Māori tribe secures landmark apology and compensation over colonial atrocities

Settlement is the culmination of more than 30 years of fighting for reparations



02:22Joy, singing and haka in NZ parliament as Maniapoto claims settlement bill passed – video


Eva Corlett in Wellington

THE GUARDIAN
@evacorlett

Fri 23 Sep 2022

It took decades of fighting for reparations but a Māori tribe has finally secured a long-awaited apology and millions of dollars in redress for atrocities committed by the crown, including for its “indiscriminate” killings and “massive” alienation of tribal land.

On Wednesday, a charter train wound its way down the spine of New Zealand’s North Island, picking up hundreds of Ngāti Maniapoto iwi (tribe) members. The iwi travelled for nine hours until they reached Wellington where, the next day, they joined many more members in the parliament’s public gallery to witness the Maniapoto claims settlement bill become law.



New Zealand MPs pay tribute to Queen mixed with sharp rebukes of colonial past

The gallery erupted into waiata (song) and haka (ceremonial dance) as the House unanimously voted to pass the law. As well as an apology, the Waikato-based iwi of nearly 46,000 members received NZ$177m in financial redress – New Zealand’s fifth-largest sum of its kind – and the return of 36 sites of cultural significance.

Following the event, Dr Tom Roa, an iwi kaumātua (elder) and academic, said the settlement marked “a new chapter in the history book” of the iwi and the crown.

“This legislation will see the growing of oneness with the crown,” he told Waatea News, but hastened to add that what happened next “will be really critical for Ngāti Maniapoto”.

The settlement is the culmination of more than 30 years of fighting for reparations over the crown’s breach of its duties to Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi.

New Zealand has established processes where indigenous people can seek reparations for the atrocities committed through colonisation. The settlement system was set up in 1975 to remedy the crown’s breaches of the country’s founding document between the British crown and Māori, the Treaty of Waitangi. As of 2022, 97 deeds of settlement have been signed and another 73 have passed into law. There are approximately 40 remaining settlements to go.

Elsewhere in the world, many indigenous populations are in the midst of a renewed push for colonisers to pay reparations for past wrongs, including in Jamaica, the US and other parts of the Carribean.

In 1840, Ngāti Maniapoto was a strong independent iwi with expanding trade connections among the growing Pākehā (New Zealand European) population. But in the decades following, their tribal structures were eroded as the crown confiscated land, grossly underpaid the iwi for purchased land and deprived the iwi of their tūrangawaewae (foundation) through compulsory acquisitions for public works.

The crown acknowledged it had indiscriminately killed women and children during the Waikato wars and looted and destroyed iwi property for no reason. It said the iwi had suffered for too long from “inadequate healthcare, housing and education, as well as reduced employment opportunities”.


Aotearoa or New Zealand: has the moment come to change the country’s name?

Many ministers and MPs, including those who whakapapa (have genealogical ties) to Ngāti Maniapoto, were visibly moved as the bill became law. The foreign affairs minister, Nanaia Mahuta, who once led the negotiations for the iwi, shed tears as she delivered her speech.

“This moment, as I’ve acknowledged many times before, has taken a long and turbulent path,” she said.

Mahuta acknowledged those who had travelled to parliament to bear witness to the crown’s statements, “so that in five years’ time, when we do the health check on the settlement, everyone will know whether or not it’s delivered what we anticipated it would deliver”.

“I have high hopes,” she said.

The minister said she stood proudly on the legacy left by previous generations of her iwi, and promised not to falter “because that legacy is for our kids, their kids, and those kids that we don’t even know yet, and they will be proudly Maniapoto”.

Swiss to vote in national poll on banning factory farming

This weekend’s ballot could see Switzerland also giving farm animals the constitutional right ‘not to be intensively farmed’

Campaign posters in Zurich. On the left it reads: ‘Get out of factory farming – yes.’ 

On the right it says: ‘More imports instead of regional food? No.’ 

Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters

Sophie Kevany

THE GUARDIAN

Fri 23 Sep 2022 

Swiss voters will vote on Sunday on whether to ban factory farming as unconstitutional and end imports of intensively farmed meat.

The latest polling shows 52% of voters oppose a ban, and 47% support one. If the factory-farming ballot initiative is passed, Switzerland’s constitution, which already protects the “welfare and dignity of animals”, would be modified to include an animal’s right “not to be intensively farmed”, and new laws would lower animal stocking rates to meet organic standards.

Under current Swiss law, “you can keep 27,000 chickens in one barn and their room to move is about the size of an A4 sheet of paper,” said Silvano Lieger, managing director of the animal protection group Sentience Politics, which proposed the vote in 2018.

“Pigs are kept in barns too, up to 1,500 per farm, with 10 pigs sharing the space of an average parking spot. It is not possible to treat animals in a dignified way in those conditions,” he said.

Groups supporting the ban include Switzerland’s Small Farmers’ Association, Greenpeace, Les Vertes (The Green party) and animal protection groups. The only political party in government to support the ban is the Parti Socialiste Suisse (Social Democratic party).

A ban would protect the environment by reducing reliance on soya-based animal feed linked to deforestation, said Lieger, who also pointed to the need to reduce the consumption of animal proteins.

His team calculates that only 5% of farms would be affected by the potential ban. Although no exact figures exist for the proportion of small farms in the country, the overall number of Swiss farms is declining while farm size is increasing, according to the national statistics office.

