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How the Largest Union Fight of 2021 Was Won

The road to recognition was arduous for student researchers at the University of California.

By Jess Banks and Ahmed Akhtar

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, left, and California Federation of Teachers President Jeff Freitas, right, celebrate with students and lecturers gathered at UCLA Bruin Plaza to celebrate with a rally after a strike was averted. (Al Seib / Getty)

Last week, after decades of organizing, 17,000 student researchers across the University of California (UC) won recognition of our union, Student Researchers United–United Auto Workers (SRU-UAW). Spanning 10 campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, we’re now the largest academic student employee union in US history, following one of the biggest new organizing drives in any sector in this century. But it wasn’t easy. For months after we petitioned for union recognition with supermajority support, UC administration refused to respect our democratic choice to unionize, despite overwhelming public and legislative pressure. Finally, 10,890 of our coworkers voted by 97.5 percent to strike unless UC dropped its trumped-up legal objections to our union—and we won.

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We’re not alone, either; workers everywhere are organizing. In victory, we join our UAW siblings at John Deere in showing what happens when we build and wield power on the shop floor. From the Starbucks workers who just voted for a union, to the thousands of workers on strike at employers like Kellogg’s and Columbia University, to the tens of thousands of UC postdocs, teaching assistants (TAs), and academic researchers bargaining contracts this year, this lesson is more timely than ever. We will meet UC at the bargaining table this spring in a powerful position, having learned firsthand the power of massive, coordinated action.

And massive, coordinated action is exactly what it will take to win the improvements befitting our essential role in UC’s core research mission. We conduct vital research on everything from cancer to climate change to Covid vaccines, all the while bringing in billions of dollars in annual research funding. Despite this, more than 50 percent of our low wages are routinely eaten up by rent alone. Other long-standing workplace issues, like health and safety protections in dangerous labs, were thrown into stark relief by the pandemic. After the initial shutdowns, student researchers (SRs) were among the first UC workers to return, operating critical equipment in labs pivoting to Covid research. When we started talking last year about our need for a greater say in workplace safety, we didn’t realize that we’d soon be voting whether to walk off the job for our union rights.

Academic workers at UC have been fighting for our rights for a quarter-century. In the 1980s and ’90s, when TAs and SRs at UC organized for a union together, UC argued that all of us were students first, not workers, and took this question to the courts. An unjust legal ruling recognized TAs as employees, but not SRs. It took another two decades of struggle to change state law and gain the right to a union of our own.

This year, faced with union authorization cards from a supermajority of SRs, UC resorted to the same playbook. In August, it refused to recognize and bargain with SRU-UAW, once again claiming that thousands of our coworkers funded by certain fellowships and grants are “students, not workers,” with no expectation of “service” to the university, and no right to organize. No matter that all SRs, regardless of funding source, work side by side in the same labs, under the same supervisors.

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All summer, SRs debated how to move forward: wait for the legal process to play out? Or pressure UC to drop its objections directly? We figured we could win at a Public Employment Relations Board hearing—eventually. But labor boards move slowly, and UC has unlimited resources to burn on union-busting law firms and endless appeals, making a mockery of the right to speedy negotiation of a first contract, which is enshrined in US labor law. Plus, with tens of thousands of our UC union siblings bargaining contracts over the coming year, we knew that our collective power would be greater with SRU recognized. So we took the fight to the boss, and began preparing to strike if necessary.


In September and October we held rallies on every campus, with over 1,500 SRs attending, and collected more than 5,500 SR signers on a resolution demanding recognition. In the process, hundreds of SR worker-organizers talked one-on-one with colleagues, helping them see that UC’s bad behavior might give us no choice but to strike. The boss held firm, but with each action we grew our network of workplace leaders across the state. And finally, we were ready to set aside 10 days in November for our biggest collective decision since signing cards last year: authorizing a strike to win our union.

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On every campus, November 10 through 19 was a whirlwind of daybreak strategy meetings, late-night phone banks, and thousands of conversations with our colleagues about the stakes of striking. But this frenzy of coordinated activity, and the 10,622 yes votes, flowed from months of patient, disciplined preparation.

Mass workplace action is never easy, and SRs faced some unique obstacles: We’re segmented into small, disconnected labs; our research is often on a long time scale, so a week on strike can set a project back by much longer; and we’re told over and over that our labor has value only to us, not to UC (remember, “students, not workers”). Sometimes we even hear that “STEM can’t be organized.” But it wasn’t hopeless—it was just hard work. And we did it by developing genuine shop floor leaders across every campus, department, cohort, and lab, who built deep workplace relationships and organizing skills throughout the year-long campaign. When the strike vote was called, they were ready for the tough conversations about rights, retaliation, and lost research.
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One leader’s faculty supervisor was tempestuous and vindictive, but the leader moved his lab mates through their fear of retribution by framing the supervisor’s meltdowns as the very reason they needed to organize. Another, an international researcher, asked each coworker individually to vote for the strike. Our international colleagues face unique precarity that can only be improved by a union; and when this leader asked his lab mates to stand in solidarity with him, they did.

There is nothing like a hard-won victory to show workers our power. For 10 days, we set our research aside and struggled for something simple and profound: the right to negotiate as equals with one of the largest and most powerful university systems in the country. We’re now poised to sit down at the bargaining table this spring alongside 30,000 other UC academic workers organized with the UAW. Without us, the University of California simply cannot function. And we know how to win.


Jess BanksJess Banks is a graduate student researcher in UC Berkeley’s mathematics department.

Ahmed AkhtarAhmed Akhtar studies physics at UC San Diego, where he has worked as a graduate student researcher and a teaching assistant.

One-third of Arab world food insecure in 2020, UN says

The UN says a spike in undernourishment in the Middle East and North Africa was observed across all income levels, in both conflict-ridden and stable countries.

Hungry men reach for bread behind barbed wire while waiting to enter Tunisia after fleeing Libya on February 28, 2011 in Ras Jdir, Tunisia. - Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Al-Monitor Staff
December 16, 2021

Nearly one-third of the Arab world’s population experienced food insecurity in 2020, according to a new report from the United Nations’ food agency.

Some 69 million in the region were undernourished in 2020, in what the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said Thursday was a 91% increase in the past two decades. Roughly 32% of the region lacked regular access to sufficient and nutritious food. The UN agency said the spike in undernourishment was observed across all income levels, in both conflict-ridden and stable countries.

The onset of COVID-19 was a major driver of food insecurity, with 4.8 million more people undernourished in 2020 than the year before. Along with the economic impact of the pandemic, food insecurity in 2020 was triggered by protracted crisis, social unrest, climate change and poverty, the report said. FAO warned that recent trends suggest the Arab region is unlikely to reach the UN's goal of zero hunger by 2030.

“Conflicts continue to be one of the leading causes of hunger in the region,” FAO’s regional representative Abdulhakim Elwaer said in a statement.

"There may be no visible improvement in the situation this year since hunger's primary drivers will continue to drag the situation further down the road," Elwaer said.

