assured the brick kiln workers that there is reasonable space in Social Welfare Department to work for their welfare. He said he would do his level best to raise their issues in the parliament as well. He condemned complaints of connivance of police with brick kiln owners to keep workers in bondage. He and Minister for Human Rights and Minority Affairs Ijaz Alam Augustine were chief guests at the event attended in large number by lawyers, civil society representatives and a large number of brick kiln workers.

Ijaz Alam Augustine in his speech appreciated the efforts of BLLF and offered governments help in its effort to get the kiln workers their rights. He said establishing a special taskforce to redress the complaints of bonded labour will be considered. He said majority of the victims of forced labour belong to the minorities which face all types of discrimination.

MPA Uzma Kardar, Chairperson Standing Committee on Gender Mainstreaming, was so moved at hearing the plight of bonded labour that she started crying. She assured to move a resolution in Punjab Assembly and volunteer her services for the betterment of the brick kiln workers.

Dr Ashraf Nizami said it was the primary responsibility of the state to eradicate this curse of bonded labour system. He saluted Syeda Ghulam Fatima for her services. He said social security is constitutional right of every citizen and the state must ensure living wages and social protection for workers.

Justice (retd) Nasira Javed Iqbal also expressed grave concern at the plight of brick kiln workers.

At the end, participants of the seminar gave following recommendations: Statutory revision and implementation of wage board award, replace minimum wages with living wages for all workers, take effective measures to implement Bonded Labour Abolition Act 2012, have comprehensive, effective and efficient inspection for proper implementation of the labour laws at brick kilns, add brick kiln workers in the welfare schemes of government like Hunarmand Naujawan ,'Apna Ghar, Insaf Sehat Card, etc. arrange for online education of the children of these workers, provide Khidmat Card, housing, water and sanitation facilities and BLLF also demanded for a fair survey of brick kiln workers among other demands. The CM was demanded probe registration of fake criminal cases against brick kiln workers, vulnerable to forced labour, and take action against responsible police officers.

To stop police violence in connivance with brick kiln owners against the victims of forced labour, there is an urgent need of a high-profile commission for fact-finding on fake criminal FIRs, the seminar demanded.

It was demanded that all political parties must address the issue of bonded labour/forced labour in their constitution and cancel membership of party leadership if anyone is found involved in evil practice of bonded labour.

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Seminar highlights plight of kiln workers - The News International

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All Cops Are Bastards, or ACAB, is a slogan popularized by some in police and prison abolition movements. The spirit of ACAB is divisive. The sentiment of ACAB reflects the belief by some abolitionists that there are no good police officers and that police are bastards for choosing their profession. However, this citizen vs. police narrative makes our movements less viable. Chicagos most recent high-profile shooting of 29-year-old police officer Ella French illuminates the interconnected systemic losses that both police and citizens suffer. Violence hurts everyone.

A growing number of people feel that policing is a profoundly harmful system. They believe that centuries of systemic racism, abuse of power, cover-ups, lack of oversight, militarization efforts, qualified immunity, and failed reforms have created a toxic, overly punitive adversarial public safety system that does more harm than good. One must only turn on their television or scroll through social media to see evidence supporting this perspective. Body cameras, cell phone video and social media have made the ills of police work more visible, but their impacts on reducing police brutality are unclear. Local governments create police oversight agencies to police the police, but they often lack the jurisdiction to create real change and thus have had little impact.

A 2016 study by the Center for Policing Equity at Yale University showed that police use force disproportionately on African Americans even after taking racial disparities in crime into account. From tasers to takedowns, from illegal stop and frisk encounters to shootings, many feel the police are responsible for imposing an unfathomable amount of grief and trauma on citizens. The metaphorical weight on police officers in delivering this trauma requires police to separate from their humanity, either knowingly or unknowingly, to endure the job day in and day out. This disassociation process is harmful to us all.

Whenever someone disassociates from their humanity, we as a collective are affected. The disassociation compounds and the results are detrimental to creating any healthy systemic change. If our community is sick with unhealed trauma and PTSD, we can ultimately not sustain our movements or organize effectively. Gandhi spoke of the need for healing oneself in his teachings on self-purification. And a Kingian nonviolence principle addresses this process as well, directing us to avoid internal violence of the spirit as well as external physical violence. If we are to create and sustain movements for public safety that work for everyone, we must come to terms with the fact that violence, division and separation hurts us all. If our movements are not for everyone (including police officers), they are not for anyone.

Engaging opposing views through dialectical thinking is a powerful tool in movement work. Movement elders like Grace Lee and Jimmy Boggs, and Martin Luther King Jr. recognized the value of dialectic thinking for revolution and evolution. I can appreciate this from personal experience, as I have worked in the criminal justice system for more than a decade and am currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Criminology, Law and Justice program. We are a unique criminology program because we study intersectional critical criminology (including critical theories of race, class, gender and disability), as well as abolition and alternatives to incarceration, including the more traditional elements of the discipline such as policing, courts and law. By employing these seemingly opposing lenses at work, school and in movement spaces, I have come to understand how police themselves stand to benefit from abolition.

