Category Archives: Government Oppression

The WDET Book Club is reading the U.S. Constitution this summer to understand how it still shapes our lives today, more than two centuries after its inception. Professors Kim Forde-Mazuri and Michele Gilman discuss the idea of equality in the Constitutionfrom a modern-day perspective, and how there is still a long way to go until all Americans aretrulyequal.

Its an ongoing fight and struggle the founders didnt have an inclusive view of equality, but we can. Michele Gilman, University of Baltimore School ofLaw

Kim Forde-Mazrui is a professorat the University of Virginia Law School. He says the Constitution is not wholly responsible for shaping Americaslandscape of equality.We tend to focus on Supreme Court decisions because those decisions tend to place certain limits on what the other branches of government can do. The Supreme Court has evolved over time both in the text of the Constitution and their interpretation. Mazrui says equality purely based onConstitutional amendments is unlikely to take shape.I dont think well ever have perfect [constitutional equality] we are all subject to the culture of our time and we still believe as a society there are certain people who are harmful or immoral or a threat we are continuing to always struggle to draw that line between who gets included and who doesnot.

Mazrui says Constitutionaldistinction based on race or gender is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as it doesnt justify discrimination. A key change the court made is a move toward prohibiting the government from making distinctions based on race and in large part thats a good thing I think unfortunately the court has gone too far in mandating color blindness. He says in the law, its necessary to take into account the historic inequities faced by people of color, rather than this idea of court color blindness.Once youve had centuries of systematic oppression and then simply stopping discrimination doesnt correct for the economic realities that have happened because of thatoppression.

Once youve had centuries of systematic oppression and then simply stopping discrimination doesnt correct for the economic realities that have happened because of that oppression. Kim Forde-Mazrui, University of Virginia LawSchool

Michele Gilman is a professorat the University of Baltimore School of Law. She says the Constitution was designedto overcome its flaws.One thing the framers did well was to have the foresight to know that things change over time and they did provide for ways our constitution could be amended. Gilman says though the Constitutioncan be revised, that alone wont lead to equality in America.Were about to celebrate the 101-year anniversary of the 19th Amendment we still have a long way to go. A constitutional amendment on its own doesnt do all the heavy lifting and so today when we think about what it means to have full gender equality, we are not thereyet.

Gilman says other facets of American government, and the private sector,must influence gender equality. The Constitution is a living document and a lot of the meaning we ascribe to it is the meaning Supreme Court justices have given to it we cannot expect the Constitution to solve all these problems. It protects us against government overreach but it doesnt get to private action. Gilman says formal equality as stated in the Constitution doesnt do the work we need to have a more substantive definition as a society.Its an ongoing fight and struggle the founders didnt have an inclusive view of equality, but wecan.

WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.

Donate today

The rest is here:

How the Constitution Shapes Equality and Inequality in America in 2021 - WDET

In addition to the individual hardship, there are also significant structural issues at play. There are more than 200 government blacklists in use in the Netherlands. Blacklists like these could soon be turbo-charged through technology: in December, a legislative proposal was adopted by the Dutch parliament that would give the government algorithmic-profiling powers that exceed the preventative fraud detection system (SyRI), which was designed to detect false benefit claims and which the courts declared in violation of human rights only a year ago. Allowing for data sharing between government and private companies, it would be an Orwellian nightmare come true. A parliamentary inquiry has been scheduled for the summer of 2022, which will likely be too late for any learnings from the tax benefits scandal to feed into the discussion on the draft law currently ongoing in the Senate.

The automation and further entrenchment of institutional racism is not just happening in the Netherlands, but across Europe and the world. It is happening in all areas of life imaginable. From social welfare to racist predictive policing tools to assigning organs for transplant on the basis of race, sex and class, and the classist, prejudiced system that was used to assign A-Level test results to students in the UK after their exams were cancelled due to COVID: technology is a part of every aspect of our lives.

The urgency for civil society to further step up its efforts to address issues of automating racism and discrimination is therefore greater than ever. Public awareness raising, advocacy, and litigation will need to go hand in hand with in-depth engagement with policy makers and legislators. An instrument like the recent EU draft regulation on Artificial Intelligence, for example, does not sufficiently take into account that context matters just as much as the technology itself when it comes to the detrimental impact it can have. No matter how much we are promised that the tech is accurate, its deployment in and of itself can have a negative impact on especially marginalised and racialised individuals. Even a perfectly working tool of oppression is still a tool of oppression.

When this negative impact materialises, the groups and individuals that are affected will need to be able to seek redress directly. This means that concrete enforcement actions for human rights violations resulting from the use of technology currently missing from many regulatory initiatives, including the draft regulation should be possible. This will make possible the kinds of strategic legal cases that civil society can unite around to bring about change and lead to increased protection of human rights in the digital context for everyone.

While technological development can sometimes feel like an unstoppable rollercoaster, this is a false narrative. Technology is developed by humans. We decide what we create, where we deploy it, and how we regulate it. The only urgency we should feel is in the realisation that the decisions we make now will have consequences for generations to come.

Continue reading here:

Government algorithms are out of control and ruin lives - Open Democracy

Cuban-born residents and others connected by a common heritage ended a week of protests of the island nation's political and economic turmoil on their knees Sunday, praying.

Another separate group of protesters coalesced at Cleveland and Grove avenues waving flags and calling for freedom for their friends and relatives still in Cuba.

The several dozen people taking part in Cape Coral gathered in the parking lot at The Shops at Surfside offVeteran's Parkway before making their way to the Target parking lot off Pine Island Road and then on to parade around downtown Fort Myers.

In Collier County: Cuban-born Naples man wants freedom for countrymen

Previously: Naples, Fort Myers demonstrators flood downtown area in support of freedom for Cuba

And:'Individuals who have lost their fear,' Cubans continue to fight for their freedom

"We don't agree with the government," Pedro Mirabal, a Cuban who has been in the United States for 34 years, said at the Cape Coral gathering site. "They are killing our people in Cuba."

Mirabal, who still has the scars on his arms and legs from the small inflatable raft on whichhe said he managed to float his way to the United States.

"What's happening is really sad," he said. "Over here we have free speech. Peoplein Cuba are not doing anything, just talking. But since they are talking, (the government is) killing (them)."

