human rights

The UK’s social security system falls way below international human rights standards: new report

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Koldo Casla, University of Essex

The right to social security is enshrined in several international agreements on human rights. But the UK’s system – even before the disability benefits cuts announced earlier this year – falls way below these standards.

For a new report published today, Amnesty International asked my colleague Lyle Barker and me to review the evidence about the state of the UK’s social security in relation to international human rights law.

The UK has signed and ratified a number of international agreements on human rights. One of these is the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which lays out the right to social security. An accompanying document defines the three key principles of this right as:

  • Availability A social security system established in law, administered publicly, and materially reachable by those who need it.
  • Adequacy Benefits must be suitable, both in amount and in duration, to realise essential socioeconomic rights.
  • Accessibility Everyone should be covered by the social security system, paying particular attention to disadvantaged and marginalised individuals and groups.

The conclusion of our study for Amnesty International is crystal clear: even disregarding the cuts announced in March, the UK’s social security system does not meet these standards.

Availability

Our review of the literature shows a widespread underclaiming of benefits. It has been estimated that in 2024, £22.7 billion in income-related benefits went unclaimed, a £4 billion increase from the previous year.

Gaps in official data hinder a clear understanding of why many people are missing out on the support they are entitled to. But qualitative evidence suggests this is largely due to fear, stigma, bureaucratic and digital hurdles, and eligibility cliff edges for means-tested benefits.

In recent years, the UK government has adopted a contentious and punitive stance toward benefit recipients. Media and political rhetoric have portrayed those who claim benefits as idle or undeserving scroungers.

This stigma harms the mental health and self-esteem of people experiencing poverty. It can result in shame and secrecy, and create barriers to people accessing support they are entitled to.

Our research for Amnesty International concludes that UK claimants do not get enough information and support about their rights to benefits. Combined with the stigma of claiming, the UK is falling far short of making benefits “available” in line with international standards.

Adequacy

Since the austerity policies of the 2010s, the UK’s social security system has become significantly less adequate in supporting vulnerable people and families. The basic rate of universal credit (the main benefit for working-age people on a low income) is at 40-year low in real terms amid a cost of living crisis.

Restrictive policies, such as the benefit cap (introduced in 2013 to set a maximum limit to the total benefits received by a household) and the two-child limit have curtailed access to essential benefits. Although inflation adjustments in the last two years provided some relief, many benefits still fail to keep up with rising living costs.

The two-child limit is the cruellest expression of the inadequacy of the UK’s social security system. Introduced by the Conservative government in 2017, the two-child limit restricts financial support through universal credit to two children. It is likely to be the most significant single cause of child poverty in the UK, including in families where adults work but do not earn enough to make ends meet.

When Labour returned to power, there was much speculation about whether they would reverse the two-child limit. But despite pleas from experts and people with direct experience, the government has persisted in retaining it.

Accessibility

Our study lays out the many barriers to accessibility in the UK’s system. For example, the bureaucratic hurdles in the assessment process, and the disproportionate impact of punitive sanctions on lone mothers and on minority ethnic claimants.

The UK operates a benefits sanction regime, which imposes penalties on claimants who fail to meet certain conditions. These include attending jobcentre appointments or accepting job offers. In general, sanctions and the fear of sanctions erode the trust between benefit claimants and the social security system.

An adult holding a child's hand walk past a jobcentre
Benefits sanctions are just one of the barriers to accessing social security. 1000words/Shutterstock

As it did in its previous review in 2016, in February the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommended that the UK review the use of benefit sanctions to ensure they are used proportionately and are subject to prompt and independent dispute resolution mechanisms.

Another accessibility concern is the shift to a digital-by-default system in the 2010s. While intended to make accessing benefits more efficient, it has become an administrative barrier.

Many people, particularly the elderly and others who are less digitally literate, struggle to navigate the benefits system. It excludes people without reliable internet access, underscoring a digital divide that prevents meaningful access to social security.

Meeting standards

Given the evidence, it is no surprise that earlier this year, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights urged the UK government to assess the cumulative effects of the austerity measures introduced in the 2010s.

