Educating Journalists about Canada’s Propaganda System an Eyeopener

by Yves Engler / June 8th, 2022

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
—Noam Chomsky, Media Control:  The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, April 1, 1997

 Propaganda isn’t a euphemism for how the other side controls information. Nor is it simply about jailing journalists or shuttering media outlets. A serious discussion of the matter must look at the broader forces shaping information dissemination and suppression.

On May 22 I spoke on a panel at the Canadian Association of Journalists conference titled Censorship, Journalism and War. The Ukraine-focused exchange climaxed with journalist Justin Ling asking if I was “ashamed” for having been interviewed by RT. Nope.

The CEO of Ethnic Channels Group, Slava Levin, launched the discussion by describing how broadcasters Rogers, Bell and Shaw summarily removed RT from their networks. As the distributor of RT and many international channels in Canada, Levin pointed out how the decision subverted the regulatory process.

The broadcasters and Liberals indifference to the regulatory process warrants criticism but I sought to drive the discussion away from RT, Russia, China and authoritarian enemies. Even without formal restrictions, the corporate media (and CBC) permit only a narrow spectrum of opinion regarding Canadian foreign policy, as I detail in my 2016 book A Propaganda System: How Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation. Various internal and external factors explain the media’s biased international coverage. Most importantly, a small number of mega corporations own most of Canada’s media and depend on other large corporations for advertising revenue. Less dependent on advertising, CBC relies on government funds and has long been close to the foreign policy establishment. All major media firms rely on easily accessible information, which is largely generated by US wire services, Global Affairs, DND, internationally focused corporations and a bevy of think tanks and academic departments tied to the military, arms industry and corporate elite. Finally, the military, foreign affairs, organized ethnic lobbies and major corporations have the power to punish media that upset them.

In their coverage of Russia’s war with Ukraine/NATO the Canadian media and RT are the mirror image. They are exceedingly one-sided and their divergent reactions to antiwar disrupters highlight the point.

At the panel, I contrasted the Canadian and Russian ‘propaganda systems’ reaction to my March 21 interruption of foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly on Canada’s role in escalating violence in Ukraine, opposing the Minsk peace accord and promoting NATO expansion. With the exception of a short clip by CTV News World, Canadian media outlets that covered Joly’s speech on Ukraine ignored my intervention.

The Russian media treated the intervention differently. They portrayed me as an important author with a number of the top Russian channels inviting me on to comment. Russian media treated my disruption in a similar way to how the North American media covered Marina Ovsyannikova two weeks earlier. After she held a “no war” sign on Russia’s Channel One the western media hailed Ovsyannikova.

I told the audience that the CBC refuses to offer vital context. Just prior to the Russian invasion I wrote about senior CBC military writer Murray Brewster, who published a slew of reports in the proceeding weeks portraying Canada/US positively and Russia negatively while failing to report information he’d previously revealed that undercuts the notion that Canada is on the side of angels in the Ukraine crisis. In 2015 Brewster revealed that the protesters who overthrew elected President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 were stationed in the Canadian embassy in Kyiv for a week. That year Brewster also reported that Canadian soldiers trained neo-Nazi political forces in Ukraine and in 2008 that Canada pushed Ukraine’s adhesion to NATO against Russian, French and German objections. These measures increased tensions, led to war in the east part of the Ukraine and helped precipitate Russia’s illegal invasion.

In his intervention senior CBC international correspondent Saša Petricic described how in countries with more repressive media climates that an “atmosphere” of self-censorship develops. In response I asked who in the room had heard of the Ottawa Initiative on Haiti?

In 2003 Canadian officials brought together top representatives of the US and French governments to discuss Haiti’s future without inviting anyone from that country’s government. According to the March 15, 2003, issue of L’Actualité (Quebec’s equivalent to Maclean’s), they discussed ousting elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, putting Haiti under UN trusteeship and re-creating the disbanded Haitian army. Thirteen months later what was discussed largely transpired yet the dominant media largely ignored the Ottawa Initiative meeting. A Canadian Newsstand search I did in 2016 while writing A Propaganda System found not one single English-language report about the meeting (except for mentions of it by me and two other Haiti solidarity activists in opinion pieces). It wasn’t until 2020 that Radio-Canada’s flagship news program “Enquête” finally reported on the meeting, interviewing the minister responsible for organizing the meeting Denis Paradis.

What type of “atmosphere” exists in the Canadian media that would lead it to ignore this important meeting Haiti solidarity activists raised repeatedly?

I asked the room of 30 journalists if they knew which institution has the largest public relations apparatus in the country. No one answered. The Department of National Defence/Canadian Forces (CF) has the largest PR (propaganda) machine in Canada, employing hundreds of “public relations professionals” to influence the public’s perception of the military. Last fall the military, reported the Ottawa Citizen, established “a new organization that will use propaganda and other techniques to try to influence the attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of Canadians.” Previously the head of CF called for the “weaponization of public affairs”, which proposed a plan to induce positive coverage and deter critical reporting. Journalists producing unflattering stories about the military were to be the target of phone calls to their boss, letters to the editor and other “flack” designed to undercut their credibility in the eyes of readers and their employers.

The editor in chief and executive director of CBC news, Brodie Fenlon, told the room it didn’t matter that DND had the largest PR apparatus in the country since they don’t determine what’s covered. True enough. But historically the public broadcaster’s close ties to the military have made it highly deferential to the CF. According to Mallory Schwartz in War on the Air: CBC-TV and Canada’s Military, 1952-1992, “When CBC-TV produced programs that raised controversial questions about defence policy, the forces or military history, it did so with considerable care. Caution was partly a result of the special relationship between the CBC and those bodies charged with the defence of Canada.” CBC’s ties to DND sometimes translated into formal censorship. After broadcasting The Homeless Ones in 1958 Deputy Federal Civil Defence Co-ordinator Major-General George S. Hatton requested the film’s withdrawal from the NFB Library and the public broadcaster cancelled its planned rebroadcast. Hatton insisted the CBC clear all content on civil defence with his staff.

