LONG LIVE THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION

Myanmar: At least 18 dead in crackdown on anti-coup protests — UN

Protests against military rule in Myanmar have been met with gunfire and smoke grenades from the police. Meanwhile, the country's former UN envoy has vowed to keep fighting "as long as I can."


Riot police have detained scores of students and teachers

Myanmar police have cracked down on anti-coup protesters using stun grenades, tear gas and firing into the air, killing at least 18 people in the bloodiest action since the military seized power four weeks ago, the United Nations said on Sunday.

"Throughout the day, in several locations throughout the country, police and military forces have confronted peaceful demonstrations, using lethal force and less-than-lethal force that — according to credible information received by the UN Human Rights Office — has left at least 18 people dead and over 30 wounded," the office said.

Police opened fire in the southern town of Dawei, killing three and wounding several, according to politician Kyaw Min Htike. The deaths were verified by medics and reported by local media.

Officers were also seen shooting in the main city of Yangon. A man brought to a local hospital with a bullet wound died from his injury, according to a doctor. Myanmar's Mizzima media outlet also reported the death.

The heavy-handed clampdown has intensified since the military seized power in a coup on February 1.

"We strongly condemn the escalating violence against protests in Myanmar and call on the military to immediately halt the use of force against peaceful protesters," Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN human rights office, said in a statement.

VIDEO 'People in Myanmar always find a way to protest peacefully'

Mass arrests

Scores of students and teachers have been detained in Yangon, and several bloodied people were seen being helped away from the protests in the city.

"Police got out of their trucks and started throwing stun grenades without warning," Hayman May Hninsi, who was among a group of teachers protesting in Yangon, told Reuters. They fled to nearby buildings.

"Some teachers got hurt running. We're assessing the situation and whether to go out again or not."

Doctors and students in white lab coats also fled as police launched stun grenades outside a medical school in another part of the city, videos posted online showed.

In the northern city of Mandalay, police fired guns into the air, trapping protesting medical staff in a city hospital, a doctor there told Reuters by telephone.

An activist in Mandalay, who wanted to remain anonymous for security reasons, told DW that he witnessed the military targetting ambulances and hospitals in the city.

"Today I saw that they (the military) even shot at the ambulances and they arrested some people sheltering themselves in a hospital. They are not holding back anything anymore and they are using extreme violence against the protesters," the activist told DW.

Scores of students and teachers were arrested for taking part in the protests

Police were deployed early and in force, taking positions at the main protest sites in the country's two biggest cities where protesters, many clad in protective gear, had gathered, witnesses said.

Medical students were marching in Yangon's streets at an intersection that has become a gathering point for protesters before they spread out to other parts of the city.

Police began chasing the protesters, while residents erected makeshift roadblocks to slow down the police advance.

Fired UN envoy vows resistance

Sunday's violence comes days after a dramatic appeal from Myanmar's UN ambassador Kyaw Moe Tun, who publicly broke ranks with the ruling junta while addressing the UN General Assembly.

He said he was speaking on behalf of the ousted Aung San Suu Kyi civilian government and called for international intervention to help end the coup.

"We need further strongest possible action from the international community to immediately end the military coup," he said on Friday.

On Saturday, Myanmar's state broadcaster reported that the diplomat had been fired because he had "betrayed the country and spoken for an unofficial organization which doesn't represent the country and had abused the power and responsibilities of an ambassador."

"I decided to fight back as long as I can," Kyaw Moe Tun told Reuters in New York.

The military has said it staged the coup over irregularities in the November election that gave Suu Kyi's party a landslide win. The national election commission has rejected the allegation.

The junta has also said it will rule for a year under a state of emergency and then hold fresh elections

MYANMAR COUP:  PROTESTERS DEMAND RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACY
The military coup
Senior military figures seized power earlier this month, claiming widespread voter fraud in November's elections, where Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party won by a landslide. They arrested elected officials and quickly stacked political offices and the court system with loyalists.   PHOTOS 12345678

LONG LIVE THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION

New deaths mark bloodiest day yet in Myanmar’s nationwide anti-coup protests

Issued on: 28/02/2021 

Police reportedly open live fire in Myanmar protesters on

 February 27, 2021 AFP - SAI AUNG MAIN

Text by:FRANCE 24Follow|

Video by: Solange MOUGIN 16 min

Myanmar police fired on protesters around the country on Sunday in the bloodiest day in weeks of demonstrations against a military coup. At least 18 people were killed, the UN human rights office said.

Myanmar police fired on protesters around the country on Sunday in the bloodiest day in weeks of demonstrations against a military coup, with the UN human rights office claiming at least 18 people have been killed.

