Pro-Palestinians in Vienna commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba or catastrophe, which refers to the mass forced expulsion of Palestinians by Zionist militias to make way for the creation of ‘Israel’ in 1948.
#Nakba75
#Nakba75
Bangkok, Thailand – The crowd of thousands in central Bangkok erupted into deafening cheers at the arrival of Pita Limjaroenrat, the opposition politician who led his party to a stunning victory over the military-backed groups that have dominated Thai politics for nearly a decade.
Smiling and waving from the back of a pick-up truck, the charismatic 42-year-old businessman led a short victory rally on Monday, from Bangkok’s Democracy Monument to a plaza in front of the capital’s Metropolitan Administration Office, where he declared a “new day, bright with hope” for Thailand.
“Anything is possible in our country when we all work together,” he told a sea of supporters clad in his Move Forward Party’s signature orange.
“The next prime minister of Thailand will be named Pita Limjaroenrat and soon, we will change this country together.”
Smiling and waving from the back of a pick-up truck, the charismatic 42-year-old businessman led a short victory rally on Monday, from Bangkok’s Democracy Monument to a plaza in front of the capital’s Metropolitan Administration Office, where he declared a “new day, bright with hope” for Thailand.
“Anything is possible in our country when we all work together,” he told a sea of supporters clad in his Move Forward Party’s signature orange.
“The next prime minister of Thailand will be named Pita Limjaroenrat and soon, we will change this country together.”
The Arab League's 32nd summit in Jeddah concluded by emphasizing the Palestinian cause as central for Arab nations and crucial for regional stability.
Thousands of Israeli settlers are demonstrating again in Tel Aviv against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial overhaul plan.
King Abdullah II of Jordan: "We cannot abandon our pursuit for the achievement of a just peace, which will not be achieved if the Palestinian people do not get their right to an independent and sovereign state with East Jerusalem as its capital".
UN rights expert Francesca Albanese: "It is not 75 years from the Nakba, it is 75 years of the Nakba for the Palestinian people."
#Nakba75
#Nakba75
Kuwaiti fencer Abd Al-Aziz Al-Shatti has withdrawn from the 2023 Fencing World Cup in Turkey, declining to compete against an Israeli opponent.
The Arab League's 32nd summit in Jeddah concluded by emphasizing the Palestinian cause as central for Arab nations and crucial for regional stability.
Chat control violates the right to privacy
The EU Commission's proposal provides for a whole range of obligations for certain online services such as internet access providers, app stores, hosting platforms and interpersonal communications services. Interpersonal communications services are, for example, email services such as GMail or instant messaging services such as WhatsApp. The term “chat control" is often used colloquially to refer to the EU Commission’s draft regulation as a whole. Chat control in the narrower sense is the part of the draft according to which authorities can oblige providers of communications services such as WhatsApp to monitor private communications. This is a particularly serious restriction on the right to privacy and the protection of personal data (Art. 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights): The monitoring is not limited to persons specifically suspected of having committed a crime. Additionally, unlike data retention, which is also incompatible with the Charter but is limited to metadata – i.e. information about who communicated with whom at what time – chat control includes the surveillance of the contents of private messages.
Authorities can impose so-called "detection orders" against providers of interpersonal communications services. This means that authorities can, for example, oblige messenger services to monitor the communications of all their users. It is sufficient that the authority has identified a significant risk that the service in question is being used for the dissemination of depictions of sexual violence against children. Detection orders do not have to be limited to monitoring the communications of specific users who are under suspicion. Instead, authorities can order that the content of all communications of all users of the service be monitored preventively. This is therefore a form of mass surveillance without probable cause.
Such a detection order can oblige service providers to filter content for known as well as unknown depictions of sexual violence against children. In addition, they can include an obligation to detect attempts by adults to solicit minors (grooming). Content detected in this way must be forwarded by the service providers to a newly created EU centre, which will pass the information on to the law enforcement authorities of the member states after a plausibility check. Although service providers are free to choose which technologies they use to comply with the detection order, these technologies must in any case be able to analyse the contents of communications. In order to detect known depictions of sexual violence against children, an automated comparison of sent media files with a reference database may be sufficient. To detect unknown depictions of sexual violence and grooming, machine learning must be used to analyse the semantic content of chats. These methods are particularly prone to error: they only make an assumption about the meaning of the content based on patterns in the analysed communication - without actually understanding the content or the context of the conversation. In its case law on data retention, the European Court of Justice has indicated that indiscriminate mass surveillance of the contents of communications would violate the essence of the right to privacy.
Indiscriminate mass surveillance is incompatible with the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection under the EU Charter, whether it involves encrypted or unencrypted communications. At the centre of public criticism of chat control, however, is the fact that the draft regulation does not exempt end-to-end encrypted communication services from detection orders. These services ensure that only the people involved in a private conversation can read the communication content – neither the service provider nor third parties can decrypt it. More and more people are specifically choosing end-to-end encrypted messengers to protect themselves.
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The EU Commission's proposal provides for a whole range of obligations for certain online services such as internet access providers, app stores, hosting platforms and interpersonal communications services. Interpersonal communications services are, for example, email services such as GMail or instant messaging services such as WhatsApp. The term “chat control" is often used colloquially to refer to the EU Commission’s draft regulation as a whole. Chat control in the narrower sense is the part of the draft according to which authorities can oblige providers of communications services such as WhatsApp to monitor private communications. This is a particularly serious restriction on the right to privacy and the protection of personal data (Art. 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights): The monitoring is not limited to persons specifically suspected of having committed a crime. Additionally, unlike data retention, which is also incompatible with the Charter but is limited to metadata – i.e. information about who communicated with whom at what time – chat control includes the surveillance of the contents of private messages.