The public broadcaster’s independence from DND has increased over the years. But since its inception the government has appointed CBC’s board and provided most of its funds.

Another element that helps make sense of Fenlon downplaying the importance of the CF’s PR machine is his (positive) assessment of the institution. But, as I pointed out, the CF is deeply integrated with the biggest purveyor of violence the world has ever seen — US military — and Canada has only fought in one war that could even be argued was morally justifiable. Sudan, South Africa, World War I, Korea, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya were not morally justifiable wars.

Fenlon is, of course, unlikely to have risen to a position of influence within CBC news if he shared my assessment of the Canadian military’s ties to the US Empire.

As I was leaving the room, a young CBC journalist came over to say how much she appreciated my work. She then laughed and said she hoped her boss hadn’t heard her.

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Yves Engler is the author of 12 books. His latest is Stand on Guard For Whom? — A People’s History of the Canadian Military.  Read other articles by Yves.

 

For the Peoples of our Region, the Failure of Biden’s Summit of the Americas Would be a Welcome Event

by Ajamu Baraka / June 9th, 2022

The Summit of the Americas is not the property of the host nation. The U.S. has no right to exclude, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, but has done so in disregard of their sovereignty. The U.S. is not fit to judge others or to be responsible for bringing nations together. Every leader in the hemisphere should boycott what has become a farcical event.

I applaud the decision by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador not to attend this week’s so-called Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles and hope that by Wednesday a majority of the nations in our region would have joined him. However, I am hoping that unlike President Lopez Obrador who is still sending the Mexican foreign minister, other nations demonstrate that their dignity cannot be coerced and stay away completely. Why do I take this position?

If the threat by the Biden Administration as host of the Summit not to invite Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, all sovereign nations in the Americas’ region, was not outrageous enough, the announced rationale that the administration did not invite these nations because of their human rights record and authoritarian governance is an absurd indignity that cannot be ignored.

I firmly believe that the U.S. should not be allowed to subvert, degrade, and humiliate nations and the peoples of our region with impunity!  A line of demarcation must be drawn between the nations and peoples who represent democracy and life and the parasitic hegemon to the North which can only offer dependence and death. The U.S. has made its choice that is reflected in its public documents. “Full spectrum dominance,” is its stated goal. In other words – waging war against the peoples of our regions and, indeed, the world to maintain global hegemony. It has chosen war, we must choose resistance – on that, there can be no compromise!

The peoples of our region understand that. It is historically imperative that the representatives of the states in our region come to terms with that and commit to resistance and solidarity with the states that are experiencing the most intense pressure from empire. The rhetorical commitment to Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela is not enough. The people want actions that go beyond mere denunciations of imperialism. The people are ready to fight.

And part of this fight includes the ideological war of position. We cannot allow the U.S. to obscure its murderous history by dressing that history up in pretty language about human rights.

The idea that the U.S., or any Western nation for that matter, involved in the ongoing imperialist project, could seriously see itself as a protector of human rights is bizarre and dangerous, and must be countered. The fact that the U.S. will still attempt to advance this fiction reflects either the height of arrogance or a society and administration caught in the grip of a collective national psychosis. I am convinced it is both, but more on that later.

A cognitive rupture from objective reality, the inability to locate oneself in relationship to other human beings individually and collectively in the material world are all symptoms of severe mental derangement. Yet, it appears that this is the condition that structures the psychic make-up of all of the leaders of the U.S. and the collective West.

It is what I have referred to as the psychopathology of white supremacy:

A racialized narcissistic cognitive disorder that centers so-called white people’s and European civilization and renders the afflicted with an inability to perceive objective reality in the same way as others. This affliction is not reducible to the race of so-called whites but can affect all those who have come in contact with the ideological and cultural mechanisms of the Pan-European colonial project.

How else can you explain the self-perceptions of the U.S. and West, responsible for the most horrific crimes against humanity in the annuals of human history from genocide, slavery, world wars, the European, African and Indigenous holocausts, wars and subversion since 1945 that have resulted in over 30 million lives lost – but then assert their innocence, moral superiority and right to define the content and range of human rights?

Aileen Teague of the Quincy Institute points out that the U.S. position on disinviting nations to the Summit of the Americas because of their alleged “authoritarian governance,” is “hypocritical” and “inconsistent,” noting the U.S. historical support for Latin American dictators when convenient for US policy.

Yet is it really hypothetical or inconsistent? I think not. U.S. policymakers are operating from an ethical and philosophical framework that informed Western colonial practice in which racialized humanity became divided between those who were placed into the category of “humans” which was constitutive of the historically expanded category of “white” in relationship to everyone else who was “not white,” and therefore, not fully human.

The “others” during the colonial conquest literally did not have any rights that Europeans were bound to recognize and respect from land rights to their very lives. Consequently, for European colonialists they did not perceive any ethical contradictions in their treatment of the “others” and did not judge themselves as deviating from their principles and values. This is what so many non-Europeans do not understand. When Europeans speak to their “traditional values,” it must be understood that those values mean we – the colonized and exploited non-Europeans are not recognized in our full humanity.

Is there any other way to explain the impressive solidarity among “white peoples” on Ukraine in contrast to the tragedies of Yemen, the six million dead in the Congo, Iraq – the list goes on.

That is why it was so correct for the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) to call for a boycott of the Summit of the Americas by all of the states in our region. BAP argued that the U.S. had no moral or political standing to host this gathering because it has consistently demonstrated that it did not respect the principles of self-determination and national sovereignty in the region. But even more importantly, it did not respect the lives of the people of this region.

A boycott is only the minimum that should be done. However, we understand it will be difficult because we know the vindictiveness of the gringo hegemon and the lengths it will go to assert its vicious domination. In the arrogance that is typical of the colonial white supremacist mindset, the Biden White House asserts that the “summit will be successful no matter who attends.”

Yet, if Biden is sitting there by himself, no manner of will or the power to define, will avoid the obvious conclusion that the world had changed, and with that change, the balance of power away from the U.S.

And the people say – let it be done!Facebook

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Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. He serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the steering committee of the Black is Back Coalition. Read other articles by Ajamu, or visit Ajamu's website.

