Carollers sing ‘Away in a Police Car’ outside Home Office and demand repeal of anti-protest laws
“AWAY in a police car” echoed outside the Home Office on Wednesday as campaigners belted out renditions of Christmas carols, calling for the government to repeal draconian anti-protest laws.
Dressed in Christmas jumpers and Santa hats, carollers from Amnesty International UK, Greenpeace and Liberty sang festive songs including The Twelve Days of Protest and Silent Protest.
They then handed in a petition to the Home Office, calling on it to scrap protest restrictions introduced by previous governments, alongside a letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper demanding an urgent meeting to discuss the state of protest rights in Britain.
A series of repressive laws have made the right to protest increasingly hard to exercise.
They include the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which allows police to ban or restrict “unacceptable” protests, and the Public Order Act 2023 which criminalised protesters “locking on” and fastening themselves to each other or objects.
Punitive jail terms handed out since their enactment include one Just Stop Oil protester being sentenced to six months for slow marching on a road for 30 minutes, while five others from the group received a combined 21 years for co-ordinating a non-violent action over Zoom.
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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/carollers-sing-away-police-car-outside-home-office-and-demand-repeal-anti-protest-laws
In Wake of UN Climate Summit, Azerbaijan Targets Independent Journalists
Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
(Photo by TOFIK BABAYEV/AFP via Getty Images)
“Azerbaijan’s international partners should take note and urge the authorities to end the crackdown,” said a major human rights group.
Mere weeks after thousands of delegates descended on Baku, Azerbaijan for the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, authorities in the country arrested multiple independent journalists on charges that one prominent human rights group called “bogus.”
On December 6, police arrested six employees with the independent media organization Meydan TV: Ramin Deko (Jabrailzade), Aynur Elgunesh (Ganbarova), Aysel Umudova, Aytaj Tapdig (Ahmadova), Khayala Agayeva, and Natig Javadli on suspicion of smuggling, according to a statement from Meydan TV. Another media worker, Ulvi Tahirov, was also arrested that day. All seven have been given four months pretrial detention, according to Human Rights Watch.
In a statement released December 6, Meydan TV—which is headquartered in Berlin—said that “since the day we started our activities over a decade ago, our brave journalists have been arrested, and they and their families have been subjected to persecution. Journalists who cooperate with us have been illegally banned from leaving the country, and have been surveilled by Pegasus spyware, among other forms of pressure.” Meydan TV has also called the charges “unfounded” and the detention of its journalists “illegal.”
Since launching in 2013, Meydan TV has become one of the most important sources of independent news in Azerbaijan, broadcasting interviews with opposition politicians and publishing investigative reporting, according to the Eurasianet, an outlet that covers South Caucasus and Central Asia.
As part of its coverage of COP29, Meydan TV addressed the scrutiny that the Azerbaijani government has engendered for its human rights record.
Members of the Azerbaijani media were also arrested last year. Reporters with Abzas Media, Toplum TV, and Kanal 13 were arrested in 2023 and remain in pretrial custody, and like those targeted in this most recent wave of arrests they face smuggling charges, according to Human Rights Watch.
“Having created a network of laws and regulations in Azerbaijan designed to make it virtually impossible for journalists and activists carrying out legitimate work in full compliance, the government then invokes such bogus charges as politically convenient to silence critics,” wrote Arzu Geybulla, a research assistant with Human Rights Watch.
Geybulla added: “Azerbaijan’s international partners should take note and urge the authorities to end the crackdown, including releasing all those arbitrarily detailed, and dropping all politically motivated prosecutions.”
Another rights group, Reporters Without Borders, urged the Azerbaijani government to release these journalists, as well as others that have been “arbitrarily detained.”
Jeanne Cavelier, head of Reporters Without Borders’ Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, said that “barely a month after Ilham Aliyev’s regime used the glitz of COP29 to polish its international image, it has resumed its relentless repression of journalists.”
Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
- COP29 Host Deal Revealed Amid Azerbaijan’s ‘Vicious Crackdown’ on Critics
- Azerbaijan Police Detain Dozens of Protesters on Day of Activist’s Trial
- Stand Up for Human Rights in Azerbaijan, at COP29 and Beyond
- Azerbaijan arrests 13th journalist over alleged international donor …
- New Wave of Arrests Targets Journalists and Activists in Azerbaijan …
- Azerbaijan: Release Arrested Journalists – Amnesty International
Government forced to review ‘legally untenable’ F-35 exports
This article was originally posted 6/12/24 but was deleted, probably my mistake.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-forced-review-legally-untenable-f-35-exports
THE government has been forced to review its decision to export F-35 fighter jet components to Israel, legal groups announced today.