Police were out in force early and opened fire in different parts of the biggest city of Yangon after stun grenades, tear gas and shots in the air failed to break up crowds. Soldiers also reinforced police.
Protesters 'coming out more and more'

05:09

Several wounded people were hauled away by fellow protesters, leaving bloody smears on pavements, media images showed. One man died after being brought to a hospital with a bullet in the chest, said a doctor who asked not to be identified.

“Police and military forces have confronted peaceful demonstrations, using lethal force and less-than-lethal force that – according to credible information received by the UN Human Rights Office – has left at least 18 people dead and over 30 wounded,” the UN human rights office said.

Fearing a 'blood bath'

Speaking to FRANCE 24 from Bangkok, Thailand, the Sunday Times’ Asia correspondent Philip Sherwell said that Sunday marked “the bloodiest day of this month-long uprising against the coup”.


03:48

Sherwell said that the military’s previous resistance to crack down on protesters had vanished over the weekend. “That’s over. Yesterday they arrested hundreds of people, and today they’ve gone in very early and violently with tear gas and stun guns and clearly this is now reaching a tipping point.”

Sherwell said the “humiliating scene” the army suffered on Friday when the country’s envoy to the United Nations condemned the coup, had spurred on both the army’s crack-down tactics, as well as demonstrators’ determination to continue to protest.

“The junta is seeing a paralysing disobedience movement,” he said, warning there is great fear that the army will eventually respond in such force reminiscent of the 1988 “blood baths” following the 8888 pro-democracy uprisings and in which thousands of people were killed.

“These protesters are not going anywhere. They believe this is their time. They have to maintain the momentum and they’re galvanised and fueled by how this crackdown is being conducted.”

‘Never kneel’

The crackdown would appear to indicate determination by the military to impose its authority in the face of widespread defiance, not just on the streets but more broadly in the civil service, municipal administration, the judiciary, the education and health sectors and the media.

“The Myanmar security forces’ clear escalation in use of lethal force in multiple towns and cities ... is outrageous and unacceptable,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Hundreds of protesters refused to leave the streets by early afternoon in Yangon. Many set up barricades while others chanted slogans and sang protest songs.

“If they attack us, we’ll defend. We’ll never kneel down to the military boots,” said Nyan Win Shein from one Yangon protest.

Early in the day, police swooped to disperse a teachers’ protest with stun grenades, sending the crowd fleeing. One teacher, Tin New Yee, died of a suspected heart attack, her daughter and a fellow teacher said.

Police also hurled stun grenades outside a Yangon medical school sending doctors and students in white lab coats scattering. A group called the Whitecoat Alliance of medics said more than 50 medical staff had been arrested.

State-run MRTV television said more than 470 people had been arrested on Saturday when police launched the nationwide crackdown. It was not clear how many were detained on Sunday.

‘Instill fear’

Youth activist Esther Ze Naw said earlier people were battling the fear they had lived with under military rule.

“It’s obvious they’re trying to instill fear in us by making us run and hide,” she said. “We can’t accept that.”

The police action came after state television announced that Myanmar’s UN envoy had been fired for betraying the country for urging the United Nations to use “any means necessary” to reverse the coup.

The ambassador, Kyaw Moe Tun, remained defiant. “I decided to fight back as long as I can,” he told Reuters in New York.


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While Western countries have condemned the coup and some have imposed limited sanctions, the generals have traditionally shrugged off diplomatic pressure. They have promised to hold a new election but not set a date.

Suu Kyi’s party and supporters said the result of the November vote must be respected.

Suu Kyi, 75, who spent nearly 15 years under house arrest, faces charges of illegally importing six walkie-talkie radios and of violating a natural disaster law by breaching coronavirus protocols. The next hearing in her case is on Monday.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

 

FROM GERMANY
Opinion: Why the United States needs to stay in Afghanistan

A year ago, the US struck a deal with the Taliban — but it wasn't about Afghanistan. It was about Donald Trump and "America First," and the consequences have been catastrophic, writes DW's Sandra Petersmann.



Trump's 'America First' policy had a disastrous impact on the peace process in Afghanistan

On the table are, sadly, two very bad options: The withdrawal of all international troops by May 1, as agreed in the Doha accord, or the extension of the US-led intervention that began nearly 20 years ago.

I favor staying, and let me explain why.

International soldiers will not win this war, nor will they bring peace. But they are an indispensable bargaining chip in the difficult peace negotiations underway in the Qatari capital.

Thirsty for power and recognition, the Taliban are demanding the end of foreign occupation and the easing of all sanctions against them. These are the only two levers the West has at its disposal to put pressure on the radical Islamist extremists to agree to a cease-fire and advance negotiations. 

