ISRAEL has been condemned for mounting a second brutal attack on worshippers at one of Islam’s holiest sites — the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), who were filmed on Tuesday using clubs and stun grenades to attack Palestinian worshippers, returned to the mosque on Wednesday for a repeat of the operation.
Human rights group Amnesty International UK said the second attack on al-Aqsa “illustrates the sheer brutality of Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians.”
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Heba Morayef of Amnesty said: “Once again, the Israeli security forces have shown the world what apartheid looks like.
“These orchestrated attacks demonstrate just how far the Israeli authorities will go to maintain their cruel system of apartheid.
“Israeli security forces have now subjected Palestinian worshippers to two consecutive nights of horror and turned one of the holiest sites in Islam into a crime scene.
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Category: human rights violations
Israeli violence at al-Aqsa mosque shows ‘sheer brutality’ of apartheid, says Amnesty International UK
Reporters Without Borders denied access to visit Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison
Earlier today Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF’s) Secretary-General Christophe Deloire and Director of Operations and Campaigns Rebecca Vincent arrived to visit Julian Assange inside Belmarsh prison but were denied access at the last minute.
RSF’s representatives had been granted permission to visit Assange before the four-year anniversary of his imprisonment in Belmarsh, where he has been held since 11 April 2019.
Christophe Deloire, RSF Secretary-General, said: “We are deeply disappointed by the arbitrary decision of the Belmarsh Prison Governor to prevent us from visiting Julian Assange, despite following all relevant prison procedures and rules. Julian Assange has the right to receive visitors in prison, and we are legitimate to visit him as a press freedom NGO. We call for an urgent reversal of this decision and to be allowed visitation access without further delay.”
Rebecca Vincent, RSF Director of Operations, said: “This is the latest in a long series of ludicrous obstacles that we have faced over the past three years in campaigning for the release of Julian Assange. At every level, British authorities have defaulted to secrecy and exclusion rather than allowing normal engagement around this case – from refusing to accept RSF petitions, to making it nearly impossible to access court, and now this. What do they have to hide? Regardless, we continue our campaign to #FreeAssange.“WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson commented on the news: “A press freedom NGO barred from visiting a political prisoner and a journalist (after visit had previously been confirmed). This is not Russia, China or North Korea but the United Kingdom. Remember this next time the UK Government tries to lecture you on lack of press freedom elsewhere.”
Civicus rates UK civil liberties and democracy alongside Serbia, Kyrgyzstan, Hungary and Burkina Faso in annual survey, amid government’s war on civil rights – but there will be no improvement under a Starmer government
Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-Commercial use.
The map of Civicus-rated countries The UK’s democracy and civil life have been downgraded to ‘obstructed’ in the Civicus annual survey of almost two hundred countries, because of the Tories’ assault on rights of protest and strike. ‘Obstructed’ is just one level above the ‘repressed’ status of countries such as Kazakhstan, Guatemala or Jordan and puts the UK on a par with countries like Burkina Faso, Hungary and Kyrgyzstan.
In fact, the UK’s rating should arguably be worse, as the Civicus index does not appear to take into account the importance of functional political media to hold governments to account and the UK’s media structure is fundamentally broken, with most media acting as Establishment mouthpieces, apologists and cheerleaders on many issues, keeping the public in the dark and suppressing unrest.
Tragically for the people of this country, the situation is likely to get worse rather than better. ‘Opposition’ leader Keir Starmer, a ‘long-time servant of the security state’ has amply demonstrated that is fully on board with the government’s attacks on democratic and civil rights and on proper journalism.
Since the assault on Corbyn’s Labour succeeded, the UK continues to slide into fascism.
Original article republished from the Skwawkbox for non-Commercial use.
Saluting Gary Lineker: challenge state racism. Don’t conform to it
THE BBC has reportedly rebuked Gary Lineker for describing the government’s anti-refugee rhetoric as “language not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s.”
The famous footballer and presenter’s tweet has enraged Tory MPs, some of whom have called for him to be sacked. But he is not the first to have called out the grim historical precedent.
It was child Holocaust survivor Joan Salter who confronted Home Secretary Suella Braverman earlier this year, pointing to exactly the same parallels between Nazi demonisation of Jews and the language she uses when attacking refugees.
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This Tory administration is extremist. Braverman admits she thinks it more likely than not her plans breach the European Convention on Human Rights, which we as a country are obliged to respect: she doesn’t care.
But the countering voice for a more compassionate, principled approach is absent from Westminster. Labour scaremongers over boat crossings as well to claim the Tories have lost control.
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Environmental activists block entrance to Norway’s energy ministry
Greta Thunberg (right) joins the campaigners from Nature and Youth and Norwegian Samirs Riksforbund Nuorat who are blocking the entrances to the Ministry of Oil and Energy in Oslo Monday morning, February 27, 2023 DOZENS of environmental activists blocked the entrance to Norway’s energy ministry in Oslo on Monday.
The activists, including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, were protesting against a wind farm they say hinders the rights of the Sami Indigenous people to raise reindeer in Arctic Norway.
The activists lay outside the ministry entrance holding Sami flags and a poster reading “Land Back.” The Sami live in Lapland, which stretches from northern parts of Norway through Sweden and Finland to Russia.
The protesters, from organisations Young Friends of the Earth Norway and the Norwegian Sami Association’s youth council NSR-Nuorat, said “the ongoing human rights violations against Sami reindeer herders must come to an end.”
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