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Journalists decry escalating state attacks on press freedom in India

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

Journalists and activists protest in Delhi against the state’s attacks on press freedom. Photo: DUJ

The ultra-right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments in various provinces in India have used sedition charges against journalists for their critical reporting on policies and actions.

Members of the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (KUWJ) held a protest in India’s capital, New Delhi, on Wednesday, August 27, denouncing the rising cases of state-sponsored attacks on journalists in the country.

The protesters also demanded the immediate withdrawal of all the false charges against senior journalists Siddharth Varadarajan, Karan Thapar, and Abhisar Sharma, calling them blatant attacks on media and press freedom in the country.

The DUJ and KUWJ warned that if their cases are not withdrawn and such attacks on press freedom continue in the future, journalists in the country will take larger public action and flood the streets in protest.

Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor-in-chief of the independent newsportal The Wire, Karan Thapar, senior editor with The Wire, and another senior journalist, Abhisar Sharma, were booked by the police in India’s north-eastern state of Assam and charged with sedition and other criminal activities.

The case against Abhisar is related to his reporting on his YouTube channel on the charges of corruption against the chief minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma. Abhisar also talks about the chief minister’s openly sectarian policies and provocative language against Muslim minorities in his video.

Varadarajan and Thapar were booked first in July and then again in August by the Assam police for their critical reporting on Operation Sindoor, India’s military operation against Pakistan in May which created a war-like situation between the two nuclear-powered neighbors.

Varadarajan and Thapar went to the court demanding the dismissal of the cases against them. While the matter was still under consideration by the court, the Assam police filed fresh charges against them. The Supreme Court of India (SCI) provided the journalists temporary protection from any action.

Abhisar Sharma also received interim relief from the SCI on Thursday. However, in both cases the SCI failed to quash the First Information Reports (FIRs), the official document in India that initiates criminal proceedings.

BJP’s attempts to silence critical voices

What the DUJ calls “attempts to browbeat and harass the media into submission”, has been a policy of the BJP government to silence critical voices in the country.

Assam is ruled by the same BJP which runs the union government in Delhi.

Several other journalists have faced false charges in the state in the last few years. In March of this year, Assam witnessed large-scale protests against the arrest of senior journalist Dilwar Hussain Mazumdar, who was arrested after he tried to expose corruption in a cooperative bank.

The union government has also used its agencies to raid and shut down independent newsportals, such as Newsclick, and has threatened others, including the Wire, to try to silence them.

Reflecting on the state of media in India earlier this year, Reporters without Borders (RSF) demanded that the state must “end media raids and arrests of journalists, often carried out under the guise of anti-terrorism laws or tax regulations.”

RSF had noted that “this judicial harassment has reached a critical level for independent news media”, with authorities repeatedly misusing the legal provisions.

Misuse of sedition

Apart from anti-terrorism laws and allegations of financial irregularities, the BJP government has also used sedition, a colonial era offense which remained a part of India’s legal codes even decades after independence. It has been frequently invoked against journalists questioning government policies.

Following massive public outcry and court interventions, the BJP government promised to scrap it in 2023, underlining its “colonial origin”. However, within months, the same government brought it back with a new name under the new set of legal codes called Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), promulgated in 2024.

The Wire has filed a fresh petition in the court to remove the sedition charges from the new code (section 156 of the BNS).

The DUJ hopes that the section “will be struck down so it can no longer be used to arrest, imprison, browbeat and harass those who dare to speak truth to power.”


Continue ReadingJournalists decry escalating state attacks on press freedom in India

250 million Indian workers and farmers on the streets in a national strike

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Original article by Abdul Rahman republished form peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

The strike was called by the trade unions and farmers groups against anti-workers labor codes and failures of the government to enact a legal support price for farm products.July 09, 2025 by Abdul Rahman

250 million Indian workers and farmers on the streets in a national strike

National strike against the “anti-worker” labor codes of the Modi government on July 9. Photo: CPI(M)

Millions took to the streets all over India on Wednesday, July 9, to observe a national strike call made by Central Trade Unions (CTU). They are striking against the anti-worker policies adopted by the ultra-right-wing government in the country. 

CTU is a platform of all the major trade union federations in the country, spanning the ideological and political spectrum. It includes the Center for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and several others. 

The strike was also supported by all the major groups of farmers, students, women, and various professional unions such as teachers, journalists, and IT employees in the country. 