Authorities can impose so-called "detection orders" against providers of interpersonal communications services. This means that authorities can, for example, oblige messenger services to monitor the communications of all their users. It is sufficient that the authority has identified a significant risk that the service in question is being used for the dissemination of depictions of sexual violence against children. Detection orders do not have to be limited to monitoring the communications of specific users who are under suspicion. Instead, authorities can order that the content of all communications of all users of the service be monitored preventively. This is therefore a form of mass surveillance without probable cause.
Such a detection order can oblige service providers to filter content for known as well as unknown depictions of sexual violence against children. In addition, they can include an obligation to detect attempts by adults to solicit minors (grooming). Content detected in this way must be forwarded by the service providers to a newly created EU centre, which will pass the information on to the law enforcement authorities of the member states after a plausibility check. Although service providers are free to choose which technologies they use to comply with the detection order, these technologies must in any case be able to analyse the contents of communications. In order to detect known depictions of sexual violence against children, an automated comparison of sent media files with a reference database may be sufficient. To detect unknown depictions of sexual violence and grooming, machine learning must be used to analyse the semantic content of chats. These methods are particularly prone to error: they only make an assumption about the meaning of the content based on patterns in the analysed communication - without actually understanding the content or the context of the conversation. In its case law on data retention, the European Court of Justice has indicated that indiscriminate mass surveillance of the contents of communications would violate the essence of the right to privacy.
Indiscriminate mass surveillance is incompatible with the fundamental rights to privacy and data protection under the EU Charter, whether it involves encrypted or unencrypted communications. At the centre of public criticism of chat control, however, is the fact that the draft regulation does not exempt end-to-end encrypted communication services from detection orders. These services ensure that only the people involved in a private conversation can read the communication content – neither the service provider nor third parties can decrypt it. More and more people are specifically choosing end-to-end encrypted messengers to protect themselves.
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If the provider of such a messenger receives a detection order, it cannot reject it on the grounds that the service provider cannot access the contents of its users’ communications. The EU Commission's draft pays lip service to the importance of end-to-end encryption. However, service providers may only choose between technologies that allow them to detect illegal content in private communications, it states. In other words, service providers who offer end-to-end encryption without backdoors will not be able to implement any detection orders they may receive from authorities and thus come into conflict with the law. This attack on end-to-end encryption increases the intensity of the restriction of fundamental rights caused by indiscriminate mass surveillance.
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Threat of chilling effects for communication freedoms
The European Court of Justice has already warned on several occasions that indiscriminate mass surveillance has an indirect negative impact on freedom of expression (Article 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights): communication participants are prevented from freely expressing their opinions if they cannot be sure of the confidentiality of their communications. This particularly affects professional secrecy holders, such as journalists communicating with their sources, whistleblowers and opposition activists. This danger will be exacerbated if the Chat Control Regulation, as proposed by the EU Commission, attacks the end-to-end encryption of messenger services. The aforementioned groups of people use such messengers for good reason. If this possibility is taken away from them because service providers have to weaken end-to-end encryption, considerable "chilling effects", i.e. a deterrent effect for the exercise of the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information, can be expected.
This effect occurs regardless of whether service providers monitor the contents of private communications through a backdoor in the encryption technology or by scanning the content on the user's device before it is encrypted (client-side scanning). The communication participants expect their communication to remain confidential from the moment when they enter a message into the chat programme on their mobile phone – not only at the moment when this message is delivered to its addressee. The decisive factor is that the expectation of confidentiality and integrity of the communication process is shaken to such an extent that those affected feel compelled to restrict the exercise of their freedom of communication themselves.
The European Court of Justice has already warned on several occasions that indiscriminate mass surveillance has an indirect negative impact on freedom of expression (Article 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights): communication participants are prevented from freely expressing their opinions if they cannot be sure of the confidentiality of their communications. This particularly affects professional secrecy holders, such as journalists communicating with their sources, whistleblowers and opposition activists. This danger will be exacerbated if the Chat Control Regulation, as proposed by the EU Commission, attacks the end-to-end encryption of messenger services. The aforementioned groups of people use such messengers for good reason. If this possibility is taken away from them because service providers have to weaken end-to-end encryption, considerable "chilling effects", i.e. a deterrent effect for the exercise of the fundamental right to freedom of expression and information, can be expected.
This effect occurs regardless of whether service providers monitor the contents of private communications through a backdoor in the encryption technology or by scanning the content on the user's device before it is encrypted (client-side scanning). The communication participants expect their communication to remain confidential from the moment when they enter a message into the chat programme on their mobile phone – not only at the moment when this message is delivered to its addressee. The decisive factor is that the expectation of confidentiality and integrity of the communication process is shaken to such an extent that those affected feel compelled to restrict the exercise of their freedom of communication themselves.
Age verification endangers freedom of communication
The draft regulation stipulates that all providers of messenger and email services that are at risk of being used for grooming must verify the age of their users. The risk identified does not have to be significant – the obligation to implement age verification would therefore apply in principle to all email and messaging services that enable communication between minors and adults. In addition, the age verification obligation also applies to all app store providers. They must also prevent underage users from downloading apps that pose a significant risk of being used for grooming.
Service providers may choose between age assessment methods (for example, AI-based facial analysis, as already used by Instagram) and age verification methods (using an identity document or digital proof of identity). Both procedures are extremely intrusive for users. Age verification via identity documents comes close to banning anonymous internet use. AI-supported facial analysis, on the other hand, is often outsourced by service providers to external companies, leaving users with little control over the handling of this particularly sensitive personal data. If the technology makes a wrong assessment, young-looking adults can also be excluded from using certain apps. Those who do not possess identification documents or do not want to entrust their biometric data to a company are excluded from crucial communication technologies. Using a modern smartphone without an app store is hardly possible. Doing without messenger services is also unreasonable, especially for people who, for good reason, attach particular importance to anonymous internet use (whistleblowers, victims of stalking, politically persecuted people). In contrast to service providers, users cannot always choose between different age verification procedures.