Stunted growth among typically malnourished children under five years old was 20.5% in 2020, down from nearly 29% two decades ago. Despite the overall improvement in the region, stunting rates increased in Djibouti, Kuwait, Libya and Syria.

The region is also struggling with adult obesity, which has steadily increased since 2000. At 28.8% last year, the rate of adult obesity was more than double the global average and was especially on the rise in wealthy Arab countries.

War-torn Yemen, which is considered the Arab world’s poorest country, had the highest rate of anemia in 2020, affecting 61.5 percent of women of reproductive age.

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/12/one-third-arab-world-food-insecure-2020-un-says#ixzz7FKhSxfkx

KENNEY IS AN IDIOT

COVID: Omicron is unstoppable now

Experts in Germany say we're unprepared for the inevitable: Hundreds of thousands of omicron infections per day. That is how infectious the new variant is.



Omicron is more infectious than other coronavirus variants and it can evade our immune response system

So, that's that: It won't be a Merry Christmas after all.

It's only a matter of time before we're hit by the full force of omicron infections — a case of, "not if, but when." And that when won't take long. That's what three of Germany's top researchers said during a virtual nationwide press briefing Wednesday (15.12.2021).

Christoph Neumann-Haefelin, an immunologist at the University Medical Center Freiburg, said omicron will likely become the dominant variant of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, by mid-January — superseding the delta variant, which until now has been one of the most infectious strains since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Neumann-Haefelin predicts that infection rates will shoot up dramatically — possibly to hundreds of thousands per day.

That dark prognosis is based on international data that German researchers have been studying. Take for instance the United Kingdom, where omicron infection rates are doubling every two to three days.

Dirk Brockmann, a physicist at Humboldt University of Berlin, says that's a factor of three-to-four-times higher than infection rates with previous variants.

Experts in the UK estimate new omicron infections could shoot up to as many as 400,000-to-700,000 cases per day.


They think it's possible that 20-34 million people could become infected with omicron between now (December 2021) and April 2022 — that's about half of the UK population — despite reinforced rules on social distancing, medical masks, school closures and more.

"I'd be surprised if we didn't see a similar situation here in Germany," said Brockmann.
Governments must act now

Brockmann says politicians have to act immediately, setting up emergency plans for a range of scenarios and then putting them into action.

"We have to slow the spread of the virus to limit the damage," according to Brockmann. But, he admits, it will be impossible to stop it outright.

Germany's experts say communities will have to reduce social contacts and people's movements drastically, similar to what they did in the very first lockdowns.

"But we'll have to do a whole lot more given the speed with which this variant is spreading," Brockmann said.

At risk even if you're boosted

Omicron is not only more infectious than other variants of the coronavirus, it can also evade our human immune responses — what experts call "immune escape."

That means people who are double jabbed and even those who have had booster shots, can still get infected.

A booster jab will pump up your protection to 70-75% and it will also reduce your risk of a severe infection but that could also lend you a false sense of security, said Sandra Ciesek, director of the Institute of Medical Virology at the University Hospital Frankfurt.

Ciesek said while it was important to get the unvaccinated vaccinated, first jabs would not be enough to fight off omicron.

"It takes many weeks for the immune system to develop a defense," she said. "The virus moves faster than that."
Omicron more dangerous than people think

Ciesek went on to say that omicron was likely to be just as dangerous as other variants of the virus — despite some reports suggesting it may only cause mild infections.

Initial data from the UK and Denmark show that hospitalization rates for people infected with omicron are not much different from those infected with the delta variant.

At the start of the omicron wave, reports from South Africa gave hope that the variant was less dangerous than delta, as many people there experienced only mild infections.

But since then, an increasing number of people infected with omicron have had to be hospitalized. The UK was the first country to report a death with omicron.

Ciesek said it was hard to compare the European situation with that in South Africa, where the population is on average younger, and where many people have had a previous coronavirus infection.

Health systems may collapse

Experts also warn that if infection rates continue to rise dramatically, health systems may well collapse.

Take, for example, the UK again: Estimated hospitalizations of between 3-5,000 people would put a strain on the "entire machinery," said Brockmann.

Many hospitals are struggling as it is and they won't be able to accept many more patients, especially as more patients mean higher risk of medical personnel getting infected as well.

Brockmann said we could see a cascade of effects, not all of them predictable. So researchers are calling on politicians to act decisively — "Time is running out," said Brockmann.

Ciesek, too, said she felt that Germany was ill-prepared, adding that she was very concerned about the situation.

Granted, these are worst-case scenarios but the three experts agreed it won't be enough to just hope omicron shows itself to be less dangerous than other variants.

Neumann-Haefelin said such wishful thinking would be akin to "walking into a catastrophe with open eyes."

This article was translated from German by Zulfikar Abbany

Edited by: Fabian Schmidt

Omicron variant multiplies 70 times faster in airways than Delta: study

By Nancy Lapid Reuters
Posted December 16, 2021 

WATCH: Omicron raising questions about holiday plans

Major differences in how efficiently Omicron and other variants of the coronavirus multiply may help predict Omicron’s effects, researchers said on Wednesday.

Compared to the earlier Delta variant, Omicron multiplies itself 70 times more quickly in tissues that line airway passages, which may facilitate person-to-person spread, they said. But in lung tissues, Omicron replicates 10 times more slowly than the original version of the coronavirus, which might contribute to less-severe illness.

A formal report of the findings is under peer review for publication and has not been released by the research team. In a news release issued by Hong Kong University, study leader Dr. Michael Chan Chi-wai said, “It is important to note that the severity of disease in humans is not determined only by virus replication” but also by each person’s immune response to the infection, which sometimes evolves into life-threatening inflammation.

Chan added, “By infecting many more people, a very infectious virus may cause more severe disease and death even though the virus itself may be less pathogenic. Therefore, taken together with our recent studies showing that the Omicron variant can partially escape immunity from vaccines and past infection, the overall threat from Omicron variant is likely to be very significant.”

Omicron grips cells more tightly, withstands some antibodies

A structural model of how the Omicron variant attaches to cells and antibodies sheds light on its behavior and will help in designing neutralizing antibodies, according to researchers.

Using computer models of the spike protein on Omicron’s surface, they analyzed molecular interactions occurring when the spike grabs onto a cell-surface protein called ACE2, the virus’s gateway into the cell.

READ MORE: Omicron variant might make COVID-19 vaccines less effective, WHO warns

Metaphorically, the original virus had a handshake with ACE2, but Omicron’s grip “looks more like a couple holding hands with their fingers entwined,” said Joseph Lubin of Rutgers University in New Jersey. The “molecular anatomy” of the grip may assist in explaining how Omicron’s mutations cooperate to help it infect cells, Lubin added.

The research team also modeled the spike with different classes of antibodies trying to attack it. The antibodies attack from different angles, “like a football team’s defense might tackle a ball carrier,” with one person grabbing from behind, another from the front, Lubin said. Some antibodies “appear likely to get shaken off” while others are likely to remain effective. Booster vaccines raise antibody levels, resulting in “more defenders,” which might compensate to some extent for “a weaker grip of an individual antibody,” Lubin said.