A campaign against the ban, spearheaded by the Swiss Farmers’ Union (SBV), argues that existing laws limiting farm animal numbers mean intensive farming in Switzerland does not exist.

Swiss farmers can keep up to 18,000 laying hens and 27,000 meat chickens, said the SBV’s head of production, market and ecology, Michel Darbellay. If the ban is approved, the maximum number would be 4,000 laying hens and 500 meat chickens, while changes to pig standards would mean a 50% drop in pork production, he said.

For pigs and cows, Lieger said, the maximum limits have yet to be defined but animals would be kept in small groups, have indoor and outside space, and the opportunity to play.

Opponents of the ban say it will fail to prevent cheaper imports of factory-farmed meat.

Swiss welfare laws were already “among the strictest in the world”, said Darbellay, who pointed to existing bans on caged hens and limits on the time pigs can be kept in pens (or logettes, as the Swiss call them), to 10 days compared with several weeks in other countries.

However, only 3% of consumers in Switzerland wanted higher-welfare organic poultry and pork, Darbellay claimed. Although a ban would significantly reduce Swiss chicken, egg and pork production, it would not prevent imports nor reduce consumption, he said.

About 80% of Swiss meat is produced domestically, but Darbellay expects imports to “increase massively” if the ballot initiative is passed, while any attempt to enforce a ban would be nullified by existing trade agreements.


UK has more than 1,000 livestock mega-farms, investigation reveals

In 2020, the Swiss ate less meat than the average for the EU, at almost 51kg a head, while consumption of milk and dairy products was higher at 301kg. The latest available data shows average EU meat consumption in 2018 was 69.8kg per capita, while milk and dairy consumption was 600g a day in 2019, or 219kg a year.

The lower consumption is meat is largely because it is comparatively much more expensive in Switzerland than the rest of Europe. Import rules make it prohibitively expensive to import large amounts of meat, but consumers can buy small amounts of cheaper meat from neighbouring Germany.

VIDEO REPORTS

Protests against Iran’s morality police intensify: “Women, life, freedom”  

 

 

 

  

 

Iran restricts internet amid growing anti-regime protests

Sep 22, 2022

CBC News

Iran's government is reportedly restricting access to the internet amid growing anti-regime protests. 'The most immediate need of Iranians is free internet … Iranians need free flow of information,' says Maziar Bahari, founder and editor of IranWire. 

Pro-government rallies held in Iran amid mass protests

The Associated Press

Fri, September 23, 2022 

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian counterprotesters gathered across the country on Friday in a show of support for authorities after nearly a week of anti-government protests and unrest over the death of a young woman who was being held by the morality police.

Thousands attended a rally in the capital, Tehran, where they waved Iranian flags, and similar demonstrations were held in other cities. The government claimed the demonstrations of support were spontaneous. Similar rallies have been held during past periods of widespread protests.

The pro-government demonstrators chanted against America and Israel, according to state media, reflecting the official line that blames the latest unrest on hostile foreign countries.

State TV suggested late on Friday that the death toll from this week's unrest could be as high as 35, raising an earlier estimate of 26. Anti-government protesters and security forces have clashed in several major cities in the most severe political violence since 2019, when rights groups say hundreds were killed amid demonstrations against a hike in state-controlled gasoline prices.

Iran has also disrupted internet access and tightened restrictions on popular platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp, which can be used to organize rallies.

In response, the U.S. Treasury Department said it would allow American tech firms to expand their business in Iran to boost internet access for the Iranian people. Iran is under heavy U.S. and international sanctions.

A state TV newswoman said late Friday that 35 protesters and policemen had been killed since the protests erupted last Saturday after the funeral of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, without elaborating. She said official statistics would be released later, but authorities have not provided a full accounting of deaths and injuries during past unrest.

A tally by The Associated Press, based on statements from state-run and semiofficial media, shows that at least 11 people have been killed. Most recently, the deputy governor of Qazvin, Abolhasan Kabiri, said that a citizen and paramilitary officer had been killed there.

The crisis unfolding in Iran began as a public outpouring of anger over the the death of Amini, a young woman who was arrested by the morality police in Tehran last week for allegedly wearing her Islamic headscarf too loosely. The police said she died of a heart attack and was not mistreated, but her family has cast doubt on that account.

Amini's death has sparked sharp condemnation from Western countries and the United Nations. Iranians across at least 13 cities from the capital, Tehran, to Amini's northwest Kurdish hometown of Saqez have poured into the streets, voicing pent-up anger over social and political repression.

“The death has tapped into broader antigovernment sentiment in the Islamic Republic and especially the frustration of women,” wrote political risk firm Eurasia Group. It noted that Iran’s hard-liners have intensified their crackdown on women’s clothing over the past year since former judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi became president.

“The prospect of the leadership offering concessions to Iranian women is minimal,” it said. “In the cold calculus of Iranian leaders, the protests have likely gone far enough and a more forceful response is required to quell the unrest.”

Raisi condemned the protests as he arrived back in Iran after addressing the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week.

“We have announced many times that if anyone has a fair comment, we will listen to it. But anarchy? Disturbing national security? The security of people? No one will succumb to this,” he said.

Videos on social media show protesters in Tehran torching a police car and confronting officers. Others show gunfire ringing out as protesters bolt from riot police, shouting: “They are shooting at people! Oh my God, they're killing people!”