The Man Who Led His Nation to Enlightenment: Kazakhstan Marks 150th Anniversary of Prominent Scholar Akhmet Baitursynov

BY AIBARSHYN AKHMETKALI in CULTURE on 17 FEBRUARY 2022

NUR-SULTAN – From a teaching career to becoming the founder of the first Kazakh alphabet and establishing the first national newspaper, Akhmet Baitursynov left a significant mark in the history of Kazakh literacy and is rightly called Ult Ustazy (Teacher of the Nation). This year Kazakhstan will celebrate Baitursynov’s 150th anniversary which was included in the UNESCO list of anniversaries for 2022-2023.

Archive photo of Akhmet Baitursynov (first row in the middle) taken in 1922. Photo credit: e-history.kz

Baitursynov was born in 1872 in a small village in the Kostanai region. He began his teaching career during 1895-1909 in the Russian-Kazakh schools in Aktobe, Kostanai, Karkaralinsk districts, and became a headmaster of the Karkaralinsk city school.

Baitursynov was recognized as the Ult Ustazy (Teacher of the Nation) for a reason. He has done more than any other linguist to develop Kazakh literacy in the 20th century. Throughout his career, developing mass literacy was his major goal. 

Baitursynov’s achievement in this endeavor was the transformation of the Arabic alphabet, which was used for years, to adapt it to the spelling and phonetic peculiarities of the Kazakh language. 

The main reasons to reform the Arabic script were the mismatch of sounds in the Kazakh and Arabic languages and the absence of a universally approved alphabet. For example, one sound could be written with different letters by different teachers. There were not enough letters to mark the vowels. Only three characters (a, y, i) were dedicated to representing nine vowels in the Kazakh language.

Because of this, there were difficulties in distinguishing sounds and reading, and that was an obstacle for mass literacy. Baitursynov decided to reform the Arabic alphabet in accordance with the phonetic laws of the Kazakh language to raise literacy to the national level.

As it is known today Baitursynov’s alphabet came into use in 1912. The new alphabet, called “Zhana Yemle” (New Orthography) had 24 letters and one special mark. He removed redundant letters from the alphabet that do not correspond to the Kazakh language and added letters specific to the Kazakh language. 

Later, in 1926, Baitursynov also discussed the advantages of transitioning to the Latin alphabet.

The enormous wish to educate Kazakh people led Baitursynov together with his closest friends and colleagues Alikhan Bokeikhan and Mirzhakyp Dulatuly to establish the first weekly nationwide socio-political and literary newspaper Qazaq, which was published in Kazakh language using the Arabic alphabet from 1913 to 1918.

The first edition of the weekly “Qazaq” newspaper. Photo credit: e-history.kz

In the first issue, Baitursynov described the historical significance of the Qazaq newspaper in the following way: “First of all, the newspaper is the eyes, ears and tongue of the people…People without newspapers are deaf, dumb, and blind. You don’t know what’s going on in the world, you don’t hear what’s being said, you don’t have an opinion.”

The newspaper called on Kazakh people to master art and science and raised the problem of the development of the Kazakh language. It had more than 3,000 subscribers and was read in the Kazakh steppes, China and Russia.

Baitursynov also built a strong and lasting reputation as a poet and translator. In this endeavor, he followed the path of the great Kazakh poet Abai and tried to reach the hearts of the Kazakh people through the translation of the great works of Russian literature, particularly of the Russian poet and fabulist Ivan Krylov. The Kazakh translation of Krylov’s fables was published in St. Petersburg in 1909 under the title “Forty Fables.” The animal stories in fables represented themes of unity, education, spirituality, morality, culture, hard work, and subtle criticism of colonial policy. 

Baitursynov’s own civic dreams and thoughts were published as a separate book under the name “Masa” (Mosquito) in 1911. The opening lines of a same-named poem say:

Flying around those who asleep,

Until the wings are tired.

Won’t it disrupt a little their sleep,

If he buzzes in your ear persistently? (author’s translation)

Those lines from “Masa” describe Baitursynov’s own ambition to awaken society from a passive, lazy, sleepy state to enlightenment through his persistent poetic and educational “buzzing”. The ideological foundation of “Masa” was to invite the public to study art and receive a proper education, to develop culture and a work ethic. Baitursynov skillfully used poetry as a way to awaken people, to influence their minds, hearts and feelings.

Beyond education and literature, Baitursynov actively participated in the formation of the Kazakh national state idea. Baitursynov’s political activity began in 1905. He was one of the authors of the Karkaraly petition, which raised questions regarding local administration, changes in the system of public education, and the adoption of new laws. This activity later led to his first arrest and imprisonment in the Semipalatinsk prison in 1909 for spreading the idea of autonomous self-government and allegedly inciting interethnic hostility.

From left to right: Akhmet Baitursynov, Alikhan Bokeikhan, Mirzhakyp Dulatuky. Photo credit: e-history.kz

The October Revolution in 1917, which resulted in the overthrow of the provisional government and the establishment of the power of Soviets, left Baitursynov fearing possible state destabilization, excessive radicalization, and the possible collapse of the country in the absence of reliable authority. Baitursynov, Bokeikhan, and Dulatuly saw that the only way out of the difficult situation was to organize a firm power that would be recognized by the Kazakh people.

As a result, Baitursynov, Bokeikhan and Dulatuly decided to establish the Autonomy of Kazakh areas and to name it Alash. The first political group and movement – the Alash party and the Alashorda government was created.

The centerpiece of the Alashorda was creating a single autonomous state within the democratic federative Russian republic, which would allow for autonomous decisions in the interest of the local population. Baitursynov became the spiritual leader of the intelligentsia behind this effort.

The territory and borders of Kazakhstan were documented and legally confirmed for the first time during this period of Alash governance as well.

Baitursynov, along with many members of the Kazakh intelligentsia, fell victim to Stalinist repression. In 1929 Baitursynov was arrested again with charges of counter-revolutionary activity and preparation of an armed uprising in the Kazakh steppe. He was sentenced to execution, however, in 1931 his sentence was commuted to 10 years in a camp and in 1932 he was exiled to Arkhangelsk and then to Tomsk. 

