CODE BLACK – INDONESIAN COMRADES IN NEED!

Source - CODE BLACK – INDONESIAN COMRADES IN NEED - عصرآنارشیسم  11.5.2019

On Mayday police attacked the a demonstration of some 1000 Anarchists in Bandung with brutal severity on the pretence of stopping some spray painting. this demonstration involved children and families who were sent fleeing.The gathering broke into two sections who were then chased down, attacked, arrested (some sixty people simply being bundled into black SUV’s by masked police) and beaten. Shortly after without any judicial procedure many had their heads shaved, their faces covered in spray paint and some were forced to crawl along the street in their underwear. You can see footage of the demo before the attack of Anarchists singing ‘Buruh Tani’ (‘Farm Workers’) and after the police assault to see how the cops change everything

In total some 619 were arrested and currently 3 comrades are still trapped in the hellish Indonesian prison system

Elsewhere in Jakarta, Anarchists took on a police blockade to allow Trade Unions comrades to get to their rally point in a beautiful act of solidarity against the state, however the local Anarcho-Syndicalist union in Jakarta is being targetted by the police

In Malang,Makassar and Surabaya comrades have been beaten and kidnapped by the state with entire communities being terrorist by the bastards as they preform sweeps looking for Anarchists

The shaving of heads brings back vivid memories religious police units of the Aceh region – who have history of horrifically abusing transwomen – attacking punk charity gigs in 2010/11 beating people up and taking them away for “re-educated” starting with… well as police chief inspector, Iskandar Hasan said “First their hair will be cut. Then they will be tossed into a pool. That’ll teach them a lesson!” … it’s seems shaving heads is a national past time for the pigs in Indonesia now

All of this has been building for decades with a vibrant culture of resistance. Please take the time to have a read ofthis interview Black Rose / Rosa Negra had with an Uber driver and member of Persaudaraan Pekerja Anarko Sindikalis (PPAS) last year which talks about how how Anarchist-Syndicalism has developed there and also this 2010 interview with Indonesian Anarchist from the book “Von Jakarta bis Johannesburg – Anarchismus weltweit’ and finally this essay by Vadim Damier and Kirill Limanov which looks into the history of the struggle back to the two hundred years where anti-colonial forces alongside comrades in Europe and India which eventually lead to Anarchist cells forming in 1914/6 and with the ebb and flow of revolution pettering out only for the black flag to return alongside punk in the 90’s

” In the years 1993-1994, an Indonesian punk scene emerged. Gradually, part of it turned to anti-dictatorship and anti-fascist activity; they established links with social movements and with the labour movement. As the Indonesian activists themselves described, the anarchist movement arose around 1998

In more recently memory the Anarchist scene in Indonesia has suffered major hits. The Anarchist Black Cross Indonesia (Palang Hitam) had to stop operating a couple of years back after a member pretty much stolen all the funds and donations from around the world and disappeared leaving a divided community spread across thirteen thousand islands. Disconnected from each other and from the international community Indonesian comrades have struggled on and built vibrate Anarchist movement diverse in nature and entirely composed of local autonomous groups and individuals. These are small communities both rural and urban that have been facing a massive crack down for years with the state actively monitoring organisers and disappearing people

So right now… whats occouring

Around the world comrades are lighting the fires and sharing their solidarity, some folk are as I type en-route to Indonesia to provide support, develop links and report from the front line as they take action with local comrades. In the UK? Take action. Show solidarity
Whatever that means to you

You’ll find the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia at 30 Great Peter St, Westminster, London SW1P 2BU
Their phone number is :- +44 20 7499 7661
The Ambassador is called Rizal Sukm

In the words of local organisers “Right now we would appreciate international solidarity in the form of actions and also financial support. We will make sure that the mistakes made by Indonesia ABC won’t be repeated. If people are able to provide financial assistance please send it to the paypal below. We will use it for legal fees and to help support our friends who are in hiding because they are being targeted by police.”

https://www.paypal.me/adnandi

Read the call for solidarity here on Mpalothia.net
https://mpalothia.net/indonesia-post-may-day-update-and-call-for-international-solidarity

We are children of workers or laborers who work in factories, offices, warehouses, workshops, restaurants and wherever our parents bow to the employer