In the northwestern city of Neyshabur, protesters cheered over an overturned police car. Footage from Tehran and Mashhad shows women waving their obligatory headscarves, known as hijab, in the air like flags while chanting, “Freedom!"

Separately, hackers have targeted a number of government websites in recent days, taking some of them down at least briefly. On Friday, hackers interrupted Iran's Channel 3 on a popular streaming website and played videos in support of the protests. Normal programming was restored a couple of minutes later.

The protests have grown into an open challenge to the theocracy established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The chants have been scathing, with some chanting “Death to the dictator!” and “Mullahs must be gone!”

Local officials have announced the arrest of dozens of protesters. Hasan Hosseinpour, deputy police chief in the northern Gilan province, reported 211 people detained there on Thursday. The government of the western Hamadan province said 58 demonstrators had been arrested.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday that at least 10 reporters have been arrested since the start of the protests, many of them during late night raids on their homes by security forces who did not identify themselves.

London-based watchdog Amnesty International has accused security forces of beating protesters with batons and firing metal pellets at close range. Videos show police and paramilitary officers using live fire, tear gas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators.

Iran has grappled with waves of protests in the recent past, mainly over a long-running economic crisis exacerbated by American sanctions linked to its nuclear program. In November 2019, the country saw the deadliest violence since the revolution, as protests erupted over gas price hikes.

Economic hardship remains a major source of anger today as the prices of basic necessities soar and the Iranian currency declines in value.

The Biden administration and European allies have been working to revive the 2015 nuclear accord, in which Iran curbed its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, but the talks have stalled for months.

The Eurasia Group said the protests make any immediate return to the agreement less likely, as Iran's government will be more hesitant to make concessions at a time of domestic unrest and the United States will be reluctant to sign a deal as Iran violently cracks down on dissent.

VIDEO https://news.yahoo.com/iran-state-tv-suggests-least-062809824.html

Iran marchers call for execution of anti-government protesters

Army signals it is prepared to crush dissent after unrest over death of Mahsa Amini in police custody

People protesting over the death of Mahsa Amini, whose family say she sustained fatal injuries in a beating by police. 

Photograph: Wana/Reuters

Patrick Wintour and agencies

Fri 23 Sep 2022 

Pro-government rallies have taken place in several cities across Iran in an attempt to counter a week of mounting unrest triggered by the death of a woman in police custody.

Marchers called for anti-government protesters to be executed, while the army signalled that it was prepared to crush dissent by telling Iranians that it would confront “the enemies” behind the unrest.

Demonstrators condemned the anti-government protesters as “Israel’s soldiers”, live state television coverage showed. They also shouted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”, common slogans the country’s clerical rulers use to try and stir up support for authorities, who claimed the demonstrations of support were spontaneous. “Offenders of the Qur’an must be executed,” the crowds chanted.

01:17 Anti-regime protests intensify after death of Mahsa Amini in Iran – video

A state TV anchor said the death toll in the protests that erupted last Saturday after the funeral of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini could be as high as 26, without elaborating on how that figure was reached. Anti-government protesters voicing pent-up anger over social and political repression have taken to the streets in several major cities in the most severe political unrest since 2019, when rights groups say hundreds were killed amid demonstrations against a hike in state-controlled petrol prices.

Videos on social media show protesters in Tehran torching a police car and confronting officers at close range. Elsewhere in the capital, videos show gunfire sounding out as protesters bolt from riot police, shouting: “They are shooting at people! Oh my God, they’re killing people!”

In the north-western city of Neyshabur, protesters cheered over an overturned police car. Footage from Tehran and Mashhad shows women waving their obligatory headscarves, known as hijab, in the air like flags while chanting: “Freedom!”

Amini was pronounced dead on 16 September, three days after being arrested by Tehran’s “morality police”. Her family and protesters say she died from injuries sustained in a beating by police. Iranian authorities say an initial coroner’s investigation showed she died from heart failure or a stroke.

“The death has tapped into broader anti-government sentiment in the Islamic republic and especially the frustration of women,” the political risk firm Eurasia Group wrote, noting that Iran’s hardliners had intensified their crackdown on women’s clothing over the past year since the former judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi became president.

“The prospect of the leadership offering concessions to Iranian women is minimal,” it said. “In the cold calculus of Iranian leaders, the protests have likely gone far enough and a more forceful response is required to quell the unrest.”

A pro-government rally in Tehran on Friday. 

Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

Raisi, who on Friday told Iranian TV that the pro-government marches showed the power of the Islamic republic, on Thursday told a news conference on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York that Amini’s death “must be steadfastly investigated”.

“Our utmost preoccupation is the safeguarding of the rights of every citizen,” Raisi said. “If her death was due to negligence, it will definitely be investigated, and I promise to follow up on the issue regardless of whether the international forums take a stand or not.”

Raisi said Iran would not tolerate “acts of chaos”, referring to the six nights of protests, and sought to turn the tables on the country he was visiting by asking about police shootings in the US. “Did all these deaths get investigated?” he said.

The Iranian judiciary has ordered the courts to take a tough line with protesters, claiming the demonstrators were being led by foreign agents and stirred by anti-Iranian social media – a familiar accusation levelled by the regime when dissent breaks out.

The US announced on Friday it was easing export restrictions to improve Iranians’ access to the internet, which the Tehran government has severely hampered since Amini’s death in what the US said was a bid “to prevent the world from watching its violent crackdown on peaceful protesters”.