To get efforts started Sunday, the Rev. James Haynos a Catholic priest from Sanfordheld an impromptu prayer session in the Shops at Surfside parking lot.

Haynos huddled with Jorge Roque of Punta Gorda, displaying a rosary andlarge Cuban flag and recited a Catholic litany.

The priest and Roque said they were praying "for all the people who are missing," in Cuba.

Protests in Cuba began July 11, and it'sconsidered the country's biggest anti-government movementin the past 30 years. There has been reports of government violence but communications have been curtailed.

Mirabal's voice was hoarse, he said from speaking his mind during the protests in Southwest Florida for the past week.

"The world doesn't know what's going on," Mirabal said. "They give that to us so we can tell what's going on."

But Cubans in the U.S. do know what's happening, Miriam Sardinas said, and they are staying in touch with friends and relatives on the island.

"They have no communication between cities, like Fort Myers and Cape Coral," she said. "They don't know how big this is unless we tell them."

July 14 video: 1,000 or more people "Walk for Cuba" in downtown Fort Myers

Sardinas came to the U.S. from Cuba in 1970 when she was 4 years old.

Her brother, Agustine Sardinas, who was 14 when he came along in 1970, said it was time for his adopted country to do something to help.

"If the United States doesn't want to do anything then step aside and let us," he said. "I know what communism is, I know what oppression is. I lived there until I was 14."

Along Clevelandnot far from Edison Mall a boisterous and passionate crowd cheered and waved to vehicles.

"We just want our voices heard," protest organizer Maria Davila said. "We're not asking for the U.S. to give money for Cuba. We want to get some justice and liberty for Cuba."

She said the group's Facebook site,EU Cuba SOS Cuba,displays graphic images of the current situation on the island nation.

She said Cubans, many very young,are being attacked by dogs and by government agents for speaking out.

"They are attacking those who protest," she said.

Davila said the protests in the Fort Myers area like Sunday's and another one Saturday in Sanibel, will continue for the future. She called the actions "A Cry of Justice and Liberty and Freedom for All."

"We will protest everyday," she said. "Monday we will be downtown, Tuesday we will be at the Edison Mall."

Connect with breaking news reporter Michael Braun:MichaelBraunNP (Facebook),@MichaelBraunNP (Twitter) or mbraun@news-press.com.

Journalism matters. Your support matters. Subscribe to The News-Press.Journalism matters. Your support matters. Subscribe to The News-Press.

Read more:

Fort Myers, Cape Coral protests supporting Cuba end week of action with prayer and a cry for freedom - News-Press

Bilal Malik is nearing the end of a roughly 15-day, 380-kilometre 'Freedom March' from Toronto to the steps of Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

Bilal Malik/The Canadian Press

By putting one foot in front of the other, sometimes slowly and sometimes with quicker strides, Bilal Malik says he desperately hopes the government will listen to what he has to say.

The 36-year-old is nearing the end of a roughly 15-day, 380-kilometre Freedom March from Toronto to the steps of Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

He wants to persuade Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government to pronounce the systemic abuse and human rights violations against ethnic Muslim Uyghurs in China a genocide.

Story continues below advertisement

Malik is one of several Canadians who are currently walking hundreds of kilometres uphill and downhill, through cities, and past towns and farms to send a message.

I hope the walk will have even a little bit, even one per cent difference They have to do something, said Malik, who hasnt been able to reach his family for three years since he moved to Canada from Chinas northwest province of Xinjiang.

China has faced international criticism and sanctions since reports surfaced of mass detention of more than one million people and forced sterilization.

In February, Parliament voted to declare Chinas treatment of its Uyghur minority a genocide. The motion was supported by all Opposition parties, but Trudeau and most members of his cabinet abstained.

Malik says his walk is all he can do to honour his family, educate Canadians and to persuade Trudeau to do the right thing.

Peaceful dissent through walking has been happening for decades, said Ronald Stagg, a history professor at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Its somebody saying, I have to do my part. I feel that I have to say something. I feel I have to protest against this or in favour of this, so Im just gonna do it, said Stagg. Even if it doesnt do anything.

Story continues below advertisement

Malik said conversations he has had with Canadians along the way have made every second of his walk worth it.

Its not a big sacrifice. Its a symbol. We have to do something for our community.

Stagg said sometimes the walks people make focus on a specific issue. At other times they highlight general grievances from marginalized groups who have been subjected to oppression throughout their history.

Lorraine Netro and Jacqueline Shorty Whitehorse are also walking. Their 2,000-kilometre trek from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Kamloops, B.C., is to honour what are believed to be the remains of hundreds of Indigenous children at former residential school sites.

A residential school survivor from Prince Albert, Sask., is more than halfway through her journey to Parliament Hill. In June, Patricia Ballantyne began her Walk of Sorrow. She plans to reach Ottawa this month.

Trechelle Bunn, 21, organized a daylong walk for about 70 people earlier this month. They walked 23 kilometres from the former Birtle Indian Residential School to Birdtail Sioux First Nation, about 300 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, to relive the journey hundreds of Indigenous children would have made as they ran away from the residential school.

Story continues below advertisement

It was a really powerful moment to go back to the spot that my grandparents were taken and then also for myself and the survivors to walk away from the school, she said.

The Canadian Encyclopedia says walking as a form of peaceful dissent became popular in the 20th century when Mahatma Gandhi advanced a doctrine of non-violent civil disobedience to defy British rule. He walked for 24 days along Indias countryside.

Decades later, Martin Luther King Jr., inspired by Gandhi, led 250,000 walkers from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., risking arrest and violence, as they tried to secure voting rights for Black people.

In Canada, Stagg noted, hundreds of people regularly gathered, and sometimes walked, to protest the Vietnam War. Similar to the 1960s, the last two decades will be remembered for its walkers and protesters, he said.

Were living in a time of great social upheaval and all sorts of things are becoming known.

For Bunn, the walk she organized was less about defiance and more about healing.

Story continues below advertisement

That was a very empowering and healing journey for everyone that took part. To walk home and make it home to our community, something that so many of our survivors and so many children were denied it gives me chills thinking about it.