We are school dropouts because we have to help our parents

We are children who exclude ourselves from school because we refuse to continue the modern wage slavery system

We are students who work part time, dividing our time between studying and work and are bullied on campus and in the workplace

We are a generation that is taught how to be slaves and to be turned into ready-made products for industry

We have to pay expensive tuition fees to be enslaved

We are prospective workers, replacing our parents who lost their dignity, who feel inferior due to being labeled stupid, working hard under the demands of production, long work hours, low wages and high risk work environments

We are the future. We have started a new page for a different era. An age without oppression and slavery

We, are your children

BEHIND THESE BLACK MASKS, ARE THE FACES OF YOUR CHILDREN 

West Papuan Students in Yogakarta express solidarity

CODE BLACK – INDONESIAN COMRADES IN NEED

P.S:The possibility of joining new people and groups of anarchists will be permanent

The Union has many social media and other communication channels. You will find them at the bottom of this page

۱- آدرس عصر آنارشیسم در اینستاگرامhttps://instagram.com/asranarshism/

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۲- آدرس عصر آنارشیسم در تلگرام

https://telegram.me/asranarshism—————————-

۳- عصر آنارشیسم در توئیترhttps://twitter.com/asranarshism———————————–۴ – فیسبوک عصر آنارشیسمhttps://www.facebook.com/asranarshism—————————————۵ – فیسبوک بلوک سیاه ایرانhttps://www.facebook.com/iranblackbloc

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۶ – فیسبوک آنارشیستهای همراه روژاوا و باکورAnarchists in solidaritywiththeRojavahttps://www.facebook.com/%D8%A2%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B4%DB%8C%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D9%87%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%87-%D8%B1%D9%88%DA%98%D8%A7%D9%88%D8%A7-%D9%88-%D8%A8%D8%A7%DA%A9%D9%88%D8%B1-Anarchists-in-solidarity-with-the-Rojava-434646579975914

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۷ – فیسبوک دفاع از زندانیان و اعدامیان غیر سیاسیhttps://www.facebook.com/sedaye.bisedayan

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۸ – فیسبوک کارگران آنارشیست ایرانhttps://www.facebook.com/irananarchistlabors

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۹- فیسبوک کتابخانه آنارشیستیhttps://www.facebook.com/anarchistlibraryfa

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۰ ۱– فیسبوک آنارشیستهای همراه بلوچستانhttps://www.facebook.com/anarchistinsupportbaluchistan

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۱۱ – فیسبوک  هنرمندان آنارشیستhttps://www.facebook.com/anarchistartistss

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۱۲ – فیسبوک دانشجویا ن آنارشیستhttps://www.facebook.com/anarchiststudents

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۱۳ – فیسبوک شاهین شهر پلیتیکhttps://www.facebook.com/shahre.shahin

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۱۴ – فیسبوک آنتی فاشیستhttps://www.facebook.com/ShahinShahrPolitik

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۱۵ – آدرس آنارشیستهای مریوان در کانال تلگرامhttps://t.me/anarchyinmarivan

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۱۶-آدرس تماس با ماcontact us

info@asranarshism.com

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۱۷ – سایت عصر آنارشیسمhttp://asranarshism.com

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۱۸ – آدرس کانال آنارشیستهای کردستان در تلگرام

بڵاوکردنەوەی بیرو هزری ئانارکیستی

https://t.me/kurdistananarshist

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۱۹- فیسبوک میتینگ دهه هفتاد و هشتادی هاhttps://www.facebook.com/%D9%85%DB%8C%D8%AA%DB%8C%D9%86%DA%AF-%D8%AF%D9%87%D9%87-%D9%87%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%AF-%D9%88-%D9%87%D8%B4%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%AF%DB%8C-%D9%87%D8%A7-505093803031731/

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۲۰ – گوگل پلاس عصر آنارشیسمhttps://plus.google.com/u/0/114261734790222308813

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۲۱ –  ساوندکلاود رادیو آنارشی

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۲۲- آدرس ” دختران آنارشیست افغانستان ” در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/dokhtarananarshist_afghanestan

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۲۳- آدرس “دختران آنارشیست افغان ” در فیسبوکhttps://www.facebook.com/Afghan-Anarchist-Girls-116992605591873