In particular, the committee recommended reversing the two-child limit, the benefit cap and the five-week delay for the first universal credit payment, and increasing the budget allocated to social security. These recommendations were made before the changes announced in the spring statement.

To live up to the internationally recognised right to social security, the UK should recognise in law, policy and practice that social security is a human right. And, that it is essential to the fulfilment of other human rights.

Amnesty International recommends the government set up a commission with statutory powers, to produce a strategy for “wholesale reform” of the social security system. The UK must establish a minimum support level and an essentials guarantee, to ensure beneficiaries can consistently meet their basic needs. A good way to start would be abolishing the two-child limit once and for all.

Koldo Casla, Senior Lecturer, Essex Law School, University of Essex

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
Continue ReadingThe UK’s social security system falls way below international human rights standards: new report

Pope Francis: A Humble Advocate for Sharing the World’s Resources

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Original article by Adam Parsons republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Pope Francis greeting people in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City in 2014. (Photo: Alfredo Borba/Creative Commons)

Again and again, Pope Francis railed against our collective indifference to widespread suffering and urged humanity, especially world leaders, to do better. It’s not too late to heed his call.

Like millions of other people, I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Pope Francis, one of the most vocal and humble advocates for sharing the world’s resources.

Since assuming the throne of St Peter in 2013, the Pope championed many causes that are dear to progressive activists—from agroecology to post-growth economics, fossil fuel divestment, arms trade regulation and global monetary reform.

But at the heart of his advocacy was a focus on ending inequality both globally and on a national basis, repeatedly calling upon governments to redistribute wealth and benefits to the poor in a new spirit of generosity.

I first recall being struck by Pope Francis’ headline-grabbing speech in 2014, when he urged the United Nations to promote a ‘worldwide ethical mobilization’ of solidarity with the poor to help curb an ‘economy of exclusion’ that is taking hold everywhere today.

A year later in 2015, the papal encyclical Laudato Si’—subtitled ‘On care for our common home’—made bigger headlines around the world with its powerful critique of laissez-faire ideology and its destructive effects on the environment. The trenchant letter expounded on the responsibility of rich countries to address their ‘ecological debt’ to less developed countries, with an acknowledgement of ‘differentiated responsibilities’ in addressing climate change. It was a radical entreaty for resource transfers between the Global North and South, and significant reductions in the consumption of non-renewable energy within developed countries.

The eloquent discourse of Laudato Si’ also reflected the core understanding of many environmental activists—that the climate and inequality crises are inextricably interconnected. Again and again, Pope Francis railed against our collective indifference to widespread human suffering. He persistently argued that the welfare of nations is interrelated, so the massive poverty and hunger experienced in the fragile economies of developing nations is, in turn, reflected in the destruction of the natural environment. Hence the urgency of remediating the enormous discrepancies in living standards throughout the world, which calls for a sense of global solidarity and interdependency that is tragically lacking in human affairs.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Francis also set out the challenge for rich nations to cooperate and distribute the vaccine freely to the world, rather than hoarding resources and treating one’s own nation first. The 2020 encyclical titled Fratelli tutti—‘Brother’s all’—made clear that Covid-19 was exposing existing inequalities, and fraternity on a state level requires richer countries to help poorer ones if we are to give meaning to the equality of human rights. Clearly, the world failed to heed Pope Francis’ plea to ensure recovery from the crisis tackled poverty, inequality and the climate emergency by ‘sharing resources in a just and respectable manner’.

Another theme that Francis constantly returned to was the need for cancelling the debts of countries unable to repay them. In his final papal bull for the Jubilee Year 2025, titled Spes non confundit—‘Hope does not disappoint’—he described debt forgiveness as a matter of justice more than generosity, and again decried the true ecological debt that exists between the Global North and South.

Francis was rightly known as the ‘Pope of the peripheries,’ standing up for the most vulnerable and marginalized peoples. He made clear his opposition to Western government policies of battening down the hatches and draconian responses to international migrants. Soon after taking office, Francis visited the Italian island of Lampedusa where he condemned European ‘indifference’ to the drowning of migrants crossing the Mediterranean in small boats. He later visited numerous camps for excluded migrants and refugees living ‘ghost lives in limbo,’ calling upon us to see Christ in the stranger and outsider. This was a sharp rebuke to reactionary politicians like Trump, Meloni, and Orbán, instead emphasizing the need for ‘universal fraternity’ as influenced by St. Francis of Assisi, after whom the Pope took his name.