With files from The Associated Press

Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the days most important headlines. Sign up today.

The rest is here:

Faced with injustice, these Canadians are walking the talk to raise awareness and find healing - The Globe and Mail

In Kazakhstan this week, the film director Oliver Stone presented his latest documentary, Qazaq: History of the Golden Man, an eight-hour hagiographic ode to the autocrat Nursultan Nazarbayeva particularly grotesque move in a country where the government has been systemically stifling media ever since declaring independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Today, Kazakhstan has only a handful of independent traditional media outlets left, which lack the ability to cover the countrys vibrant sociopolitical life, something that has thrived despite authoritarianism. The gap, however, is now being filled by alternative media: Scores of bloggers are using YouTube, Telegram, and Instagram to report on events and to contradict the narrative served by pro-government traditional media. Alternative journalism is blooming, raising questions about how far it can go before the Kazakh government pulls the plug.

Things werent always bad for Kazakhstans traditional media. Throughout the first half of the 1990s, the Kazakh government issued broadcasting licenses to anyone willing to pay a small fee. By 1996, the number of issued licenses reached 200, and Kazakhstan had 47 independent TV and radio channels. The 1990s, until 1997, were a renaissance for Kazakh media. Until 1997, the government, of course, regulated the media market, but things were simpler, more liberal, said Vyacheslav Abramov, the general director of Vlast, an independent online publication he helped found in 2012.

1997 was a watershed: That year, in an attempt to exert more control over the narrative around the countrys second presidential election, Nazarbayevs regime announced that broadcasting outlets needed to reapply for their licenses and to prove that they had enough content and capacity to keep operating. The broadcasting license fee skyrocketed to $150,000 for TV channels and $50,000 for radio channelsa mind-boggling amount in an economically stagnant country. Thirty-one channels lost their licenses, many of them famous for their critical reporting.

Freedom of the press only degenerated from there.

In 1999, the government removed any limits on monopolies, opening the gates for consolidation of outlets in the hands of pro-government figures. In 2001, the government instituted a registration system for mass media. After the 2005 presidential election, the government empowered tax and law enforcement agencies to audit any media outlet without warning. Since 2017, journalists must receive permission from people whose personal and financial information they intend to publish, which has severely limited the medias ability to investigate corruption and malfeasance. Finally, this March the government amended the rules of accreditation for journalists, requiring them to work with a hostan intentionally loosely defined termwhen covering government events.

All these new media regulations were repressive, although the government always presented them as liberal and democratic reforms, said Lukpan Akhmedyarov, the former editor in chief of Uralsk Week, one of the last independent traditional media outlets left in Kazakhstan. [Because of these regulations] most of the current media field in Kazakhstan is essentially a government propaganda machine.

Today, the countrys administrative code includes 40 different clauses regulating mass media. Violation of any of the clauses usually results in suspension of print or blocking of websites. Adil Soz, an international freedom of speech foundation, estimates that between 2010 and 2015, five to nine media outlets were sanctioned annually, with 2012 marking 43 cases of sanctions against media outlets. In 2021, Kazakhstan ranked 155th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders annual World Press Freedom Index.

The traditional media landscape was ruinedbut the resulting gap created an opportunity for unconventional journalism.

In 2018, the court suspended the online outlet I was working at for 19 months. By the time the outlet resumed its work, I decided to move on, Vadim Boreyko said. A journalist with 40 years of experience, Boreyko spent a year after his employers suspension publishing minor journalistic investigations on Facebook before deciding to open a YouTube channel. Two years later, his channel has nearly 75,000 subscribers, 7.7 million views, and a couple of notable successes.

In late 2017, the government decided to turn part of the Ile-Alatau National Park just outside Kazakhstans biggest city of Almaty into a ski resort. Boreyko started investigating the businessmen tied to the project, first for the online outlet he worked at and then on his YouTube channel. His reporting contributed to the mobilization of civil societys opposition to the project and its cancellation in 2019.

Boreykos work is a prime example of alternative media that are rapidly filling in the gap left by the crisis in traditional media in Kazakhstan. Scores of people across Kazakhstan have turned to YouTube, Telegram, and Instagram in the past five years to conduct journalistic investigations, discuss and analyze events in the country, report on political protests ignored by pro-government media, and push against the governments narrative.

Most big players in the media market are associated either with the government or with big business, which is often the same thing in Kazakhstan. But now there are more alternative media popping up, said Dmitry Dubovitsky, whose YouTube channel Theyre Coming After Us today boasts 292,000 subscribers and more than 62 million views. Dubovitsky is arguably one of the pioneers of Kazakhstans YouTube-based alternative media: Every single YouTube blogger interviewed by Foreign Policy for this piece called Dubovitsky an inspiration, a mentor, a project partner, or all of the above. While his political videos critical of the countrys government are some of the most popular on YouTube in Kazakhstan, Dubovistky prefers to highlight his coverage of suicide, mental health, and other social issues and rejects the label of a dissident. If common sense is considered opposition in Kazakhstan, then consider me a member of the opposition, he said. But I am no politician and no activist. I merely react to the events in the country. People in Kazakhstan have a lot of questions for the authorities, and we try to ask those questions.

Despite Kazakhstans authoritarianism, it has a vibrant and contentious politics. The protest tracker by the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs has reported more than 1,200 protests in Kazakhstan since January 2018by far the highest number among the Central Asian countries. Protests over government policies around social welfare are especially common. And while the government persecutes the groups that are explicitly antagonistic and oppositional to the countrys current regime, theres a whole range of political, social, and youth movements active in the country, such as the pro-democracy youth movement Oyan, Qazaqstan.

Kazakhstans youth are often the target audience of the countrys nontraditional media projects. I realized in 2017 that Kazakh youth was absolutely apolitical. I set a goal of attracting the youth to politics, said Murat Daniyar, whose YouTube channel Jurttyn Balasy has 227,000 subscribers and 21 million views. And I think Ive reached my goal. Go to any bar and youll hear the youth openly discussing politics without being afraid.

Our typical follower is a recent university graduate who maybe just recently found a job and who is wondering why things are bad in the country, why his pay is low. The 18-35 [age] group makes up 80 percent of our followers, said Adil Zakenov, one of the administrators of the satirical Instagram account Le Shapalaque.