According to various estimates, more than 250 million workers and farmers – both in organized and unorganized sectors – directly participated in the strike and protests across the country. 

Workers in other organized sectors such as ports, airports, and banking also participated alongside those in various public sectors.

The strike affected most of the industrial activities in the country, particularly industries related to mining.

#Strike #GeneralStrike बी टी आर वाडको एम्पलाइज यूनियन के साथी अपनी कंपनी एस एफ सी सॉल्यूशन साहिबाबाद के गेट पर हड़ताल को कामयाब बनाते हुए। pic.twitter.com/311IoxICHS

— CPIM DELHI (@CPIMSTATEDELHI) July 9, 2025

In several places, workers blocked the movement of trains, blocked highways, and picketed factory gates to mobilize greater support. In some cases, such as the Kochi refinery in the southern state of Kerala, workers defied court orders and observed the strike.

Picket lines stand strong and militant in front of the factory gate.#9thJulyGeneralStrike pic.twitter.com/V2a33uoQT9

— CITU CENTRE (@cituhq) July 9, 2025

A total shut down of all major business was observed in various states in the country such as Kerala, Tripura, Bihar, Jharkhand, and others.

Anti-worker labor codes must be withdrawn

The workers were demanding immediate withdrawal of the new labor codes enacted by the ultra-right-wing government led by Narendra Modi at the center in 2020. CTU claims the four new labor codes are anti-worker, depriving them of their basic rights, including the right to collective bargaining, which was won through a historic and painful worker’s struggle.

The other major demands include: 

  • The end of the privatization and contractualization of jobs
  • A national minimum wage of Rs. 26,000 (USD 303)
  • Improvements in working conditions across all sectors for all kinds of workers

Trade union workers take out a march in West Bengal. #GeneralStrike #StrikeHard pic.twitter.com/hxrTd0AoYY

— CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) July 9, 2025

The strike also supported the demands raised by the country’s major farmers groups, led by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), for a legal minimum support price for all farm produce, the waiving of loans for farmers, an end to all forced land acquisition, and better employment opportunities.

The strike was originally scheduled for May 19. It had to be postponed following the war-like situation in the region created after India attacked several locations inside neighboring Pakistan, accusing it of supporting armed groups who carried out attacks on tourists in Pahalgam.

Popular action defeats government lies

A central protest rally was held in the national capital Delhi. The protest was attended by all the constituents of CTU and SKM, the farmers collective which has extended support to the strike.

Millions of workers, farmers strike in India to protect their basic rights, livelihoods
CPI(M) Politburo Member and CITU General Secretary Tapan Sen addresses a strike demonstration in Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Photo: CPI (M)

Addressing the rally, Tapan Sen, general secretary of CITU and a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) polit bureau, claimed that the success of the strike demolishes the myths created by the Modi government about the so-called economic prosperity his government’s policies have created.

Millions strike in India
Strike demonstration in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. Photo: CPI (M)

Most Indians today are struggling to find a decent source of livelihood and those who have one are struggling to protect it from the effects of the various wrongful and pro-corporate policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, Sen underlined.

The lies about India being the third or fourth largest economy in the world, propagated by the present government in the country and magnified by the complicit media, have been exposed by the sheer number of people who participated in today’s strike. It establishes the fact that under Modi’s decade-long rule the condition of the working classes in India has gone from bad to worse, Sen told the protesters gathered at the rally.

Millions strike in India workers and farmers
Photo: CPI(M)

Sen also warned the government against going ahead with the proposed trade deal with the US, claiming that would further compromise the interest of workers and farmers in India.

Amarjeet Kaur, general secretary of the AITUC, claimed that the BJP used pro-government unions to divide the working classes in the country and falsely called the strike “illegal”.

“The attempts to divide the working class, so that the interest of its corporate bosses are protected, was defeated by the successful strike” Kaur declared. She noted that this was the fourth such strike since 2020 and more such strikes will happen in the future, with more intensity, if the government fails to correct its ways and take back the four draconian labor codes, and enact laws which really benefit the working classes of this country.

Original article by Abdul Rahman republished form peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue Reading250 million Indian workers and farmers on the streets in a national strike

Outrage After Israeli Occupation Forces Shoot Live Rounds at Foreign Diplomats in West Bank

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

Members of an international diplomatic delegation scramble for cover after coming under Israeli fire during a May 21, 2025 visit to the besieged Jenin refugee camp in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine. (Photo: Mohammad Ateeq/AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images)

Among those shot at were representatives of three nations that threatened “concrete actions” if Israel doesn’t end its assault and siege on Gaza and others that support a genocide case against the country.