“In the face of these steps, we are going to help make sure the Iranian people are not kept isolated and in the dark,” the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said. “This is a concrete step to provide meaningful support to Iranians demanding that their basic rights be respected.”

Amini was detained for allegedly wearing a hijab in an “improper” way. As part of the protest action, Iranian women have taken to the streets and the internet, burning their headscarves and cutting their hair.

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

Mahsa Amini’s death could be the spark that ignites Iran around women’s rights


The country faces a litany of problems, from inflation to a democratic deficit, and the women’s movement is seen as an agent of change

An Iranian woman living in Turkey holds her cut hair at a protest against the death of Mahsa Amini outside Iran’s consulate in Istanbul, 21 September 2022.

 Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters

Weronika Strzyżyńska

THE GUARDIAN/OPINION
Fri 23 Sep 2022 

On the day that news of Mahsa Amini’s death spread throughout Iran, a young woman with a shaved head joined protesters who had gathered outside Kasra hospital, where Amini had lain in a coma since her violent arrest by Iran’s morality police days earlier.

In her hand she carried a plastic bag full of her long hair, shorn off in a gesture of solidarity with Amini and in defiance of the increasing crackdown on women by the regime.

A week later, and protests sparked by Amini’s death are raging in the province of Kurdistan and Tehran as well as cities such as Rasht, Isfahan and Qom, one of Iran’s most religiously conservative cities.

The rage across Iran at the brutal pointlessness of Amini’s death has lit the fires of protest and the increasing desperation of the authorities to extinguish it are, some believe, a sign of the growing strength and momentum of Iran’s women’s rights movement.

“Women’s issues have long been a catalyst for broader political action in Iran,” said Annabelle Sreberny, professor emeritus at the Iranian Studies Centre at Soas University of London. “This could be it. It could be the moment when people motivated by all the problems facing Iran today, like rising inflation, ecological crisis and lack of democratic participation, coalesce around these women’s issues to challenge the regime.”

During the past week women have been at the forefront of many of the demonstrations, shaving their heads and burning their headscarves in defiance of the strict hijab law and its brutal enforcement that led to 22-year-old Amini’s arrest and allegedly her death.

“The women’s movement in Iran started in the first month of the Islamic Republic and has been simmering for at least the last 20 years,” said Sreberny. “It is seen as a carrier of socially progressive values … many Iranians see the women’s movement as having the potential to be the next social force to make waves.”

Control of the female body and oppression of women is existential to the Islamic Republic 

Azadeh Akbari, academic

Women have always been key to challenging the regime. Since online blogging became a popular form of everyday dissent a decade ago, women and LGBTQ+ people have dominated the sphere. Today, some of the most significant anti-regime movements were created by women in cyberspace, including My Stealthy Freedom, a Facebook page launched in 2014 by an Iranian feminist journalist living in exile, Masih Alinejad, which encouraged women to post hijab-less selfies.

The public removal of the state-mandated hijab has since become a universal sign of rejection of the regime, unifying Iranians from across the religious spectrum. For months before Amini’s arrest and death, women had been converging under anti-hijab protest hashtags on social media, posting videos of themselves walking with their heads uncovered or being harassed on the streets. In the weeks before Amini’s arrest for failing to correctly wear the hijab, the authorities had carried out a spate of arrests, beatings and forced public confessions of women.

Among them was Sepideh Rashno, a 28-year-old woman who was detained after a video showing her on a bus with her hair uncovered went viral. Rashno was reportedly beaten during her detention and forced to apologise on national television.



“Control of the female body and oppression of women is not just a matter of policy of the current government,” said Azadeh Akbari, a researcher at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, “It is existential to the Islamic Republic and fundamental to its founding ideology.

“These are protests against the compulsory hijab and controlling women. They have support even among women who believe in Islam and who choose to wear it, but they don’t agree with the compulsory hijab and they definitely don’t agree with the violence which is used to enforce it,” said Akbari.

The hijab, a headscarf worn by Muslim women, became mandatory in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which led to the overthrow of the shah and the instalment of Ayatollah Khomeini as the country’s supreme leader. Laws regulating women’s behaviour and restricting their participation in public life became a hallmark of the regime, as female liberation was presented as a force of western cultural imperialism.

‘We are risking death’: Iranians on Mahsa Amini protests

After the death of a 22-year-old in police custody, three protesters explain why the country is rising up

People gather in Tehran after Masha Amini died after being arrested by morality please for not complying with Iran’s strict dress code.

 Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

As told to Deepa Parent

THE GUARDIAN

Fri 23 Sep 2022

Dozens of people are feared to have died in six days of protests in Iran sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who had been detained by morality police for allegedly wearing a hijab headscarf in an “improper” way.

The official line is that Amini died from heart failure or a stroke, but her family and protesters say she died of injuries sustained from a beating by police. Here, three protesters explain why they have taken to streets despite the dangers they face.

Rona, 20, Tehran

At 6.30pm last night, with the wounds on my body aching and my back black and blue with bruises, I walked through the Valiasr Square. A few metres ahead hundreds of others protesters were chanting: “Death to the dictator.”

In the past few days, the fight on the streets has gone beyond Mahsa Amini’s death. It is now about vengeance; I am here for every minute of my life I have been humiliated for being a woman.