For underage users (especially teenagers), their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and information are severely restricted if app stores categorically refuse to allow them to install certain apps without weighing these rights against the risk the app poses to underage users. Due to the strong market concentration in this area, the possibilities to switch to an alternative app store are limited.
The draft regulation stipulates that all providers of messenger and email services that are at risk of being used for grooming must verify the age of their users. The risk identified does not have to be significant – the obligation to implement age verification would therefore apply in principle to all email and messaging services that enable communication between minors and adults. In addition, the age verification obligation also applies to all app store providers. They must also prevent underage users from downloading apps that pose a significant risk of being used for grooming.
Service providers may choose between age assessment methods (for example, AI-based facial analysis, as already used by Instagram) and age verification methods (using an identity document or digital proof of identity). Both procedures are extremely intrusive for users. Age verification via identity documents comes close to banning anonymous internet use. AI-supported facial analysis, on the other hand, is often outsourced by service providers to external companies, leaving users with little control over the handling of this particularly sensitive personal data. If the technology makes a wrong assessment, young-looking adults can also be excluded from using certain apps. Those who do not possess identification documents or do not want to entrust their biometric data to a company are excluded from crucial communication technologies. Using a modern smartphone without an app store is hardly possible. Doing without messenger services is also unreasonable, especially for people who, for good reason, attach particular importance to anonymous internet use (whistleblowers, victims of stalking, politically persecuted people). In contrast to service providers, users cannot always choose between different age verification procedures.
For underage users (especially teenagers), their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and information are severely restricted if app stores categorically refuse to allow them to install certain apps without weighing these rights against the risk the app poses to underage users. Due to the strong market concentration in this area, the possibilities to switch to an alternative app store are limited.
Journalism is not a crime but dictators think otherwise
Journalism is a fundamental pillar of all democratic countries because it provides citizens with information to make informed decisions to participate and give feedback on governmental affairs and policies. More Importantly, journalism holds officials accountable. However, on the other side of the political systems, on a regular basis in totalitarian regimes like China and Russia, reporters and journalists are persecuted, arrested, and even killed for simply doing their job, just because dictators want to repress, intimidate and brainwash the masses into believing propaganda favorable to the regimes.
Communist China has a long history of suppressing journalism, and has consistently used its power to silence journalists who reported on politically sensitive issues. But since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the campaign against journalists, part of a broader trend of repressing civil society that also targeted NGOs, labor activists, human rights activists and lawyers, took on increased importance and thus went into overdrive.
Additionally, complementing its tightened grip on the media, China has invested heavily in propaganda and has reportedly paid millions of dollars to foreign media outlets to influence their coverage of China. This total intolerance for dissenting voices signaled that the government will go to great lengths to stifle those who spoke out against it, and that there will be a continuing escalation of persecution into the foreseeable future.
This disturbing habit has consequences not only for Chinese citizens but for the whole world as well. Now that the world has entered Covid endemic and lifted all pandemic restrictions, the Chinese government is quietly rewriting its Covid-19 narrative to prevent investigations into the origins, which by knowing the truth has the potential to save millions of lives in mitigating all future pandemics. With the crackdown on journalism and churning out propaganda, China is putting the whole world at risk again, of not being fully prepared by not having accurate information, when there is another global pandemic.
It is well-documented that at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which originated at the Chinese city of Wuhan, the authority blacked out all information, arrested whistleblowers including Dr. Li Wenliang who later died succumbing to the virus, did nothing to isolate and prevent the spread of Covid-19, and did not raise alarm to the World Health Organization and other countries.
Now, the communist government is taking its people’s struggle against science. Officials muzzle scientists, hinder international investigations and censor online information and discussions. Under governmental pressure, scientists withheld data, withdrew genetic sequences from public databases and altered crucial details in journal submissions. The propaganda even targeted international journals and scientific databases.
With all the cover-ups, it is hard to get any information out of China and even if information did manage to slip out, there is a possibility it may be doctored, all of which is detrimental to the longstanding global practice of shared scientific knowledge. The world must take a firm stance against the Chinese government’s disinformation and deceptive behavior.
Some examples of persecuted journalists
U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, working for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested in Russia on March 29 and charged with spying. The authority claimed Gershkovich, who could face up to 20 years in jail if found guilty, was trying to obtain classified defense information for the U.S. government, which he denied.
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Journalism is a fundamental pillar of all democratic countries because it provides citizens with information to make informed decisions to participate and give feedback on governmental affairs and policies. More Importantly, journalism holds officials accountable. However, on the other side of the political systems, on a regular basis in totalitarian regimes like China and Russia, reporters and journalists are persecuted, arrested, and even killed for simply doing their job, just because dictators want to repress, intimidate and brainwash the masses into believing propaganda favorable to the regimes.
Communist China has a long history of suppressing journalism, and has consistently used its power to silence journalists who reported on politically sensitive issues. But since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the campaign against journalists, part of a broader trend of repressing civil society that also targeted NGOs, labor activists, human rights activists and lawyers, took on increased importance and thus went into overdrive.
Additionally, complementing its tightened grip on the media, China has invested heavily in propaganda and has reportedly paid millions of dollars to foreign media outlets to influence their coverage of China. This total intolerance for dissenting voices signaled that the government will go to great lengths to stifle those who spoke out against it, and that there will be a continuing escalation of persecution into the foreseeable future.