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۲۴- آدرس آنارشیستهای رشت در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/anarshist.rasht

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۲۵ –  آدرس پیج آنارشیستهای شهر بوکان (  ئانارکیسته کانی بوکان ) در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/bokan_anarchy

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۲۶- آدرس آنارشیستهای اصفهان و شاهین شهر در تلگرامhttps://t.me/Anarshistsh2

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۲۷ – آدرس آنارشیستهای اصفهان و شاهین شهر در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/anarshistshahinshahr

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۲۸- آدرس آنارشیستهای شیراز در تلگرامhttps://t.me/ShirazAnarchist

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۲۹ – آدرس آنارشیستهای شیراز در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/anarchy_shz_ism

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۳۰ – آدرس آنارشیستهای گیلان در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/guilan_anarchism

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۳۱ – کانال عصیانگر در تلگرامhttps://t.me/AcabFai

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۳۲ – آدرس کانال ” جوانان آنارشیست ” در تلگرامhttps://t.me/young_anarchists

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۳۳- آدرس آنارشیستهای مشهد در کانال تلگرامhttps://t.me/anarchismera

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۳۴ -آدرس کانال آنارشیستهای تهران در تلگرام

t.me/tehran_anarchists——————————————–

۳۵ – آدرس آنارشیستهای قم در توییتر

twitter.com/anarshist————————————

۳۶ – آدرس پیج” آنارشیستهای جنوب “در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/southanarchists

آنارشیستهای جنوب یکی از اعضای تشکیل دهنده ” اتحادیه آنارشیستهای ایران و افغانستان” می باشند که در ایران حضور دارند.

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۳۷ – آدرس پیج” آنارشیستهای خراسان “در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/khurasan_anarch

آنارشیستهای خراسان یکی از اعضای تشکیل دهنده ” اتحادیه آنارشیستهای ایران و افغانستان” می باشند که در ایران حضور دارند.

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۳۸ – آدرس بالاچه عصر آنارشیسم در بالاترینhttps://www.balatarin.com/b/anarchismera

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۳۹ – آدرس وبلاگ اتحادیه آنارشیستهای ایران و افغانستانhttps://tauai.wordpress.com

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۴۰ – آدرس اتحادیه آنارشیستهای ایران و افغانستان در فیسبوکhttps://www.facebook.com/TAUAI/?modal=admin_todo_tour

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۴۱ – آدرس اتحادیه آنارشیستهای ایران و افغانستان در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/union9387

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۴۲ – آدرس پیچ آنارشیستهای اهواز در فیسبوکhttps://www.facebook.com/%D8%A2%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B4%DB%8C%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D9%87%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%B2-2021321021440113

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۴۳ – آدرس پیچ آنارشیسم سبز در فیسبوکhttps://www.facebook.com/Green-Anarchism-%D8%A2%D9%86%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B4%DB%8C%D8%B3%D9%85-%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%B2-229749814516765

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۴۴ – آدرس پیج جوانان آنارشیست در اینستاگرامhttps://www.instagram.com/javanane_anarshist

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۴۵ – آدرس کانال جامعه دگرباشان فارسی زبان در تلگرام https://t.me/IRLGBT_CO

Moscow, Russia: New Wave of Brutal Interrogations and Torture of Anarchist Comrades — Mpalothia

Source - Moscow, Russia: New Wave of Brutal Interrogations and Torture of Anarchist Comrades — Mpalothia 3.2.2019

03.02.19: On February 1, in Moscow, Russian FSB has raided several flats and arrested 10 people under ‘conspiracy charges’. All of them were later released, after all-day interrogations and physical tortures, except one person, Azat Miftahov. He is accused of ‘fabricating explosives’ and being a member of a ‘radical anarchist organization Narodnaya Samooborona’ (Peoples’ Self-Defense). This organization has become, during last year, the main target of police repressions in Russia : several members of this group were arrested, tortured or threatened. Some of the members had to leave the country under a risk of long prison terms and tortures.