Two months ago, as I stood with other women in protest against the hijab decree, a policeman called me a slut. Although I was fully dressed, he said I was naked. I have had this and worse many, many times. Back then we were just a few dozen women asking for the right to choose how we dressed. I never expected that just a few weeks later things would take such a deadly turn.

Now, as we protest we are risking death. When I heard about Mahsa’s killing, I couldn’t let them get away with it. All our lives we have been policed and silenced, and I want to be free.

So, before they cut us off from the rest of the world, here’s what I want the world to know. We women in Iran aren’t weak. We are like any young women across the world. We love makeup tutorials and Hollywood movies. Yet we can’t walk the streets without being humiliated for wearing what we want.

So that is why I am protesting. As we marched last night we screamed, “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi,” (woman, life, freedom) and all I could picture in my head was how [Ayatollah] Khomeini’s regime will be crushed by every woman and girl on the streets, and every man joining us in protest.

A few minutes after we started marching, the riot police advanced. We gathered trash cans and set them on fire. All of us girls walked straight towards them, unhooking our hijabs, twirling them in the air and throwing them into the flames.

Moments later, they released teargas. They used green laser lights to spot and identify some of us and shot rubber pellets straight at us. I turned around and started running, that’s when I took a hit on my legs.




We dispersed and ran towards the residential buildings when some of the families opened their gates for us. They gave us water to drink and to wash our burning eyes and told us how proud they were to see us fight. By the end of last night, I had blood stains all over my clothes but I was more determined than ever.

It is now Friday and I am getting dressed again to join the protest. Tell the world that we are alive and fighting– at least for now.

Mohsin, 19, Mashhad

On Wednesday night I saw the security forces push a teenage girl on to the road and beat her with batons. I will never forget the force with which they hit her.

Over the past week, the Iranian regime has unleashed unimaginable violence against us. Right now we don’t feel we can trust anyone. We have received alerts that cybersecurity forces are trying to infiltrate our protest groups on Telegram and WhatsApp.

At this point the protests are not just about Masha any more. It’s about freedom of choice, inflation, unemployment and dictatorship; one under which our futures are being erased. The regime killing Mahsa has reminded us about realities of our daily lives. Killing one of our sisters was the final straw.

This is why last night I headed out to join the protesters at about 5pm. When I got there, I was surprised how many young people were there, teenagers as young as 13.

We were about 60 people chanting for freedom. After only a couple of minutes, the police arrived and started shooting rubber bullets at us. We were hit multiple times because there were more than double the number of police. We retreated and ran back towards Bozorgmehr Street. There were police motorcycles parked there. They followed us and used teargas and then grabbed a dozen of us, all minors, and put them in police vans and drove away. We tried to stop them by throwing stones. We don’t know what happened to them. I can only hope they are still alive.

When we were walking away, more security forces appeared out of nowhere and used tasers on us and beat me on my back. I’m still in a lot of pain but I’ll keep protesting until the day they handcuff me. I will do anything for my country and the Iranian sisters that started this revolution.

Reza*, 29, media professional

Yesterday at work, I’d just gone downstairs to get dinner when the police stopped me. They took away my press card and hit me on my knees with batons. They told me, “What news are you going to write? We’ll give you back your card when we confirm you’re a reporter.”

I wasn’t even protesting. Yet even as a journalist I can’t report on what is happening because we are being monitored by our bosses and the police. We have been told we can’t use the word “death” in Mahsa’s case.

I’m locked up in the newsroom. In the past few days, the threats have increased against us. One of my colleagues had to change her number and network carrier because she was notified that they’re monitoring her online activity. This morning they raided the house of journalist Niloofar Hamedi and detained her. We have no knowledge of her whereabouts.

The Guardian view on Iran’s protests: a moment of rage, a chain of resistance

The crackdown on journalists has begun and they could come after me anytime. I am filled with anger, yet I feel helpless. The situation is only about to get worse. There have been incidents in Mashhad, Zanjan and Hamedan where the pro-regime protesters marched in support. I’ve been told there’s a demonstration this weekend. Pro-government Iranians, supported by the regime, will counter the ones protesting for Mahsa. They’ll start after Friday prayers and I fear this will take a deadly turn.

They’re putting people against people! I fear more people will lose their lives and here we are, unable to tell the world the plight of our own.

Names have been changed

IRANIAN KURDISTAN

Rage against the regime: how Iran erupted after the death of Mahsa Amini

A timeline of the witness accounts, reports by journalists and social media that have tracked the protests sweeping Iran since the young Kurdish woman died at the hands of the morality police

by Maryam Foumani

Rights and freedom
THE GUARDIAN
Fri 23 Sep 2022 

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died in police custody after being arrested by police under Iran’s harsh hijab laws. In the following days large protests erupted across Iran.

Iranian newspapers’ headlines after Mahsa Amini’s death. 

Photograph: Anadolu/Getty

Friday 16 September

The first protest, in front of Kasra hospital, began shortly after news of Mahsa Amini’s death was published. Amini had been taken to the hospital from the police detention centre after her arrest.

Based on videos and witness accounts, dozens of people gathered in front of the hospital and the surrounding streets, some chanting “Death to the dictator”, while the authorities closed the roads leading to the hospital. Other protesters gathered around the city’s Arjantin Square near the hospital, chanting slogans such as “I swear by Mahsa’s blood, Iran will be free” and “Khamenei is a murderer, his government is invalid”.