Global Legal Action Network (Glan) and Al-Haq wrote to the government last month, threatening to file an emergency injunction over its failure to revoke licences for all arms to the country as it continues its genocide in Gaza.
Labour eventually moved to suspend just 30 out of 350 arms exports in September, but components for F-35s, which have dropped 2,000lb bombs on Gaza, were exempt.
In the High Court last month, the government admitted that there was a “clear risk” that the components could be used by Israel to violate international humanitarian law.
But it continued to export them anyway after Defence Secretary John Healey warned that it would disrupt the global supply programme they are part of and “undermine US confidence in the UK.”
Glan and Al-Haq said that they have now been notified that the government is reconsidering its decision.
Glan lawyer Dearbhla Minogue said: “The position they took is, in our estimation, legally untenable and we hope they will finally do the only reasonable thing — stop the transfer of any British weapons for use by Israel against Palestinians.”
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Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/government-forced-review-legally-untenable-f-35-exports
‘Unhinged’ Trump Vows ‘There Will Be All Hell to Pay’ If Hostages Not Released
Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“Someone tell Trump that Israel already unleashed hell on Gaza, and hostages were not released.”
In an early signal of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy plans for when he returns to office next month, the Republican said Monday “there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East” if Hamas does not release hostages taken from Israel, the occupying military force in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Trump demanded hostages seized during the October 7 attack of last year be released or his promised retribution would follow. Nearly 45,000 Palestinians have already been killed—mostly civilian men, women, and children—since Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Gaza in the wake of the Hamas-led operation.
Of the 251 people taken captive last year, 63 are believed to be still alive in Gaza, according toThe Washington Post‘s tracker, which was updated last week. So far, 117 others have been freed or rescued and 71 have been confirmed killed.
After dining with Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israel’s prime minister, at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida Sunday night, the U.S. president-elect made his threat about the hostages on his Truth Social platform Monday afternoon.
“Everybody is talking about the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely, and against the will of the entire World, in the Middle East,” Trump wrote. “But it’s all talk, and no action! Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity.”
“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America,” Trump added. “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”
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Stephen Pollard, editor-at-large The Jewish Chronicle, responded that “this is the message the president of the USA should have sent on October 8, 2023.”
Noting Pollard’s comments, Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at the U.K.-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: “Genuinely interested to know what Stephen thinks the U.S. could have supported Israel to do in Gaza beyond what it currently has. Nukes?”
“This statement is unhinged—’there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East,'” Talbot added.
Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, said, “Someone tell Trump that Israel already unleashed hell on Gaza, and hostages were not released.”
Drop Site News highlighted that “Trump’s statement—which follows a video released over the weekend by Hamas’ armed wing featuring U.S.-Israeli captive Edan Alexander and explicitly addressing Trump—does not acknowledge that Netanyahu has repeatedly sabotaged cease-fire deals that could have freed Israeli hostages. It also appears timed to position himself to claim credit for any progress in cease-fire talks, as negotiations between Hamas and Egyptian mediators are already underway.”
As the American Jewish outlet Forward reported Monday:
The White House is attempting a final push to get… a deal done. President Joe Biden said last week that the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon had created an opportunity to reignite stalled negotiations for a similar deal in Gaza. “We will use every day we have in office to try to generate as much progress towards that end as possible,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said Sunday morning on ABC‘s “This Week.”
Given the failed efforts in the past, the families of the American hostages are hoping Trump could leverage his popularity in Israel and his relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take immediate action during the transition period. “Trump must not wait until he is inaugurated to help reach a deal that secures the freedom for Edan, six other Americans, and the rest of the hostages,” Adi and Yael Alexander, the parents of Edan, said on Saturday.
Despite an abundance of evidence showing how Israel is using U.S. weapons to slaughter civilians in Gaza and severely restricting the flow of humanitarian aid while claiming to target Hamas, Biden and Congress have refused to cut off arms to Netanyahu’s government. In fact, just hours after the cease-fire between the Israeli government and Hezbollah took effect—a deal that Israel has since violated approximately 100 times—the Financial Times reported last week that “Biden has provisionally approved a $680 million weapons sale to Israel.”
Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).