This disturbing habit has consequences not only for Chinese citizens but for the whole world as well. Now that the world has entered Covid endemic and lifted all pandemic restrictions, the Chinese government is quietly rewriting its Covid-19 narrative to prevent investigations into the origins, which by knowing the truth has the potential to save millions of lives in mitigating all future pandemics. With the crackdown on journalism and churning out propaganda, China is putting the whole world at risk again, of not being fully prepared by not having accurate information, when there is another global pandemic.
It is well-documented that at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, which originated at the Chinese city of Wuhan, the authority blacked out all information, arrested whistleblowers including Dr. Li Wenliang who later died succumbing to the virus, did nothing to isolate and prevent the spread of Covid-19, and did not raise alarm to the World Health Organization and other countries.
Now, the communist government is taking its people’s struggle against science. Officials muzzle scientists, hinder international investigations and censor online information and discussions. Under governmental pressure, scientists withheld data, withdrew genetic sequences from public databases and altered crucial details in journal submissions. The propaganda even targeted international journals and scientific databases.
With all the cover-ups, it is hard to get any information out of China and even if information did manage to slip out, there is a possibility it may be doctored, all of which is detrimental to the longstanding global practice of shared scientific knowledge. The world must take a firm stance against the Chinese government’s disinformation and deceptive behavior.
Some examples of persecuted journalists
U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, working for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested in Russia on March 29 and charged with spying. The authority claimed Gershkovich, who could face up to 20 years in jail if found guilty, was trying to obtain classified defense information for the U.S. government, which he denied.
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In China, reporters reporting on the widespread protests on November 27, 2022 calling for an end to the disastrous zero-Covid policy, faced immediate repression. Numerous reporters were physically assaulted by the police and a number of them were arrested, including BBC’s correspondent Edward Lawrence, Renwu Magazine journalist Wang Xue, Beijing News journalist Yang Liu and freelance journalists Qin Ziyi and Li Siqi. They faced charges from “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” to “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order,” for which one can be sentenced up to life imprisonment.
In March 2021, a journalist who worked for the state-run Global Times named Fan Yiran was detained by the police, who accused her of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. She was critical of the Chinese Communist Party and its policies. Also in March 2021, two Chinese nationals, Haze Fan and Yuke Song, who worked for the Bloomberg news bureau in Beijing were arrested on suspicion of “endangering national security”.
In December 2020, Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist, was sentenced to four years in prison for her coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan. Zhang’s first-hand accounts of the situation in Wuhan were widely shared on social media, drawing international attention to the Chinese government’s handling of the outbreak. Many saw her arrest and sentencing as a clear message to the media and journalists that they should not report critically on the official narrative of the pandemic.
China jails the largest number of journalists in the world
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), China ranks 175th out of 180 in the 2022 RSF World Press Freedom Index and is the world’s largest captor of journalists with at least 113 detained. The continuing arrests of journalists in China represent a serious and egregious violation of press freedom and freedom of expression.
The jailing highlighted the need for international organizations and democratic countries to monitor and denounce China’s treatment of journalists. More often than not, China treats journalism as a crime and journalists as criminals because they are seen as a danger to those in power. By shining a light on government corruption, labor and human rights abuses, and other issues that officials would rather keep hidden, journalists threaten the status quo. Those in power will go to great lengths to silence reporters, using tactics like censorship, harassment, and violence to squash dissent.
As the world becomes increasingly integrated and interconnected, it is essential that we recognize the importance of press freedom and stand up against regimes that seek to suppress it. Journalists report on issues of both global and local importance, and it is crucial to ensure the Chinese government respects the freedom of the press and the important role that journalists play in informing the public and holding officials accountable.
Under international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information. This includes journalists, who must be allowed to do their jobs without fear of reprisals.
The world must protect and defend journalism
Press freedom is a fundamental human right that allows journalists to report the truth, hold governments accountable and provide the public with information necessary to make informed decisions. A free press is also critical to combat disinformation and propaganda. When journalists are free to report on the facts, it is easier for them to identify false or misleading information and debunk myths that might otherwise go unchallenged.
When journalists are silenced, the public suffers. Without access to accurate and reliable information, it becomes impossible to make informed decisions. Citizens cannot hold their elected officials accountable if they do not know what is really happening behind closed doors. In this sense, the persecution of journalists is an attack on democracy itself.
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In March 2021, a journalist who worked for the state-run Global Times named Fan Yiran was detained by the police, who accused her of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”. She was critical of the Chinese Communist Party and its policies. Also in March 2021, two Chinese nationals, Haze Fan and Yuke Song, who worked for the Bloomberg news bureau in Beijing were arrested on suspicion of “endangering national security”.
In December 2020, Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist, was sentenced to four years in prison for her coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan. Zhang’s first-hand accounts of the situation in Wuhan were widely shared on social media, drawing international attention to the Chinese government’s handling of the outbreak. Many saw her arrest and sentencing as a clear message to the media and journalists that they should not report critically on the official narrative of the pandemic.
China jails the largest number of journalists in the world
According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), China ranks 175th out of 180 in the 2022 RSF World Press Freedom Index and is the world’s largest captor of journalists with at least 113 detained. The continuing arrests of journalists in China represent a serious and egregious violation of press freedom and freedom of expression.
The jailing highlighted the need for international organizations and democratic countries to monitor and denounce China’s treatment of journalists. More often than not, China treats journalism as a crime and journalists as criminals because they are seen as a danger to those in power. By shining a light on government corruption, labor and human rights abuses, and other issues that officials would rather keep hidden, journalists threaten the status quo. Those in power will go to great lengths to silence reporters, using tactics like censorship, harassment, and violence to squash dissent.