It was a fitting testament to Francis’ advocacy for the poor and forgotten that he died hours after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In his annual Urbi et Orbi —‘To the City and World’—message on Easter Sunday, the day before he died, Francis repeated his appeal to the warring parties to “come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace.” Few politicians, it seems, have followed the Pope’s counsel throughout his 12-year-long pontificate. Which now leaves it up to us, the ordinary people of goodwill, to uphold Francis’ tireless advocacy and hope for a better world.

Original article by Adam Parsons republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingPope Francis: A Humble Advocate for Sharing the World’s Resources

US official visits mega-prison in El Salvador, repeats accusation that deported migrants are “criminals”, “terrorists”

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Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

US Secretary of Homeland Security tours CECOT mega-prison, and signs a new security cooperation agreement between San Salvador and Washington.

Last Wednesday, March 26, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, traveled to El Salvador to visit the mega-prison called Confinement Center for Terrorism (CECOT), where the Salvadoran government has detained hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported by the United States.

On X, the US Embassy in El Salvador explained that during her visit, “Secretary Noem will address cooperation between the two countries in the fight against illegal migration, reinforcing joint efforts to strengthen border security and ensure a safer region.”

Noem strengthens US-El Salvador alliance on mass deportations

In a clear gesture of support for the Bukele administration, Noem met with the Salvadoran President to strengthen the crackdown on immigration that the Trump administration has initiated since he took office on January 20, 2025. According to the US Embassy in El Salvador, the meeting formalized “bilateral cooperation on security and migration. During the meeting, Secretary Noem thanked the President for El Salvador’s commitment to the fight against illegal migration.”

For his part, El Salvador’s Secretary of Security, Gustavo Villatoro explained that during Noem’s visit, “We toured CECOT, the largest maximum-security prison in the Americas. In addition, we signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to update the Security Alliance for Fugitive Enforcement (SAFE) between our countries. With this agreement, we will have a more streamlined exchange of information and criminal records on fugitives, so that these criminals are not inadvertently released or remain unnoticed in the communities. This will undoubtedly be an enriching experience to share our security achievements and strengthen our strategies to combat transnational organized crime and terrorism.”

Noem’s prison video sparks controversy over US policy and human rights

One of the most controversial moments of the visit was disseminated by Secretary Noem herself, who recorded a video inside the CECOT mega-prison, in front of a cell holding dozens of shirtless inmates posing in silence.

“I want to thank El Salvador and their President for the partnership with the US to bring the terrorists here, and to incarcerate them and to have consequences for the violence they have perpetuated in our communities.” But most seriously, she warned in a threatening tone, that if anyone dared to enter the United States illegally, “this is one of the consequences you can face… [CECOT] is one of the facilities that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people”.

Despite Noem repeating that the detained men are “terrorists” and “criminals”, none of the 238 migrants who were irregularly deported from the US to El Salvador were granted a trial – a constitutional right – meaning they have not been proven guilty of anything. In fact, family members of many of those deported have shared that their relatives’ only crime was being a poor migrant with tattoos.

Read more: Venezuelan families demand justice for their relatives deported to El Salvador

The agreement to receive deported migrants and lock them up was signed between the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. 

According to official information leaked by AP, El Salvador will receive around USD 20,000 per year for each person the US government sends to the Central American country.

Venezuela continues to demand the immediate and safe return of its citizens from El Salvador, and has received several deportation flights this past week.

Trump doubles down on deportations and detainment 

For now, Trump shows no signs of abandoning his immigration policy, including the deportation of migrants to El Salvador. Despite the objections of several human rights organizations and the Venezuelan government, Trump has ordered a blackout on information regarding deportation operations to the Central American country. Everything related to the flights of Venezuelans to El Salvador has been declared a “State Secret” by the US president. 

Meanwhile, hundreds of Venezuelan families, along with the Maduro government, continue to demand the release and repatriation of their compatriots to Venezuela.

Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

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Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue ReadingUS official visits mega-prison in El Salvador, repeats accusation that deported migrants are “criminals”, “terrorists”

Hundreds killed in the “deadliest single bombing” of the war in Sudan

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Original article by Pavan Kulkarni republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

The market is near the city of El-Fasher, which is controlled by the army. Photo: Darfur Network for Human Rights

The airstrike on one of the last major markets left with stocks in the North Darfur will likely accelerate the famine spreading in the state since last August.

An airstrike by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) on a busy market in the North Darfur state killed hundreds on March 24, in what has been described as the “deadliest single bombing since the beginning of the war” in April 2023. 

Initial reports indicated about 60 deaths, but the death count has now “exceeded 350, with hundreds more injured and missing”, Adam Rojal, spokesperson of the General Coordination of Darfur Displaced People and Refugees told Peoples Dispatch. The SAF, he alleged, had deliberately chosen the weekly market day to inflict maximum damage.

“My Office has learned that 13 of those killed belonged to a single family, and that some of the injured are also reportedly dying as a result of the extremely limited access to healthcare,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement on March 26.

“The market was bustling with life, mothers carrying their children, elderly men selling vegetables, and people going about their daily business. Then, without warning, we heard the deafening roar of a plane overhead. Within seconds, everything went dark. The air was thick with dust and the cries of the wounded. Bodies lay scattered across the ground,” 37-year-old Aisha, a survivor with injuries to an arm and leg, told the Darfur Network for Human Rights. “We are not fighters. We are just ordinary people struggling to live. Why are they bombing us?”

The market is located in the village of Tora, about 35 km north of the state capital El-Fasher, the last SAF foothold in the Darfur region. Its former ruling partner in the military junta turned enemy, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – which has taken over the other four states in the Darfur region – has besieged El-Fasher since mid-last year, cutting off the supply routes for food aid and causing a famine.

The famine is spreading to increasing regions of the state as both the warring parties, in an attempt to undermine the other’s position, have been indiscriminately bombing civilian spaces, including in markets – the SAF from the air and the RSF with artillery. Those markets spared of bombing, have largely run out of stock.

Tora had the only major market left with supplies for the people in and around El-Fasher to buy food and other essentials, Rojal said. On March 24, thousands had journeyed from different areas of the state to this weekly Monday market to stock up ahead of the ending of Ramadan, when an SAF warplane dropped a barrel bomb.

Pictures of the aftermath show charred bodies lying in the smoldering debris of the stalls in this market. 

Two million already suffering extreme food insecurity in the state 

The destruction of the last major market in the state is bound to worsen hunger and hasten the spread of famine in North Darfur, where two million people are already facing extreme food insecurity. 

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on March 26 that over 457,000 children in the state are suffering acute malnourishment. Almost 146,000 of them are in the deadly stage of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). 

IDP camps worst affected by famine

The worst affected are the camps for Internally Displaced People (IDP). Hundreds of thousands displaced during the Darfur Civil War in the 2000s when the SAF and the RSF’s precursor, the Janjaweed militias, committed mass atrocities together, were already living here in precarious conditions, dependent on food aid even before this war began in 2023. 

Displacing 12 million more, this war has caused the world’s worst displacement crisis. In North Darfur alone, almost 1.7 million people have been displaced, including 60,000 in the last six weeks. Increasing numbers of the newly displaced have sought shelter in Zamzam, one of Sudan’s largest and oldest IDP camps, located on the outskirts of El Fasher. 

Its population doubled from 350,000 before this war to up to 800,000, increasing pressure on the limited food availability. Cut-off from supply after the RSF’s siege of El-Fasher last year, a famine was declared here in August 2024.      

Read: Besieged and bombed amid famine, hundreds of thousands of IDPs struggle to survive in Darfur 

Since then, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) has only been able to transport one convoy of aid to the camp amid the fighting. Late last month, the WFP complained that it was forced to halt “the distribution of life-saving food and nutrition assistance” because the “escalating violence left WFP’s partners with no choice but to evacuate staff for safety.