Journalists at the hospital reported that several arrests were made throughout the evening. In Arjantin Square a young girl with a shaved head, her hair in a plastic bag, shouted in protest at Amini’s death.Protesters gathering outside the hospital where Amini died

Over the next few days, the movement grew, with other women also cutting their hair – something that is considered forbidden by some Islamic authorities – and posting the videos on social media.

In parts of Tehran, chants could be heard from the rooftops and from inside homes: “Death to Khamenei” and “Death to the dictator”.

Amini’s body was taken to her home town in Saqqez for burial at night.

Saturday 17 September

In Saqqez, thousands of people attended Amini’s funeral. Women took off their headscarves en masse in the presence of police officers and chanted against mandatory hijabs. Men and women marched to the governor’s building in Saqqez after Amini’s burial. Many protesters were beaten, and at least 13 were hit by gunfire.Mahsa Amini’s death has ignited protests across Iran

Sunday 18 September

The protests spread to Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan province. Police attacked 
In Tehran University, dozens of students marched in the university grounds chanting “Women, life, freedom”.

In remarkable scenes, protesters, men as well as women, chanted slogans denouncing the violent suppression of women.

Monday 19 September – Tehran

In Tehran, male and female students staged rallies at seven universities.
Slogans such as “We do not want the Islamic Republic” and “We don’t want forced hijab” could be heard around central Tehran.

Security forces used teargas, batons and water cannon to disperse the crowds. Some pictures and reports indicate that shots were fired at the protesters, and several were injured.Police using water cannon on protesters in Tehran’s Vali Asr Square

In videos taken at the protest, dozens of women took off their headscarves, waving them above their heads and chanting “death to the dictator”. Photos show protesters forming a human chain and standing in front of dozens of armed police officers.

Photos on social media showed protesters setting fire to at least one police patrol van. Reports from Tehran indicate that dozens of protesters were detained.

A witness in Tehran told the Guardian that by 8pm, the crowd around Vali Asr Square numbered 3,000 to 4,000 people, both men and women.

“The crowd that initially gathered on Abdullah Zadeh Street near the Hejab intersection was about 50 to 100 people. The IRGC [Revolutionary Guards], wearing black uniforms and riding motorcycles, kept attacking the crowd and dispersed them, however, the people gathered in another street a few minutes later.

A video showed an elderly woman in Rasht removing her headscarf and chanting: ‘Death to Khamenei’

“At the same time, the number of protesters had increased in the streets of 16 Azar and Italia, it was difficult for the security forces to deal with the people. I even saw twice with my eyes that people pushed the security forces back by throwing stones and forcing them to flee.”

The witness also told the Guardian that protesters delayed the advance and attacks by security services by setting fire to waste bins and using cars to block streets.

From 9.30pm, security reinforcements arrived and fired on the protesters. A witness says police officers wearing green uniforms were attacking people with batons, and the Revolutionary Guards were shooting at people with teargas and bullets.

A witness said many women in the rally had scarves around their necks and were not wearing hijab. Some women started to form a small circle, waving their headscarves in the air. According to the witness, police on motorcycles attacked the circle of women, firing teargas canisters in an attempt to get them to disperse but the women continued to protest.

Protesters use burning dumpsters as a barricade to block the police at a demonstration in Tehran three days after Amini’s death. Photograph: Handout

A girl took off her scarf on Keshavarz Boulevard, and stood on top of a concrete platform holding the scarf in her hand in an act of defiance and protest that echoed an image of Vida Movahedi, a young Iranian woman who was photographed waving her hijab on a pole above the crowd during demonstrations in 2017 before being arrested.

Witnesses say the girl was pulled down and beaten by the police but she continued to refuse to cover her hair. The extent of her injuries or whether she was later arrested is unknown.

Yalda Meiri, a press photographer, posted on Instagram that she had been arrested at a protest on Hejab Street and was being taken in a van to an unknown location with dozens of others.

Relatives of those detained at the protests say many were transferred to the base of the Basij pro-government militia in Hor Square but there is no official information about the numbers arrested or where or how they are being detained.

A commemoration of Mahsa Amini was held in the women’s wing of Evin prison in Tehran. Aliyeh Motallebzadeh, a photographer and women’s rights activist imprisoned there, reported that about 40 women political prisoners gathered in the courtyard to stage a protest.

Monday 19 September – Kurdistan

Civil society groups in Iran’s Kurdistan province supported the call of political parties in the region for a general strike.

Shops were closed across the provinces of Kurdistan West Azerbaijan and Kermanshah, especially in cities, including Sanandaj, Mahabad, Ashnoye, Saqqez, Marivan, Bukan, Piranshahr, Kamyaran, Ravansar and Paveh.

Kaveh Kermanshahi, a Berlin-based director of the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, said that at least three Kurdish citizens were killed after security forces opened fire on crowds. Mohsen Mohammadi, Faridun Mahmoudi and Reza Lotfi were killed during protests in the cities of Diwandara, Saqqez and Dehgolan in Kurdistan province. Their families have reportedly been threatened by the security forces for talking to the media and human rights organisations, and for holding a public funeral.

Kermanshahi said more than 85 people were wounded in the protests on 19 September in cities across Kurdistan, and at least 215 people were arrested. Among those wounded and arrested are several children under the age of 18, including a 10-year-old girl who was shot and seriously wounded by government forces in Bukan.