As the world becomes increasingly integrated and interconnected, it is essential that we recognize the importance of press freedom and stand up against regimes that seek to suppress it. Journalists report on issues of both global and local importance, and it is crucial to ensure the Chinese government respects the freedom of the press and the important role that journalists play in informing the public and holding officials accountable.
Under international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information. This includes journalists, who must be allowed to do their jobs without fear of reprisals.
The world must protect and defend journalism
Press freedom is a fundamental human right that allows journalists to report the truth, hold governments accountable and provide the public with information necessary to make informed decisions. A free press is also critical to combat disinformation and propaganda. When journalists are free to report on the facts, it is easier for them to identify false or misleading information and debunk myths that might otherwise go unchallenged.
When journalists are silenced, the public suffers. Without access to accurate and reliable information, it becomes impossible to make informed decisions. Citizens cannot hold their elected officials accountable if they do not know what is really happening behind closed doors. In this sense, the persecution of journalists is an attack on democracy itself.
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Journalists are often the only lifeline for those who are marginalized or oppressed. They provide a voice for the voiceless, giving a platform to those who might otherwise be ignored or forgotten. By silencing journalists, we silence those who are already struggling to be heard.
The coincidence between the list of countries guilty of violating press freedom and the list of countries targeted by American imperialism for subversion and overthrow was obvious. Biden made no reference, for example, to the murder of Washington Post commentator Jamal Khashoggi, killed and dismembered inside the consulate of Saudi Arabia in the Turkish city of Istanbul.
Khashoggi, an adviser turned critic of the Saudi monarchy, was targeted by the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose security chief sent the hit squad and directed its actions. Biden claimed during the 2020 election campaign that he would turn the Saudi leader into a “pariah.” Instead, in pursuit of greater Saudi oil production, he went cap in hand to Riyadh for talks with the prince/assassin.
But the most obvious case of a double standard was one that involves the Biden administration directly: the persecution of Julian Assange. The WikiLeaks founder and publisher was trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly seven years after he sought political asylum there against a US campaign to seize him and bring him to the United States for prosecution on espionage charges for exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the Guantanamo Bay torture prison.
Since Assange was seized by British police who raided the embassy four years ago, he has been held in solitary confinement in Belmarsh, a high-security prison for terrorists and violent criminals in London, awaiting extradition to the United States, where he would face 175 years in prison if convicted under the Espionage Act. He would be the first journalist prosecuted under the century-old law, passed amid the anti-communist hysteria whipped up as part of US entry into World War I.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of December 1, 2021, there were 265 journalists jailed worldwide on charges related to their work. This number represented a chilling trend of press freedom being threatened globally. The vast majority of jailed journalists are imprisoned in China, Turkey and Egypt where press freedom is severely restricted and journalists are often targeted for their reporting.
Journalists face many dangers while doing their job, including harassment, assault, imprisonment and even death, making it important for the global community to defend press freedom and work for the release of unjustly detained journalists. By supporting journalism, we in fact support the very values and ideals upon which our free and open societies are built upon. We cannot let governments or powerful individuals silence those who seek to make the world a better place.
In short, press freedom is important for democracy, accountability, transparency and human rights. It is a fundamental right that must be defended not just by journalists but by all everyone who enjoys breathing in the air of freedom.
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The coincidence between the list of countries guilty of violating press freedom and the list of countries targeted by American imperialism for subversion and overthrow was obvious. Biden made no reference, for example, to the murder of Washington Post commentator Jamal Khashoggi, killed and dismembered inside the consulate of Saudi Arabia in the Turkish city of Istanbul.
Khashoggi, an adviser turned critic of the Saudi monarchy, was targeted by the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose security chief sent the hit squad and directed its actions. Biden claimed during the 2020 election campaign that he would turn the Saudi leader into a “pariah.” Instead, in pursuit of greater Saudi oil production, he went cap in hand to Riyadh for talks with the prince/assassin.
But the most obvious case of a double standard was one that involves the Biden administration directly: the persecution of Julian Assange. The WikiLeaks founder and publisher was trapped in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly seven years after he sought political asylum there against a US campaign to seize him and bring him to the United States for prosecution on espionage charges for exposing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at the Guantanamo Bay torture prison.
Since Assange was seized by British police who raided the embassy four years ago, he has been held in solitary confinement in Belmarsh, a high-security prison for terrorists and violent criminals in London, awaiting extradition to the United States, where he would face 175 years in prison if convicted under the Espionage Act. He would be the first journalist prosecuted under the century-old law, passed amid the anti-communist hysteria whipped up as part of US entry into World War I.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of December 1, 2021, there were 265 journalists jailed worldwide on charges related to their work. This number represented a chilling trend of press freedom being threatened globally. The vast majority of jailed journalists are imprisoned in China, Turkey and Egypt where press freedom is severely restricted and journalists are often targeted for their reporting.
Journalists face many dangers while doing their job, including harassment, assault, imprisonment and even death, making it important for the global community to defend press freedom and work for the release of unjustly detained journalists. By supporting journalism, we in fact support the very values and ideals upon which our free and open societies are built upon. We cannot let governments or powerful individuals silence those who seek to make the world a better place.
In short, press freedom is important for democracy, accountability, transparency and human rights. It is a fundamental right that must be defended not just by journalists but by all everyone who enjoys breathing in the air of freedom.
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In Nablus alone, 38 Palestinians have been killed by 'Israel' since the start of 2023.
Palestine was destroyed in 12 months - but the Nakba has gone on for 75 years
The Nakba devastated the lives and aspirations of the Palestinian people. Only a thorough process of restitutive justice, with the help of the world, can begin to right the wrongs.
At the beginning of February 1947, the British cabinet decided to end the mandate over Palestine and leave the country after nearly 30 years of rule.