Over four weeks have passed since its Regional Director for Eastern Africa and acting Country Director for Sudan, Laurent Bukera, warned that “without immediate assistance, thousands of desperate families in Zamzam could starve in the coming weeks.” Nearly half a million more IDPs are also on the brink in the Abu Shouk camp, where famine was declared last December, along with El Salam camp in the state.

By May, the UN projects that five more areas in North Darfur, including the state capital El Fasher, may be in the throes of famine.  

Read: RSF shelling kills dozens in famine-stricken Abu Shouk Camp amid siege of North Darfur 

Water shortages worsen the plight of the starving

Water shortages have also become life-threatening, especially in Zamzam and Abu Shouk, added Rojal. “There are no means of transporting water from distant locations, nor are there spare parts and fuel to operate boilers” to purify the available water for drinking.  

“Women and children stand in line from 4 am to 3 pm waiting for their turn to collect whatever little water there is,” he added. Unable to bathe and wash their clothes and cooking pots, many are becoming increasingly vulnerable to diseases, which are life-threatening when victims are already suffering malnutrition. 

“We must resume the delivery of life-saving aid,” emphasized Bukera. “For that, the fighting must stop, and humanitarian organizations must be granted security guarantees.”

No end in sight after nearly two years of war

However, there are few signs of the guns stopping anytime soon. Earlier, following 48 hours of fighting on March 20 and 21, the RSF captured the town of Al-Malha, killing dozens of civilians and displacing another 15,000 households.

200 km to the northeast of El-Fasher, Al-Malha is the northernmost urban area before the desert stretching to Libya, from where Khalifa Haftar has been reportedly supplying the RSF with arms and fuel. The capture of this town therefore reinforces the RSF’s strategic advantage against the SAF in North Darfur.

The SAF, on the other hand, has also scored an important victory, retaking Sudan’s capital Khartoum on March 26, expelling the RSF after intense battles.

“Both sides are killing citizens because they were essentially one entity, killing citizens together. They are devoid of morality and humanity,” laments Rojal.

Original article by Pavan Kulkarni republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingHundreds killed in the “deadliest single bombing” of the war in Sudan

Venezuela demands the immediate repatriation of migrants detained in El Salvador

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Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Venezuelans rally against deportations. Photo: Francisco Trias

The Venezuelan government has promised that it will “fight until it frees all its compatriots” who have been imprisoned and deported without evidence thanks to an 18th-century US law.

Thousands of Venezuelans rallied in Caracas on Tuesday, March 18, to protest the deportation of Venezuelan migrants from the United States to a high security prison in El Salvador. Family members of the deported migrants addressed Venezuelan officials and fellow citizens to demand the immediate return of their loved ones, with many insisting that their relatives are not criminals or members of the infamous Tren de Aragua as Donald Trump claims.

The mobilization occurred days after the deportation of over 200 migrants to El Salvador in one of the most controversial acts by the administration of Donald Trump during his two months in office. In January, shortly after Trump’s swearing in, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele had offered up his country’s prisons to take in deported migrants or even the US’ national incarcerated population. It appears that this discussion advanced, and El Salvador, like several other countries in the region, will now provide detention centers for deported migrants, with no clarity of the criteria for who gets sent, how long they stay there, and under what jurisdiction they are. According to the US government, the Venezuelan migrants deported on Saturday all belong to the criminal group called Tren de Aragua (Aragua Train).

The Trump administration has yet to show evidence to back up its accusation.

“It is a massive violation of human rights,” says the Venezuelan government.

For its part, the Venezuelan government has condemned the US-Salvadoran decision as a violation of human rights. Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, said in a press conference, “How do the Dantesque images we saw [of the deported Venezuelan migrants] differ from those of the Warsaw ghetto? How does Mr. Bukele’s barbarity when he said that he had bought slave labor differ from the memory of forced labor in the concentration camps of Auschwitz?”

In this sense, the Venezuelan government informed the families of the detainees that it would do everything possible to repatriate the migrants that were deported and now are being indefinitely held in a high security prison in El Salvador with no due process.

Read more: Trump defies courts and deports 250 Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador

In addition, the Secretary of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello questioned the Trump administration’s assertion that the Venezuelans who were deported were part of the “Tren de Aragua” criminal gang. In this regard, Cabello said, “It is a lie that those [deported] to El Salvador are from the Tren de Aragua.”