On Aug. 7, 2021, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown announced that 29-year-old police officer Ella French lost her life to a single gunshot wound to the head during a traffic stop. He also said one of Frenchs partners was shot multiple times and was in critical condition. However, the unseen injuries to Frenchs third partner are largely left out of the mainstream narrative. Superintendent Brown said he was shot at but was not struck by gunfire. He was undoubtedly traumatized, being the only uninjured officer on the scene, but we will likely never discuss the extent of his unseen injuries publicly. The news surrounding the shooting spread quickly, and Frenchs death impacted the lives of many. However, Frenchs death is not unusual. In 2019, according to the FBI, 48 police officers were killed in 19 states, and there were 41 deaths by accident on duty.

Increasing the Chicago Police Departments budget means more officers, more technology and more senseless death.

The PTSD and lingering grief officers experience are also true for police gun violence victims and gun violence in general, which exact a far larger toll. In 2020, there were 1,021 fatal police shootings in the United States and there were 769 homicides in Chicago alone. Mainstream narratives often focus on the newsworthy elements like the criminality of perpetrators of violence and substance abuse issues and overlook the PTSD and grief that lingers long after the shooting is over.

Whether at the hands of police or civilians, the negative impacts of gun violence in the United States and Chicago specifically are staggering. Gun violence negatively impacts each shooting victim and shooter (including police) as well as their families and the wider community and the effects from the shooting change both the shooter and the victims lives forever.

Chicago has the most police per capita of any major city, and currently spends approximately $1.6 billion a year on its 13,000 officers. The city recently began discussing its next budget for the upcoming fiscal year, and Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she would undoubtedly increase funding for the Chicago Police Department, or CPD. Increasing CPDs budget means more officers, more technology and more senseless death.

Research shows police have exorbitantly high divorce rates, shocking suicide rates, rampant alcoholism, increased rates of domestic violence, one of the highest job injury rates and more overtime work than Chicago can defend to its taxpayers. This year 38 officers either fired their weapons or were shot at, and 11 were struck by gunfire. Superintendent Brown said French was the first CPD officer to die from an on-duty shooting this year. However, it is widely known among officers that more officers die by suicide than in the line of duty.

Three CPD officers have died by suicide thus far in 2021. The Department of Justice found that CPD has suicide rates higher than 60 percent of the country. CPDs first line of defense against officer suicides is the Employee Assistance Program. However, the program has just 12 clinical therapists for 13,000 officers. Chicago police are overworked, physically and mentally exhausted, struggle to maintain critical non-police relationships, and kill themselves more often than they are killed in the line of duty. The injurious effects of policing on the lives of police officers are clear.

Police officials and unions often negotiate for training, tactics and technology that increases officer safety. However, they continue to turn their back on the fact that the costs of the mental injuries to the police including PTSD, moral injury and trauma far exceed the benefits of the impact of police on crime, which research indicates is largely nonexistent. Research does not conclusively show that police decrease homicides, violence or crime and has shown no connection between the number of officers and crime rates. Furthermore, the militarization of the police and other current primary police strategies have little or no effect on crime. Therefore, the mental injuries experienced by police officers are ultimately in vain.

The only way to stop crime is to resource individuals who resort to crime out of desperation, fear, poverty and destitution.

Although the results may not happen overnight, alternatives to policing do exist, and they are effective. The Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice reviewed and summarized research on policies and programs that reduce community violence without relying on police. They found seven evidence-backed alternatives to policing: improving the physical environment, strengthening anti-violence social norms and peer relationships, engaging and supporting youth, reducing substance abuse, mitigating financial stress, reducing the harmful effects of the justice process and confronting the gun problem. A 2017 study published in the American Sociological Review supported the findings at John Jay. It showed that for every 10 additional community nonprofits in a city with 100,000 residents, a 12 percent reduction in the homicide rate and a 10 percent reduction in violent crime is found.

Community members are much more reliable at reducing violence than the police. Violence interrupters are credible messengers and respected community members who conduct daily outreach to their communities, de-escalate, prevent and intervene in potentially violent situations, and respond after the fact to prevent escalation and retaliation. For instance, a violence interrupter organization in Baltimore called Safe Streets recently celebrated one year with no homicides in one area they cover. In Chicago, the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago and Metropolitan Family Services created Communities Partnering 4 Peace. CP4P collaborates with 15 community groups working in 22 Chicago neighborhoods that are most affected by gun violence. Through nonviolence training, community organizing, street outreach, victim advocacy, case management and re-entry support, from 2016 to 2018, CP4P was able to reduce shootings by 25 percent and homicides by 33 percent in CP4P communities.

Movement organizers have long known that investment in communities is the path out the carceral system. The only way to stop crime is to resource individuals who resort to crime out of desperation, fear, poverty and destitution. This understanding is reflected in the deeply-researched Vision for Black Lives released by the Movement for Black Lives in 2016, which demands reparations and targeted long-term investments in our communities and movements.