The economic crisis in Britain following the Second World War brought a Labour government to power, which was willing to shrink the empire and cater for the needs of the people of the British Isles. Palestine proved to be a burden and no longer an asset as both the native Palestinians and the Zionist settlers were now fighting against the British mandate and demanding its end.
The die was cast in a cabinet meeting on 1 February 1947 and the fate of Palestine was entrusted to the UN - an inexperienced international organisation back then, already affected by the onset of the cold war between the US and the USSR.
Nonetheless, the two superpowers consented, exceptionally, to allow other member states to offer a solution to what was called “the Palestine question”, without their interference.
The discussion about Palestine’s future was transferred to the UN Special Committee on Palestine (Unscop), made up of member states. This enraged the Palestinians and member states of the Arab League, as they expected post-mandatory Palestine to be treated in the same way any other mandatory state in the region - namely, allowing the people themselves to democratically determine their political future.
Nobody in the Arab world would have agreed to allow European settlers in North Africa to take part in determining the future of the newly independent countries. Similarly, the Palestinians rejected the idea that the settler Zionist movement - consisting mostly of settlers who had arrived just two years before the UN Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA) was appointed in 1949 - would have a say in the future of their homeland.
The Palestinians boycotted Unscop and, as they feared, the committee proposed creating a Jewish state on nearly half of their homeland as part of UN General Assembly resolution 181 passed on 29 November 1947.
The Zionist leadership accepted the partition of Palestine (welcoming the principle of a Jewish state), but had no intention of adhering to it in practice, seeing as half of the population would still be Palestinian, and the space allotted only half of the country coveted by the Zionist movement.
Ethnic cleansing masterplan
Already for more than 30 years, historians have unearthed enough declassified archival material, mainly from Israel, for exposing the Zionist strategy from November 1947 up to the end of 1948. I called the Zionist strategy at the period, in my work, a masterplan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
The passage of time, the exposure of more material, and the ever-growing and crucial Palestinian projects of oral history, only accentuated the adequacy of applying this term to the events called by the Palestinians the Nakba.
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The Nakba devastated the lives and aspirations of the Palestinian people. Only a thorough process of restitutive justice, with the help of the world, can begin to right the wrongs.
At the beginning of February 1947, the British cabinet decided to end the mandate over Palestine and leave the country after nearly 30 years of rule.
The economic crisis in Britain following the Second World War brought a Labour government to power, which was willing to shrink the empire and cater for the needs of the people of the British Isles. Palestine proved to be a burden and no longer an asset as both the native Palestinians and the Zionist settlers were now fighting against the British mandate and demanding its end.
The die was cast in a cabinet meeting on 1 February 1947 and the fate of Palestine was entrusted to the UN - an inexperienced international organisation back then, already affected by the onset of the cold war between the US and the USSR.
Nonetheless, the two superpowers consented, exceptionally, to allow other member states to offer a solution to what was called “the Palestine question”, without their interference.
The discussion about Palestine’s future was transferred to the UN Special Committee on Palestine (Unscop), made up of member states. This enraged the Palestinians and member states of the Arab League, as they expected post-mandatory Palestine to be treated in the same way any other mandatory state in the region - namely, allowing the people themselves to democratically determine their political future.
Nobody in the Arab world would have agreed to allow European settlers in North Africa to take part in determining the future of the newly independent countries. Similarly, the Palestinians rejected the idea that the settler Zionist movement - consisting mostly of settlers who had arrived just two years before the UN Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA) was appointed in 1949 - would have a say in the future of their homeland.
The Palestinians boycotted Unscop and, as they feared, the committee proposed creating a Jewish state on nearly half of their homeland as part of UN General Assembly resolution 181 passed on 29 November 1947.
The Zionist leadership accepted the partition of Palestine (welcoming the principle of a Jewish state), but had no intention of adhering to it in practice, seeing as half of the population would still be Palestinian, and the space allotted only half of the country coveted by the Zionist movement.
Ethnic cleansing masterplan
Already for more than 30 years, historians have unearthed enough declassified archival material, mainly from Israel, for exposing the Zionist strategy from November 1947 up to the end of 1948. I called the Zionist strategy at the period, in my work, a masterplan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
The passage of time, the exposure of more material, and the ever-growing and crucial Palestinian projects of oral history, only accentuated the adequacy of applying this term to the events called by the Palestinians the Nakba.
1 of 4
In recent years, an old definition of Zionism as a settler colonial movement was revived by scholars researching the history of Palestine. This would clearly explain why the Zionist leadership could never have accepted a partitioned Palestine.
Like any other settler colonial movement, it was a movement of Europeans who were outcasts in that continent, and had to make a new life for themselves elsewhere, usually in places already inhabited by other people.
The need to eliminate indigenous people became the hallmark of such movements, leading for instance to the genocide of the Native Americans in North America.
Having as much of the new place with as few natives as possible was already a central theme of the Zionist ideology and movement from its very inception. British rule disabled any significant land takeover (less than six percent of the lands of Palestine were under Zionist ownership by 1948). But on the land that was bought by Zionists, mainly through purchase from the Palestinian elite and absentee landowners living outside of Palestine, the local farmers were ethnically cleansed with the approval of the British authorities.
The Zionist leadership began planning for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in February 1947 and early operations took place already a year later under the noses of the British mandatory authorities.
The Zionist leadership needed to rush through its ethnic cleansing operations against the Palestinians in February 1948, starting with the forceful eviction of three villages on the coast between Jaffa and Haifa. The US and other members of the UN had already begun to doubt the wisdom of a partition plan and searched for alternative solutions. The US State Department proposed a five-year international trusteeship over Palestine in order to give additional time for further negotiations.