1:17 COVID-19: WHO warns of dismissing the Omicron variant as being ‘mild’, calls for stronger measures

The findings, posted on Monday on the website bioRxiv ahead of peer review, need to be verified, “particularly with real-world samples from people,” Lubin said. “While our molecular structure predictions are by no means a final word on Omicron, (we hope) they enable a faster and more effective response from the global community.”

Four in 10 infected people may unknowingly spread virus

Infected people who show no symptoms might be contributing significantly to transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, given that they account for 40.5% of confirmed infections worldwide, according to a study published online Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open.

READ MORE: Omicron is raging in the U.K. What can Canada learn?

The researchers pooled data from 77 earlier studies involving a total of 19,884 individuals with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections. They found that among infected people in the general community, about 40% were asymptomatic, as were 54% of infected pregnant women, 53% of infected air or cruise travelers, 48% of infected nursing home residents or staff and 30% of infected healthcare workers or hospitalized patients.

The pooled percentage of asymptomatic infections was about 46% in North America, 44% in Europe and 28% in Asia.

“The high percentage of asymptomatic infections highlights the potential transmission risk of asymptomatic infections in communities,” wrote Min Liu and colleagues at Peking University in China. Officials should screen for asymptomatic infections, and those who are identified “should be under management similar to that for confirmed infections, including isolating and contact tracing.”

Faroe Islands were settled 300 years before the Vikings arrived

Centuries-old faeces indicate previous human occupation of the North Atlantic islands.

Credit: Neurobite.

The Faroe Islands, sitting between Iceland, Norway and the British Isles, were an important stepping stone for Viking exploration across the North Atlantic. It has long been accepted, based on archaeological evidence, that the Norse were the first to settle the Islands – but there have been niggling doubts, with several indirect lines of evidence suggesting that an existing human population was there to greet the Vikings when the first longships landed.

In new research published in Communications Earth & Environment, researchers have presented the first unequivocal evidence that the Vikings were not the first to settle the Faroes. Using a combination of faecal biomarkers and sedimentary ancient DNA, they have been able to date the earliest settlement to 500 CE, approximately 300 years before the Vikings adopted the sailing technology that saw them expand their territories across vast swathes of the global north.

Lead author Lorelei Curtin, from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, USA, and colleagues drew evidence from sediment cores taken from the Eiðisvatn catchment, home to a major archaeological site that was once a Norse summer farm settlement known as Argisbrekka. From these cores, researchers were able to identify the presence of lipid molecules, called faecal biomarkers, that derive from excrement.

The Argisbrekka faecal biomarkers bear the distinct signature of an origin in sheep digestive tracts. All mammals of the Faroe Islands were originally introduced by humans, so this evidence of sheep poo is a clear indicator of human presence. By dating the sediments in which these markers were found, the researchers were able to shift the date of livestock arrival back several centuries.

“The initial appearance of sheep DNA and increased faecal biomarkers predates the first documented usage of the Argisbrekka site by the Norse by approximately 300 years,” the researchers write.

Evidence of ancient sheep poo in the Faroe Islands is a clear indicator of human presence. Credit: dataichi – Simon Dubreuil.

The team was able to further corroborate the new settlement date using next-generation DNA sequencing technology, which allowed them to compile a profile of the ancient DNA lingering in the sediment cores. Sampling across 11 different depths, they found increasing concentrations of both sheep and grass DNA coinciding with a disappearance of woody plants.

Where once this shift in vegetation was attributed to late Holocene climate change, it now appears that widespread grazing was the dominant driver of landscape transition from shrublands to grasslands and peatlands in the Faroes.

This new evidence validates long-held doubts surrounding the Norse-settlement narrative, which was based primarily on the dating of archaeological structures. The earliest structures on the Faroes date between 800 and 900 CE, consistent with the timing of the widespread Norse expansion to new territories in Iceland, Greenland and all the way to North America.

The current study approaches the question with novel methodology.

“While the nature of archaeological records causes them to be temporally fragmentary, sedimentary archives provide continuous records of the environmental history of a landscape,” write the researchers.

The results have opened up the discussion regarding pre-existing lines of evidence that have consistently called the established timeline into question.

Many place names in the Faroes derive from Celtic words, and a number of Celtic grave markings have been identified across the Islands. Perhaps the most compelling evidence lies in the genetics of modern Faroese people – there is a strong asymmetry between paternal and maternal ancestry, with the paternal lineage dominantly Scandinavian, while the maternal lineage is primarily from the British Isles.

Although strongly suggestive of an existing population, none of this evidence is directly conclusive.

“By 800 CE, the Vikings were already active in the British Isles,” write the researchers. “They were already influenced by Celtic culture and could have brought wives from the British Isles to the Faroe Islands.”

But with the current research firmly establishing the existence of human populations on the Faroe Islands long before the Vikings had taken up sailing – generally believed to be between 750 and 820 CE – it now appears unlikely that these first settlers were Norse.

So, who were the first inhabitants? Unfortunately, that’s still a mystery. While genetic profiles, place names and grave markings might hint towards a Celtic population, the direct sedimentary DNA evidence can’t pin this down.

“The early Faroese settlers were not Norse, however the identity of these early North Atlantic explorers remains an open question,” assert the researchers.

Originally published by Cosmos as Faroe Islands were settled 300 years before the Vikings arrived

AFGHANISTAN

Releasing US$9.5 billion in frozen assets can’t help the Afghan people as long as the Taliban remain in power

December 16, 2021 

THE CONVERSATION

Afghanistan is in a major humanitarian crisis: the health sector is failing, the economy is collapsing, and amid the COVID pandemic, famine is inflicting ever-larger numbers of casualties. According to the most recent report by the UN World Food Programme, more than half of the resident population of 38 million are facing acute hunger and 3.2 million children under five suffer from malnutrition.

Droughts, combined with the suspension of foreign aid in the aftermath of the Taliban’s takeover, have led to a dire economic situation, with recent reports indicating that some families in the northwest are selling their children out of desperation. Food and fuel prices are soaring.

On October 17, the Taliban foreign minister, Amir Khan Mottaqi, called on the US Congress to ease sanctions and release Afghanistan’s reserves. But would the US$9.5 billion (£7.16 billion) of frozen assets of Afghanistan Central Bank do anything to alleviate the deeply rooted poverty and food insecurity of the Afghan people – or will this only benefit the Taliban and its fighters?

Even in the near term, this amount of money will not go far to address poverty in Afghanistan. It has been estimated the reserves would cover the import costs of Afghanistan for only 15 months. The US-backed regime’s budget estimate for the fiscal year 2020 was $6.22 billion.

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The situation has been made worse by several other factors: drought, dependency on international aid and high unemployment rates. These extend far deeper and beyond the reach anything $9.5 billion could achieve. International aid made up about 75% of the US-backed regime’s budget. Afghanistan’s assets are only a fraction of the aid the country needs.
Skills deficit

It is naive to think that the Taliban’s caretaker cabinet and its civil service is able to administer these funds efficiently. The Taliban’s leadership lacks the knowledge, skill and experience needed to run state institutions and deliver services while managing an unfolding humanitarian crisis against the backdrop of a pandemic.