Superintendent Brown said French and the other involved officers stopped the vehicle for expired tags in the Englewood neighborhood, one of Chicagos most notorious high-crime neighborhoods. However, the national news narrative has thus far left out that Englewood is a neighborhood with an extensive history of disinvestment, abandonment and violence by the city. It is a deeply segregated neighborhood, almost entirely Black, and its residents lack adequate food, housing and employment opportunities. It is also a notorious food desert where its residents have no viable grocery stores, only fast food.

Further, Englewood youth struggle to access the most basic yet fundamental services like public education. In 2017, after former Mayor Rahm Emmanuel closed 50 schools in Chicagos Black and Brown communities, Chicago officials notified parents that all four public high schools in Englewood would be closed by 2018.

We must continue to center movement efforts on increasing support for the institutions that address the causes of crime the lack of quality and affordable food, housing education and health care while reducing the footprint of policing by increasing non-carceral responses to crime. Some police agencies are taking the initiative to reduce police-citizens contacts. Ithaca Police was recently abolished and is now the Department of Public Safety, which includes armed and unarmed public safety workers. Ithaca Police also dispatches social workers to mental health calls.

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Berkeley Police recently made changes to traffic enforcement, deciding to no longer stop drivers for minor traffic violations like equipment violations, expired vehicle registration, or not wearing a seat belt. Instead, police will conduct traffic stops only for violations that endanger public safety, such as excessive speeding, running a red light or stop sign, and driving under the influence.

Reimagining public safety options that work for everyone requires first robustly resourcing the communities experiencing houselessness, hunger, poverty, joblessness, over-policing and mass incarceration. Investing in our communities is ground zero. However, we must also acknowledge the havoc wreaked on police officers lives and open our hearts, communities and movements to officers and their families who also experience profound suffering and loss in this system.

Although extending compassion to police officers might seem like a heavy lift, it is necessary if we want movement work to succeed. Movements must acknowledge our interdependence and shared humanity to organize successfully against police and prisons. There is no separation between citizens and police, as painful and traumatizing as that revelation may be. Our movements must center our shared humanity and reconcile the losses endured by police in this system to create a container large enough to hold our collective grief. All of our humanity is at stake.

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How the police stand to benefit from abolition - Waging Nonviolence

Like Jordan, Thomas-Kennedy ran a grassroots campaign, recently triumphing over Pete Holmes, the incumbent Seattle City attorney, who served for three terms. She will face a Republican opponent in November. If elected, the former public defender says she will stop prosecuting most misdemeanors. I don't believe that there's any social advantage to prosecuting someone who's unsheltered for stealing a coat from Goodwill, says Thomas-Kennedy, whose city has historically prosecuted more theft cases from Goodwill than any other retailer; many of those charged are homeless. It's a waste of resources, and it makes the problem significantly worse.

Instead, Thomas-Kennedy envisions using the resources of the office to build out victim advocacy services and to provide resources for community groups that are already doing this work. She insists that our current system of policing and jailing is not achieving its supposed goal of public safety. The U.S. incarcerates more people than anywhere else in the world," she notes. "Mass incarceration is a social experiment, and we've gone all the way with it, and it's shown that it doesn't work.

Thomas-Kennedy also believes her years as a public defender give her unique insights into the root causes of crime, as public defenders are in close contact with the accused and function as their advocates. She also has unique insights into the impacts of the system because she had an intimate view of how it destabilized the lives of her clients, and sometimes their families, often for minor offenses.

The community has already told the mayor, told the city council a million times: We need education, we need after-school programs, we need resources for intervention and prevention," Thomas-Kennedy says. "So, instead of wasting resources on retribution, we should be putting those resources toward prevention.

In Minneapolis, the city where George Floyds murder ignited months of worldwide protests, mayoral candidate Nezhad, an abolitionist organizer, is a top challenger to the incumbent Jacob Frey.

Nezhad says she is still scarred from rubber bullets police shot at her while she worked as a street medic at the protests. She was a lead organizer in a coalition that brought about Minneapolis first mobile mental health response team, she tells Teen Vogue, noting that one in four people shot by police had a mental health condition. As mayor, Nezhad says shell prioritize funding for alternatives like the mobile response team at scale, giving people the option to use a non-law enforcement service that cant be co-opted by police.

Like Jordan and Thomas-Kennedy, Nezhad is focused on giving communities the resources they need to survive and flourish as a way to prevent crime. To build safety, I will push for community programs for stable housing, environmental justice, places for young people to play, living wage jobs, and comprehensive sex ed that teaches healthy relationship skills, Nezhad says via email. I will put more resources into the hands of the community through a historic $10M for participatory budgeting.