In 1934, at the request of the International Red Cross, Baitursynov was released and returned to Almaty to reunite with his family. However, starting from 1934 Baitursynov endured the most difficult years of his life. Being the victim of repression, he suffered from the loss of his health and stability in his life. His political “unreliable” background diminished his chances of getting a proper job. The authorities were afraid of his influence and respect among people, so Baitursynov ended up changing his jobs frequently: he worked as a Central Museum curator, as a ticket inspector, and as a hospital attendant in a tuberculosis dispensary.

He was arrested again on Oct. 8, 1937, and shot two months later, in December. In 1988 the scholar was acquitted and given all the recognition that he deserved on a national level.

PATRIARCHY IS FEMICIDE

Where the abused are abused: Welcome to Saudi Arabia's shelters for women and girls

FEATURE 

LONG READ 

Dania Akkad
3 May 2022 

Despite positive reforms for Saudi women, the kingdom's most vulnerable women and girls still find themselves in horrific conditions

First, there is darkness and only the sound of traffic. Then a fluorescent light flickers to reveal the inside of an abandoned security guard’s hut down the street from a luxury mall, Aisha Alnijbany’s home for the past four days.

“I want to ask followers a question,” she says, peering at the screen. "A girl's family abandons her at an orphanage, a women's shelter, wherever. When you leave, is it right for them to expect you to go back to your family? Or does the full responsibility still remain with this government facility?"

Since the start of the year, Aisha, 22, has vlogged from the streets of Riyadh, telling her story and documenting her homelessness over more than 13 hours of footage on Instagram.

At age three, she says, her father left her at a state-run shelter where she spent the next 17 years. When she spoke out about conditions at the shelter, posting photos of locks and chains, using hashtags to draw attention to her case and saying she was imprisoned, she was sent to prison for a year and a half. And then, she was slapped with a 10-year travel ban and released onto the street.

“Are you doing this to me because I demanded my freedom and my rights?” she says.

Her videos have stirred discussion and support among Saudi female activists and observers who say they’ve never seen anything like this - a homeless Saudi woman publicising her own case. She is also perhaps the ultimate example of how the shelters, which are meant to protect the kingdom’s most vulnerable women and girls, are failing.

“These are prisons,” said Saudi activist and journalist Khulud al-Harithi in a Twitter space organised by London-based advocacy group ALQST in April, in which Aisha’s case and others were raised. “It’s as if they punish you because you’ve been abused and you don’t have a family. They don’t deserve to be called shelters.”
'A climate of fear and repression'

There are a variety of reasons a woman or a girl might end up in a state-run shelter in Saudi Arabia. They could be fleeing domestic violence. They may be suspected of committing a crime and be awaiting charges.

But they might also have "disobeyed" their male guardians or tried to run away from home or, like Aisha, be abandoned, said Rothna Begum, women’s rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa for Human Rights Watch.

“It could be that they protested or they defied the driving ban so they can end up spending some time there,” she said. “It could be that the families have dumped them at a police station and don't want anything to do with them and the police will take them there.”

Once inside, they are locked up until a male guardian, often the same person abusing them, agrees that they can leave; or until a woman agrees to marry and has a new guardian.

'If you speak up, it’s not about your case any more. It’s about the image of a country'

- Hala Dosari, Saudi activist and scholar

Alongside the headline-grabbing reforms for women in Saudi Arabia in the past few years, the shelters where girls and women have committed suicide, rioted for better conditions, attempted escape and been killed by relatives soon after their release, continue to operate without any reforms, say Saudi activists, human rights researchers and women who have stayed in the shelters.

Not only are these state-run shelters still operating, without change, as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s modernising project unfolds, but the situation for the kingdom’s most vulnerable women, they say, is significantly worse in the wake of the high-profile arrest of women’s rights activists in 2018.

Several of the arrested activists were among those who raised a popular petition with King Abdullah in 2014, asking, among other requests, for women to access shelters whenever they needed without having to be investigated by the state and to be able to leave whenever they wanted as well, without having to be in the custody of a male relative.

Unsuccessful in that pursuit, they worked on setting up a nonprofit alternative to the state-run shelters that was to be called Aminah, “safe” in Arabic. They had secured land with the help of a philanthropist, and officials with the Ministry of Social Affairs told organisers they were about to approve their application. Two months later, the activists were arrested.

One of the charges filed against the activists was that they tried to establish an association - which is unnamed - against Saudi regulations. Waleed al-Hathloul, the brother of Loujain al-Hathloul, who was among those picked up, wrote that he believed his sister’s work on Aminah “was one of the main reasons” she was arrested.

For Saudi girls and women trying to flee abuse, the impact of the arrests wasn’t just that Aminah was shelved, activists told MEE. A network of powerful Saudi women who used their positions and wealth to quietly support girls and women stuck between abusers and abusive shelters abruptly stopped offering help as well. And officials in state agencies who had once helped women off the books were summoned for questioning.

“This climate of fear and repression, it killed the urgency of seeking help for those survivors of violence or women being treated unfairly by the legal system,” said Hala Dosari, a prominent Saudi activist and scholar, and one of Aminah’s organisers.

“You can't imagine how disheartened I am when I receive those emails that I used to receive before. I used to refer them to good sources for support. Now there is none, but I get all those emails the same.”

The implicit message to girls and women trying to escape abuse in their homes was to stay quiet. “They are not able to speak up. If you speak up, it’s not about your case any more. It’s about the image of a country. They might treat you exactly like an activist.”
Shelter life

There are several types of state-run shelters in Saudi Arabia, including Dar al-Reaya (The House of Care), a collection of facilities across the kingdom which holds girls and women between the ages of 7 and 30 - and where Aisha was for 17 years.

According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, which runs Dar al-Reaya, there are only two types of girls and women who turn up at the shelter. There are Saudi girls “who have suffered from bad social and psychological circumstances that force them to stumble and deviate from the straight path” who require “good care, social correction and strengthening of religious faith”. And then there are delinquents.