One of the arrested anarchists, Daniil Galkin, has reported about tortures. After his arrest, during 2-3 hours he was beaten up and tortured with electric shocks in the police car. Under torture, Galkin was forced to say that Azat Miftahov, was anarcho-communist and took part in anarchist actions. Galkin was forced to give an interview that was compromising anarchists, to a federal TV-channel ‘First channel’ (Perviy Canal), and promise to ‘collaborate with the police by providing information about anarchist actions’.

In the police station of Balashiha, Moscow region, Galkin saw Azat: he was threatened by the FSB officers, and his arms were tied. According to Galkin, Azat ‘did not look like a human being’ because of tortures. He also said he heard screams of one of the arrested women activists, who was kept in the room next to his. He also heard that one of the arrested anarchists cut his veins and took some pills in order to avoid further tortures and thus avoid giving any information about other comrades. According to other witnesses and journalists, this person is Azat Miftahov.
Azat was kept in detention in that police station until late in the night, he was refused to see his lawyer. At night he was guided out of the police station, right in front of his lawyer who had been waiting for him, and taken in an unknown direction. We do not know anything about his actual location, as for February 2, 18:00. We think he’s still tortured and forced to give information about his comrades and himself.

We ask for solidarity actions, informational and financial support.

For reminder: currently in Russia (and the recently annexed territories, such as Crimea) there are several penal cases against anarchists under ‘terrorist’ charges. Here are some of them: the ‘Network’ case, the case against anarchist Vyatcheslav Lukichev, the case against anarchist Kirill Kuzminkin, the case against Crimean anarchist Evgeniy Karakashev.

Financial support for Russian anarchists:

Paypal:
https://paypal.me/vladimirakimenkov?fbclid=IwAR1ErbDZe4Ez9cEaubmQlbs6MpXkZWqunjxBhV95MYzOnCObkv7Pnysil54

International wire transfer :

SWIFT SABRRUMM
Account number : 40817810238050715588
Name : AKIMENKOV VLADIMIR GEORGIEVITCH

Please indicate ‘solidarity donation’ when making your transfer.

(source, thanks to Antifascist Action Brisbane for bringing this to our attention!)

The American Gulag: US Navy Planning to Build Military Camps to Jail 120,000 Immigrants

Source - The American Gulag: US Navy Planning to Build Military Camps to Jail 120,000 Immigrants | Global Research  by Alec Andersen, June 23, 2018 World Socialist Web Site

A draft memo leaked to Time magazine Friday reveals preparations by the United States Navy to build sprawling internment camps to house over 120,000 undocumented immigrants. Massive camps housing nearly 50,000 each are being proposed in Northern and Southern California, close to the country’s largest immigration populations, with an initial 25,000 to be housed on military bases in Alabama.

The capacity of the new facilities would match the total number of Japanese and Japanese-Americans detained during World War Two. This follows a separate Department of Defense announcement Thursday that the military will erect detention camps on four Army bases in Texas and Arkansas that will hold another 20,000 migrant children.

The establishment of military prison camps on American soil marks an ominous milestone in US history. These are being erected to detain not only immigrants, but also striking workers, protesters against police violence, and all who resist conditions of deepening exploitation, war and dictatorship. This police state policy is aimed at the entire working class.

Indicative of the complicity of the corporate media in these dictatorial moves, neither NBC, ABC nor CBS mentioned the proposal for the Navy to set up concentration camps on their Friday evening news broadcasts.

The internal memo details plans to construct “temporary and austere” tent camps to house 25,000 undocumented migrants immediately, with massive facilities to come later. Under the proposal, 25,000 beds would be built within weeks at two Navy airfields near Mobile, Alabama—Navy Outlying Field Wolf in Orange Beach and Navy Outlying Field Silverhill—at an estimated cost of $233 million for six months of operation.

Navy officials suggest a timeline of 60 days to complete the first stage of tent construction, which would hold 5,000 detainees. After that, capacity could be expanded at a rate of 10,000 beds per month.

The document also proposes construction of two internment camps in California that would each house up to 47,000 detained immigrants. One would be located on the former site of Naval Weapons Station Concord, near San Francisco, and the other would be built at Camp Pendleton, the nation’s largest Marine Corps base on the coast of California between San Diego and Los Angeles.

The memo also calls for further study of a proposal to detain an unspecified number of undocumented workers at the Marine Corps Air Station outside of Yuma, Arizona.