Sandra Petersmann has been reporting on Afghanistan since 2001

Bitter truth about 'America First'

To put it bluntly, troop withdrawal and sanctions are not a panacea that will work overnight. People will continue to die in Afghanistan in the coming months as a result of terror and war. According to the UN, between October and December of last year alone, at least 30 civilians on average were killed or injured each day.

This is the bitter truth of the "America First" policy. Former President Donald Trump took it to extremes with the Doha Accord. The narcissist desperately wanted to go down in history as the president who brought US troops home. He was all about ending America's longest war to win an election. But that plan backfired.
Trump was not the only one

Trump was not the first to decide on Afghanistan's fate based solely on domestic political considerations. "America First" began with the revenge-driven invasion after the 9/11 terror attacks. How else can we explain the United States and its Western allies' unsavory alliances with war criminals and human rights abusers (for example the warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum) for the sake of hunting down al-Qaeda and punishing the Taliban?

Germany's Bundeswehr has been on duty in Afghanistan for the past 20 years

The hasty invasion took no account of the Afghan civil war which began in 1978 and remains unresolved to this day. Nor did the intervention at least consider the wounds left by the Cold War and Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The military campaign was carried out without any regard for the dangerous role played in Afghanistan by regional states such as Pakistan, India and Iran. They, too, are igniting the Afghan battlefield with maximum national egoism.
The German perspective

And that is why now — after 20 years of war for the US coalition and after a total of four decades of continuous war for the Afghan people — there are no better options on the table.

America's allies, including Germany, will follow the beat of Trump successor, Joe Biden's administration. If the US goes, all coalition troops go. There are currently about 10,000 left in the country. If the Americans stay, NATO allies will stay. Germany currently has around 1,100 troops stationed in Afghanistan, making it the second-largest troop contributor after the United States.

Watch video 03:19 Germany: Taliban must do more to reduce violence in Afghanistan

But the Afghanistan mission is just as unpopular in Germany as it is in the US. Germans also question why the Bundeswehr is still on the ground. Germany is now facing a federal election, but the political elite in Berlin do not want to spoil their campaigns with the issue of Afghanistan — and they refuse to provide much-needed explanations to the public. Germany first!
High time for 'Afghanistan first'

It is time for truth: Those who invaded Afghanistan 20 years ago in an ill-considered manner should not pull out equally recklessly and deal a death blow to the young and however imperfect Afghan democracy — which was created by, and is totally dependent on, Western support. Dodging responsibility means admitting defeat.

Afghanistan needs maximum pressure on the Taliban as well as on the divided, often corrupt government and the many warlords. It needs maximum political and diplomatic involvement of all the major regional states and the other two global powers, Russia and China. This will be strenuous and dangerous.

But those who still refuse to put the necessary strength, willpower and patience into an "Afghanistan first" policy risk further displacing a terrorized Afghan population from their homeland — an outcome that will also have consequences for the rest of the world.

Miss Germany: 33-year-old mother wins revamped contest

This year's contest has been won by Miss Thuringia. The show has struggled to separate itself from the more stereotypical objectification of women.



Anja Kallenbach will hold the role of Miss Germany for the next 12 months

Anja Kallenbach was named Miss Germany 2021 on Saturday evening after competing against 15 other finalists.

There was no audience present for the event due to coronavirus restrictions, but the show was broadcast live over YouTube. The event carried the tagline: "Empowering authentic women."

The triumphant mother of two hails from the eastern state of Thuringia. According to her profile on the Miss Germany website, Kallenbach would like to be a role model to other women with her "accumulated experiences in life, her profession, as a mother, as a friend, a woman and life-affirming person."

This was the second time the competition took place after a revamp aimed to focus on the women's characters rather than on their looks.

A contest of contradictions

The competition's format was changed after receiving criticism for its objectification of women. Rather than being valued for their beauty, the candidates now have to prove their worth through how well they present their unique messages.

This year's list of contestants included an activist fighting against fatphobia, a survivor of sexual violence, a former Jehovah's Witness and a woman with an ileostomy.

"I wouldn't have taken part in a beauty contest," said Cynthia Junghans, the candidate from Hesse. "Who needs to see someone walking around in a bikini?"

Despite claims by the show to have changed direction, the contestants were still asked to answer questions on topics such as "family and home" and "beauty and care."

The woman also came out in various outfits even as the contest claimed to give no importance to outward appearance anymore.
'Empowering authentic women'

Kallenbach left school before turning 17 and then went on to study business management. She lives with her two daughters and her partner, with whom she runs two bicycle businesses.

She began modeling when she was 27 after both of her children were born.

Her goal in the competition was to encourage women to "do whatever feels good, no matter how old they are, what they look like, or what other people say."

She received her sash from last year's winner, Leonie von Hase.

Uighur exiles living in fear in Turkey

Tens of thousands of Uighurs have fled to Turkey to escape Chinese persecution. Yet life in exile is challenging.