Both types are to be set back on “the right path”, says the ministry. “If the girl becomes good, the family will be good, and accordingly the society.”

But activists and researchers who have spoken for years to former detainees say the facilities are not the safe havens or places of rehabilitation that the state paints them to be, but instead are lock-ups rife with abuse.

When you arrive, your phone is removed and there are instances of women and girls being strip-searched and even put into solitary confinement before entering the main ward.

According to an ALQST report released last year, women reported that they had been deprived of recreational activities and were unable to continue their studies inside Dar al-Reaya. They also described harsh punishments, including being made to stand for six hours at a time.

The situation is particularly grim for victims of domestic violence. Rather than provide protection, activists and researchers say girls and women trying to escape abuse at home are encouraged to reconcile with their guardians or families and can have their detentions prolonged if they resist.

One woman held inside Dar al-Reaya told Begum that in the facility where she was held, girls and women detained for longer than a month who were resisting reconciliation could be given punishments, including regular floggings and solitary confinement, until they agreed to concede.

Similar punishments, the woman told Begum, were also meted out to detainees deemed to have committed a violation within the shelter, including failing to read the Koran daily or engaging in a sexual relationship with a fellow detainee.

A former inmate who was in Dar al-Reaya after her family filed a case against her for being absent when, in fact, she says she was reporting abuse, told Raseef22 that solitary confinement in the facility where she stayed was “a mattress in the middle of a bathroom” and that cameras were installed everywhere, even in the toilets.

After #WhereisNoof, Qatari women question how safe they really are

Read More »

If a male relative isn’t available or doesn’t agree to sign off on a woman or girl’s release within a couple of months or after a woman turns 30, they are transferred to a Dar al-Theyafa, another type of state-run shelter where they can end up for much longer periods - and may never leave.

“One woman described it as being worse than Dar al-Reaya - which is quite hard to imagine, because when you are hearing about floggings and solitary confinement, how could it be worse?” Begum said. “But what I had heard was that Dar al-Theyafa was more depressing, and that was because it was women there for months and years, really long periods of time.”

As at Dar al-Reaya, the women - who may also have children with them - are restricted from leaving the facility and can only leave if their guardian agrees, or if they marry, which shelter workers frequently coerce the women to do, said Dosari.

“The officials and the social services think of this as making sure that the women are in a safe environment rather than being on her own,” she said.

The men who typically come forward seeking to marry women in the shelter find it challenging to marry in more straightforward circumstances, Begum said. They may be convicted criminals who have been in prison. Or they might be in search of a second or third wife.

Given the precarious situation of the women, said Begum, the men see them as an easier catch: “‘Well, I'm saving her from a life of being imprisoned. So she would be more willing to marry me’,” she said.

It is not surprising that some women choose to return to their homes and or the abusers who sent them fleeing in the first place, said Dosari. “It’s a very weak system. That’s why most of the women are in a loop, basically. They cannot really get out of it,” she said.
Deterrent force

Looking at the numbers alone, the percentage of Saudi girls and women held in state-run care facilities is very small. In 2016, the last time publicly available figures were released, 233 girls and women - out of a population of then over 13 million female Saudis - were held in seven facilities across the kingdom.

Two years later, a Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development official told Saudi news site Al Madina that another five would be rented, in part to provide space to detain women, now driving legally, when they broke traffic laws.

It is unclear whether the kingdom followed through on this plan, how many facilities are operating now and how many girls and women are currently detained in them. Data has not been released since 2016 and Saudi Arabia did not respond to MEE’s request for comment for this story.

What the numbers fail to capture about the care homes, Saudi women told Middle East Eye, is the sheer power of their existence as a deterrent force in a kingdom that continues to be governed by discriminatory and repressive guardianship rules.

'The girls going in there are the ones that are really beat up and abused. If they get out, they will have no means of talking to anyone'

- Thoraya, Saudi woman

To flee or to speak out about one’s abuse in the first place is very rare in Saudi society.

“People won’t be like, ‘Oh, she left her house because her dad is abusing her. Shame on him.’ It will be like, ‘Look at that girl. She went. She left the house because she wanted to live an open life. She will be blamed for stuff that she never thought of,” said Thoraya*, a Saudi woman who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared repercussions from the government for speaking publicly.

“You are the disobedient child. You are the disobedient wife. You are the woman. You should compromise. You should listen. You should lower your standards. You should give in more. You should be more forgiving.”

Thoraya said her father, who was well-educated and had a professional career, once threatened to send her to Dar al-Reaya. “I remember he said, ‘You marry this guy or I’m going to send you to that place’,” she said.

So the homes serve as a looming threat that keeps girls and women from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds and geographic locations in check under their guardians. Those who end up in them are truly desperate.

“Usually, the girls that are in those positions will never, ever have a voice to speak out. The girls going in there are the ones that are really beat up and abused. If they get out, they will have no means of talking to anyone,” Thoraya said.
Fleeing for freedom

The shelters are just one piece of the kingdom’s guardianship system, a decades-old collection of laws, policies and practices which, like most Gulf countries, require women to get permission from a male guardian for a wide range of activities during their lifetime.

But they are a particularly important piece because they help maintain the system, enabling domestic abuse through their ineffective intervention, Begum said. “The authorities will enforce the male guardianship system by forcing women back into families or to new guardians, but always to keep them in that space,” she said.

Sisters Maha and Wafa al-Subaie outside a safe house for asylum seekers in Georgia, weeks after they pleaded for help on Twitter after fleeing their family (Reuters)

The stark choice facing Saudi women and girls is reflected in a significant increase in those fleeing the kingdom in recent years, including in 2019, dubbed the year of the runaway, when several Saudi women broadcast their escapes publicly on social media in an effort to get to safety.

That January, Rahaf Mohammed barricaded herself in a Thai airport hotel room to avoid being taken back home before she was given refuge in Canada. Then in April, sisters Wafa and Maha al-Subaie pleaded for help from Georgia, where they had fled. In June, Dua and Dalal al-Showaiki asked followers to give them a hand after they escaped their family during a holiday in Turkey.