The document, drafted by Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment Phyllis Bayer for signature by Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer, was circulated in anticipation of the influx of detained migrant families under the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy.

Under this policy, announced in April, all undocumented migrants captured by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will be detained and tried for the so-called crime of “illegal entry.”

US to Deport 262,000 Salvadoran Immigrants

These revelations underscore the fact that Trump’s reversal on separating families does not signify a shift away from his drive to criminalize immigrants and arrest, detain and deport them in the hundreds of thousands. The executive order Trump signed Wednesday calls for indefinite detention of immigrants, including children.

The release of detailed plans for the construction of military detention centers throughout the western and southern states, with the capacity to detain massive numbers of undocumented workers fleeing the violence and economic devastation that American imperialism has produced in Central America, represents a new stage in the ruling class’s turn toward authoritarian rule.

This confirms the warnings made by the World Socialist Web Site at the time of the 9/11 attacks and launching of the “war on terror” that the concentration camp at Guantanamo was a prelude to similar facilities and mass repression within the borders of the United States itself.

Such plans have ample precedent in the recent history of the United States. At the height of the 1986-1987 Iran-Contra affair, which was itself an illegal and unconstitutional conspiracy of the Reagan White House and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a secret plan, known as Operation Rex 84, was exposed. Rex 84 was a program to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, establish a parallel government comprised of military-intelligence officials, and round up political opponents in the event of a US war on Nicaragua.

At a July 13, 1987 hearing of a joint congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair, Texas Democratic Congressman Jack Brooks sought to question Oliver North, who was at the center of the conspiracy, about Rex 84, which North had been involved in drafting. The exchange that followed is a telling illustration of the Democratic Party’s role in covering up the secret preparations of the US government and its military-intelligence apparatus for mass repression and dictatorship.

BROOKS: Colonel North, in your work at the NSC [National Security Council], were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

BRENDAN V. SULLIVAN, counsel for Colonel North: Mr. Chairman?

SENATOR DANIEL K. INOUYE, Democrat of Hawaii: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area, so may I request that you not touch upon that.

BROOKS: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American Constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

INOUYE: May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon, at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.

The administration’s escalation of repression against immigrant workers in recent days has been accompanied by a series of fascistic rants by Trump seeking to whip up the most backward and reactionary social and political layers in order to justify even broader attacks on democratic rights.

At a Wednesday rally in Minnesota, Trump blustered that the United States faced being “overrun” by immigrants and that his administration was “sending them the hell back.”

In a Friday morning tweet, Trump wrote:

“We must maintain a Strong Southern Border. We cannot allow our Country to be overrun by illegal immigrants as the Democrats tell their phony stories of sadness and grief, hoping it will help them in the elections.”

The Democrats have offered no opposition to the construction of military prison camps for immigrant families. On the contrary, they have consistently supported raising funding for “border security” and increasing the number of ICE and CBP agents, while peddling the false and reactionary narrative that immigrant workers endanger the jobs and depress the wages of the native-born work force.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer noted the report of the plan to detain 20,000 immigrants on Army bases, but merely expressed concerns over whether the plan was “feasible”. On Twitter Thursday, Schumer denounced the notion that Democrats were for open borders.

“The bipartisan immigration bill I authored had $40 billion for border security,” he boasted.

At a press conference Thursday, Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declared,

“The Democrats have taken full responsibility for securing our borders. We know that is a responsibility that we have.”

The pro-war, anti-immigrant Democratic Party will do nothing to stop the establishment of military prison camps and the imposition of police state conditions in the US. That task falls to the working class, which must mobilize to demand the abolition of ICE and CBP, the liberation of all imprisoned immigrants, and the right of all workers to live and work with full citizenship rights in the country of their choice.

Political Reprisals Denounce The Spanish State In The European Parliament (video)

Source - REPRESALIADOS POLÍTICOS DENUNCIAN AL ESTADO ESPAÑOL EN EL PARLAMENTO EUROPEO (VÍDEO) — Canarias-semanal.org 25.5.2018

The difficulties of the Spanish State institutions to justify their repressive escalation abroad are increasing.