What sets her apart from the other mayoral candidates, Nezhad says, is that her goals are directly informed by her experience building in movements led by Black, Indigenous, POC, queer, trans and working-class people. Unprecedented times call for creative solutions, Nezhad says, adding that her campaign is currently on track to knock on the doors of 60,000 Minneapolis voters by the end of summer. Im running for mayor because I believe in the reality of a more just world and following the lead of those who have been bold in the name of Black liberation, Indigenous sovereignty, and freedom for over 150 years.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party establishment appears to be vocally opposed more than ever to abolition and defunding the police. So much of what people have been trying to do for decades has been co-opted into toothless reforms that don't help. Abolition is the response to that, says Thomas-Kennedy, stating that abolitionist efforts counter what she believes are performative actions, such as painting sidewalks with BLM slogans or rainbow signs for Pride, while the system continues to disproportionately target Black and LGBTQ people.

Jordan challenges the critique that abolition is too extreme, saying, Our current situation is extreme. We have criminalized our youth. We have allowed officers who murder to roam free in order to protect this white supremacist system which financially exploits our tax dollars while wreaking havoc and trauma on our communities. We have failed to fund the schools, fund jobs, fund housing, fund environmentalist ventures and social services which would actually keep us safe.

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Abolitionist Candidates Are Running for Office Across the Country - Teen Vogue

After 3am meetings, some more major changes are in store for the police personnel in the city such as abolition of at least 15 police posts and change in jurisdiction of police stations.

At present, the city has 31 police posts. Once at least half of them are abolished, the staff posted at the police posts will be shifted to police stations.

A committee will analyse population, number of cases, number of police officials deputed and other factors before making the changes. Former Ludhiana commissioner of police Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh had also abolished some police stations and police posts in 2017.

Jurisdiction changes are being mulled as the buildings of some stations are in an incongruent division. In the present setup, the building of the Division 5 station falls under the jurisdiction of Division number 8 station.The newly built PAU police station lies in the jurisdiction of the Haibowal police station and the Basti Jodhewal police station stands in the jurisdiction of the Salem Tabri station. Similarly, the building of the Focal Point police station is under the jurisdiction of the Moti Nagar police, and the Jamalpur police station and Moti Nagar are under the jurisdiction of the Division 7 police, while the Sadar police station falls under jurisdiction of Division 8.In these circumstances, people are forced to travel extra miles to get police help.

PAU officers may move to new station

Officials in the know, requesting anonymity, said the committee has recommended that the PAU police station be shifted to some new location. The said station is at present situated at the Dairy Complex on Humbran Road. Incidentally, the building was built for the Haibowal police station, but officers established the PAU station instead.

The Atam Park, Humbran, Kailash Nagar police posts can be abolished. Joint commissioner of police J Elanchezhian said the project is in the pipeline. A committee is conducting a survey of all police posts and police stations. We will take a decisions according to the recommendations of the committee, he said.

New building for Jamalpur station

The Jamalpur police station will now function out of a new building near Jamalpur Chowk. Earlier, the police station was being run from the Jamalpur police colony, while the Basti Jodhewal police will get a new building very soon as the department has started work on it. Earlier, the police had shifted the crime against women and children cell to a new building in Rishi Nagar.

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Ludhiana: Police posts to be abolished, change of jurisdiction in the offing - Hindustan Times

Washington (AP) Senate Democrats announce modest election bill on Tuesday in hopes of launching a deadlocked push to counter new Republican legislation that could make ballot throwing more difficult bottom.

However, the new compromise bill is likely destined to fail in the 50-50 Senate and faces the same Republican lockstep opposition that ended previous attempts to pass even larger bills. I am. Republicans have accused the previous steps of being unnecessary and gaining party power.

The Republican-controlled legislature has enacted restrictions over the past year in the name of election security. This can make voting difficult and make election operations more susceptible to partisanship. Texas, which already has some of the strictest voting rules in the country, has recently further restricted its ability to cast ballots, empowering party poll watchers and imposing new criminal penalties on those who violate the rules. Adopted a new law to create. Inadvertently.

A series of new voting laws, inspired by the false allegations of former President Donald Trumps election theft, have pressured Democrats in Congress to pass legislation that could counter Republican propulsion. Trumps allegations of fraudulent elections were widely rejected in court by state officials and his own Attorney General who proved the outcome.

We have seen unprecedented attacks on our democracy in states across the country. These attacks require immediate federal response, said the main sponsor of the new bill. Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. Said.

The amendment bill was negotiated for weeks by a group of Democratic senators and contains many of the same provisions as the previous bill known as Peoples Law.

According to the summary obtained by the Associated Press, it establishes national rules for conducting elections, limits partisanship in the drawing of parliamentary districts, and many anonymous donors spend large amounts of money to influence elections. Will force disclosure.

But it also includes many changes sought by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, the most conservative Democrat of the Chamber of Commerce. This includes provisions that limit but do not prohibit state voter ID requirements, and the abolition of the Federal Election Commissions proposed overhaul aimed at alleviating partisan impasse in election monitoring agencies. increase.

The new bill also throws away words that would have created a public funding system for federal elections. Instead, it will establish a more limited financing system for house candidates that the state can choose to participate in.