Of course, Saudis have always lived abroad, but what is different now is that so many that are leaving are seeking asylum. “To seek asylum, it means you’re desperate,” Dosari said. “This is something that never happened in Saudi.”

According to UN figures, the number of Saudis seeking asylum rose significantly in 2015, the year King Salman came to power. That year, 395 Saudis fled the country, but every year since - with the exception of 2020 and 2021 during the Covid pandemic - that figure has stayed consistently high.

“It’s a sad thing that we, as Saudi women, the first step we take to protect ourselves is to run away from our country and lose our citizenship,” said Saudi activist and journalist Khulud al-Harithi. “We are from a country where there are no wars or crises that could force a woman to seek asylum. So why do we have to lose our citizenship? What does the government stand by one citizen to the detriment of another just because she’s a woman?”

Dosari is often asked to write expert letters for asylum seekers, requests which have also jumped significantly. “I’m getting more and more of that,” she said. And asylum for Saudi women and girls, despite the clear continued impact of guardianship rules, is not guaranteed.

Bethany al-Hadairi, Saudi case manager at The Freedom Initiative and senior fellow on human trafficking at Human Rights Foundation, which are both in the US, said she knows of several recent Saudi asylum cases in which those applying have struggled to convince judges that returning to the kingdom would be dangerous.

The US, she said, already has one of the worst approval rates for Saudi asylum cases, but it has become even harder, particularly for women.

“I know of a couple of cases - people on their maybe second or third appeal at this point - who are just terrified to return but almost giving up,” said Hadairi. “It’s difficult to explain to a judge in the United States who expects a legal system to be straightforward and as it seems and as it is written. It’s just not the case on the ground [in Saudi].”

It’s been a struggle for Saudis to protect themselves from being returned to dangerous situations as a result of the Saudi public relations drive put in place following the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, campaigns that "have real damages on the ground in Saudi as well as here for families that are trying to get protection in the US for asylum".

And this, said Dosari, is the power and the impact of silencing the most vulnerable women and girls in the kingdom, who are locked in care homes, while the government is promoting the stories of women who attend concerts, drive cars and hold down jobs.

“There is no counternarrative that really tells you the truth. People aren’t willing to take the risk,” she said. “And it is a risk.”

Perhaps no one knows this better than Aisha Alnijbany who, even now, roams the streets of Riyadh, still speaking out and looking for refuge.

*The name of this source has been changed to protect her identity

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

Global Food Import Bill Set for Record, Taking Toll on Poorest

Megan Durisin
Thu, June 9, 2022,

(Bloomberg) -- The global food import bill is set to reach a fresh record in 2022, but surging prices mean buyers will barely be getting any more for the money.

Food imports are expected to total $1.81 trillion this year, surpassing an all-time high set last year by $51 billion, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report Thursday. Almost all of that is because of inflation, which is worsening a cost-of-living crisis in developed nations and deepening hunger in poorer countries.

An FAO index of food prices surged to a record earlier this year as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine curtails shipments from one of the world’s biggest suppliers of vegetable oils and grains. Soaring energy and fertilizer prices are also making it increasingly expensive to produce crops and livestock. That’s raised concerns about global hunger, and the report shows the spike in food costs is already taking a toll on vulnerable areas.

The report showed a growing schism in the diets of rich and poor nations because of the price surge. Developed countries are still bringing in all varieties of food, while emerging regions are expected to increasingly shirk high-value products like meat, oilseeds and beverages to focus on staples, reducing the diversity and quality of diets, it said.

“These are alarming signs from a food security perspective, indicating that importers will find it difficult to finance rising international costs,” the report said. “The year 2022 may usher in an era of lower resilience to higher food prices, notably by the poorer regions of the developing world.”

The bulk of the almost 3% increase in the global import bill is due to rising costs and not because the world is buying more food, the FAO said. Food purchases by least-developed nations will fall by $2.4 billion this year, the report showed.

A Long War in Ukraine Could Bring Global Chaos


Kyiv has reason to hope it can prevail, but Vladimir Putin’s efforts to seed global economic trouble could weaken international support.



This could last a long time.

Photographer: Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images

By Hal Brands
June 9, 2022,
Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. The Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, he is co-author, most recently, of "Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China."


The war in Ukraine has become a brutal, grinding contest of attrition. As the conflict drags on, the question becomes, which side does time favor? Kyiv is betting that its leverage will increase as an isolated Russia comes face to face with economic and military ruin. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wager is that he can devastate Ukraine even with a weakened army, while using the threat of global economic chaos to sever Kyiv’s lifeline to the outside world. Each side is trying to bleed and batter the other into submission, a dynamic that will fuel far-reaching instability — and present the US with nasty challenges.

In recent weeks, the fighting has occurred primarily in eastern Ukraine. Russia is using hellacious artillery barrages and methodical attacks to slowly seize more territory, in hopes of fully “liberating” the Donbas region. Ukraine is hanging on, inflicting terrible casualties while also suffering, by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s own admission, heavy losses.

Notwithstanding Russian territorial gains, Ukraine still has reason for optimism. Its military power is, in important respects, increasing, as Kyiv receives longer-range artillery and other sophisticated weapons from Western countries. Some of the world’s top intelligence services are also effectively working for Kyiv, providing information that helps Ukrainian military leaders anticipate the enemy’s blows and strike plenty of their own.

Russia’s military power, in contrast, will probably atrophy in a long war, because Russia’s economy and defense industry are subject to harsh sanctions, and the morale of its forces will fade as casualties mount. As long as Ukraine has most of the world’s advanced democracies behind it, it can plausibly hope to weaken and ultimately break the Russian army — and then perhaps recapture some of the territory Moscow has stolen.

Yet there are crucial caveats. One is the threat of “Zelenskiy fatigue” — the danger that Western leaders will tire of Kyiv’s requests for money and guns at a time when their own economies are weakening and their own arsenals are being depleted. A recent $40 billion US support package for Ukraine drew Republican criticism on these grounds. If the costs of the war keep rising, and if Zelenskiy keeps insisting that Ukraine will liberate all the territory Russia has taken since 2014, his foreign backers may come to see him as not an inspiration but a burden.