Maduro accuses Bukele of exercising fascist tactics against Venezuelan migrants

For his part, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro publicly rebuked Bukele for the treatment Venezuelans have received in El Salvador, and accused his government of fascist practices: “Are you going to protect this cruelty, this injustice, without [the detainees having] the right to any [judicial process], of creating concentration camps and putting noble working migrants in jails without a [due] trial, without having committed crimes in El Salvador, without having any sentence issued by a court in El Salvador? Is this legal, is this fair, Nayib Bukele?”

In addition, Maduro denounced the treatment suffered by the Venezuelan deportees: “They put them in handcuffs by hands and legs without telling them where they were going, and when they arrived in El Salvador, they made them get off the plane beating them with sticks and clubs; they humiliated them, threw them on the floor, shaved their hair. Is that called justice? Is that called international law? Is that called human rights? That is called fascism, Nazism, and Venezuela is ready and willing to denounce this massive violation of human rights against the hard-working and noble migrants in the United States!”

Migration is not a crime, sanctioning a people is. Photo: Francisco Trias

An 18th-century law to imprison migrants

According to the US Executive, its decision is based on an 18th-century law (1789) called the “Alien Enemies Act,” which states that the President of the nation has the power to order the detention and expulsion of foreign citizens from countries with which the United States is at war.

The bicentennial law was passed during the administration of John Adams, during a potential war with France, to prevent espionage and sabotage by foreigners in the United States. This law was applied again in 1812 during the war between the United States and the United Kingdom, and during the two world wars, during which US authorities imprisoned tens of thousands of foreigners in concentration camps for several years.

The law permits the imprisonment and deportation of foreign nationals without proper defense or normal judicial process, expediting the process under the pretext of national security.

Trump claimed that the law could be applied today because the Tren de Aragua is “perpetrating, attempting, and threatening a predatory invasion or incursion against US territory.” However, a judge in the District of Columbia named James Boasberg stated that there was no legal justification for enforcing the law, and asked that it be stayed. However, in another unprecedented move, Trump ignored the judge and did not reverse the action, allowing for the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to Salvadoran territory.

ALBA Movimientos rejects the deportation and imprisonment of Venezuelan migrants

In a statement, the Social Movements of ALBA, a platform of social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean, condemned Trump and Bukele’s decision as a violation of international law and human rights, and called it a kidnapping of migrants.

“This constitutes a barbaric action, demonstrative of the fascist, racist and defiant character of the basic human rights conventions, by the government of Donald Trump, who invoking a law of 1798 (three centuries ago) attributes to himself the power to kidnap, deport and imprison people only for being Venezuelans and the presumption of belonging to the ‘Tren de Aragua’, without any evidence and the right to defense,” states the communiqué.

In addition, the international organization that brings together people’s movements in the region, argues that Trump’s decision could bring dire consequences for Venezuelans in the United States:

“One of the most serious consequences of the application of this law is the criminalization of migration and in particular of Venezuelan migration, giving rise to the possibility that any Venezuelan migrant over the age of 14 could be qualified as an ‘invader’, ‘enemy of the US’ or ‘terrorist’ member of the so-called ‘Tren de Aragua’ and immediately could be deprived of his freedom, confiscating his goods, bank accounts and any kind of belongings.”

Finally, the communiqué demands the unity of the peoples of the world to stop this type of action that could have dangerous consequences for world peace, while supporting the actions of Maduro’s government in its crusade to repatriate the detained migrants:

“These dangerous expressions of neo-fascism that the global right wing under Trump’s leadership are wanting to naturalize and intensify, besieging countries, generating migration, promoting armed groups and then using those same groups to justify policies of criminalization against migrants and to top it off there are countries that commodify this imprisonment.”

“We therefore call for an international campaign to repudiate and denounce this dangerous escalation of criminalization of migration and the Venezuelan people. We accompany and support the actions of the Venezuelan Government before international organizations to rescue the kidnapped Venezuelan citizens and to take the necessary actions within the framework of public international law to prevent this neo-Nazi policy from continuing or spreading.”

Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue ReadingVenezuela demands the immediate repatriation of migrants detained in El Salvador