Both Daniyar and Zakenov were alienated by the governments oppression and its refusal to address the daily problems of people in Kazakhstan. So was Assem Zhapisheva: In 2019, when she was a freelance journalist, Zhapisheva livestreamed a large protest in Almaty, after which she was blacklisted by most traditional media outlets in the country. Her previous articles were scrapped, and no one would accept her pitches. Dubovitsky urged her to open a YouTube channel. Today, Zhapisheva breaks down the news stories that government-funded media ignore, explaining the connections between events and the roots of everyday problems people face.

While Zhapishevas channel is relatively small, she plays an important role by intentionally focusing on Kazakh-language content in a country where Russian-language media has traditionally dominated. It is much easier to become popular by producing Russian-language content, she said. But this is why it is necessary to produce Kazakh-language content. So many good articles and investigations dont reach the Kazakh-speaking public.

Kazakhstan is the worlds ninth-largest country by area, with many of its regions too remote to be regularly covered by major media outlets that cater primarily to Russian-speaking urban residents and dont produce quality journalism in Kazakh. And while the Kazakh-speaking population is growing, rural regions are too impoverished to support traditional local journalism.

Now, alternative media are stepping into this linguistic and geographic gap, often provided by locals, which Akhmedyarov calls more authentic, with a feel for Kazakh-language content and a unique perspective.

In 2020, residents of Stepnogorsk, a town 120 miles northeast of Kazakhstans capital of Nur-Sultan with a population of just 60,000, started protesting the decision to use the town as the site for utilization of 300 metric tons of hazardous waste. The local YouTube blogger Artyom Sochnev started covering these protests, and another local blogger, Maxim Ponomaryov, discovered violations of hazardous waste utilization regulations. Together, these bloggers managed to attract the attention of larger traditional media outlets. Abramovs Vlast ended up covering the events in Stepnogorsk.

These nontraditional media projects are actively gaining an audience and, more importantly, influence. These projects react to events quicker and they spread information quicker than us in traditional media, Akhmedyarov said.

So why hasnt the Kazakh government clamped down on this new nontraditional media thorn in its side?

For one, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who stepped into the role in March 2019, has been presenting himself as a reformer willing to transition the government away from repressive tactics. Cracking down on grassroots media projects would only hurt the image of the president amid the regimes fight for legitimacy. This isnt the worst moment [for the rise of alternative media] because we have a president who wants to appear as a reformer, and he is surrounded by people who are trying to give him that image. This creates certain opportunities for people to be louder and to demand certain things from the government, Abramov said.

The government might also understand that these grassroots nontraditional media serve an important pressure valve function, relieving public discontent before it boils over. That has caused some worries among the journalists themselves. Some people do indeed think of us as a tea kettle that allows people to spill out negative emotions and rebel in the comments before ultimately calming down and moving on. Id hope, though, that we help educate people, Dubovitsky said.

The government hasnt been entirely hands off. Temirlan Ensebek, the administrator of the satirical Instagram page Qaznews24, was detained and interrogated in May over his parodies of the fawning toward Nazarbayev. Qaznews24 garnered more than 5,000 followers before Ensebek deleted the page due to the continuous threats from anonymous accounts. While the official reason for his detention was dissemination of false information, some believe it to be an excuse used by the regime to target its critics.

The countrys regime also learned to mimic nontraditional media outlets using copycat projects that further complicate the media landscape in the country. They have created several pseudo-oppositional media channels, Zhapisheva said. My friends have a very popular Instagram page, Rukh, that was one of the few covering anti-government protests. And then theres Azattyq. So [the government] have created Azattyq Ruhy, which publishes pseudo-oppositional material but is actually a pro-government media. These copycat projects include YouTube blogs, social media pages, Telegram channels, and even entertainment shows like Oyan, Qazaqstan, which intentionally shares its name with the pro-democracy youth movement.

For now, the internet remains a flexible and less regulated environment that gives the representatives of traditional media hope. That may not last. Akhmedyarov said: I am sure that by the end of 2021 there will be either amendments to the existing regulations or a new law that would regulate the bloggers. Similarly, Zhapisheva expects a new law regulating blogging to be drafted during the next parliamentary session in September.

But until then, Kazakhstans alternative media will continue to challenge the government.

Read the original:

Kazakhstan's Alternative Media Is Thrivingand in Danger - Foreign Policy

Collier County Cuban community hold rally in support of their Cuban countrymen

Collier County Cuban community hold rally in support of their Cuban countrymen

Jon Austria, Naples Daily News

Nearly 30 years ago, Amanda Benitez's parents immigrated to the United States from Cuba searching for freedom.

Her father, Jorge Benitez, fled Cuba by boat with his family and friends without the permission of the Cuban government, risking their lives to be free. Her mother, Elizabeth Benitez, was able to make the trip by plane, and didn't know Jorge Benitez at the time.

Both settling in Miami, a place many refer to as the haven for Cuban exiles, the two met and now live in Cape Coral with their family.

It's been 30 years since they fled their country longing for the freedoms the United States had to offer, and now Cubans have taken to the streets of their cities protesting their government to get that same freedom.

Protests in Cuba began July 11, and it'sconsidered the country's biggest anti-government movementin the past 30 years.

Almost immediately,Cuban-Americans and supporters across Southwest Florida stoodwith their friends, family and countrymen from the island some200 miles to the south by holding demonstrations of their own.

The demonstrations in Southwest Florida are said to continue for as long as protests continue in Cuba.

Read: 'We will keep coming out until something happens': Cuban community continues to show support in Collier

Read: 'Patria y Vida': Naples, Fort Myers demonstrators flood downtown area in support of freedom for Cuba

Amanda Benitez, 19, a University of Florida student, strives to one day be a lawyer practicing international law.

Cuban people are realizing they have potential and it is being waisted in a county that doesn't allow them to succeed, Benitez said.

"The dream is to be as successful in their nation as they can be elsewhere," she said.

The protesting in Cuba isn't something that started out of no here. They have been living in oppression and silence for 62 years, but Benitez believes a multitude of factors contributed to Cubans speaking up and fighting back now.