Ömer Faruk and some of his family have found asylum in Turkey


"I lost touch with my family five years ago; I only learned of my father's death one year later," a teary-eyed Abdüsükür tells DW. The 32-year-old is based in Istanbul's Zeytinburnu neighborhood, where most of the city's Uighur immigrants live and work. He earns a living working in a secondhand shop for mobile phones.

Abdüsükür is one of approximately 50,000 Uighurs who have recently fled China seeking safety in Turkey. The Chinese government has been persecuting the ethnic minority, with witnesses reporting that Uighurs have been detained in inhumane conditions in reeducation camps. Many of them, including minors, are picked up and deported without warning.

Abdüsükür fled China's northwestern Xinjiang province five years ago. "We were constantly persecuted in East Turkestan [Xinjiang province]," he tells DW. "Many people were jailed, or taken to reeducation camps, just for praying."

VIDEO China's treatment of Uyghurs exposed

The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, most of whom are Muslim. Many have fled to Turkey as they have much in common with Turks culturally, and Turkey's government has promoted their migration for years. Today, the country's hosts the largest community in the Uighur diaspora.

"I was scared not only for myself but also my family," Abdüsükür explains his decision to leave China. "That's why I decided to flee to Turkey." But he has paid a steep price for his new life abroad, saying he has only spoken to his mother once since leaving. "Uighurs living in Turkey are prohibited [by Chinese authorities] from speaking to their relatives back home," he says. Millions of fellow Uighurs have been placed in reeducation camps, Abdüsükür says. There are no official records documenting how many have been detained, though some estimates put the figure at several hundred thousand.
Fearing deportation from Turkey

He only found out his father had died when a friend informed him. Abdüsükür then immediately called his mother in Xinjiang. After confirming his father's death, she told him not to call again, saying "if they [Chinese authorities] find out, they will come after us." That was the last time he spoke to his mother.

Abdüsükür, 32, is concerned about reprisals against his family in China

Abdüsükür regularly joins protest marches against the persecution of China's Uighurs and is using social media to raise awareness for the problems in his home country. He was arrested several times by Turkish authorities for participating in rallies. He got very scared when they launched an investigation into his actions; without Turkish citizenship, he could get deported. In 2017, after all, Ankara and Beijing agreed a repatriation agreement which could speed up deportations, though Turkey's parliament is yet to ratify the deal.

Ömer Faruk moved to Turkey in 2016. The 31-year-old Uighur immigrant possesses Turkish citizenship, which means he cannot be deported. Still, life in exile has been a struggle. Faruk, who has five children, had to leave his two daughters behind when he moved to Turkey.

Watch video 05:22 China's campaign against Uyghur culture

Many Uighur emigrants — including Faruk — find that their relatives, including young children and even seniors, vanish without trace in China. Faruk remembers receiving a call from his wife when he worked as a labor migrant in Saudi Arabia several years ago. She told him Chinese police had come to their home, wanting to confiscate their passports. He then urged her to tell the police she would deliver the documents in a little while.

He told her to book flights to Turkey and leave the country immediately. But their young daughters — 1 1/2 and 3 years old — did not yet have passports. Faruk's wife and two young daughters were forced to remain in China, while he met his other three children in Turkey.

Missing daughters

Faruk's wife later flew out to join him in Turkey, leaving their young daughters with his mother-in-law. He says his brothers then wanted to help his daughters reach Turkey but were arrested. Faruk's mother-in-law was placed in a reeducation camp.

Ömer Faruk is worried about his two youngest daughters, who had to stay behind in China

"I don't know where my daughters are at this moment," he says, distraught. He cannot even say whether they are still alive, as he has lost touch with family members still in China. According to Faruk, Uighurs who move to other countries, such as Austria or Egypt, have a much easier time reuniting with family members abroad.

"My wife is at her wit's end, she can't sleep at night, and my children are constantly thinking about their sisters," Faruk tells DW. They want to know when they will finally be reunited. "I am desperate; did they put them in camps? Nobody knows."

At least, he says, he cannot be deported as a Turkish citizen. That's why he often joins protest rallies outside China's Ankara embassy, and its Istanbul consulate, to draw attention to the Uighurs' plight.

This article has been adapted from Turkish and German.

MAKING THE STATE ILLEGAL

‘A nation of prosecutors’: Why the French are suing the state to drive social change

Issued on: 28/02/2021 - 

A demonstrator holds a placard reading "No justice no peace" at a rally against police racism and brutality in Paris on June 13, 2020. © Benoit Tessier, Reuters

Text by: Benjamin DODMAN

The French, France's President Emmanuel Macron recently lamented, have become “a nation of 66 million prosecutors”. He may have a point. Whether battling climate change or racial profiling by police, activists and ordinary citizens are pushing groundbreaking legal action to force Macron's government into action.