Based on reliable reports received by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, Kermanshahi said, some protesters who were wounded in beatings and gunfire from the security forces have been detained without treatment and have not been transferred to hospital.A protest in Rasht, capital city of Gilan province

The security forces have also threatened to arrest Kurdish activists if they take part in protests and strikes. At least five female activists have been detained in Sanandaj and two civil activists in Marivan. Mobile phone signals and the internet were cut off in a number of cities in Kurdistan.

According to Front Line Defenders, an international human rights organisation, at least eight women’s rights and civil rights activists have been arrested in Kurdistan province. They confirmed the arrest of four women – Baran Sae’di, Mahrou Hedayati, Bahareh Zangiband and Azadeh Jama’ati.

Also arrested are the environmental campaigner Farank Rafie, and a civil rights activist called Lotfollah Ahmadi in Sanandaj; as well as two civil rights defenders, Ribvar Kamranipour and Amjad Sae’di, in Marivan, Kurdistan province.

19 September – Other cities

Protests reached the city of Rasht, in the province of Gilan, where demonstrators chanted “Death to Khamenei”. In one of the videos, protesters forced the security forces to retreat. According to police sources, 22 people were arrested there.Revolutionary Guards on motorbikes, attacking the crowds of protesters to disperse them

Videos on social media showed people in the streets of Mashhad shouting “We are all Mahsa, fight to fight” and “The mullah must get lost”.
Tuesday 20 September

As well as anger about the death of Amini and demands for the abolition of the mandatory hijab, protesters also shouted against Ali Khamenei, Iran’s “supreme leader”, as well as against repression and human rights violations, and the country’s political establishment. “Death to the Islamic Republic” and “Death to the dictator” are heard at most gatherings.

Fatemeh Karim, of Kurdistan Human Rights Network, confirmed that three more protesters died after being shot by anti-riot forces. Farjad Darvishi, a 23-year-old, was killed in the Vali Asr neighbourhood of Urmia, and 16-year-old Zakariya Khiyal in Piranshahr, both in West Azerbaijan province.One of the many protests that have sprung up across Iranian cities

Students gathered in some universities in Tehran, Karaj, Yazd and Tabriz. Pictures of the protest at Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran on social media show female students setting fire to their veils. Footage from Kharazmi University in Karaj shows students stamping on a picture of Ali Khamenei. 

A protest in Urmia, West Azerbaijan. 

Protesters chant: ‘Azerbaijan is awake, it supports Kurdistan.’

Demonstrations spread to many cities and towns, including Kermanshah, Zanjan, Bandar Abbas, Qazvin, Rafsanjan, Kerman, Sari, Urmia, Hamadan, Kish and Shiraz. In Qom, a particularly conservative city, protesters were on the streets, and some women took off their headscarves and twirled them in the air.

Protests also flared in Tehran market, the scene of demonstrations that proved a turning point in the 1979 revolution.

Wednesday 21 September

According to Kurdistan Human Rights Network, a man named Fouad Qadimi, who was shot by security forces on 19 September in Diwandara, died from his wounds at Kowsar hospital in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province.

Security officers arrested Zina Modares Gurji, a women’s rights activist in Sanandaj. Nilufar Hamedi, a reporter for Al Sharq newspaper, was arrested in Tehran. She was one of the first journalists to break the story about Mehsa Amini after she was transferred to Kasri hospital.

Fatemeh Sepehri, a civil activist critical of Ali Khamenei, and Mansoure Mousavi, a sociologist and women’s activist, are among tthose arrested in Mashhad.

Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Norway, said that during the clashes on the night of 21 September, about 60 men and six women were arrested and transferred to Amol prison.

Most of the protesters are young but older people, especially women, have also taken to the streets. Images of elderly women chanting slogans or defending protesters against the attacks of security agents have been published many times in recent days, including a video of an elderly woman in the city of Rasht removing her headscarf and chanting: “Death to Khamenei.”

In Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchistan province, a young woman on top of a car removes her headscarf and cuts her hair as protesters chant: “Death to the dictator.” Women also burned their veils in the city of Qaemshahr, Mazandaran province.

Iranian demonstrators on the streets of Tehran as protests over the killing of Mahsa Amini continued to spread.

 Photograph: AFP/Getty

Protesters charged at riot police and forced them to retreat in the city of Amol, also in Mazandaran province. This has happened in other cities as well, with several videos showing protesters forcing police to retreat by throwing stones or running at them. Others show protesters setting police cars on fire. In Azadi Square, Nowshahr, Mazandaran province, protesters attacked three riot police vehicles.

Thursday 22 September

IHR reported the death of at least 31 protesters between 16 and 22 September. The organisation confirms all deaths by contacting relatives, eyewitnesses or medical staff in hospital, according to Mahmood Amiri-Moghaddam, director of IHR. He also said they had received more names of those killed, but were awaiting confirmation.

According to news published by university organisations, dozens of students have been arrested in Tehran and other cities. Bardia Shakuri Fard from Tehran University, Mohammad Arab from Babol Noshirvani University of Technology and Mehrdad Arandan from Allameh Tabataba’i University are among those arrested.A young woman stands on a wall after removing her hijab and argues with women in chadors, who then attack her. ‘You cannot arrest me,” she says. ‘I am here because you have killed #MahsaAmini.’

More than 530 people have been arrested in Kurdish regions of Iran, including Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Ilam and West Azerbaijan provinces, during the past week, Fatemeh Karim of Kurdistan Human Rights Network told the Guardian.