They have lived under a dictatorship for decades and they are seeing how other nations live, realizing their way of life doesn't make sense, Benitez said.

Once COVID-19 struck, itexacerbated Cuba's issues, she said. Their food and medicine became even more scarce.

From what Benitez can tell, the protests started city by city and there hasn't been a proclaimed leader or movement.

"I see an entire nation of individuals who have lost their fear because they will already lose their lives to the conditions," she said.

She hopes Cubans don't give up protesting because it is a fight worth fighting.

So many people have already died and been murdered, children have been abducted from their homes and forced to fight against the protesters. And if Cubans who live on the islandrefuse to battle back against protesters, it is punishable by death,Benitez said.

The protesters are fighting with rocks and sticks because they have hadno weapons since Fidel Castro ruled Cuba from1959 to 2008. Castrodied in 2016.

She hopesthe United States and other nations help the Cuban people by giving them real resources like military intervention since they'refighting a heavily armed military.

Since the protesting began, there has been power outages and limited access to internet, another resource Benitez hopes the U.S.can provide to Cuba.

"Internet access has been shut off so information can't disseminate throughout the people and so people can't see what's going on there," Benitez said.

Read more here:

'Individuals who have lost their fear,' Cubans continue to fight for their freedom - News-Press

The distribution of the Because We Care Education Cash Grant (ECG) by the Government started in Region 2 last week. Parents will get $19,000 for each child, of whom there are 172,000 countrywide, costing approximately $3.2 billion. There is no restriction on how the money is to be spent. The project was started by the PPP/C in 2014 at $10,000 for each child. It was discontinued by the APNU+AFC in 2015 and has now been restored by the PPP/C Government.

I caught a television news clip of a portion of the event. Tagewantee Dollarie was interviewed and expressed her gratitude for the help. She explained that she is the sole breadwinner for her grandson. She had been receiving social assistance, which was stopped abruptly and without explanation. She started relating her story quietly, with dignity, emphasizing how helpful the grant would be for her grandson. But when she began to talk about him, what Grade he was in, how well he was doing, and that his father had killed his mother and then committed suicide, the tears flowed, even though she bravely continued the interview. Few who watched this brief episode could have sustained dry eyes or avoided a lump in their throats. There are many similar stories of hardship, in every single community, all across Guyana, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic and the floods.

The ECG comes in the midst of significant developments in US economic policy for which many in the US have been struggling for decades. Having regard to stagnant wages, disparities in income, the increasing wealth gap and increasing general and child poverty in the US since the 1970s, it would not be hyperbolic to describe the Biden Administrations economic and poverty alleviation policies as revolutionary. One significant element, coincidentally, is the Child Tax Credit. Its effect is a maximum US$300 payment a month to most American families for each child. It is estimated that it will cut child poverty in half in the US.

One of the most important obstacles in the past to social security, or social help, or assistance in the form of cash grants or otherwise, has been the reactionary excuses oppressors have used for centuries to sustain their oppression of the enslaved, indentured, poor and disadvantaged, which is today referred to as the dependency syndrome. The principle is simple if you help the poor to improve their condition, they will become dependent on that help and lose the initiative to help themselves. This theory was not only confined to conservatives and reactionaries. It has held sway over many who have themselves, by their own efforts, made successful lives. They argue that if only those people would not complain, would work, rather than rely on charity, or handouts, they would succeed.

The evidence in recent years has smashed the myth of the dependency syndrome and destroyed the arguments of its advocates. In the US, where in the past Republicans and conservative Democrats have supported the dependency syndrome, only some rabid holdouts remain. President Reagan had popularized the dependency syndrome by infamously railing against the welfare queens. President Clinton, wrenching the Democratic Party to right of centre, applied the dependency syndrome by imposing onerous conditionalities on the recipients of social security. However, most progressives have been buoyed by the great success of the bolsa familia programme implemented in Brazil by the past Lula Governments which, by cash grants, which have substantially reduced poverty. Since then, these programmes have been successfully implemented to varying degrees all over the world. As Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, said (NYT 2021-07-16) economists have assembled a great deal of data pointing to the benefits of public spending, especially aid to families with children.

For the above reasons, I was horrified to read a letter in SN of 2021-07-15 written by Mr. Aubrey Norton (PPPs cash grant is both inadequate and ill conceived) in which he criticized the payout for every child in public schools. Mr. Norton is a longtime leader in APNU+AFC, ostensibly socialist in orientation, who is or was a high official in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition. I do not seek to engage Mr. Norton on his political criticisms of the PPP/C Government that the programme fits into the PPPs scheme to create dependence rather than increasing our peoples capacity to earn and live decent and fulfilling lives., or that the PPPs use of state resources creates dependencies to dominate and control the lives of the people of Guyana. These are matters for the Government to respond to.

However, I do take exception to the idea that the ECG programme, by itself, creates dependency of any kind. For Mr. Norton to join with the most conservative, reactionary, politicians worldwide to perpetuate this now largely discredited, backward, dangerous and fallacious nonsense, that cash grants actually create any kind of dependency whatsoever, whether on politicians or anyone else, is quite unbelievable. If this is the motivation of the PPP/C Government, it will certainly fail. And if this is the kind of extremist views, plucked out of the dungeon of Mr. Nortons political mind, that he will bring to the PNCR if he wins the leadership, then God help us.

This column is reproduced, with permission, from Ralph Ramkarrans blog, http://www.conversationtree.gy

Visit link:

The Dependency Syndrome and the Governments Education Cash Grant - Stabroek News

Just as the Government hails freedom day it also restricts the right to protest and denies freedom of movement. Sian Norris asks if this is just freedom for markets and money rather than people

Its been a funny old time for freedom.

Last Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the go-ahead of so-called freedom day when all Coronavirus restrictions will be lifted, with interventions such as face masks to become a personal choice.

The decision was greeted with a mixture of joy, despair and caution. But one narrative has been clear throughout the pandemic: that Coronavirus restrictions are in opposition to the values of what Johnson called a freedom-loving country. It is very difficult, Johnson told the House of Commons, to ask the British population to uniformly obey guidelines in the way it is necessary.