The COVID pandemic is playing havoc with Afghanistan’s economy. EPA-EFE/stringer

The skills that helped the Taliban win on the battlefield are not easily transferable. And more than half of the Taliban’s caretaker cabinet is on at least one designated terrorist list, which makes diplomatic engagement with the Taliban very difficult at the international level. At home, the Taliban leadership suffers from internal fragmentation that makes agreement on national-level public policy decisions difficult.

At the sub-national level, the Taliban has placed fighters in upper-level administration positions, while thousands of former government employees have either left their jobs or have been replaced with Taliban loyalists, according to my anonymous sources still living there. Women, who previously made up almost half of the civil service, have been almost entirely excluded. Taliban fighters placed at executive administrative levels lack the required managerial and leadership skills – some reportedly even lack basic literacy. The prospects of these people having the capacity to put the funds to productive use addressing the abject poverty in the country is very low.

Additionally, fears of misappropriation of National Bank’s assets are well-grounded. The limited international aid that has reached Afghanistan has occasionally been misappropriated and distributed among the Taliban fighters.

The Taliban is struggling to pay its fighters, let alone deal with growing food shortages.

 EPA PHOTO POOL/AP

These concerns become all the more relevant given that the Taliban is not able to pay its fighters. The group has about 80,000 fighters who were paid 10,000-25,000 Afghanis (the equivalent of US$200-US$400) per month before the group took over Kabul. At the lower end, the Taliban needs at least $16m a month for the salaries of its fighters alone. Some of the Taliban’s fighters have reportedly defected to IS or al-Qaeda. The Taliban will undoubtedly lose more if it prioritises civilian spending over paying its fighters.

Political considerations

Finally, the release of Afghanistan’s foreign assets is tied to the question of the Taliban’s legitimacy. No government so far – including staunch supporter Pakistan – has officially recognised the Taliban’s government. Freezing Afghanistan’s assets was a political decision by US president Joe Biden to put pressure on the Taliban to form an inclusive government, so releasing these assets to the Taliban is akin to formal recognition of the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Even if it was released for entirely humanitarian reasons, the Taliban would not hesitate to make this into a propaganda coup.

Economic sanctions have been effective in some regards. The Taliban is realising that its survival depends on changing its policies, both regarding women’s rights and forming an inclusive government. The opening of schools for girls in cities such as Herat and Mazar-e Sharif is indicative of the effectiveness of pressure put on the Taliban both internationally and nationally.

But economic sanctions also have a dire impact on the civilian population. Although the UN raised $1.2bn in emergency funds, the international community is grappling with how to engage with the Taliban, deliver the much-needed aid – and yet not empower, legitimise and enrich the Taliban. Helping Afghans while bypassing the Taliban is possible. Unicef, for example, is setting up a system that will allow direct payment to teachers while bypassing the Taliban.

Afghanistan’s state power monopoly owes more than $90 million to its power suppliers in neighbouring countries such as Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Given the deteriorating relationships between the Taliban and some of these countries, there are concerns that the suppliers might cut off electricity. International aid could be used to pay foreign electricity suppliers directly while denying the Taliban the opportunity to misappropriate funds.

Afghan civilians should not be subjected to starvation in a bid to pressure a government they did not put in office. Likewise, the international community has a responsibility to ensure the wealth of the Afghan people is not squandered by shortsighted Taliban desperately trying to cling to power.

Author

Weeda Mehran
Lecturer in politics at the College of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of Exeter

Afghanistan: Government collapse marked by ‘repeated war crimes and relentless bloodshed’ – new report


NEWS

December 15, 2021 

The Taliban, United States military, and Afghan security forces were all responsible for attacks that resulted in extensive civilian suffering before the country’s government collapsed earlier this year, Amnesty International said in a new report today.

The report, No Escape: War Crimes and Civilian Harm During The Fall Of Afghanistan To The Taliban, documents torture, extrajudicial executions and killings by the Taliban during the final stages of the conflict in Afghanistan, as well as civilian casualties during a series of ground and air operations by the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and US military forces.

Homes, hospitals, schools and shops were turned into crime scenes as people were repeatedly killed and injuredAgnès Callamard, Amnesty International Secretary General

“The months before the government collapse in Kabul were marked by repeated war crimes and relentless bloodshed committed by the Taliban, as well as deaths caused by Afghan and US forces,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“Our new evidence shows that, far from the seamless transition of power that the Taliban claimed happened, the people of Afghanistan have once again paid with their lives.

“Homes, hospitals, schools and shops were turned into crime scenes as people were repeatedly killed and injured. The people of Afghanistan have suffered for too long, and victims must have access to justice and receive reparations.

“The International Criminal Court must reverse its misguided decision to deprioritize investigations into US and Afghan military operations, and instead follow the evidence on all possible war crimes, no matter where it leads.”

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported that 1,659 civilians were killed and another 3,524 injured in the first six months of 2021, an increase of 47% from the prior year.

Taliban atrocities

As they seized control of districts across Afghanistan in July and August 2021, members of the Taliban tortured and killed ethnic and religious minorities, former ANDSF soldiers, and those perceived as government sympathizers in reprisal attacks.

On 6 September 2021, Taliban forces attacked Bazarak town in Panjshir province. After a brief battle, approximately 20 men were captured by Taliban fighters and detained for two days, at times jailed in a pigeon coop. They were tortured, denied food, water and medical assistance, and repeatedly threatened with execution.

One of the men captured by the Taliban said: “[The] Talib had taken a knife… he was saying he wanted to behead the wounded… because they are infidels and Jews.”

Another man added: “They kept us underground. When we were asking for medical treatment of the wounded, the Taliban were saying, ‘Let them die’… There was no food and water, and no support to the wounded. They had brutal relations with us. When we were asking for water, they were saying, ‘Die of thirst’.” Torture and cruel and inhuman treatment of captives constitute war crimes.

Later the same day, the Taliban also attacked the nearby village of Urmaz, where they conducted door-to-door searches to identify people suspected of working for the former government. The fighters extrajudicially executed at least six civilian men within 24 hours, mainly by gunshots to the head, chest or heart. Such killings constitute war crimes. Eyewitnesses said that while some of the men had previously served in the ANSDF, none were in government security forces or taking part in hostilities in any way at the time of execution.

The report also documents reprisal attacks and executions of people affiliated with the former government in Spin Boldak. Amnesty International previously documented Taliban massacres of ethnic Hazaras in Ghazni and Daykundi provinces.

The full scale of the killings nationwide still remains unknown, as the Taliban cut mobile phone service, or severely restricted internet access, in many rural areas.

Civilian casualties from US and Afghan air strikes

The report documents four air strikes - three most likely carried out by US forces, and one by the Afghan Air Force - in recent years. The strikes killed a total of 28 civilians (15 men, five women, and eight children), and injured another six.

The strikes generally resulted in civilian deaths because the US dropped explosive weapons in densely populated areas. Amnesty International has previously documented similar impacts of explosive weapons in numerous other conflicts, and supports a political declaration to curb their use.

