State Violence

The Stunning Beauty And Cruel Reality Of An Occupied Land

February 23, 2022 Miko Peled, Mintpress News. Educate! Israel, Occupation, Palestine, State Violence

Jerusalem - The ruins of the Palestinian village of Sataf sit on the slope of a beautiful hill on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Today the area is a Jewish National Foundation (JNF) park called “Har Eitan,” or Mount Eitan. It is covered in pine trees that were planted by the JNF to hide the Zionist crime of ethnic cleansing, a crime that has been designated as a crime against humanity. In 2021, massive fires broke out on the hills surrounding Jerusalem and countless pines were burned, including the ones around Sataf. There is an 8 kilometer trail that goes around the mountain and people use it to hike and jog and sometimes ride mountain bikes. Parts of this trail are very steep and in some cases these steep parts go on for a good mile. When I am in Jerusalem, Sataf is where I like to run, and the day after my arrival here in mid-February I went on a run.

What The Emergencies Act Reveals About Civilian Policing In Ottawa

February 21, 2022 Martin Schoots-Mcalpine , Canadian Dimension. Educate! Canada, Justin Trudeau, Policing, State Violence

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to deal with the fascist “trucker” convoy has been met with a mix of support, criticism, and confusion. While Trudeau and his government claim that this is necessary to respond to the situation, many of us on the left remain skeptical, having witnessed first-hand the power of police protest control in the absence of the Emergencies Act. So why did the federal government take such a drastic step? First, the border blockades at Coutts in Alberta and the Ambassador Bridge in Ontario were effective enough that they began to hurt sections of big capital. Officials in Michigan used the opportunity to champion Buy-American initiatives. In Windsor, a coalition of auto companies was able to obtain an injunction against the blockade.

Sudanese Barricade Streets As Strike Over Protest Deaths Begins

January 19, 2022 Al Jazeera. Resist! Military coup, State Violence, Sudan

Protesters have erected barricades across roads in Sudan’s capital Khartoum and some shops and offices were shut as a two-day general strike and civil disobedience campaign began in response to demonstrators’ deaths. Neighborhood resistance committees and political parties called the strike starting on Tuesday after seven people were killed in Khartoum on Monday in one of the deadliest days to date in a series of demonstrations against a military takeover on October 25. Protesters are demanding the military, which had been sharing power with civilian groups before the coup, quit politics completely. “It is our duty to resist them until we are victorious or they rule an empty country after they have killed us all,” the Khartoum State resistance committees said in a statement.

Ugandans Escalate Movement Of ‘Radical Rudeness’ Following Violent Arrest Over Mean Tweet

January 14, 2022 Phil Wilmot, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Human Rights, State Violence, Uganda

“Men with guns are breaking my door. They say they’re policemen but are not in uniform. I’ve locked myself inside.” This was the final Facebook post by Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, 2021 winner of the PEN Pinter International Writer of Courage Award, on Dec. 28. Within minutes of his post, Rukirabashaija was abducted by Uganda’s Special Forces Command, a military outfit notorious for torturing nonviolent activists. Rukirabashaija — author of a political allegory novel and an autobiographical book detailing his previous torture — has only surfaced once since his brutal kidnapping. When his lawyer Eron Kiiza summoned Rukirabashaija’s captors to present him in court, they violated the summons and brought their victim to his rural home in Iganga to search his home, much to the terror of his wife and children.

Sudan’s Doctors March To Protest Violence Against Hospitals

January 11, 2022 Mohammed Amin, Middle East Eye. Resist! Doctors, Health Care, State Violence, Sudan

Khartoum - Hundreds of Sudanese doctors and medics marched in Khartoum and other parts of Sudan on Sunday to protest against violence by security forces against the medical staff, healthcare facilities, and patients. Slogans against the military and its October coup were raised and a petition was handed to the United Nations representative in Sudan, calling on the international community to document the violations against the Sudanese people. The doctors’ march comes as neighborhood-based resistance committees, political parties, and other pro-democracy groups carry out an ongoing campaign of protests under a "no negotiation" slogan.

After Largest Anti-Racist Uprising, Historic Trials Provide Important Lessons

January 1, 2022 Natalia Marques, Peoples Dispatch. Educate! Anti-Racism, Legal System, Rebellion2020, State Violence

In the summer of 2020, the people of the United States witnessed the largest anti-racist struggle in the country’s history after a video of the brutal murder of George Floyd by officer Derek Chauvin went viral. While Floyd’s murder was the catalyst, the first year of the pandemic was marked by increased police and vigilante violence. Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot in a botched “citizen’s arrest” by vigilantes and Breonna Taylor, who was shot dead while asleep by police, were among the most egregious cases. In the year 2021, it was the turn of the US government, particularly its judicial system, to respond to the protests of 2020. Historic trials of the killers of unarmed Black people and protestors were set to answer an important question: how would the system respond to the outcry of millions against racist violence?

Sudan Security Forces Fire Tear Gas At Khartoum Protesters

December 1, 2021 Al Jazeera. Resist! Coups, State Violence, Sudan, Wars and Militarism

Sudanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse pro-democracy protesters near the presidential palace in the capital, Khartoum, as tens of thousands marched against military rule following last month’s coup. The rally on Tuesday was the latest show of opposition to military rule since last month’s coup that ended a partnership between civilian political groups and the military. Heavily armed police forces took to central Khartoum, fired tear gas, and began chasing protesters as they gathered about a kilometre from the palace, blocking a main road and chanting “Soldiers, go back to the barracks”. Other protests took place in cities including Port Sudan, Kassala, Nyala and Atbara.