When France’s government hosted a roundtable on relations between the police and the public earlier this month as part of the consultations aimed at bolstering confidence in law enforcement, the panel invited to the interior ministry in Paris raised more than a few eyebrows.

There was no shortage of officials in attendance, including senior police officers and gendarmes, union representatives from both forces, four members of parliament and four mayors, and even a guest from Canada’s Royal Mounted Police.

But somehow organisers did not think to invite the public. There were no ordinary citizens, no community representatives, no activists or grassroots campaigners, and none of the academics whose investigations into the chronic problems affecting French policing have been dismissed and ignored over the years.

As a veteran campaigner for community outreach, Omer Mas Capitolin, a founder of the grassroots Community House for Supportive Development, would have been a useful addition to the ministry’s panel. Instead, his NGO counts among six organisations, including Amnesty International, which have launched France’s first class-action lawsuit aimed at forcing the government to tackle systemic discrimination by the police.

For Mas Capitolin, the lawsuit marks a new step in a decades-long struggle to raise awareness of racial profiling that targets France’s “visible minorities”, as non-white citizens are commonly referred to.

“I’ve been to all the rallies, spoken to countless politicians, and listened, time and time again, to their empty promises. But nothing ever changes,” he says in an interview with FRANCE 24. “The law is a pillar of our democracy and a precious tool,” he adds. “We’ve seen around the world that many great social advances result from legal action.”

‘Attack’ the state

While France famously does not compile official statistics based on religious faith, ethnicity or skin colour, racial discrimination by law enforcement – particularly in immigrant-rich city suburbs – has been widely documented.

A study conducted by France's National Centre for Scientific Research has shown that Blacks are 11.5 times more likely to be checked by police than Whites, and those of Arab origin are seven times more likely. In a landmark 2016 case, France’s highest court ruled for the first time that police had illegally stopped three men based on racial profiling, setting more specific rules to ensure checks are not discriminatory.

At the height of mass protests against racism last summer, Jacques Toubon, then France's human rights ombudsman, raised the alarm over widespread discrimination and a "crisis of public confidence in the security forces" in a report that made for grim reading. He urged a reversal of what he described as a "warring mentality" in law enforcement.

The difficulty, says lawyer Slim Ben Achour, a protagonist of the 2016 ruling and one of the lawyers involved in the current class-action lawsuit, is to get governments to act upon these injunctions and bring about “systemic change”.

Huge crowds converged on the Paris courthouse on June 2, 2020, 

calling for an end to police violence and impunity. 

© Gonzalo Fuentes, Reuters

Using a law introduced in 2016 by the former justice minister, Christiane Taubira, Ben Achour and his colleagues have served the government with formal legal notice of demands for concrete steps to end racial profiling by police. The law gives French authorities four months to talk with the plaintiffs about how they can meet the demands. If the plaintiffs are left unsatisfied, the case will go to court.

“Past lawsuits involved only individual plaintiffs and resulted – when successful – in damages being paid,” Ben Achour tells FRANCE 24. “In this case, we’re not looking for damages. We want judges to force the government into meaningful reforms.”

Ben Achour credits Taubira’s 2016 law with giving “vulnerable parties” unprecedented access to the judiciary, allowing them to team up with bigger players, like Amnesty, in class actions. He says it has also brought about a change in both tactics and thinking.

“So far, racial profiling complaints have mostly been used in a defensive capacity, when the police dragged our clients to court,” he explains. “Now we can go on the offensive, we can sue the state,” he adds, using the French word attaque, which translates as both “sue” and “attack”.

Broken promises

Turning to the courts is not an instinctive reaction in France, a nation more accustomed to street protests, canvassing and petitioning lawmakers. “It is not in our culture like it is in the US,” Ben Achour concedes, pointing to changes forced upon the New York Police Department as a model for France.

The largest police department in the US underwent major reform following a 2013 class-action lawsuit brought by a dozen Black and Brown New Yorkers who said they were stopped solely because of their race. A federal judge ruled the NYPD had violated the civil rights of tens of thousands of New Yorkers, dismissing claims that police checks were a necessary crime-fighting tool. Stops dropped precipitously under the new regime, but crime did not rise.

“Class actions allow us to change society through legal means,” says Ben Achour, particularly when politicians fail to deliver on promised change. He points to former president François Hollande, who famously reneged on a campaign pledge to introduce a form of written receipt for all identity checks – a measure long advocated by campaigners against racial profiling.

“Hollande’s promised reform offered a ‘traditional’ path towards meaningful change,” the lawyer explains. “That path was interrupted, now legal action offers an alternative route.”