The second bomb killed my mother, my uncle, my aunt, and my sisterA nine-year-old child

On 9 November 2020, an air strike most likely carried out by US forces killed five civilians – including a three-month-old girl – and wounded six at a family home in the Mulla Ghulam neighbourhood of Khanabad city, in Kunduz province.

A nine-year-old child who was injured in the attack said: “I was sleeping when the first bomb hit… They were telling us to hide somewhere in case the second bomb happened. My father said I had to find my younger brother. The second bomb killed my mother, my uncle, my aunt, and my sister.”

Such strikes form a pattern of civilian harm that continued until the last moments of the conflict, when a US drone strike killed 10 people, including seven children, in Kabul on 29 August 2021. The US military later admitted that those killed were civilians.

Civilians killed in ground combat

The report documents eight cases during ground combat in which a total of 12 civilians were killed (five men, one woman, and six children), and 15 more injured. Through a combination of negligence and disregard for the law, the US-trained ANDSF frequently launched mortar attacks that hit homes and killed civilians in hiding.

The fighting in Kunduz city was especially fierce in June 2021. In the suburb of Zakhail, government forces launched mortars into densely populated neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, Taliban forces gained ground, using schools and mosques to launch attacks, and demanding food from families trapped in their homes.

On 22 June 2021, one man was killed and two people were injured during a mortar attack in Zakhail. The ANDSF most likely launched the mortar from the First Police District, approximately 2.5 kilometres from the scene of the explosion. The man killed was Abdul Razaq, 20, who was recently engaged to be married. Fragments from the mortar tore open his head and stomach.

Later the same day in the same neighbourhood, one child was killed and two more were injured when a mortar – again most likely launched by the ANDSF – hit a home where a family was in hiding. A metal fragment hit Manizha, a 12-year-old girl, in the spine, paralyzing and eventually killing her.

One man said the Taliban often forewarned families about combat, but they had received no similar communication from the government. He said: “The Taliban…say, ‘We will be fighting tonight’, and the people who can afford to leave do – but the poor people stay because they will starve if they leave. But there is no use of asking the government, when we know they are going to do nothing.”

The use of mortars, whose use in populated areas is inherently indiscriminate, can constitute a war crime.

Reparations and accountability

Multiple family members of victims of military actions told Amnesty International they did not receive sufficient, if any, reparations from the government.

One man, whose family home was destroyed in an air strike, said: “No one from the government came afterwards. We went to the district and told them what happened. No one came to us. They said, ‘This is not good. It should not have happened. We share your pain’. But nothing happened.”

The Taliban authorities now have the same legal obligation to provide reparations as the former government

Agnès Callamard

Amnesty International is calling on the Taliban and the US government to fulfil their international obligations, and establish clear and robust mechanisms for civilians to request reparations for harm sustained during the conflict.

“The Taliban authorities now have the same legal obligation to provide reparations as the former government, and must address all issues of civilian harm seriously,” said Agnès Callamard.

“Victims and their families must receive reparations, and all those suspected of responsibility must be held to account in fair trials before ordinary civilian courts and without recourse to the death penalty.”

Methodology

Amnesty International conducted on-the-ground research in Kabul from 1-15 August 2021, and completed remote phone interviews with victims and witnesses via secure video and voice calls from August to November 2021.

Amnesty International conducted face-to-face interviews in Kabul with 65 people, and remote interviews through encrypted mobile apps with an additional 36 people, from a total of 10 provinces.

The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab also reviewed satellite imagery, videos and photographs, medical and ballistics information, and interviewed relevant experts where necessary.

Karzai 'invited' Afghan Taliban to Kabul after Ghani fled in secret

Ex-Afghan leader Hamid Karzai says he invited the Taliban insurgents into the capital Kabul on August 15 so that "the city doesn't fall into chaos," following a covert departure of Ashraf Ghani and his team from the country.

Karzai says Ghani's flight scuttled a last-minute push that would have seen the Taliban enter the capital as part of a negotiated deal. (AP)

Former Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai has said the Taliban didn't take the Kabul city on August 15 but they were invited by him to enter the Afghan capital after former president Ashraf Ghani and his team fled the country, creating a security vacuum.

In an Associated Press interview on Wednesday, Karzai offered some of the first insights into the secret and sudden departure of Ghani — and how he came to invite the Taliban into the city "to protect the population so that the country, the city doesn't fall into chaos and the unwanted elements who would probably loot the country, loot shops."

Karzai said when Ghani fled, his security officials also left, adding defence minister Bismillah Khan even asked him if he wanted to leave Kabul when he contacted him to know what remnants of the government still remained.

It turned out there were none, not even the Kabul police chief had remained, Karzai said.

Karzai, who was the country's president for 13 years after the Taliban was first ousted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, said he refused to leave.

READ MORE:

US launches commission to study Afghanistan fiasco

Ghani scuttled peaceful transition

Karzai said that Ghani's flight scuttled a last-minute push by himself, the government's chief negotiator Abdullah Abdullah and the Taliban leadership in Doha that would have seen the Taliban enter the capital as part of a negotiated agreement.

The countdown to a possible deal began on August 14, the day before the Taliban came to power.

Karzai and Abdullah met Ghani, and they agreed that they would leave for Doha the next day with a list of 15 others to negotiate a power-sharing agreement.

The Taliban were already on the outskirts of Kabul, but Karzai said the leadership in Qatar promised the Taliban will remain outside the city until the deal was struck.

Early on the morning of August 15, Karzai said, he waited to draw up the list. The capital was fidgety, on edge. Rumors were swirling about a Taliban takeover. Karzai called Doha. He was told the Taliban would not enter the city.

At noon, the Taliban called to say that "the government should stay in its positions and should not move that they have no intention to (go) into the city," Karzai said.

"I and others spoke to various officials and assurances were given to us that, yes, that was the case, that the Americans and the government forces were holding firm to the places (and) that Kabul would not fall."

By about 2:45 pm, though, it became apparent Ghani had fled the city. Karzai said he called the defence minister, called the interior minister, searched for the Kabul police chief but everyone was gone.

"There was no official present at all in the capital, no police chief, no corps commander, no other units. They had all left."

READ MORE: 'God will punish them': Afghan victims reject US verdict on Kabul killings

Engagement with Taliban

Karzai said he meets regularly with the Taliban leadership and said the world must engage with them.

"Right now, they need to cooperate with the government in any form they can," said Karzai, who also bemoaned the unchallenged and sometimes wrong international perceptions of the Taliban.

He cited claims that women and girls are not allowed outside their homes or require a male companion.

"That's not true. There are girls on the streets — women by themselves. The situation on the ground in Kabul bears this out."

READ MORE: Caught in cyclical violence: Why Afghanistan's present mirrors its past

Washington’s Tawdry Victory Over Julian Assange

Does effective democracy require the authoritarian art of stomping on the down-and-out?


Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in Brussels, Belgium on 4/15/2019. 

© Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock

By Peter Isackson
December 13, 2021

Last week witnessed the 80th anniversary of a moment in history qualified by Franklin D. Roosevelt as “a date which will live in infamy.” On December 8, 1941, the president announced that the United States was declaring war after Japan’s unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor a day earlier. A nation that had spent two decades wallowing in isolationism instantly became one of the principal and most powerful actors in a new world war. Victory on two fronts, against Germany and Japan, would be achieved successively in 1944 and 1945.

Last week ended with its own day of infamy when a British court overturned an earlier judgment banning the extradition to the US of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Following in the footsteps of the Trump administration, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department successfully appealed the ban in its relentless effort to judge Assange for violating the 1917 Espionage Act, itself a relic of the history of the First World War.
Guns and the Wrong Side of Rights

Back then, President Woodrow Wilson’s government pulled no jingoistic punches when promoting America’s participation in Europe’s war. It actively incited the population to indulge in xenophobia. Public paranoia targeting Germany, the nation’s enemy, reached such a pitch that Beethoven was banned from the concert stage, sauerkraut was officially renamed “liberty cabbage” and hamburger “liberty steak.”

The manifestly paranoid Espionage Act sought to punish anyone who “communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to communicate, deliver or transmit to any foreign government … any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, etc.” The law, specifically for a state of war, was so extreme it was rarely used until Barack Obama unearthed it as the elegant solution for suppressing the whistleblowers he had vowed to defend in his first presidential campaign.

Despite overindulging his taste for punishing whistleblowers, Obama refrained from seeking to extradite Assange. He feared it might appear as an assault on freedom of the press and might even incriminate The New York Times, which had published the WikiLeaks documents in 2010. In the meantime, Democrats found a stronger reason to blame Assange. He had leaked the Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016 presidential primary campaign. Democrats blamed the Australian for electing Donald Trump.

During his 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly praised WikiLeaks for its willingness to expose the undemocratic practices of the Clinton campaign. But once in power, Trump’s administration vindictively demanded Assange’s extradition from the UK for having revealed war crimes that deserved being hidden for eternity from the prying eyes of journalists and historians.

Many observers expected Biden to return to the prudent wisdom of Obama and break with Trump’s vindictive initiative. He could have quietly accepted the British judge’s decision pronounced in January. Instead, his Justice Department appealed. Unlike Trump, who sought to undermine everything Obama had achieved, Biden has surprisingly revealed a deep, largely passive respect for his predecessor’s most dangerous innovations — not challenging corporate tax cuts, the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and Trump’s aggressive support for Israel’s most oppressive policies with regard to Palestinians.

Biden’s eagerness to follow Trump’s gambit aimed at subjecting Assange to the US brand of military-style justice allowed New York Times journalists Megan Specia and Charlie Savage to describe Friday’s decision by the British court as a success for the administration. “The ruling was a victory,” they wrote, “at least for now, for the Biden administration, which has pursued an effort to prosecute Mr. Assange begun under the Trump administration.”

Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Victory:

Triumph in combat, including, at two extremes, cases marked by heroic action and others prompted by malicious self-serving motives and driven by the perpetrator’s confusion of the idea of justice with sadistic, vindictive pleasure

Contextual Note

The Times journalists quote Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, who “said the government was ‘pleased by the ruling’ and would have no further comment.” At no point in the article do the authors evoke the hypothesis that Biden might have sought to overturn Trump’s policy. Nor do they analyze the reasons that could undermine the government’s case. They do quote several of Assange’s supporters, including one who called “on the Biden administration again to withdraw” the charge. Serious observers of the media might expect that a pillar of the press in a liberal democracy might be tempted to express its own concern with laws and policies that risk threatening its own freedom. Not The New York Times. This story didn’t even make its front page. None of its columnists deemed it deserving of comment.

Journalist Kalinga Seneviratne, writing for The Manila Times, offered a radical contrast. “If this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is about promoting ‘press freedom,’” he speculates, “the Norwegian Nobel Committee missed a golden opportunity to make a powerful statement at a time when such freedom is under threat in the very countries that have traditionally claimed a patent on it.” He quotes the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, who claims that “what has been done to Julian Assange is not to punish or coerce him, but to silence him and to do so in broad daylight, making visible to the entire world that those who expose the misconduct of the powerful no longer enjoy the protection of the law.”

Deutsche Welle’s Matthias von Hein noted the interesting coincidence that three converging events took place on the same day. “In a bitter twist of irony,” he writes, “a court in London has essentially paved the way for Assange’s prosecution on Human Rights Day — of all days. And how ironic that it happened on the day two journalists were honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Last, but not least, it coincided with the second day of the Summit on Democracy organized by US President Joe Biden.”

Von Hein added this observation: “We’re constantly hearing how Western democracies are in competition with autocratic systems. If Biden is serious about that, he should strive to be better than the world’s dictators.” But, as the saying goes, you can’t teach a 79-year old dog new tricks.

Historical Note

The coincidences do not end there. On the same day the news of Julian Assange’s fate emerged, Yahoo’s investigative reporter Michael Isikoff recounted the story of another man “brought to justice” by US authorities: Mohamedou Ould Slahi. The Mauritanian citizen had the privilege of spending 14 years in the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba without ever being charged with a crime, even after confessing to the crimes imagined by his torturers.

It turns out to be a touching moral tale. Even after years of imprisonment and gruesome torture, Slahi “holds no personal animus against his interrogators.” According to Isikoff, “he has even met and bonded with some of those interrogators,” years after the event. “I took it upon myself,” Slahi explained, “to be a nice person and took a vow of kindness no matter what. And you cannot have a vow of kindness without forgiving people.”

It wasn’t the Prophet Muhammad who said, “turn the other cheek” or “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” Those words were spoken by the man George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld claimed to revere and whom Bush considered his “favorite philosopher.” The Quran did continue the original Christian insight, pronouncing that “retribution for an evil act is an evil one like it,” and that reconciliation and forgiveness will be rewarded by Allah.

There has clearly been no forgiveness in Washington for the “evil” committed by Assange: exposing war crimes conducted in secret with American taxpayers’ money. Slahi’s torture was conducted by the declared proponents of “Judeo-Christian” culture. Shahi’s forgiveness stands as an example of what that culture claims as a virtue but fails to embrace in its own actions.

Shahi is reconciled with his interrogators. But does he also feel reconciled with those who gave them their orders? In 2019, he said, “I accept that the United States should follow and put to trial all the people who are harming their citizens. I agree with that. But I disagree with them that if they suspect you, they kidnap you, they torture you, and let you rot in prison for 15 or 16 years. And then they dump you in your country and they say you cannot have your passport because you have already seen so many things that we don’t want you to travel around the world to talk about.”

Despite appearances, Mohamedou Ould Shahi’s case is not all that different from Julian Assange’s.


*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Workers denounce UK High Court verdict against Julian Assange: “A crime against humanity”

Our reporters
WSWS.ORG

Last Friday, Britain’s High Court ruled in favour of a US government appeal aimed at extraditing WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to the United States. The court’s decision confirms that the British state, its government, judiciary, and intelligence agencies are determined to destroy Assange in retribution for WikiLeaks’ courageous exposure of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over the coming weeks the World Socialist Web Site will publish interviews and statements from workers, young people, medical professionals and lawyers, artists and writers, speaking out against one of the greatest political crimes of the 21st century.