Facts on the ground
So, the first thing the Zionist leadership did was to establish facts on the ground even before the official end of the mandate (due on 15 May 1948). That meant cleansing Palestinians from the areas allocated by the UN for the Jewish state as well as taking over as many of the towns of Palestine as possible.
The Palestinians were no military match for the Zionist paramilitary groups. Some Arab volunteers arrived, but could do little to defend the Palestinians from being ethnically cleansed. The Arab world waited until 15 May before sending troops into Palestine.
That the Palestinians were quite defenceless between 29 November 1947 (when the UN partition resolution was adopted) and 15 May 1948 (the day the mandate ended and units from neighbouring Arab states arrived to try and save the Palestinians) is not a mere chronological fact. It categorically debunks the main claim in Israeli propaganda about the war - that Palestinians became refugees because the Arab world invaded Palestine and told them to leave; a myth too many people around the world still accept today.
According to this narrative, had the Arab world refrained from attacking Israel, the Palestinians might have escaped the fate of refugeehood and exile.
Nearly a quarter of a million Palestinians were already refugees before 15 May 1948 and a reluctant Arab world sent its armies to try and save the others.
Almost all Palestinians living in Haifa and Jaffa were forcefully removed from their homes and the towns of Bisan, Safad and Acre were completely depopulated. The villages around them suffered a similar fate. In the area around the western slopes of the Jerusalem mountains, tens of villages were ethnically cleansed, and at times, as unfolded in Deir Yassin on 9 April 1948, the expulsions were accompanied by massacres.
Israel's worst atrocities
The entry of Arab armies - Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon - in May 1948 posed a serious challenge to the new state of Israel.
2 of 4
Like any other settler colonial movement, it was a movement of Europeans who were outcasts in that continent, and had to make a new life for themselves elsewhere, usually in places already inhabited by other people.
The need to eliminate indigenous people became the hallmark of such movements, leading for instance to the genocide of the Native Americans in North America.
Having as much of the new place with as few natives as possible was already a central theme of the Zionist ideology and movement from its very inception. British rule disabled any significant land takeover (less than six percent of the lands of Palestine were under Zionist ownership by 1948). But on the land that was bought by Zionists, mainly through purchase from the Palestinian elite and absentee landowners living outside of Palestine, the local farmers were ethnically cleansed with the approval of the British authorities.
The Zionist leadership began planning for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in February 1947 and early operations took place already a year later under the noses of the British mandatory authorities.
The Zionist leadership needed to rush through its ethnic cleansing operations against the Palestinians in February 1948, starting with the forceful eviction of three villages on the coast between Jaffa and Haifa. The US and other members of the UN had already begun to doubt the wisdom of a partition plan and searched for alternative solutions. The US State Department proposed a five-year international trusteeship over Palestine in order to give additional time for further negotiations.
Facts on the ground
So, the first thing the Zionist leadership did was to establish facts on the ground even before the official end of the mandate (due on 15 May 1948). That meant cleansing Palestinians from the areas allocated by the UN for the Jewish state as well as taking over as many of the towns of Palestine as possible.
The Palestinians were no military match for the Zionist paramilitary groups. Some Arab volunteers arrived, but could do little to defend the Palestinians from being ethnically cleansed. The Arab world waited until 15 May before sending troops into Palestine.
That the Palestinians were quite defenceless between 29 November 1947 (when the UN partition resolution was adopted) and 15 May 1948 (the day the mandate ended and units from neighbouring Arab states arrived to try and save the Palestinians) is not a mere chronological fact. It categorically debunks the main claim in Israeli propaganda about the war - that Palestinians became refugees because the Arab world invaded Palestine and told them to leave; a myth too many people around the world still accept today.
According to this narrative, had the Arab world refrained from attacking Israel, the Palestinians might have escaped the fate of refugeehood and exile.
Nearly a quarter of a million Palestinians were already refugees before 15 May 1948 and a reluctant Arab world sent its armies to try and save the others.
Almost all Palestinians living in Haifa and Jaffa were forcefully removed from their homes and the towns of Bisan, Safad and Acre were completely depopulated. The villages around them suffered a similar fate. In the area around the western slopes of the Jerusalem mountains, tens of villages were ethnically cleansed, and at times, as unfolded in Deir Yassin on 9 April 1948, the expulsions were accompanied by massacres.
Israel's worst atrocities
The entry of Arab armies - Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon - in May 1948 posed a serious challenge to the new state of Israel.
2 of 4
But by that time, the military capacity of the Jewish community had increased considerably (with the help of weapons from the Eastern bloc that were purchased, with Soviet approval, from Czechoslovakia, which possessed a large number of Second World War surplus arms left behind by the German and Russian armies. (Britain and France embargoed arms supplies to all sides concerned at the time.)
As a result, Israeli forces were able to carry out missions on two fronts: first, against the Arab armies; and, second, by continuing its ethnic cleansing operations, targeting mostly areas accorded by the UN partition resolution to the Arab state.
The operation in the Upper Galilee in particular recorded some of the worst atrocities committed by the Israeli army during the Nakba: partly because of the fierce resistance of people who already knew the fate awaiting them under Israeli occupation; and partly due to the fatigue of the occupying forces, who dispensed with any previous inhibitions in the way they treated the civilian population.
The message from the world to Israel was that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was acceptable - as compensation for the Holocaust and the centuries of antisemitism in Europe
In the massacre at al-Dawayima, near Hebron, on 29 October 1948, it is estimated that 455 Palestinians, half of them women and children, were executed by Israeli soldiers.
Two areas of historical Palestine escaped the fate of being ethnically cleansed. The area that became known as the West Bank was taken over almost without a fight by Jordanian and Iraqi forces. This was in part a tacit agreement between Israel and Jordan that in return for this annexation, Jordan would play a minimal military role in the overall Arab effort to salvage Palestine.