Similarly, various right-wing commentators have commented on how Johnson is an instinctive liberal, a characteristic which, they claim, has made it challenging for him to impose draconian restrictions to stop the spread of the virus. That instinctive liberalism, one can assume, was behind the alleged comment to let the bodies pile high as opposed to introducing a second lockdown. Johnson denies making the comment.

But hours after Johnson assured the nation that it would soon have its pre-pandemic freedoms back, his Government was voting to take freedoms away via the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which passed its third reading by 365 votes to 265 noes.

During the vote, instinctive liberal Boris Johnson agreed to severely restrict the right to protest. This includes increasing police powers to shut down protests such as processions and assemblies if they result in serious disruption, for example noise, have an impact on persons in the vicinity, or result in serious disruption to the activities of an organisation which are carried on in the vicinity.

Joining Johnson in the Aye lobby was Sir Edward Leigh, who called Coronavirus restrictions authoritarianism. Steve Baker, who referred to lockdown situations as dystopia. Mark Harper, a leader of anti-lockdown backbenchers, voted for the Bill, as did various other MPs critical of restrictions such as Sir Desmond Swayne who called wearing a mask a monstrous imposition.

Sir Charles Walker, who mounted his own protest against Coronavirus restrictions by walking around London holding a glass of milk, did not vote.

The Bill also includes longer sentences for protesters who vandalise or remove statues, although an amendment by the Labour Party to introduce tougher sentencing for rapists was voted down by the Conservatives.

The gulf between Johnsons hailing of the UK as freedom-loving and the praise heaped on his liberal instincts, and a Bill that removes key freedoms around speech and protest, could not be clearer. On the one hand, we have libertarian MPs decrying basic public health measures as authoritarian. On the other, we have those same MPs banning people banging drums, shouting slogans and occupying space often in the pursuit of greater freedoms.

But we dont have to look too far to understand what is driving these contradictions.

One of the protest movements that has received large amounts of criticism from this Government is the environmental activists Extinction Rebellion. The Home Secretary Priti Patel accused the group who blockade roads and perform disruptive stunts as threatening the UK way of life and floated the idea of categorising its members as an organised crime group.

There can be no doubt that the new Bill will further criminalise many of Extinction Rebellions activities, making it harder to protest against policies that fail to tackle the climate crisis.

In doing so, the Bill smooths the path for business interests whose activities fuel the same climate crisis including the individuals and companies linked to oil and gas industries who donated at least 419,000 to the Conservative Party last year.

Other large Conservative Party donors have a lot to gain from increased restrictions on protests by environmental activists. Sir Michael Hintze, the godfather of Conservative donors funds a climate-crisis denying think-thank. He gave 3,000 to Home Secretary Priti Patel. Lord Bamford of JCB fame is one of the Partys biggest donors while the construction industry influences almost 47% of the UKs carbon dioxide emissions. Ukrainian oil man Alexander Temerko has donated around 20,000 to the Conservative Party via the Offshore Group Newcastle.

This is just one example of a protest movement working in opposition to the interests of Conservative donors that is now facing harsher penalties and restrictions. Various arms of the arms industry, a frequent target for disruptive protests, have spent significant sums on Conservative politicians.

Business interests linked to HS2 contracts, another hot button protest project, have also donated to or are linked to the Conservatives. For example, non-executive Director of the Keller Group, Baroness Kate Rock, is a Conservative Peer. The group won an HS2 contract. Aggregate Industries, which won a modular track contract, is a historic donor to the Conservative Party, having given significant sums between 2008 and 2011.

The Conservative Party has also received 60.8 million from individuals and companies within the property sector another industry that is often the target for protests ranging from rent strikes, occupations and blockades and which would therefore benefit from the Bill.

Alongside the assault on the freedom to protest, last week also saw the Home Offices New Plan for Immigration in the headlines. The plan will make it harder for people seeking asylum to come to the UK, including by changing the rules so that people who arrive via so-called illegal routes will be treated differently to those arriving legally. It has also been mooted that the plan will create offshore processing centres for people seeking asylum.

Just as with the Policing, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill, the gulf between the New Plan for Immigration and Johnsons rhetoric about the freedom-loving UK is stark.

While the Conservatives hail freedom day, the walls for a new detention centre for failed women asylum seekers is being built in Hassockfield, County Durham.

Mitie, the company contracted to run the asylum housing at Hassockfield, has Conservative Peer Baroness Couttie as its non-executive Director. The old detention centre for women, Yarls Wood, is operated by Serco and linked to Conservative donors. Camilla Soames, wife of Sercos Director, donated nearly 5,000 to the Party in 2019.

It begs the question: who is freedom for? Does our love of freedom extend to those escaping persecution for expressing their political, religious or social views? Does our love of freedom extend to men, women and children who simply want the opportunity to live free from the fear of conflict and violence?

Or is freedom for markets and the movement of money, rather than people?

Johnson told Parliament that every advance from free speech to democracy has come from this country.

But right now, his party seems intent on rolling back our freedom of speech, freedom to protest and freedom to seek asylum in favour of the freedom to make money.

Byline Times is funded by its subscribers. Receive our monthly print edition and help to support fearless, independent journalism.

New to Byline Times? Find out more about us

A new type of newspaper independent, fearless, outside the system. Fund a better media.

Dont miss a story

Our leading investigations include Brexit, Empire & the culture war, Russian interference, Coronavirus, cronyism and far right radicalisation. We also introduce new voices of colour in Our Lives Matter.

Follow this link:

Boris Johnson's Idea of Freedom is a Form of Oppression Byline Times - Byline Times

FORMER Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was cheered at a rally in Bradford as he called on the Government to "unconditionally recognise the state of Palestine."

Some have criticised Bradford Council for allowing a sizeable gathering to go ahead after not showing the Euro football final on City Park's big screen, but the Council said the rally's organisers announced the location without notifying them in advance. Discussions only took place thereafter, the Council said.