As the WSWS wrote in June 2019, “Only by organizing protest actions on an international scale—meetings, rallies, demonstrations, and public conferences—will it be possible to frustrate and defeat the plans of reactionary governments, their intelligence agencies and political agents to silence and destroy Julian Assange. The aim of this campaign must be to politically arouse and mobilize the international working class—the overwhelming majority of the population and the most powerful social force on the planet—in defence of Julian Assange and, in fact, the democratic and social rights of all workers.”

We urge readers of the World Socialist Web Site to send messages of support and to organise motions in your workplace, school or college demanding Assange’s immediate and unconditional freedom.

The WSWS has received the following statements of support from workers in Scotland and England.

Emily, a carer in Edinburgh, Scotland originally from Australia said, “It is difficult to express the revulsion I feel at the continued persecution of Julian Assange, an Australian journalist who published information on the war crimes of the US and its allies. The governments of these nations have conspired to continuously violate his human rights. They have smeared his character, imprisoned and tortured him to the point of him suffering a stroke, refused him legal asylum, and are now preparing to put him through another show trial in another foreign country. There, he will again be imprisoned, mistreated, and eventually die as a result.

“Despite the orchestrated smears and intimidation, public support for Assange in his home country is across the political spectrum. I, along with many other Australians, will continue to support Assange and recognise this miscarriage of justice for what it is.”

Dino, a mental health social worker in Dorset described the situation facing Assange as “quite distressing to be honest. The guy’s being punished for good things he has done! And for how many years? A murderer would have been let out by now. He spent his best years under some form of arrest and now Uncle Sam wants to use his stick on him. A pathetic court outcome to be frank.

Dino

“Mr Assange has been a shining beacon when it comes to unearthing what certain governments wanted to keep a tight lid on. However, due to their power, and judges who kow-tow to deeply disturbing agendas, he is being made a scapegoat for their heinous crimes against humanity.

“I am sad that UK’s judges have concluded that Mr Assange is in position to stand a trial in US courts. He has already spent about a decade in one or another form of arrest, and he deserves to be living freely with his family. This move makes it abundantly clear that UK’s judges are not impartial—on the contrary, they are politically driven, and this case sets an historic precedent.”

Onya, a shipyard worker in Rosyth, Scotland said, “The illusion that liberal democracies allow freedom of speech has been shattered. You are free to say as you wish providing it doesn't expose abhorrent state sanctioned war crimes or upset the status quo. Assange should be championed as a campaigner for human rights rather than vilified and subjected to what could be considered torture.”

Gerard, a retired shipyard worker from Renfrew, Scotland said, “I'd like to say that Julian Assange has been basically fed to the wolves by governments at the highest level.

“Julian Assange has been treated like a dockyard rat while in the hands of security services. They bleat out the usual gibberish about ‘working in the interests of public security and treating any human with the utmost respect’ ...where have I heard that classic line before? Get ready for another saga which will rival Tolstoy's masterpiece.

“Please let common sense prevail and help this human being to achieve his freedom.”

Ken, a former building worker from Dundee, Scotland said, “The decision to extradite Julian Assange is a crime against humanity. Especially against such a brilliant journalist. The crimes he exposed regarding the United States and its barbaric murders around the globe, testify to his brilliance as an investigative journalist.

“The courts in Britain and America had already made up their minds that Julian was guilty. There is no doubt that the American authorities’ guarantee that he would be treated with leniency is a pack of lies. His physical and mental health must be in a terrible state, especially after having a stroke. A campaign in the working class worldwide is the way forward to freeing him from the prison where he is currently incarcerated.”

Francesa, a retired nurse and teacher from Scotland, cited the words of Berit Reiss Andersen who announced the winners in Oslo on Friday of the Nobel Peace Prize, “Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be difficult to successfully promote fraternity between nations, disarmament, and a better world order to succeed in our time”.

Francesca

Francesca cited the Nobel Committee’s words, “Free, independent and factual based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda”.

She responded, “It is somewhat ironic that this was announced on the date of the Court of Appeal’s ruling to allow Julian Assange to be extradited to the United States, despite reliable reports released of his general ill health and that he had suffered a stroke at the time of his trial. Assange, WikiLeaks founder and publisher, has attained global attention for publishing documents known as the Afghanistan diaries, Iraq War Logs and Guantanamo Bay prisoners and US diplomatic documents these were published between 2009-2011. His crime was exposing war crimes against humanity and illegal political and military wrongdoings by US and the allies.

“While there is an almost media blackout on reporting the trial of Assange, releasing grim pictorial evidence of inhuman US actions of bombing innocent men, women and children in the so-called War on Terror, Julian Assange rots in Belmarsh prison in south-east London as the US insists and demands his extradition to die in a cell for exposing US war crimes. In supporting Julian Assange, we are uniting to defend free speech.”

David, a former sports lecturer from Montrose, Scotland said, “I am truly saddened, but unfortunately not shocked, at the ruling on Friday to allow for the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States of America. Assange is a man who has done more than most other so-called journalists to expose the crimes of the US and UK in their dirty wars. He highlighted corruption, abuse, war crimes, deception and downright criminality. He allowed the world to see these crimes for themselves.

“The man who should be lauded, applauded and awarded for such bravery is now facing a fate that is of the realm of nightmares. This man has already been imprisoned for over a decade. He has failing health, both mentally and physically and may not survive this fresh ordeal. It is an inhumane decision, but inhumanity seems to run through much of our established bodies. Surely the judiciary should not add to this. Independence in our judiciary is in grave doubt and it does serious damage to any notion of British justice.”

Terry, a former welder from Wakefield in West Yorkshire wrote, “I oppose the extradition of Julian Assange. The conclusion of the UK law courts is an injustice against him. He is being made a scapegoat for telling the truth about the war crimes in Iraq. America wants to jail him to hide their atrocities. There is no justice and no democracy, and it will have consequences for us all if they are allowed to extradite him. Julian Assange, we salute you.”

Ben, a software engineer from North Yorkshire wrote, “I hold the American and British ruling class, and their courts, responsible for Julian Assange’s Transient Ischaemic Attack [a ‘mini-stroke’]. This would have been triggered by stress about the prospect of being handed over to criminals who demanded his execution in 2010 and plotted his murder later.

Ben

“Much worse could come if he is exposed to Omicron, given his poor health. He has been deprived of the ability to meaningfully exercise and to have adequate sun exposure for more than two years at Belmarsh. All of this is immensely damaging. The judges will have known of his deteriorated health.

“The ruling class and its supporters in the ‘liberal’ press no longer bother to pretend that they are pursing Assange for sexual assault allegations--the mask came off two years ago. It was always about his key role at WikiLeaks in exposing war crimes.”