Sudan Coup: The Names And Faces Of The Protesters Killed

November 28, 2021 Chloé Benoist And Frank Andrews, Middle East Eye. Educate! coup, State Violence, Sudan, Wars and Militarism

On 25 October, Sudan's top general, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, declared a state of emergency in the country, ousting the government and detaining the country’s civilian leadership, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok. The military takeover, which upended a two-year transition to civilian rule, was widely denounced by critics as a coup, and sparked a nationwide protest movement that has been violently repressed by armed forces. One month later, the independent Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) has tallied the names of 42 protesters who have been killed between 21 October - one of the first protests against the army’s already clear ambitions to claim power - and Thursday 25 November.

A World Without Police Is More Possible (And Necessary) Than You Think

November 2, 2021 Stephen Janis, The Real News Network. Create! Police, Police Abolition, Public safety, State Violence

Calls to “defund the police” reverberated throughout communities across the US in the summer of 2020, when millions took to the streets to protest a brutal, unchecked, and racist system of police violence and control. Then came the backlash. Since the initial push by activists and protestors to get the public to consider alternatives to endlessly increasing police spending, a forceful chorus has pushed in the opposite direction, demanding more funding for more police who should be given more power over our lives. “Defund the police” has been criticized for being not only a “bad slogan” but a political pipe dream that fails to reckon with the messy realities of maintaining “public safety.” However, as Geo Maher argues in his latest book, A World without Police: How Strong Communities Make Cops Obsolete, America’s policing system is a demonstrably terrible way to keep people and communities safe.

CIA Conspiring To Murder Julian Assange Jeopardise US Prosecution Case

October 4, 2021 Tom Coburg, The Canary. Educate! CIA, Extradition, Julian Assange, State Violence

The US prosecution of Julian Assange has been dealt another blow following revelations that the CIA plotted the kidnap and rendition or murder of the WikiLeaks founder. The revelations also directly implicate Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and secretary of state, and US president Donald Trump. Separately, there’s evidence of how cyber activists foiled a 2012 attempt by British police to break into and enter the Ecuadorian embassy where Assange had sought asylum. In April 2017, Pompeo publicly declared that “WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service”. Arguably, that could be interpreted as an invitation to the CIA and other US agencies to take action against Assange and other WikiLeaks staffers.

New Evidence In Ayotzinapa Disappearance Case

September 30, 2021 Tanya Wadhwa, Peoples Dispatch. Educate! Ayotzinapa 43, Mexico, State Violence

On September 21, five days before the seventh anniversary of the forced disappearance of 43 students of the Rural Teachers’ College in the town of Ayotzinapa, Mexico, the federal authorities revealed new evidence in the case, which contradicted the official version of the truth presented by the previous government. At a press conference, the special prosecutor for the case, Omar Gómez Trejo, and the Undersecretary for Human Rights, Alejandro Encinas Rodríguez, reported that the search for evidence in the La Carnicería ravine located in Cocula town, in the state of Guerrero, had concluded. They reported that in the past two years of investigation in the ravine, located 800 meters from the Cocula garbage dump, around 200 human skeletal remains were discovered in an area of 8,000 square meters.

Denver Refuses To Negotiate, Sweeps Indigenous Encampment

September 18, 2021 Alex Binder, Unicorn Riot. Educate! Denver, Homelessness, Indigenous Activism, State Violence

Denver, CO – Under the hardline stance of Mayor Michael Hancock, Denver continues to sweep unhoused encampments—more than 80 this year alone—ignoring countless requests from unhoused residents and their advocates to stop, and refusing to negotiate any alternatives. Outside the Four Winds American Indian Council building in the Baker neighborhood, that cycle continued when, despite multiple attempts by Four Winds and other advocates to find some common ground and a different solution, the city swept a predominantly Indigenous encampment on August 31. “It’s kind of unfortunate that the Mayor decided that he’s going to say that [the encampment] is unsafe and unclean without even being here, without even visiting and seeing it first-hand and being willing to sit down with our relatives and hear their stories and even break bread with them or anything like that.”

2020 Sets ‘Stark’ Record For Murders Of Environmental Activists

September 16, 2021 The Energy Mix. Educate! Activism, Environment, Murder, State Violence

A record 227 activists working to protect environmental and land rights were murdered in 2020, says the latest in a series of annual reports from Global Witness. “Almost a third of the murders were reportedly linked to resource exploitation—logging, mining, large-scale agribusiness, hydroelectric dams, and other infrastructure,” writes BBC News in its coverage of the research. Global Witness calculated that, since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, an average of four activists have been murdered every week. And “shocking” as that number is, Global Witness says an accelerating crackdown on journalists means the reporting likely falls short of the reality on the ground.

The Movement To De-Cop The Campus

September 8, 2021 Emily Rich, In These Times. Resist! Education, Police, Police Abolition, State Violence

Police abolition has become a national conversation since the George Floyd uprisings. Many university police chiefs are encouraging the misconception, however, that campus police are somehow different from other police forces — despite their long history of racist violence. To take just one example, a campus police officer at the University of California, Los Angeles shot and wounded a Black man he assumed was unhoused in 2003; in 2009, that same officer repeatedly used a Taser on an Iranian American student studying in the library. But police violence is not confined to these dramatic incidents. It appears in the routine, everyday functions of policing. UCLA police logs reveal, for example, that campus police stop and arrest Black and Latino people at higher rates than their white counterparts.

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