Other provisions aim to alleviate concerns from local election authorities who were worried that the original bill might be too difficult to implement. And some new additions aim to isolate nonpartisan electoral authorities who may be under greater party pressure under some new state laws.

Despite the changes, Republicans are expected to uniformly oppose the bill, which they say is equivalent to taking over the federal elections. As a result, Democrats are well below the 60 votes required to advance the bill, unless they change the Senate filibuster rules excluded by Manchin and other moderates.

Manchin said the voting bill should not be passed unless Congress is bipartisan. He has bought a revised bill from Republican senators for the past few weeks and sought their support. However, there are no signs of sign-on.

Manchin told reporters Tuesday that the new bill was more rational, more practical and more rational.

Now we have to sit down and work with our Republican colleagues, he said.

But it all brings Democrats back to where they started. Lack of progress can frustrate party activists, and many consider voting rights to be a civil rights issue of the era.

All year long, Senate Democrats have promised to pass a bill to protect the most sacred right of our democracy, the right to vote, said Senate leader Chuck Schumer. Said from the Senate floor on Tuesday. The Republican Partys refusal to work with us is no excuse for not achieving anything.

Schumer said he could call for a vote soon next week, when the bill is almost certainly not progressing. Activists and some Democratic senators say abolishing filibuster is the only way forward.

Filibuster is the only thing that is in the way of us. Its time for Senators to prioritize the free voting of Americans over Jim Crows filibuster, said the Standup America Group. Said Sean Eldridge, president of the.

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Today, September 13, 2021, World BEYOND War announces as the recipient of the Lifetime Organizational War Abolisher of 2021 award: Peace Boat.

An online presentation and acceptance event, with remarks from representatives of Peace Boat will take place on October 6, 2021, at 5 a.m. Pacific Time, 8 a.m. Eastern Time, 2 p.m. Central European Time, and 9 p.m. Japan Standard Time. The event is open to the public and will include presentations of three awards, a musical performance, and three breakout rooms in which participants can meet and talk with the award recipients. Participation is free. Register here for Zoom link.

World BEYOND War is a global nonviolent movement, founded in 2014, to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. In 2021 World BEYOND War is announcing its first-ever annual War Abolisher awards.

The Lifetime Organizational War Abolisher of 2021 is being announced today, September 13.

The David Hartsough Lifetime Individual War Abolisher of 2021 (named for a co-founder of World BEYOND War) will be announced on September 20.

The War Abolisher of 2021 will be announced on September 27.

The recipients of all three awards will take part in the presentations event on October 6. Accepting the award on behalf of Peace Boat on October 6 will be Peace Boat Founder and Director Yoshioka Tatsuya. Several other people from the organization will attend, some of whom you can meet during the breakout room session.

The purpose of the awards is to honor and encourage support for those working to abolish the institution of war itself. With the Nobel Peace Prize and other nominally peace-focused institutions so frequently honoring other good causes or, in fact, wagers of war, World BEYOND War intends its award to go to educators or activists intentionally and effectively advancing the cause of war abolition, accomplishing reductions in war-making, war preparations, or war culture. Between June 1 and July 31, World BEYOND War received hundreds of impressive nominations. The World BEYOND War Board, with assistance from its Advisory Board, made the selections.

The awardees are honored for their body of work directly supporting one or more of the three segments of World BEYOND Wars strategy for reducing and eliminating war as outlined in the book A Global Security System, An Alternative to War. They are: Demilitarizing Security, Managing Conflict Without Violence, and Building a Culture of Peace.

Peace Boat is a Japan-based international NGO working to promote peace, human rights, and sustainability. Guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Peace Boats global voyages offer a unique program of activities centered on experiential learning and intercultural communication.

Peace Boats first voyage was organized in 1983 by a group of Japanese university students as a creative response to government censorship regarding Japans past military aggression in the Asia-Pacific. They chartered a ship to visit neighboring countries with the aim of learning first-hand about the war from those who had experienced it and initiating people-to-people exchange.

Peace Boat made its first around-the-world voyage in 1990. It has organized more than 100 voyages, visiting more than 270 ports in 70 countries. Over the years, it has done tremendous work to build a global culture of peace and to advance nonviolent conflict resolution and demilitarization in various parts of the world. Peace Boat also builds connections between peace and related causes of human rights and environmental sustainability including through the development of an eco-friendly cruise ship.

Peace Boat is a mobile classroom at sea. Participants see the world while learning, both onboard and at various destinations, about peacebuilding, through lectures, workshops, and hands-on activities. Peace Boat collaborates with academic institutions and civil society organizations, including Tbingen University in Germany, Tehran Peace Museum in Iran, and as part of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). In one program, students from Tbingen University study how both Germany and Japan deal with understanding past war crimes.

Peace Boat is one of the 11 organizations forming the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, the prize that in recent decades, according to Nobel Peace Prize Watch, most faithfully lived up to the intentions of Alfred Nobels will through which the prize was established. Peace Boat has educated and advocated for a nuclear-free world for many years. Through the Peace Boat Hibakusha project, the organization works closely with atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sharing their testimonies of the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons with people around the world during global voyages and recently through online testimony sessions.