The complaints due to trials against Journalists, singers, separatist, communists or simple twitterers has arrived to the point that some of them have managed to get their voice heard in the European Parliament itself.

During the last Thursday morning, the rapper Pablo Hasel, the members of La Insurgencia and Resistencia Film or the journalist of La Haine and Kaosenlared Boro LH participated in a conference on the attacks on freedom of expression and press in Brussels by the Green Group .

In their appearances, the reprisals denounced the political nature of the processes opened against them.

The attached video shows on these lines the moment in which Boro LH breaks a picture of Franco, Kings Juan Carlos and King Felipe VI. "Franco I, Franco II and Franco III", the journalist pointed out to make this symbolic act in defense of freedom, for which other young people in the Spanish State were also prosecuted.

After the conference, Boro LH and Pablo Hasel shared in the social networks a picture and a message in which they glimpsed a justified skepticism about what can be expected from the institutions of the EU imperialist project, while appreciating the importance of having been able to count on an international showcase to spread his complaint

"Agur Brussels !! Not much is known, but at least they heard us #EuropaNosVaAOir - in Brussels Airport".

Britannia Titanic – “UK Surveillance State More Suited to Dictatorship Than a Democracy”

Source - Britannia Titanic – “UK Surveillance State More Suited to Dictatorship Than a Democracy” | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization 27.4.2017

Until the revelations of Edward Snowden emerged just a few years back in 2013, British citizens had no idea as to the level of state surveillance they were subjected to. The government, without due process, debate or permission installed a massive taxpayer funded spying system via its domestic agency GCHQ, to tap into internet cables and build an enormous and detailed database of the communications of every man, woman and child in the country with little to no legal oversight. An ID system is no longer relevant, they have far more information than an ID card could ever store.

GCHQ’s 360 degree full spectrum bulk collection data system was constructed in brazen and arrogant defiance of Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Britain’s parliament never debated or approved this massive construction programme as it would for any national infrastructure project. Every phone call, no matter the device is recorded, every image, website visited, personal details such as medical and financial records, contacts, everything private to you is no longer private.

Under just one of dozens of surveillance programmes, one was called “Optic Nerve” that captured millions of images via webcams, illegally taken and stored. An undisclosed number, but estimated to be around one fifth of the population were images that were “compromising in nature” including that of naked young children in their homes and intimate images between consenting adults. The government were found to have acted illegally for 17 years. These were crimes and no-one was prosecuted. The standard response by government is the need for ‘national security’.

And let’s not forget, terrorism is fundamentally a politically generated problem. Britain has been complicit in the destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the ongoing crisis in Syria – all of which are in now in total chaos and all of which are the real breeding grounds for terrorism. No amount of internet surveillance on our own people will deal with that but the British people are now paying the price for that in more ways then one.

Although no-one truly knows the costs of UK state surveillance systems over its own population, it is estimated that the cost to the taxpayer just for the storage of all this data exceeds £20 million a month. And whilst GCHQ’s individual budget isn’t public knowledge, its funding comes from the Single Intelligence Account (SIA), which by all accounts has now reached something in the order (£18 billion as at 2015) £20 billion plus.

One can only guess that provision for GCHQ’s funding is exponentially increasing in an age of austerity where the NHS is in chaos, emergency services such as the fire-brigade and ambulance services to name just two are being stripped bare or privatised. People are dying at the hands of the state and yet we are told there is no money to pay for these vital services. And yet the taxpayer is still funding bank-bailouts, wars in far-off lands that pose zero threat to national security and a new architecture of state surveillance constructed that would make the East German Stasi blush three decades ago.

The government, both Labour and Tory, never had the intention of informing the country of the sheer scale of state surveillance, and it will continue to utilise illegal programmes irrespective of the law because it is only care of whistleblowers that we find out in the first place, now themselves the target of new legislation to silence them and the journalists who report these crimes.

Now we find, according to a report by civil liberties watchdog Big Brother Watch, that many secondary schools in England and Wales have installed  ‘Classroom Management Software’ not just in devices owned by the schools but by the pupils themselves.

Most English and Welsh secondary schools have installed software that apparently allows teachers to continually monitor their students’ internet activity. Most schools have failed in any way to inform the youngsters parents that they are being watched. No permission is asked of pupils.