>> Racism, sex abuse and impunity: French police’s toxic legacy in the suburbs

 

The alternative route’s growing popularity has prompted academics in a variety of fields to take an interest in litigation. Reflecting on the declining effectiveness of traditional forms of activism, such as strikes and street protests, the left-wing sociologist Geoffroy de Lagasnerie has stressed the importance of pursuing legal avenues to push certain causes – and lamented a French backwardness in the field.

In his 2020 book, Comment sortir de notre impuissance politique (How to end our political impotence), Lagasnerie notes that court action to uphold the rights of migrants has often resulted in defeat for the government. He points to recent rulings that vindicated activists who helped migrants illegally cross the border from Italy and compelled the French state to provide migrant camps in Calais with basic sanitation.

“The law is one of the few powers that can compel a government to back down or act – perhaps the only one,” Lagasnerie writes, urging activists to “multiply legal ‘guerilla actions’, summon European and international law, be imaginative in our use of the law.”

‘The case of the century’

In recent years, many of the most sensational attempts to hold governments accountable through the courts have involved climate campaigners, leading to convictions in countries as diverse as Pakistan, the Netherlands and Colombia.

In a first for France, a court ruled earlier this month that the French state was guilty of failing to keep its promises to slash carbon emissions under the 2015 Paris climate accord. Hailed as a “historic win for climate justice”, the ruling set a two-month deadline for the government to come up with concrete measures to further cut emissions.

While France is likely to appeal the verdict, a Dutch precedent has given environmental campaigners reason to be confident. In 2019, the Dutch government lost its appeal against a landmark ruling that ordered it to slash greenhouse emissions. Officials are now scrambling to cut emissions, for instance by closing fossil-fuel plants ahead of schedule.

Urgenda, an environmental group, fought the successful case on behalf of some 900 Dutch citizens. The same model inspired the French lawsuit, dubbed the “Affaire du siècle” (Case of the Century) and spearheaded by four NGOs following a petition signed by 2.3 million people.

Carole-Anne Sénit, a political scientist who specialises in civil society activism at the University of Utrecht, says such cases signal the emergence of “new coalitions of mobilised players”, bringing together ordinary citizens and a variety of non-state actors, from Greenpeace to smaller groups with experience of litigation, such as the French group Notre affaire à tous.

“When two million people sign a petition in less than a month, it counters the notion of an increasingly apolitical and apathetic public,” she tells FRANCE 24, stressing that online mobilisations complement other forms of activism, including street protests and lobbying. Cases like the Affaire du siècle, Sénit adds, also help to “restore the people’s faith in their ability to bring about change” — particularly in the “repressive context” of a health emergency that has led governments to drastically curtail civic space.

Covid lawsuits

The devastating social and economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have generated a surge in legal complaints levelled at government officials, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to liken the French to “a nation of 66 million prosecutors” in one of the trademark “petites phrases” that infuriate his critics.

As early as March 4, 2020, two weeks before the first nationwide lockdown, a group of health workers asked France’s highest administrative court to force the government to provide them with FFP2 face masks. Dozens more legal complaints soon followed, calling for stricter lockdown measures, the requisitioning of factories to produce masks and antiseptic gel, or improved sanitation in overcrowded prisons.

“Lawsuits targeting the state seldom succeed; but when they do, they encourage others to come forward,” says lawyer Julien Lalanne, noting that one undesired effect is to “overburden courts that were already stretched”.

Lalanne says a key aim of the increased litigation is to set legal precedents on issues that had not previously been brought before the courts, thereby expanding both the judges’ area of competence and the state’s liability.

“France has long privileged the political arena,” he tells FRANCE 24. “We’re now witnessing a shift towards leaning on judges in order to put pressure on politicians.” To meet the challenge, the judiciary is having to step up its communication, Lalanne adds, bringing the arcane world of litigation “outside of the courtrooms and into the public domain”.

‘Concrete solutions’

Writing in the Conversation, Jessy Bailly, a political scientist at the University of Aix-Marseille, notes that lawsuits brought against the state need not always be successful in court to be considered a success – at least not when it comes to communication.

“Lawsuits have a spectacular character simply by targeting the giant that is the state and by inspiring copycats,” Bailly writes. “This ability to catch the media’s attention enables them to put pressure on the government, which is well aware that an intransigent public opinion is watching.”

Protesters call for more action on climate change in Bordeaux, 

southwestern France, on October 13, 2018. © Nicolas Tucat, AFP

By coinciding with the start of the interior ministry’s highly-publicised consultations on police reform, the class-action lawsuit against racial profiling was able to undercut the government’s communication and catch the public eye, at least briefly.