Peace Boat also coordinates the Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War which builds global support for Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution for maintaining and abiding by it, and as a model for peace constitutions around the world. Article 9, using words nearly identical to the Kellogg-Briand Pact, states that the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes, and also stipulates that land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.

Peace Boat engages in disaster relief following disasters including earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as education and activities for disaster risk reduction. It is also active in landmine removal programs.

Peace Boat holds Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

Peace Boat has around 100 staff members who represent diverse ages, education histories, backgrounds, and nationalities. Nearly all staff members joined the Peace Boat team after participating in a voyage as a volunteer, participant, or guest educator.

Peace Boats Founder and Director Yoshioka Tatsuya was a student in 1983 when he and fellow students started Peace Boat. Since that time, he has authored books and articles, addressed the United Nations, been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, led the Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War, and been a founding member of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.

Peace Boats voyages have been grounded by the COVID Pandemic, but Peace Boat has found other creative ways to advance its cause, and has plans for voyages as soon as they can be responsibly launched.

If war is ever to be abolished, it will be in great measure due to the work of organizations like Peace Boat educating and mobilizing thinkers and activists, developing alternatives to violence, and turning the world away from the idea that war can ever be justified or accepted. World BEYOND War is honored to present our very first award to Peace Boat.

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Peace Boat to Receive Award as Lifetime Organizational War Abolisher of 2021 - PRESSENZA International News Agency

Atwo-week art exhibitionwhich aimsto get people talking about race and technology is now open at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU)s Vijay Patel (VJP) atrium.

Developed by Identity 2.0, a creative studio exploring digital identity,This Machine is Black is a visual, interactive space that has been designed like a garden and split into four themes: Deep Fake, Surveillance and Privacy,Afrofuturismand Abolition.

Each space contains unique art pieces, created by Identity 2.0 or a talented artist from a Black, Asian or underrepresented ethnic group, that integratetechnologysrole in upholding and dismantling racism.

Identity 2.0 was founded byaward-winning London creativesArdaAwaisandSavenaSurana.

We're so excited to have This Machine is Black come to DMU, saidArda.The whole exhibitionis pushing an important conversation about the relationship between race and tech, and making it more accessible to everyone, especially creatives.

That's why the students at DMU are exactlythe type of audience we want to bring our work to. We hope that we can inspire them to question their own relationship to the digital tools they useeverydayand how we can usethese tools creatively.

Savenaadded: Neitherof usare from traditional art backgrounds, so to have our exhibitionin a space where art students,who arethefuture of creativity, can experienceit, is just amazing.

We hope that our work can inspire others to go and create their own art, exhibition, zines, shows about whatever issues they are passionate about.

Among the artistscommissionedfor This Machine Is Black is illustrator and graphic designer JadaBruney. Her work, The Return of the Motherland explores the concept of a retro futuristic second Windrush Generation, featuring elements of animation and typography.

There is also Midlands-based Tobi Uzumaki, whose art is inspired by anime, manga and Japanese culture, while 3D artist and creative designer Danielle Williams from Nottingham celebrates Black beauty, pride and raised fists.

Partly funded by Leicester City Council and supported by DMU, the exhibitionis one of the winners of the Smart Leicester City Challenge, a competition run by Leicester City Council and designed to kick-start innovative projects.

Assistant City Mayor for jobs and skills, Cllr Danny Myers, said: Im really pleased that Smart Leicester could support Identity 2.0 through our Smart Leicester City Challenge.

I also look forward to supporting many more opportunities like this through the ongoing work of our Smart Leicester initiative, so that Leicester becomes known as a smart city, focused on using technology for the good of everyone who lives, works or visits here.

This Machine is Blackwill be open at DMUs VJP atrium on campus from Monday 13 to Sunday 26 September.

Posted on Monday 13th September 2021

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Interactive exhibition to provoke conversations around race and technology opens at DMU - De Montfort University

I called recently for religious voices on climate change to ring out more strongly. Im not alone. As Christiana Figueres wrote in the Guardian, It is time for faith groups and religious institutions to find their voice and set their moral compass on one of the great humanitarian issues of our time.

I promised to return to those religious voices who have spoken out about climate change.

Forest Clingerman teaches religion at Ohio Northern University and wrote we are laying siege to what Psalm 19 calls Gods glorious handiwork. Zayn Kassam, a chaired Pomona College professor of religious studies, warned that mishandling the environment brings the Earth a little closer to the fires of Hell, citing the Quran as well as the Bibles Book of Micah. Love Sechrest, teaching the New Testament at the Fuller Theological Seminary, invoking Jesus call for service to the common good, warned that rolling back sustainable climate policies threaten the health of the planet.

Warnings have come from the Irish Council of Churches, leaders of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, the United Church of Christ, the Leadership Team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, the Church World Service, the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the AME Zion Church, The Episcopal Church, and United Methodist Women.