Chris Porter, a lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, speaking in a personal capacity said, “The UK High Court’s decision, and whole approach to the case, is an indictment of the subjugation of the British judiciary and indeed state, to the lickspittle service of American imperialism. It signals a worrying and telling tendency of failing capitalist states of silencing journalists who reveal truths about their crimes. The lack of support for Assange in the corporate media, mostly consisting of silence, carries as much complicity as the other arms of the state.”

West’s actions towards Assange ‘cannibalism’ — Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman

It’s about the annihilation of an individual, revenge for his stance, for his courage and for the fact that he deemed it necessary to share with the world some crucial information that shed light on the lies and deceit committed by a number of states, Maria Zakharova pointed out

MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/. The Western countries’ actions towards the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, are aimed at "annihilating" him, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Wednesday.

"The actions taken by our Western partners over the past few years smack of cannibalism. All this is not about some double standards or defiance of lofty principles and ideals. It’s about the annihilation of an individual, revenge for his stance, for his courage and for the fact that he deemed it necessary, apparently aware of the potential risks, to share with the world some crucial information that shed light on the lies and deceit committed by a number of states," she said.

Zakharova expressed surprise that the international community’s reaction to the inhuman treatment of Assange was so slack.

"Everybody can see that this man is being annihilated. He looks like two different people. Everybody can see his current condition, not to mention the campaign of victimization the champions of democracy have organized against him."

Assange has been in custody in London’s Belmarsh Prison since April 2019, after the embassy of Ecuador revoked his asylum, which he had enjoyed for seven years. In January, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court refused to extradite Assange to the United States where he faces 18 criminal charges, but at the same time ruled that he should stay in custody until the US appeal has been considered. On December 10, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales upheld the US Department of Justice’s appeal filed in the case of the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition to the US.

In the United States, Assange is charged with a number of offenses in connection with the largest disclosure of classified information in US history. If convicted on all counts, he may be handed a 175-year prison term.

 OPINION

An ironic occurrence

Michael Jansen

The author, a well-respected observer of Middle East affairs, has three books on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

• 
  

Julian Assange

It is bitterly ironic that the British appeals court granted the US the right to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to face trial for breaching US wartime security. This capitulation to US pressure by Britain is ironic as it took place on Human Rights Day and as two prominent journalists were presented with the Nobel Prize for Peace. If he is convicted on all 18 charges of hacking and espionage, Assange could face 175 years in prison.

Meanwhile in Oslo, Filipina Maria Ressa, co-founder and chief executive of online news platform Rappler, was honoured for exposing abuses of power and growing authoritarianism in her country. She faces court cases which could land her in prison for 100 years.

Russian Dimitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of The Independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, is regarded as one of the foremost defenders of free speech in Russia as it publishes articles on corruption and human rights abuses. His star reporter who focused on the Chechen war, Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in 2006 in Moscow. Five other colleagues have also been killed.

The London’s court’s verdict also coincided with the second day of US President Joe Biden’s Democracy Summit during which freedom of speech was discussed as an essential component of democracy. Ahead of the summit, US Secretary of State Antony Blinkin spoke of the media’s “indispensible role” in informing the public and ensuring governments are held accountable for their policies and actions. He stated, “The US will continue to support the courageous and necessary work of journalists around the world.” He meant: everywhere other than at home.

London’s High Court overturned a January lower court ruling that Assange could not be extradited because of converns over how he would be treated in the US and fears over his fragile mental health. The case will return to the Westminister Magistrates’ Court for a final appeal which will decide whether to empower British Home Minister Priti Patel to execute the extradition order. Hard-liner Patel is likely to relish this opportunity.

Assange’s fiancee Stella Moris called the High Court decision “dangerous and misguided” and a “grave miscarriage of justice” and said his defence will lodge a fresh appeal “at the earliest possible moment.” She pointed out that he must not be sent to the very country which conspired to assassinate him. The US charges Assange with spying as WikiLeaks published online thousands of pages of secret documents about the US wars on Afghanistan and Iraq and released damning video of a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad that slew a dozen civilians, among whom were two Reuters’ staff correspondents.

Assange was imprisoned in 2019 after being ejected from the Ecuadorian embassy where he had taken refuge in 2012 for skipping bail over an application for extradition to Sweden after being charged with sexual misconduct.

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said that his case is “about the right of a free press to publish without being threatened by a bullying superpower.”

     Amnesty international’s Europe director Nils Muiznieks said the ruling “poses a grave threat to press freedom both in the United States and abroad.”

Global press freedom advocates are seriously alarmed over the 18 charges for espionage and hacking leveled against Assange, fearing that his prosecution in the US will deal a sharp blow to freedom of speech guaranteed in the first article of the US constitution and to freedom of the press around the world. In an editorial the Guardian — which along with the New York Times and Der Spiegel published WikiLeaks’ material — warned that the US government “is endangering the ability of the media to bring to light uncomfortable truths and expose official crimes and cover-ups.”

A coalition of civil and human rights groups — notably Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Freedom of the Press Association — have called on the US Justice Department to withdraw the call for extradition. The American Civil Liberties Union’s Ben Wizner said the “indictment [of Assange] criminalises investigative journalism.”

Amnesty International cited an investigation by Yahoo News that revealed US intelligence operatives considered kidnapping or poisoning Assange while he was still living in the Ecuadorian embassy. Amnesty chief Agnes Callamard said the report has cast “doubt on the reliability of US promises and further exposes the political motivation behind this case.”

There are no doubts about Washington’s political motivation. Cases have not been raised against the editors of the newspapers which published the WikiLeaks documents or television channels which broadcast the Baghdad shootings. Bradley (later Chelsea) Manning, the US soldier who hacked into Defence Department computers and provided the material to WikiLeaks served seven years in prison before being pardoned by ex-President Barack Obama.

Calamard stated, “It is a damning indictment that nearly 20 years on, virtually no one responsible for alleged US war crimes committed in the course of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars has been held accountable, let alone prosecuted, and yet a publisher who exposed such crimes is potentially facing a lifetime in jail.”

Indeed, ex-President George W. Bush and his advisers have not paid any price for offenses committed duriong the Afghan conflict or for the crime of unprovoked aggression against Iraq. The US could legitimately claim justification for driving the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 2001 because it harboured al-Qaeda which attacked New York and Washington, but there was absolutely no legality or justification for the 2003 war on Iraq. During and following this war, Iraq Body Count estimates 175,000-208,000 Iraqis died violently through 2020. This is an underestimate and far more have been killed by US-imposed sanctions from malnourishment, preventable diseases and lack of medicines to treat chronic conditions. After Iraqi professionals, doctors, and businessmen were attacked or threatened, several million fled their country, shrinking the middle class which had emerged since independence. Furthermore, the US imposed on Iraq a sectarian form of governance which propelled pro-Iranian Shia fundamenta-

lists into power. Their mismanagement and corruption have created communal divisions and prompted protests against the government and its external allies, Iran and the US.

If Bush and his entourage had been citizens of a small country — like, for example, the former Yugoslavia — which had no international clout — they would have been tried, sentenced and imprisoned for the Iraq war and all the crimes committed during and after the US conquest of that country.