Mr Corbyn was the key speaker at the event in City Park, dubbed 'Free Palestine, no to foreign wars, no to Islamophobia', which attracted a crowd of over 100 people.The rally, organised by Bradford Stop the War Coalition, also featured a passionate speech from Bradford East MP Imran Hussain.Mr Corbyn, wearing a cream-coloured jacket,was given a large round of applause as he was introduced to the crowd.He spoke of how Bradford was the cradle of the Labour movement in this country" and that those values - such as standing up to mill owners and opposing oppression - were still important today.Turning to Palestine, he said: "I want to see peace, I want to see nationhood for the Palestinian people and I want us to have a Government - as I wanted to be the head of a Government -that would unconditionally recognise the state of Palestine."

The gathering took place at City Park, and began at around 5pm, continuingbeyond7pm.

The gathering was centred around the steps of the Magistrates' Court building.

The speaker introducing the event said Bradford always backs Palestine and "has a long history of it unlike other cities."

Mr Corbyn said: "The city of Bradford was the cradle, the first, in many ways, of the Labour movement in this country. The Independent Labour movement was founded here.

"Many of those who founded the ILP had a vision of a country that cared for each other in health, in education, in housing, the provision of libraries and learning and of opportunities for young people, who stood up against the mill owners.

"Bradford has given so much to the Labour party and the Labour movement and the world all over."

He said Bradford had a long history of opposing war and pointed out that many in the cityhad not seen the sense in British workers fighting German workers as it was essentially a war between Imperialist classes.

He continued to say: "This event is also, of course, about solidarity - solidarity with people all around the world. Much has been said about solidarity with the people of Palestine and I absolutely endorse that."

He bemoaned images of jets bombing homes in Gaza and pointed out that homes on the West Bank were being destroyed by "those who believe that settlers have a right to take over the West Bank."

"I want to see peace, I want to see nationhood for the Palestinian people and I want us to have a Government - as I wanted to be the head of a Government - that would unconditionally recognise the state of Palestine."

"The right and the racists in our society will always seek to divide us."

Richard Burgon, Labour MPfor Leeds East, told the crowd: "It's always an important occasion when we speak out against injustice. It's always an important occasion when we speak out against oppression. It's always an important occasion when we speak out against racism. It's always an important occasion when we come together united by the desire to organise, to create, a better, more peaceful, more just world."

He said "if only they had listened 20 years ago" to the Stop the War Coalition, "many lives would have been saved around the world and it would be a more peaceful place."

Mr Burgon claimed he had got cross-party support for a Bill not to sell arms to Israel.

"Palestine has a right to exist. Palestine will exist," he said.

And there were huge cheers when the introducer added: "Just imagine Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister and Richard Burgon as the deputy.

Bradford East MP Imran Hussain said Bradford had a proud history as a City of Sanctuary and would welcome refugees as "nobody chooses to face persecution."

"Nobody willingly gets on a boat with their children knowing they are almost certainly facingdeath," he told the crowd, as he thanked Bradford people for the 'friendship and welcome' it had given people in need over the years.

"Let's be clear - racism and persecution are still far too prevalent in our society. We only have to look at the football last weekend," he added, pointing out that Bradford stood in solidarity with the England footballers who received abuse after missing penalties.

He continued to say the Palestinian people "continued to face indiscriminate attacks from the Israeli Government."

The rallyhas been organised to raise awareness of the many terrible conflicts and wars which continue across the globe, and which concern so many of Bradfords residents.

These include the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank in Palestine, the war in Yemen and the conflict in Kashmir.

Stop the War has been at the forefront of protesting against wars since its foundation in 2001.

See the original post:

Bradford crowds cheer as Jeremy Corbyn calls for Government to 'recognise the state of Palestine' - Bradford Telegraph and Argus

Cubans have been marching in the streets for freedom, chanting Libertad! and demonstrating by the thousands that theyve had enough of the sham called communism. They know economic disaster and political repression come with that territory.

Yet today were peering through Alices looking glass as we watch these events unfold. Everything is backwards. Elites in the U.S. government, media, and Big Tech seem to be taking the side of the communist authorities who are clamping down on the protests, Soviet-style. Some journalists and Twitter have spun the idea that Cubans are taking to the streets mostly because of a desire for more awareness of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Please.

Theres always hell to pay whenever you allow too much power into the hands of too few people. Thats the story of communism, in a nutshell. Its a totalitarian system in which a little clique of elites has absolute power to dictate to everybody what they may say, how they may act, what goods and services they may receive, and with whom they may associate. In a word, communism is state-run slavery.

The elites who push it stop at nothing to maintain their power. So it shouldnt surprise us that communist regimes have murdered 100 million people in the twentieth century. Thats probably a gross underestimate, but you get the picture. Its summed up well in Professor R.J. Rummels opening words to his book, Death by Government: Power kills; absolute power kills absolutely.

Its tragic that the free world has never held the lethal ideology of communism accountable for its crimes against humanity. Worse, the ideology is making a comeback, mindlessly promoted and celebrated, often by American youth who have never been taught to know better.

Identity politics (especially in the form of critical race theory,) mob rule, and censorship enforced by Big Tech in America today are the same tools communist regimes have always used to enforce their utopian schemes. If more of us recognized the ideology as the murderous perversion that it is and understood how its tools pave the path to oppression, wed be more vigilant. But how might we build such awareness?

The whole world united to discredit National Socialism immediately after World War II. In a trial in Nuremberg, Germany in 1946, Nazis had to answer for their horrific crimes against humanity, which resulted in the deaths of 11 million people, including six million Jews. Yet despite more than 100 million murders, the victims of communism have never come together in a similar condemnation of communism.

This failure may stem in part from mixed messages the public got from the original Nuremberg trials themselves. The allied powers of World War IIincluding the Soviet Unionserved as prosecutors at Nuremberg. That meant a communist nation could pretend at Nuremberg to stand with the West for human rights, even though its methods of governance were virtually indistinguishable from those of fascists: a harsh surveillance culture, no free expression, a war on private life, gulag camps for political prisoners, mass killings of minorities. Dont forget, either, that Joseph Stalin was aligned with Adolf Hitler for the first two years of World War II.

Nor have the crimes of communist China ever been called to account. Mao Zedongs Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution resulted in the brutal deaths of tens of millions of Chinese. Although many today see China as a sort of state capitalist/communist hybrid, all of the communist tools and techniques to suppress political opposition and repress cultural minorities remain in place there.