Across the globe calls have come from Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Bahai, Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, Jain, Shinto, Sikh and Tao leaders and interfaith groups, underlining our obligation to protect the environment which gives us life.

One listener kindly sent me a link to Pope Francis Encyclical, on Care for our Common Home, which reads in part, the earth now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. Pope Francis pointed to the sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. [T]he earth herself, burdened and laid waste groans in travail. He quoted Pope Paul VI, that by its exploitation of nature, humanity runs the risk of destroying the work and blessings of God.

And on September 1st, Pope Francis, Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby joined to address together the urgency of environmental sustainability and, citing Deuteronomy, called on every person of good will to choose life, so that you and your children may live [by] play[ing] a part in changing our collective response to the unprecedented threat of climate change and environmental degradation.

Reports about polar bears and ice flows or rising waters and storms arent enough, nor endless scientific reports with measurements that boggle ordinary minds. Religious and other moral voices must ring in our ears to invigorate the crusade about the great moral crisis of our time. As men and women of faith helped drive the abolition movement, so their message must help drive the movement to protect the environment we depend on, lest we come a little closer to the fires of Hell.

Steve Gottliebs latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.

The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.

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Religious Voices on the Environment - WAMC

The Rev. Steven W. Manskar, a retired United Methodist pastor, responds:

The Methodist Episcopal Church was established in this country in December 1784. Methodist congregations were in all thirteen colonies. The organizing conference stated that any Methodist who owned any enslaved persons must grant them their freedom by 1788. If they failed to do so, they could no longer retain membership in the Methodist Church.

However, to appease the southern congregations, that rule was quietly dropped. In the interest of church growth, denominational leaders chose to tolerate slavery and white supremacy. The Methodist Church grew rapidly while leaders debated whether it was acceptable for Christians to own and exploit the labor of other human beings.

The argument was resolved at the 1844 General Conference when the church split. The Northern church would follow the directions of its founder, John Wesley. It prohibited slave-holding and advocated for abolition of slavery.

The Southern church (known as The Methodist Episcopal Church South) accepted slavery. It was established in the states that would in a few years secede from the union and become the Confederate States of America. Many historians believe the split of The Methodist Episcopal Church north and south helped set the stage for the Civil War.

Finally, in 1939, the Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Episcopal Church-South, and Methodist Protestant Church merged to become The Methodist Church. The new denomination created five regional jurisdictions in the USA. They also maintained Jim Crow segregation by creating a separate Central Jurisdiction for all Black Methodist congregations.

The Central Jurisdiction was abolished when the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren in 1968 to create The United Methodist Church. But the church continues to live with the heritage of racism and white supremacy. One of its manifestations today is discrimination against LGBTQ+ persons.

Rev. Ray Lanning, a retired minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, responds:

American Presbyterianisms worst sin to date was the 19th century attempt to defend chattel slavery, or at least to accommodate it; and when that evil institution was abolished, to promote segregation of the races and a system of Jim Crow laws and customs that disadvantaged and oppressed African American citizens for many decades.

In both cases, Presbyterian theologians wrested the Scriptures in their attempt to defend the indefensible. The American Civil War, bloody and destructive as it was, did not change their minds but only hardened them in their racist attitudes. The list includes many of the best and brightest leaders in the Presbyterian Church. Church members were left to live comfortably with their own racist attitudes and practices until well into the 1960s.

Not all Presbyterians were so inclined, however. Smaller denominations such as the Reformed Presbyterians (RPCNA) and the United Presbyterians (UPCNA) were early in the field in the fight to abolish slavery;, and after emancipation, they came to the aid of the freedmen of the South. Both denominations were rooted in the Covenanter tradition of Scotland, and the fight for a free church in a free state. They regarded the US Constitution as immoral because it accommodated slavery, thus defecting from the truths asserted in the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights to life and liberty.

The Reverend Colleen Squires, minister atAll Souls Community Church of West Michigan, a Unitarian Universalist Congregation, responds:

While Unitarians and Universalists faiths go back centuries the merger of these two religious traditions happened in 1961. In that time, I believe our greatest failure or sin occurred in 1968/69. We were strongly active in the civil rights movement and the number of Black and People of Color joining our denomination was steadily increasing. Black leadership asked for financial support to create new programs and we as an Assembly voted to approve the funds. The following year with a budget shortfall our Association withdrew the funds from our Black leadership to balance the budget. The entire handling of this betrayal and crisis was a failure to live out our values and reeked of white supremacy culture. To this day we continue to try to heal this painful wound. We are beginning to truly own our failures of thepast and make positivesystemic change going forward. We still have so much work to do around racial equity.

Father Kevin Niehoff, O.P., a Dominican priest who serves as Judicial Vicar, Diocese of Grand Rapids, responds:

Please remember that any Church is a human creation. Human beings are finite. Institutions created by humans are imperfect by nature.

Spiritual difficulties arise in each era of religious history, both in the Church and in society. One may only look at the persecution of members of the faithful of Christ, or the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, or the spiritual split between the Orthodox and Latin Churches, or the Reformation, or the human slavery of Black men and women, or the abortion of babies, or even the sexual abuse crisis in modern-day. Humans have allowed many awful things to happen.