That prospect will interact with Putin’s strategy, which involves riding out sanctions while turning Ukraine into a disaster zone. The blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, especially Odesa, is making it prohibitively difficult to export wheat and other goods. The ongoing brutalization of the country has caused a catastrophic economic contraction. Russia may not be able to defeat Ukraine militarily, but it can wreck the economy and force Kyiv to make enormous demands on its international supporters for years to come.

Moreover, Putin is using the prospect of global economic carnage as a means of geopolitical coercion. If Ukraine can’t export wheat, countries around the world will suffer. High energy prices are exacerbating recessionary pressures in developed and developing economies alike. By inflicting enough pain, perhaps Putin can peel away reluctant members, such as Germany, from the democratic coalition and make Ukraine sue for peace. Global chaos could help Putin in other ways, too: The longer the war lasts, the higher the chance a major crisis over Iran or Taiwan will pull US attention elsewhere.

Indeed, whether or not this strategy succeeds, it will test Washington. In response to Moscow’s economic strangulation campaign, the US could use Russian state assets it has frozen to sustain and rebuild Ukraine. Yet that would unavoidably increase global fears about the weaponization of American financial dominance. The US could try to turn the tables on Putin by dialing up economic coercion of Russia. But this would probably require greater use of secondary sanctions — penalizing third parties that do business with Moscow — which would in turn cause greater friction with countries that rely on Russian oil or other exports.

Perhaps most ticklish is the issue of restoring Ukraine’s ability to export (especially wheat) to the world. This is crucial to easing the economic shocks the war has caused. Yet it might require taking steps such as escorting Ukrainian ships, “re-flagging” them as American, or forcibly opening a secure land or maritime corridor — actions that would project US power into the heart of an ongoing war.

Rather than aiming primarily to deter Russia from attacking NATO countries, the US would then be trying to compel Russia to stop impeding Ukraine’s trade with the world. This could lead to a perilous moment, as success in relieving economic pressure from Russia could amount to the failure of Putin’s strategy for winning the war.

The conflict in Ukraine may seem to have settled into a violent equilibrium. But the turmoil that war produces, and the global dilemmas it presents, have only begun.

Activists decry French retailer over Amazon deforestation

By JADE LE DELEY

TODAY


PARIS (AP) — Environmental groups and representatives of Brazil’s Indigenous community are protesting Thursday outside the main Paris courthouse, urging a quick trial for a French supermarket chain accused of selling beef linked to deforestation and land grabs in the Amazon rainforest.

Several leading Indigenous representatives are in Paris and Brussels this month to denounce international threats to their territories and attract public attention to cattle farming practices in the Amazon.

Climate groups and Indigenous activists filed a lawsuit last year against France’s Casino Group, which has supermarkets around the world, accusing it of violating human rights and environmental rules. The company has said it “fights actively against deforestation linked to cattle raising in Brazil and Colombia.” A hearing is scheduled Thursday to set a date for a trial.

For the Indigenous movement, the lawsuit against Casino Group is an attempt to hold someone accountable for buying cattle they say is raised illegally in their territory, with activists warning that far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s government policies are further threatening indigenous lands.

Since taking office in 2019, Bolsonaro has repeatedly said that Indigenous peoples have too much land, saying he would revise demarcations, even though such a move is forbidden by law.

Cattle ranching is one of the main drivers of deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon, with levels reaching record highs earlier this year. More than 1,000 square kilometers (nearly 400 square miles) were deforested in April this year, according to satellite alerts. The biome holds about 57 million hectares (140.8 million acres) of pasture, an area slightly larger than France, according to MapBiomas, a network of nonprofits, universities and technology startups.

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Fabiano Maisonnave in Rio de Janeiro contributed.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Newly discovered UK dinosaur was a massive cross between T-Rex and great white shark

James Rushton

Is this the biggest land predator of all time?
(Anthony Hutchings/SWNS)

A newly discovered dinosaur - the 'White Rock spinosaurid' - unearthed in the United Kingdom may turn out to be the largest land predator to have ever roamed around the European continent, say scientists.

A member of the spinosaurids group, this particular specimen is a cross between two apex predators in a T-Rex and great white shark and was able to hunt in land and on water. It also borrows some features from a crocodile, with it's long face, razor-edge gnashers and a whip-like tail. As for the size, the dinosaur was huge at over 33 feet long and weighing over five tons.

Sadly, there was a small trade off. Despite all those features, this beast shared the short arms of the T-Rex. That didn't hamper it too much, though. It was able to snap its prey in half with it's huge jaws, and this included other dinosaurs as well as big fish.

The evidence for the existsance of this dinosaur includes a number of fossils dug up on near Compton Chine on the Isle of Wight. These fossils date back 125 million years and include large pelvic bones, tail vertebrae as well as a selection of other pieces.

Lead author Chris Barker, a palaeontology student at the University of Southampton, said this UK monster was a killer of immense proportions.

He explained: "This was a huge animal, exceeding 10 metres (33ft) in length, and judging from some of the dimensions, probably represents the largest predatory dinosaur ever found in Europe. It is just a shame it is only known from such scant material."

The new species was entombed inside a sandstone bed known at a prehistoric graveyard called the Vectis Formation.

It has been unofficially named the 'White Rock spinosaurid' after the geological layer in which it was found.

The isle has been dubbed Dinosaur Island for its treasures - which are on display at a purpose built museum in Sandown.

More dinosaur bones have been dug up there than anywhere else in Europe. Its position at the time was roughly where Gibraltar is now. Most are from the Cretaceous period. But dinosaurs are preserved from more than one section of history - some little understood.

Corresponding author Dr Neil Gostling, a lecturer in evolution at Southampton, said: "Unusually, this specimen eroded out of the Vectis Formation, which is notoriously poor in dinosaur fossils.

"It is likely to be the youngest spinosaur material yet known from the UK."

Marks on the bone showed - even after death - the body of this monster probably supported a range of scavengers and decomposers.