Israeli occupation forces fired what they called “warning shots” at a large delegation of international diplomats visiting the besieged Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Wednesday, an incident many critics said was an attempt to intimidate countries that just two days earlier issued an ultimatum to stop annihilating Gaza and others that have joined a genocide case against Israel.

Palestinian officials were briefing a group of more than 20 diplomats about the crisis in the illegally occupied West Bank—where Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians including hundreds of children since October 2023 while pushing ahead with massive land theft and colonization—when they came under fire.

According to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the delegation “deviated” from the route approved by Israeli occupation authorities “and entered an area where they were not authorized to be,” prompting Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers to fire “warning shots to distance them away.”

“The IDF regrets the inconvenience caused,” the ministry added.

Israeli soldiers intentionally fired at a delegation of about 30 Arab & EU diplomats, ambassadors and consuls, visiting Jenin refugee camp, in the West Bank. Israel claims “it was an accident” and that they fired “warning shots” because they “felt in danger”. Israel was trying to intimidate them.

[image or embed]
— Anonymous ( @youranoncentral.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 6:06 AM

Israeli media reported IDF troops fired shots in the air. However, video footage of the incident appears to show soldiers aiming their guns and firing straight ahead in the direction of the diplomats as they scrambled for cover. Israeli officials have often been caught lying about the actions of IDF troops in Palestine.

The delegation included diplomats from the European Union and countries including Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, India, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Mexico, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

On Monday, three of those countries—France, the United Kingdom, and Canada—issued a rare joint statement condemning Operation Gideon’s Chariots, the ongoing Israeli campaign to conquer and indefinitely occupy all of Gaza and ethnically cleanse much of its population.

On Tuesday, the U.K. announced it is suspending negotiations with Israel on a free trade agreement, explaining that “it is not possible to advance discussions on a new, upgraded FTA” with a government “that is pursuing egregious policies in the West Bank and Gaza.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza including extermination and forced starvation.

The U.K. additionally sanctioned three far-right Israeli extremists, including settler leader Daniella Weiss, as well as three illegal settlement outposts and two groups “that have supported, incited, and promoted violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank.”

Also on Tuesday, European Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas—who is the E.U.’s foreign policy chief—said the 27-nation bloc would review its political and economic agreement with Israel in light of the “catastrophic” situation in Gaza.

Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, Jordan, Mexico, Spain, and Turkey have either joined or expressed support for the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice—which last year found that Israel’s 58-year occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza is an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible.

Israel’s 592-day assault and siege on Gaza has left more than 189,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and over 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned what it called Wednesday’s “heinous crime” against the diplomats.

“The delegation was undertaking an official mission to observe and assess the humanitarian situation and document the ongoing violations perpetrated by the occupying forces against the Palestinian people,” the ministry said. “This deliberate and unlawful act constitutes a blatant and grave breach of international law and of the fundamental principles of diplomatic relations as enshrined in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

Kallas said Wednesday that “any threats on diplomats’ lives are unacceptable.”

“Israel is also a signatory to the Vienna Convention, I mean the obligation to guarantee the security of all foreign diplomats,” Kallas noted. “We definitely call on Israel to investigate this incident and also hold accountable [those] who are responsible for this.”

The governments of other countries whose diplomats were targeted on Wednesday condemned the incident, with some, including France and Italy, summoning their Israeli ambassadors.

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

Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Continue ReadingOutrage After Israeli Occupation Forces Shoot Live Rounds at Foreign Diplomats in West Bank

‘Workers are  being employed as indentured labour’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/workers-are-being-employed-as-indentured-labour

Staff on a NHS hospital ward at Ealing Hospital in London, January 18, 2023

Damning report finds migrant workers propping up Britain’s crumbling care system are trapped in awful working conditions

CAMPAIGNERS demanded reform today after a damning report laid bare shocking conditions facing migrant workers propping up Britain’s crumbling care system.

Unison surveyed more than 3,000 people who came to Britain on health and care worker visas to tackle shortages in the sector.

It found that nearly a quarter had paid fees to an employer or an intermediary upfront in return for a job — with dozens handing over more than £20,000.

Many workers, who are from countries including Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Zambia as well as India and the Philippines, were given no shifts when they arrived, or not the number promised.