Yet, under Israeli pressure after the war, Jordan conceded, during armistice negotiations, part of what was supposed to be its West Bank. This area is called Wadi Ara, connecting the Mediterranean and the Jenin district.
This annexation posed a problem to a settler colonial state such as Israel. Having more territory meant having also more Palestinians in the Jewish state. Thus, smaller ethnic cleansing operations took place, to reduce the number of Palestinians living in Wadi Ara.
This connection between geography and demography led Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, to reject the pressure from his generals to occupy the West Bank (these generals would become the politicians pushing for the takeover of the West Bank in the war of 1967 to compensate for the “mistake” of not occupying it in 1948).
The ongoing Nakba
Israel also left alone another area, which became known as the Gaza Strip. It was an artificial rectangle of land Israel created as a huge receptacle for the hundreds of thousands of refugees it cleansed from the southern parts of Palestine and allowed Egypt to keep it as a military-occupied area.
On the ruins of Palestinian villages, Israel built settlements (quite often using a Hebrew version of the Arabic name - thus Saffuriya became Tzipori and Lubya became Lavi) or planted parks, trying to erase any trace of the culture, life and society it destroyed within nine months in 1948.
Half of Palestine’s population became refugees, and hundreds of villages were demolished and its towns were de-Arabised by the occupying forces.
The Nakba destroyed a country as well as the lives and aspirations of its people. The huge human capital that Palestinian society had developed was, through refugees, invested in other Arab countries, contributing to their cultural, educational and economic development.
The message from the world to Israel was that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which was well known in the West, was acceptable - mainly as compensation for the Holocaust and the centuries of antisemitism that had plagued Europe.
3 of 4
As a result, Israeli forces were able to carry out missions on two fronts: first, against the Arab armies; and, second, by continuing its ethnic cleansing operations, targeting mostly areas accorded by the UN partition resolution to the Arab state.
The operation in the Upper Galilee in particular recorded some of the worst atrocities committed by the Israeli army during the Nakba: partly because of the fierce resistance of people who already knew the fate awaiting them under Israeli occupation; and partly due to the fatigue of the occupying forces, who dispensed with any previous inhibitions in the way they treated the civilian population.
The message from the world to Israel was that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was acceptable - as compensation for the Holocaust and the centuries of antisemitism in Europe
In the massacre at al-Dawayima, near Hebron, on 29 October 1948, it is estimated that 455 Palestinians, half of them women and children, were executed by Israeli soldiers.
Two areas of historical Palestine escaped the fate of being ethnically cleansed. The area that became known as the West Bank was taken over almost without a fight by Jordanian and Iraqi forces. This was in part a tacit agreement between Israel and Jordan that in return for this annexation, Jordan would play a minimal military role in the overall Arab effort to salvage Palestine.
Yet, under Israeli pressure after the war, Jordan conceded, during armistice negotiations, part of what was supposed to be its West Bank. This area is called Wadi Ara, connecting the Mediterranean and the Jenin district.
This annexation posed a problem to a settler colonial state such as Israel. Having more territory meant having also more Palestinians in the Jewish state. Thus, smaller ethnic cleansing operations took place, to reduce the number of Palestinians living in Wadi Ara.
This connection between geography and demography led Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, to reject the pressure from his generals to occupy the West Bank (these generals would become the politicians pushing for the takeover of the West Bank in the war of 1967 to compensate for the “mistake” of not occupying it in 1948).
The ongoing Nakba
Israel also left alone another area, which became known as the Gaza Strip. It was an artificial rectangle of land Israel created as a huge receptacle for the hundreds of thousands of refugees it cleansed from the southern parts of Palestine and allowed Egypt to keep it as a military-occupied area.
On the ruins of Palestinian villages, Israel built settlements (quite often using a Hebrew version of the Arabic name - thus Saffuriya became Tzipori and Lubya became Lavi) or planted parks, trying to erase any trace of the culture, life and society it destroyed within nine months in 1948.
Half of Palestine’s population became refugees, and hundreds of villages were demolished and its towns were de-Arabised by the occupying forces.
The Nakba destroyed a country as well as the lives and aspirations of its people. The huge human capital that Palestinian society had developed was, through refugees, invested in other Arab countries, contributing to their cultural, educational and economic development.
The message from the world to Israel was that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which was well known in the West, was acceptable - mainly as compensation for the Holocaust and the centuries of antisemitism that had plagued Europe.
3 of 4
Hence, Israel continued its ethnic cleansing after 1967, when once more additional occupied space brought it more “undesired” people. This time the ethnic cleansing was incremental, and goes on until today.
Nonetheless, the Palestinians are still there, showing incredible resilience and resistance - alongside the ongoing Nakba, there is an ongoing intifada and, as long Israel does not account for what it had done and is doing, the colonisation will continue, as will the anti-colonialist struggle against it.
The only possible way of rectifying past evils is by respecting the right of return of the Palestinian refugees and the establishment of one state all over historical Palestine based on the principles of democracy, equality and social justice.
This must be built through a process of restitutive justice which compensates the people for their loss of land, careers and life by the new state and with the help of the world.
4 of 4
Nonetheless, the Palestinians are still there, showing incredible resilience and resistance - alongside the ongoing Nakba, there is an ongoing intifada and, as long Israel does not account for what it had done and is doing, the colonisation will continue, as will the anti-colonialist struggle against it.
The only possible way of rectifying past evils is by respecting the right of return of the Palestinian refugees and the establishment of one state all over historical Palestine based on the principles of democracy, equality and social justice.
This must be built through a process of restitutive justice which compensates the people for their loss of land, careers and life by the new state and with the help of the world.
4 of 4