Co author Jeremy Lockwood, a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth, said: "Most of these amazing fossils were found by Nick Chase, one of Britain's most skilled dinosaur hunters, who sadly died just before the Covid epidemic.

"I was searching for remains of this dinosaur with Nick and found a lump of pelvis with tunnels bored into it, each about the size of my index finger.

"We think they were caused by bone eating larvae of a type of scavenging beetle. It is an interesting thought that this giant killer wound up becoming a meal for a host of giant insects."


The researchers now plan to strip thin sections to scan internal properties of the bones to shed light on the animal's growth rate and possible age.

Co author Dr Darren Naish, from Southampton, said: "Because it's only known from fragments at the moment, we haven't given it a formal scientific name. We hope additional remains will turn up in time."

He added: "This new animal bolsters our previous argument - published last year - that spinosaurid dinosaurs originated and diversified in western Europe before becoming more widespread."

In September, the same team announced two other spinosaurs had been discovered nearby.

They named one 'hell heron' - because it hunted like the wading bird. The latest is described in the journal PeerJ.

UK

As a refugee, I know Home Office plans for refugees are dangerous

William Gomes explores the dangers of the government’s plan to send refugees and asylum seekers to Rwanda and shows what kindness can achieve

byWilliam Gomes
06-06-2022 

Home Secretary Priti Patel and Minister Biruta sign the migration and economic development partnership between the UK and Rwanda.

There are increasingly concerning media reports of child refugees disappearing from Home Office hotels in fear that they will be forcibly sent to Rwanda. From my own experience and training, I have some understanding of the difficulties these refugees face.

Rwanda is well known for its human rights violations. According to Human Rights Watch, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture in official and unofficial detention facilities continues. Fair trial standards have been routinely flouted in many sensitive political cases, in which security-related charges are often used to prosecute prominent government critics.

It is also extremely concerning that there is widespread evidence of ill-treatment and abuse towards the LGBTQ+ community in Rwanda. For instance, Human Rights Watch reported last year that:

“Rwandan authorities rounded up and arbitrarily detained over a dozen gay and transgender people, sex workers, street children, and others in the months before a planned June 2021 high-profile international conference.”

More harm than good

The UK isn’t the first country to explore using Rwanda to host refugees, with Israel and the Democratic Republic of the Congo having sent refugees and asylum seekers there in recent years. However, reports of mistreatment and questions over Rwanda’s suitability or even willingness to host refugees are fuelling fears that those sent there will either end up on the streets or will try to get to Europe using people-smuggling routes.

Those child asylum seekers have experienced many upheavals before arriving in the UK; they have sought asylum in this country but are now faced with hostility. Sadly, their response to this hostility may lead to them being kidnapped by traffickers, exposed to criminals including sex offenders, or harming themselves. Are the Home Office’s safeguarding procedures robust enough to protect them against these threats?

Originally, I come from Bangladesh. I went through the asylum system, was granted refugee status, and am now a British citizen. I have done a master’s degree in refugee care and have worked with refugees and asylum seekers for a renowned international organisation. I have personal experience and professional knowledge and training in this area, so I understand the difficulties these asylum seekers face.


EDUCATION
My road from refugee to university graduate
BYWILLIAM GOMES
29 MAY 2022


My story

I fled Bangladesh to escape persecution because of my journalism and human rights work. I was nominated by the Rory Peck Trust, the committee to protect journalists, the PEN International, and other human rights organisations, for a protective fellowship at the centre for applied human rights at the University of York. I joined the visiting fellowship in 2012, which was a life-changing opportunity. It provided me with a chance to rest and recuperate, which was badly needed, and a chance to heal from trauma; on top of that, it allowed me to learn from world-leading experts in human rights.

I later studied for a degree in counselling, coaching and mentoring at York St John University. The support I received from my lecturers allowed me to learn, flourish and dream big. The course also provided an opportunity to work with vulnerable people who were grieving or facing other complex life problems. After I graduated, I crowdfunded to pay for my masters in refugee care, and many generous, compassionate people helped me. I’m now halfway through my PhD at the University of Essex.

I’m a disabled student and have various health problems; the support of the people I’ve met has enabled me to come so far. I couldn’t have done any of this without the help of York City of Sanctuary and Refugee Action York. As both a city of sanctuary and a UN human rights city, York sets a brilliant example of compassion and continues to provide hope to people from all over the world, most recently those fleeing war and unrest in Ukraine, Afghanistan and Syria.

My experience shows what a difference can be made when asylum seekers are provided with opportunities and treated with kindness, something which seems completely absent from the government’s Rwandan plan.
Home Office plans will undermine human rights

In 2020, the Equality and Human Right Commission reviewed the Home Office’s hostile environment policy and found that it infringed equalities legislation, specifically the Equalities Act 2010. The then home secretary Theresa May implemented the policy as part of an attempt to reduce net migration; her successor Priti Patel has continued this approach, most notably in the recent anti-refugee Nationality and Borders Act.

The actions of this government suggest it is adamantly opposed to human rights and the relevant international human rights conventions and treaties to which it is a signatory. The plan to deport vulnerable asylum seekers to Rwanda is a flagrant violation of their human rights and is already the subject of legal challenge.

A study by the Institute of Public Policy Research in 2020 concluded:

“It is clear that despite the wide-ranging impacts of the hostile environment on individuals and communities, there is no evidence to suggest that it meets its primary objective to increase voluntary returns. The available evidence suggests that the hostile environment forces people into poverty and destitution, denying them rights to essential goods and services, but it does not necessarily encourage them to leave the UK in greater numbers.”

The Home Office continues to demonstrate a lack of awareness and regard for racial issues, as well as the country’s colonial history and institutional racism. If you look closely, many of the individuals seeking refuge in the UK hail from former British colonies or are victims of wars in which the UK was engaged.

It’s time for the government to conduct a review of its hostile environment policies to ensure that they are in compliance with equal opportunity laws, particularly in relation to race.

William Gomes
William is a British Bangladeshi freelance journalist and human rights activist based in York, North Yorkshire. He has previously worked for an international human rights organisation, a news agency, and published in different online and printed media. He has a particular interest in researching racism and forced migration.