Around 18 per cent said employers had deducted money from their salaries since arriving, with firms claiming the fees were for expenses such as training and administration.

Pay issues impacted three in 10 migrant care staff, with problems including unpaid travel time between care visits and no sick pay.

More than a quarter were paid below the legal minimum wage of £11.44 an hour.

In one shocking testimony, a worker reported having to sleep on the streets because their employer did not pay them for shadowing other colleagues.

And 9 per cent described the accommodation they were provided with as poor or very poor.

…

Public Services International care organiser Huma Haq said the findings reflect a broader global crisis in care: “The exploitation of migrant care workers in the UK is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a broken system globally where governments have increasingly privatised and underfunded essential care services.

“Governments must step up and take responsibility for providing quality public care services.”

Original article is at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/workers-are-being-employed-as-indentured-labour

Continue Reading‘Workers are  being employed as indentured labour’

Record levels of pollution endanger millions of lives in Pakistan

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

Pollution in Lahore last year. Photo: Xinhua

Left activists in the country blame the government’s reluctance to act against big polluters despite its impact on the most of the people who are risking their health to pursue their livelihoods.

A thick layer of toxic smog has covered the atmosphere of Pakistan’s Punjab province for the last two weeks, making its air hazardous for millions of people in cities such as Lahore and Multan.

Lahore, the capital of Punjab and the second largest city of Pakistan has emerged as the world’s most polluted city with its AQI hitting above 1,000 for several days this week. The AQI on Wednesday was recorded at 815. Other cities in the Punjab province, such as Multan, Bahawalpur and Faisalabad too recorded an average AQI above 400 in the same period.

An AQI above 300 is considered hazardous for human living.

The high level of pollutants (PM 2.5) in the air has forced the Pakistani authorities to shut down schools and colleges until November 17 and public parks until November 18. It has also issued orders to shut the shops and commercial activities early asking citizens to minimize venturing out and to wear masks.

The number of people reporting respiratory issues have reached nearly 70,000 daily in the province according to the Associated Press.

Prolonged exposure to smog leads to a large number of health problems such as irritation in the eyes, respiratory issues among others. Every year millions of people die due to air pollution.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) “fine particles matter (PM 2.5) can penetrate [the human body] through the lungs” and blood streams causing major damages to human organs and can cause lung cancer, asthma, stroke and other diseases. Such exposure among children can affect their growth both physically and psychologically and can have lifelong effects.

Smog has become a regular feature in Pakistan’s Punjab province in recent years due to rising pollution caused by the high number of vehicles, increasing urbanization with a high density population, and an increase in polluting industries and agricultural activities.

According to Marriyum Aurangzeb, a senior minister in the Punjab government, Lahore endured 275 days of unhealthy AQI levels over the past one year with average temperature rising by 2.3 degree celsius.

Failure of the state

Punjab is Pakistan’s largest province with over 117 million people. The government led by Mariyum Nawaz of Pakistan Muslim League (PML) has been accused of taking inadequate measures to control the situation. In the name of fighting against polluters it has only targeted farmers and brick kilns and has been reluctant to hold larger and more powerful polluters such as big industries and the transport sector, Dawn reported.

According to the Punjab government’s own study, unfit vehicles apparently are the primary polluters (around 43%) in the province but the government has failed to curb their movement.

Ammar Ali Jan, head of the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP) has been consistently raising the issue of smog which makes the atmosphere “unfit for human survival.” Noting that in this inhuman condition only the rich who can afford to buy air purifiers can survive terming the government’s inactivity to provide relief to the people as a “criminal and insane” policy of “privatization of clean air.”

High pollution disrupts normal life for all sections of the population. However, it disproportionately affects the working class population as they are unable to follow the protection measures such as staying at home and wearing masks given the nature of their livelihoods.

In a recent tweet he also said that “climate catastrophe in Punjab is a result of a development model that turned our cities into concrete jungles.” He accused the Maryum Nawaz government for remaining “hopelessly non serious about confronting the challenge” and instead favoring big polluters such as “land mafia,” and “car/oil companies” in the state.

In light of the government’s lack of response, various left and progressive student organizations in the country called for a protest in front of the Punjab provincial assembly on Thursday, November 14. They demanded urgent action to fight climate change and the smog problem in the country.

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

Continue ReadingRecord levels of pollution endanger millions of lives in Pakistan