In addition, through Freedom of Information requests the best guesstimate of the 8.2 million attending school was that 6 million were on a biometric database of some sort starting from the age of just four – and that was 10 years ago. By now one would expect that number to be close to 100% with facial recognition and other more recent technologies.

Why is Britain’s society under so much suspicion by its own government? The UK has one of the lowest homicide rates and ranked in the bottom quarter globally. The UK lies just inside the top third for terrorism deaths but still the number is exceedingly low. In fact, you are more likely to die by tripping over your underwear than die by the hand of a crazed terrorist. According the the annual Peace Index, Britain even ranks inside the top one third for its overall ‘peacefulness’. For all of this, Britain’s quite peaceful people are under permanent suspicion by its own government.

But Britain does excel in some crimes. Take for instance the banking industry. Some of the biggest frauds in history have been facilitated by Britain’s biggest banks. They have facilitated the world biggest money laundering activities of the worlds biggest narcotics dealers, human traffickers, modern slavery, arms dealers, despots and dictators – much of which has left hundreds of thousands dead in their countries embattled by such crimes. The state has not gone after these Armani suited mobsters working in glass towers and living in London’s penthouses.

Amnesty International and Saferworld, both members of the Control Arms coalition have rightly accused the UK Government for breaking national, EU and international laws and policy by supplying weapons to nations whose human rights abuses and war crimes are prolific and well documented. No arrests here either.

And here is some commentary of those attempting to keep your civil liberties and human rights in place whilst you watch these fundamental rights being salami sliced away by a paranoid state who surely have much to hide from you, the law-abiding taxpayer.

Renate Samson, the chief executive of Big Brother Watch, said:

“The passing of (investigatory powers bill) these laws has fundamentally changed the face of surveillance in this country. None of us online are now guaranteed the right to communicate privately and, most importantly, securely.”

Jim Killock, the executive director of Open Rights Group, said:

“The UK now has a surveillance law that is more suited to a dictatorship than a democracy. The state has unprecedented powers to monitor and analyse UK citizens’ communications regardless of whether we are suspected of any criminal activity.”

Rebecca Vincent, UK Bureau Director, Reporters Without Borders:

“Amber Rudd’s comments are yet another example of this government sacrificing freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and other human rights in the name of security, and contribute to a very worrying trend of increasing attacks on press freedom in the UK in recent months. The ability to communicate securely is essential for investigative journalists, their sources, and whistleblowers. Eliminating encryption tools would have a broad chilling effect, and would serve as another damaging blow to investigative journalism in the UK.“

Thomas Hughes, Executive Director, ARTICLE 19:

“Any discussions of a framework through which the security services can access our communications must be transparent. Knee-jerk political statements and rushed through deals are at best unhelpful at protecting our civil liberties and at worst a dangerous threat to them. The government risks eroding our freedoms at a time when it is alluding to a desire to protect them.”

David Anderson’s government-commissioned report in 2015 concluded that current surveillance legislation in the UK is “undemocratic, unnecessary, and—in the long run—intolerable,” and recommended that it be replaced with a new comprehensive law that is both transparent and proportionate, which did not happen. Indeed, in just two years Anderson’s worst fears have already materialised.

All of these civil liberty and human rights experts and activists know that this is not the way to manage a modern, progressive, outward looking nation fit for the 21st century – it’s a sinking ship full of paranoid salivating wolves looking to keep control of its unsuspecting flock.

Whilst reading this article it should have become apparent to you that YOU are under suspicion of being a criminal. And as it turns out you either are right now or will be. Don’t Pat your dog on the head. Don’t feed a homeless person a sandwich out of either sympathy or pity. Don’t feed a pigeon in the park. Don’t throw a busker a few pence and god-forbid that you should try and pull the wool over the eyes of the local authority to get your child into a better school, or decide to join a protest group like Greenpeace out of concern for the environment – then you would be in very serious trouble, because all of these ‘crimes’ are of ‘national security’ interest aren’t they! Ask yourself this question. Why exactly does my government treat me like this?

Look back into history and you might find some uncomfortable answers.

The original source of this article is True Publica

Copyright © Graham Vanbergen, True Publica, 2017