Mas Capitolin is hoping the case will help raise awareness of rampant injustice and of a growing divide that hurts both the police and the public, alienating youths even as the country ponders how to tackle “separatist” ideologies

“People need to realise what it means to be Black or Arab in parts of the country, to fear the police when you have done nothing, to tell your own son to look down and keep it shut when he meets an officer,” says the veteran activist. “They also need to challenge a policing culture that leads so many officers to take their own lives,” he adds, referring to the scourge of suicides among French officers.

But Mas Capitolin and his fellow plaintiffs will not be satisfied with a mere PR victory. Their aim is to foster social change through the courts.

“We’re not only denouncing the problem; we’re offering concrete solutions – that’s what democracy is about,” he says, pointing to proposed reforms put forward by the six NGOs in conjunction with the lawsuit. They include a change in the penal code to demand accountability in stops, and an end to the longstanding practice of gauging police performance by the number of tickets issued or arrests made, benchmarks that encourage baseless identity checks.

“We could have opted for a criminal lawsuit, but we’re not after a few bad apples in the police,” adds Ben Achour, the lawyer. “We’re aiming at the heart of the problem; and that means going for the state.”

ANOTHER TIN POT DICTATOR

El Salvador's Bukele poised for broad victory in mid-term elections
Issued on: 28/02/2021 -

Electoral workers handle boxes containing empty ballot forms to be used by voters at a polling station in a school ahead of the municipal and parliamentary elections in San Salvador, El Salvador, February 27, 2021. © Jose Cabezas, Reuters

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Salvadorans went to the polls on Sunday to vote in legislative and municipal elections that could give a broad victory to President Nayib Bukele's party, consolidating his overhaul of traditional politics. 

Opinion polls show that Bukele's party, New Ideas, could win more than half of the mayoral positions, and enough seats to hold at least a simple majority in Congress.

A two-thirds majority in Congress would let the party appoint high-level government officials, such as the attorney general and five of the 15 Supreme Court justices.

Bukele, a 39-year-old publicist and city mayor, took office in 2019 promising to root out corruption and upend the two-party politics - led by the Nationalist Republican Alliance and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front - that has dominated since the end of the civil war in 1992.

Despite garnering popularity by providing economic support during the pandemic and curbing homicides, Bukele has clashed with both the legislature and the Supreme Court, and rights groups say he has shown authoritarian tendencies.

Wilson Sandoval, coordinator of El Salvador's Anticorruption Legal Advisory Center, said it would be important to maintain a counterweight to the executive branch.

Voting Bukele would essentially take away an entity that can control the executive, Sandoval said, and so "we are giving them a blank check so they can do whatever they want."

Bukele has said his rivals are fearful because his policies threaten their privileges.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. (1300 GMT) and are slated to close at 5 p.m. (2300 GMT), with voters set to vote for 84 lawmakers and 262 mayors.

(REUTERS)

LONG LIVE !

THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION!

Hong Kong detains dozens of pro-democracy activists for violating new national security law

Issued on: 28/02/2021 -

Pro-democracy activist Benny Tai was charged after

 reporting to a Hong Kong police station, on February 28, 2021 

REUTERS - TYRONE SIU

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Video by: Camille NEDELEC


Forty-seven Hong Kong democrats and activists were charged on Sunday with conspiracy to commit subversion, in the largest single crackdown on the democratic opposition under a China-imposed national security law.


Sam Cheung, a young activist and a participant in an unofficial primary election last summer, was charged after reporting to a local police station, dressed in a black mask and accompanied by his wife.

“Hong Kongers have a really tough time these days,” he told reporters before entering the station. “I hope everyone won’t give up on Hong Kong ... (and) fight on.”

Cheung was arrested in a dawn raid along with more than 50 other democrats on Jan. 6 in the largest national security operation since the law’s passage last June.

They were accused of organising and participating in an unofficial “primary election” last July aimed at selecting the strongest candidates for a legislative council election.

The Hong Kong police said in a statement they had laid a charge against 47 persons with the single count. They will appear in court tomorrow morning, the statement added.

The democrats were detained at the time, questioned, and some had their mobile phones and computers confiscated, then released pending further investigations.

“My chance of bail won’t be too great,” wrote Benny Tai in an earlier social media post. He was also charged and accused by Chinese authorities of being a key tactician for the pro-democracy movement in the former British colony.

Those also called in by Hong Kong police include a group of younger “resistance camp” democratic activists including Lester Shum, Sam Cheung, Ventus Lau and Fergus Leung.

The democrats denounced the arrests as political persecution for the informal, peaceful poll that drew 600,000 votes in a city of 7.5 million.

A rights advocacy group, “Power for Democracy”, that co-organised the primary elections, said in a Facebook post it had disbanded.

The Hong Kong police say 99 individuals have been arrested for suspected violations of the security laws so far.

Some of these have been denied bail, including media mogul and prominent China critic Jimmy Lai, despite protracted legal appeals.