My opinion: is that there is a commonality in the history above. The basis for the worst things that happen is the human act of a compromised relationship with God. The result is the creation of a split between fellow human beings. These divisions often include the dehumanizing and the spiritual denigration of other human beings. All human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. When we choose to be silent about human rights, the atmosphere is ripe for the worst to occur.

Linda Knieriemen, Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Holland, responds:

In ancient history, the Crusades. Today, although there is a notable shift, denying LGBTQI the fullness of their humanity and participation in Christian community.

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Ethics and Religion Talk: Religion can do Horrible Things - The Rapidian

content warning: gun violence, police brutality

On August 29, Projet Montreal announced that the Service de Police de la Ville de Montral (SPVM) would be receiving an even larger share of the city budget an additional $5.5 million in funding towards oppressive, racist police initiatives that negatively impact our communities. In a press conference held Sunday, Montreal Mayor Valrie Plante announced the funds were distributed to fight against criminal groups, but the continued investment in police resources instead of social services demonstrates a fundamental lack of care for the individuals most affected by rising crime and its roots in systemic discrimination.

The announcement came in response to an increase in gun violence and shootings in Montreal and Quebec. City leaders claim that this summer saw a particularly high rate of gun violence, with five people shot and killed in the Montreal region during the month of August alone. Criminology experts have attributed this uptick in Montreal to conflict between different criminal groups over territory, drugs, debts, or disagreements a reductive approach to gun violence that neglects to address the systemic roots of harm. Systemic inequities have only worsened for marginalized groups over the course of the pandemic, accompanied by pre-existing socioeconomic strain which increases tensions.

This sudden uptick has attracted media attention, and put pressure on city officials to take action on the cusp of municipal elections. However, the action taken the addition of 42 staff members to the SPVM is a lazy and harmful approach to remedy violent crime. The SPVM was founded in a context of brutality and often fatal violence against racialized, unhoused, and neurodivergent peoples. Drug addiction, mental health crises, and self defence are then used as a justification to avoid taking responsibility. As is the case in many American and Canadian jurisdictions, the hegemonic systems of law enforcement more often than not exonerate SPVM officers for their use of often fatal force, thereby allowing the institution to uphold its violent existence. Allocating more funds to the SPVM supports this oppressive system and puts communities targeted by law enforcementat a greater risk of police violence and of being implicated in the prison-industrial complex.

Bolstering police presence is an ineffective remedy to violence. Joint research conducted by the Community Resource Hub (CRH) and Interrupting Criminalization (IC) contends that increased police presence has no effect on deterring violent crime. Police are not preventers of violence they are perpetrators of it. They encourage the vicious cycle of force and brutality to continue. Data from the CRH and IC shows that violent crime is more prevalent in neighbourhoods where residents face severe financial stress, while current rising crime rates can be attributed to pandemic stress, increased gun sales, and closure of community institutions. Therefore, the safest communities are those with the most resources to address these issues, not the most police.

Research has continually proven that the creation and funding of organizations focused on initiatives like crime prevention, neighbourhood development, substance abuse prevention, job training and work development, and recreational and social activities for young people mitigate increasing rates of violent crime. Allocating national, provincial, and municipal funds to organizations such as these would be a much more effective investment in community safety. Furthermore, police abolition could open pathways to reimagined systems of community safety that do not rely on institutions rooted in white supremacy. Communities need enforcers of safety that dont play into the cycle of carceral harm and retributive justice.

SPVMs city budget has been steadily rising, totaling $30 million in increased funding this year alone. Montreal is not alone, as many jurisdictions in Canada and the US are also expanding their police budgets. In Montreal, Mayor Plante fed into the fear-mongering narrative, stating that the recent rise in armed violence must be dealt with quickly and effectively and that police officers are at the front, everyday, to counter armed violence in Montreal. This rhetoric is harmful and generates fear within the public, wrongly presenting police as saviors to a larger public, when in reality they only serve to protect the white and wealthy. If Plante wanted to meaningfully curb armed violence in the city, instead of giving into public fears and funding harmful and hegemonic systems of oppression, she would focus on preventing violence starting at its root cause by defunding the SPVM and funding communities.

It was announced Wednesday that $5 million would be allocated towards violence prevention and urban security, yet this investment pales in comparison to the police budget (approximately $700 million in total). Its as crucial as ever to continue working toward a non-carceral model of community safety which can never be achieved through the violent institution of police. With the upcoming municipal election on November 7, it is of the utmost importance that we continue to pressure candidates to support movements to defund and abolish police. Get involved with abolition movements, like Defund the SPVM and Solidarity Across Borders, as well as the Toronto Prisoners Rights Project. Support mutual aid initiatives and community-based organizations, like Meals for Milton-Parc, the Yellow Door, and Chez Doris.

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Fund Communities, Not Police | The McGill Daily - The McGill Daily