Slave labor and concentration camps remain. Speech is strictly controlled. A sophisticated social credit system controls every aspect of life of every private citizen in China. Nor have communist regimes, including those of pre-1989 Eastern Europe, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela, been held accountable for their crimes against humanity.

And in the West? Powerful apologists throughout the world, especially in media, academia, the corporate world, and Big Tech have enabled the cover-up of such crimes. This, in turn, has led to the rise of far-left sentiments in the United States and the West, unchecked by recognition of communisms crimes.

Vladimir Bukovsky (d. 2019,) a preeminent leader of the Soviet dissident movement, was the driving force for putting the ideology of communism in a Nuremberg-like dock for the whole world to judge. He felt for decades that all needed to witness such an accounting for communisms horrific crimes and genocides.

Bukovsky himself suffered 12 years as a political prisoner confined to psychiatric prison-hospitals and gulag prison camps in the Soviet Union. His 1976 deportation to the West, arranged through a prisoner exchange, brought him the freedom to publish his book, Judgment in Moscow: Soviet Crimes and Western Complicity.

Bukovskys initiative for a Nuremberg for Communism lay fallow until Renato Cristin, a philosophy professor at the University of Trieste, proposed they write an appeal and petition that could be circulated throughout the world, to leaders, journalists, and concerned citizens alike. Bukovsky signed on to the initiative they intended to launch on November 9, 2019, the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But Bukovsky died suddenly just two weeks prior.

Their appeal emphasizes that, unlike the trials of individual Nazi officials at Nuremberg in 1946, the ideology of communism itself must be put on trial. This is not because most of the biggest players of the 20th century, such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and their top-level cohorts are long dead. Indeed, dictators today wear their mantles.

But, unlike the situation with the Nazis, communism has had more than 100 years to march through our institutions worldwide. Few understand that communism, just like fascism, fights for total control over all human beings and their private lives. As Bukovsky stated, it is a cancer on the body of the human race. And its gone unchallenged for too long.

Today we are faced with a New Iron Curtain, an internal front, or an internal split within the West itself. This brings the enemy of the West right into our institutional, cultural, and even our mental world, disrupting us, weakening us and creating chaos in order to generate power vacuums it can then fill.

The New Iron Curtain comes to us in the form of political correctness, identity politics, mob rule, and nonstop propaganda on the internet, all of which serve to manipulate every individual emotionally and psychologically. Communisms warfare today is at least 90 percent psychological. And most people are not psychologically equipped to engage with this onslaught, especially vulnerable youth who are targeted with the full alliance of its progressive column in the West.

Even though a trial couldnt be a courtroom drama like the one that took place at Nuremberg in 1946, the toxins spread by communism need an equally deep reckoning that clarifies what the ideology does to people and how it destroys lives and freedom. In short, we need a moral renewal.

To do that, Bukovsky and Cristin see a public trial for communism that might be developed along three closely related tracks of action, in which all could participate in some way. We might call those tracks reflection, investigation, and condemnation.

First, the world must reflect on how communism has affected our lives and how it marched through all of our institutions, infiltrating them with its intolerance for freedom. We would need to examine how communism subverted education, the media, courts, the arts, popular culture, legislatures, psychiatry, the corporate world, the military, churches, and more.

Second, a legal and historical line of argument would have to methodically examine communisms specific crimes against humanity. Historians and legal scholars would document the crimes and the costs in human lives.

The list of communisms atrocities is long. It includes the deliberate starving of about seven million peasants under Stalins forced collectivization in the winter of 1932-33 and the wholesale reign of terror Mao unleashed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976.) Everyone ought to hear witnesses who verify what happens in Communisms legacy of gulags, slave labor camps, and psychiatric prison-hospitals.

Third, there must be political and institutional work in which legislative bodies of nations condemn the ideology of communism on moral grounds. The European Parliament actually passed such a resolution in September 2019, historically equating communism with National Socialism. Predictably, leftists were aghast. But this is the sort of work that must persist. Resolutions condemning communism could be generated at various levels of government worldwide, including by states and municipalities, just as has been done in recognizing the Armenian genocide. Corporations and other entities could add their voices as well.

Can any of this happen? Many outlets for this work could be used, including events, conferences, papers, and legislation, and each track builds on and supports the others. People who have survived communist regimes could help through their vocal support and determined action. High-profile media and cultural figures speaking out could also make an enormous difference. Of course, you can help too, by signing the appeal.

But, whether we pursue this Nuremberg appeal or not, we have no choice but to try to make such a public reckoning happen. We are in a war today that we must fight and win if we want to live in a world in which freedom is preserved.

The fact that apologies for Communist China have become radical chic in America should alarm us. Some of the biggest offenders include the NBA, Americas corporate media, Nike, Disney, and tech companies like Apple, Facebook, Amazon, et al. They are joined by the Democrat Party and its media lackeys.

Their support for that regime serves to promote the imprisonment of the Uighur population in concentration camps. Nike, for example, has a supply chain thats interwoven with Uighur slave labor in China. Apologists cooperate with Chinas censorship policies, boost the Chinese governments oppression of religious minorities, and aid Chinas clampdown against freedom in Hong Kong.

But hopeful signs are visible also. We should be heartened to see survivors of communist systems warning Americans that the toxic ideology they escaped is now at our doorstep.

Xi Van Fleet, a mother who lived through the nightmare of Maos Cultural Revolution, recently warned the Loudoun County, Virginia school board about critical race theory. Its the same sort of coercive thought reform she saw used in that reign of terror to divide people, characterized by struggle sessions, the use of concepts like white privilege to sow social distrust,and intense social pressure to conform or be canceled.

We should also find encouragement in Arizonas recent legislation that would have victims of communism tell their stories in public schools. This would greatly balance todays one-sided narratives hostile to America, narratives meant only to serve the social engineering agendas of educrats and the media. American children would learn what its actually like to live under totalitarianism.

All Americans need to learn what is at stake. Communism is not a harmless ideology that simply claims to work for equality and justice. Its a deceptive front that aims to abolish all private life along with private property. The deep truth is that in communism you personally become the private property of the state.

Read more:

Why Communism Should Be Tried For Its Crimes Against Humanity - The Federalist