The sweeping national security laws - seen by critics as a threat to Hong Kong’s freedoms and autonomy - punish acts of subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorism with possible life imprisonment.

(REUTERS)

Thousands of Argentinians take to streets to protest ‘VIP vaccinations’ scandal



Issued on: 28/02/2021 -

People protest against the government of President Alberto Fernandez, following a scandal over coronavirus vaccine queue-jumping that forced his health minister to resign, in front of the Casa Rosada presidencial palace in Buenos Aires, on February 27, 2021 © Alejandro Pagni, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Thousands of people demonstrated in cities across Argentina on Saturday to protest the “VIP vaccinations” scandal that forced the health minister to resign.

Gines Gonzalez Garcia quit a week ago at the president’s request after it emerged that his friends had been able to skip the line for coronavirus inoculation.

Protesters carrying signs reading “Give me my vaccine” and “Stop wasting our money” gathered outside the government headquarters in Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires.

“They started by vaccinating friends of the government. It is not appropriate. They are stealing someone else’s life,” protester Irene Marcet told AFP.

Since Argentina began vaccinating its people, only healthcare workers had received the jab until Wednesday, when over-70s in Buenos Aires province were also invited to be immunized.

On Monday, the government released a list of 70 people who received the vaccine outside of the official campaign, which included the 38-year-old economy minister and former president Eduardo Duhalde, his wife and their children.

On the railings in front of the Casa Rosada, the seat of the government and the president’s office, protesters hung mock black body bags with the names of pro-government leaders vaccinated.

President Alberto Fernandez condemned their actions.

“The way to demonstrate in a democracy cannot be to display mortuary bags with names of political leaders in front of the Casa Rosada,” he tweeted.

“This regrettable action only shows how many opponents see the Republic. Let us not be silent before such an act of barbarism.”

The demonstrations took place without incident apart from some friction between protesters and union activists in front of the president’s official residence.

Protesters also rallied in other cities including Cordoba, Rosario and and Mar del Plata.

With a population of 44 million, Argentina has registered more than two million infections and about 52,000 deaths from coronavirus.

One million people have already been inoculated, according to the government.

Argentina has received 1.22 million doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, around 580,000 doses from Covishield, from India’s Serum Institute, and 904,000 shots from China’s Sinopharm.

(AFP)

LONG LIVE THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION

Thousands rally in Tunisia to support moderate Islamist party’s push for govt reshuffle


Issued on: 27/02/2021 - 

A supporter of the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha carries a placard that reads "the revolution is staying" during a rally in Tunis on February 27, 2021. © Fethi Belaid, AFP

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Tunisia's main parliamentary bloc Ennahdha rallied thousands of people Saturday in a demonstration of support for the government amid a tug-of-war with President Kais Saied

The Islamist-inspired Ennahdha and liberal Qalb Tounes parties pushed for a reshuffling of the government by Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi in mid-January, introducing 11 new ministers.

Saied has strongly criticised the reshuffle -- which was confirmed by parliament -- saying he had not been consulted and charged that some ministers were suspected of corruption and conflicts of interest.

He also refused to confirm the new ministers, including interior, justice and health, leaving the government paralysed, in a country already reeling from economic hardship and the coronavirus pandemic.

Saturday's protest in the capital Tunis was called for by Ennahdha, and several protesters said they rallied in support of the moderate Islamist party as well as for unity and democracy.

"We have a parliamentary system and it is not up to the president to decide who will govern," said protester Mohamed Khlif, who travelled from the coastal city of Sfax to take part in the rally.

"Democracy and the constitution must be respected," he added.

Around him protesters chanted "the people want national unity".

Ennahdha head Rached Ghannouchi addressed the protesters Saturday, calling for dialogue and unity among political forces.

Saied, an independent academic and constitutional law expert, has also castigated the procedure for naming the new ministers, saying it was unconstitutional.

"I won't back down from my principles. I swore before God by putting my hand on the Koran to respect the constitution," Saied was quoted as saying earlier this month.

Tunisia's constitution does not require parliamentary approval for regular reshuffles.

But in the absence of a constitutional court in Tunisia, the political crisis has dragged on for six weeks with no solution in sight to ease tensions between the president, parliament and the government.

>> Taking stock of Tunisian democracy, 10 years after the revolution


The political standoff comes as Tunisia has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and its social and economic repercussions.

A report published Friday by the International Monetary Fund said the "Covid-19 crisis is exacerbating Tunisia's socio-economic fragilities" and "led to an unprecedented economic downturn”.

The IMF called for urgent reforms to reduce the fiscal deficit, which it said was estimated to have reached 11.5 percent of GDP in 2020.

It also made a series of recommendations, including for limits on energy subsidies and lowering the wage bill.

(AFP)