According to reports from different parts of Iran, the violence has intensified as protests have spread. There have been reports of live ammunition and Kalashnikov assault rifles being used in some cities. Arrests have become widespread, while internet speed and access to some social media has been cut or limited.

Friday 23 September

A new wave of arrests targeting civil and political activists, journalists and students has begun, initially in Kurdistan but spreading across the country.

Reports of deaths and injuries are increasing but there are still no official figures and verification of the size of the protests and the numbers detained is proving difficult due to internet blackouts and the targeting of civil society.

Other footage posted on social media show families sheltering protesters attempting to flee from the police. In one, police are seen breaking down the door of the house where protesters are hiding.

A witness from Tehran said: “Last night, numerous women and men in the Vanak neighbourhood went to the roof of buildings and chanted: ‘Death to the dictator’ and ‘woman, life, freedom.’

“During these demonstrations, I saw the IRGC [Revolutionary Guards] forces suddenly attack a car,” the witness said. “The driver was a woman; she sounded her horn in support of people protesting in the street. [The police] violently threw that woman out of the car and arrested her.

“I have witnessed the police arrest people in incredibly violent ways. Our people are fighting against the military forces with only their bare hands. Yet they shoot people, stand in front of hospitals to check who is transferred, and then arrest them.”
Topics

‘Forever chemicals’ detected in all umbilical cord blood in 40 studies


Studies collectively examined nearly 30,000 samples over the past five years in ‘disturbing’ findings

Biobank, tube containing umbilical cord stem cells.

 Photograph: Bsip Sa/Alamy


Tom Perkins

THE GUARDIAN

Fri 23 Sep 2022


Toxic PFAS chemicals were detected in every umbilical cord blood sample across 40 studies conducted over the last five years, a new review of scientific literature from around the world has found.

The studies collectively examined nearly 30,000 samples, and many linked fetal PFAS exposure to health complications in unborn babies, young children and later in life. The studies’ findings are “disturbing”, said Uloma Uche, an environmental health science fellow with the Environmental Working Group, which analyzed the peer-reviewed studies’ data.

“Even before you’ve come into the world, you’re already exposed to PFAS,” she said.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 12,000 chemicals commonly used to make products resist water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and accumulate in human bodies and the environment.

The federal government estimates that they are found in 98% of Americans’ blood. The chemicals are linked to birth defects, cancer, kidney disease, liver problems and other health issues, and the EPA recently found effectively no level of exposure to some kinds of PFAS in water is safe.

Humans are exposed to the ubiquitous chemicals via multiple routes. PFAS are estimated to be contaminating drinking water for over 200 million people in the US, and have been found at alarming levels in meat, fish, dairy, crops and processed foods. They are also in a range of everyday consumer products, like nonstick cookware, food packaging, waterproof clothing, stainguards like Scotchgard and some dental floss.

PFAS in products can be absorbed through the skin, swallowed or breathed in as they break off from products and move through the air.

“The presence of these chemicals is also a threat to pregnant people, serving as first contacts with PFAS before they can pass from the uterus to the developing fetus by way of the umbilical cord,” Uche said.

Scientists focused on umbilical cord blood because the cord is the lifeline between mother and baby. The findings are especially troubling because fetuses are “more vulnerable to these exposures because their developing bodies don’t have the mechanisms to deal with the chemicals”, Uche added.

The studies linked fetal exposure to higher total cholesterol and triglycerides in babies, and changes in their bodies’ bile acids, which can lead to a higher risk of cardiovascular problems later in life.

Some studies also associated cord blood exposure with disruptions to thyroid glands and microbial cells in the colon.

PFAS can remain in the body for years or even decades, and some studies link fetal exposure to effects throughout childhood and adulthood, including on cognitive function, reproductive function, changes in weight, eczema and altered glucose balance.

The studies identified about 35 different kinds of PFAS compounds, including some newer chemicals that industry and some regulators claim do not accumulate in the body. However, science is limited in the number of PFAS compounds it can detect in blood, so it is highly likely that many more of the chemicals passed on to fetuses.

EWG said the best protection is for women to avoid using products that contain PFAS and use reverse osmosis of granulated activated carbon filters that can filter the chemicals, if they are in a mother’s drinking water.

However, Uche said the findings underscore the need for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban all non-essential uses of PFAS, establish limits for all PFAS compounds in drinking water, stop industrial discharges, and establish limits for PFAS in food.

Despite overwhelming evidence that all PFAS that have been studied are persistent in the environment and toxic, the FDA and EPA have so far resisted banning non-essential uses of the chemicals. The EPA last year rolled out a broad plan designed to rein in the chemicals use and limit exposures, but public health advocates say it falls far short of what the situation demands. It also largely focuses on four out of 12,000 PFAS compounds.

“I’m a mother of two – I have a seven- and three-year-old, and knowing that I could have exposed my children to PFAS is disturbing,” Uche said. “With this review we are telling the EPA and FDA to please take simple steps to reduce PFAS exposures, and to protect our children.”

What do Qatar’s World Cup workers fear most? Being sent home

Migrant workers in labour camps face poor pay and conditions but their fear of losing those jobs underlines their exploitation

Construction workers in Qatar’s capital, Doha. Some migrant 

workers claim they work 12-hour shifts, six days a week, for less than the legal rate.

 Photograph: Pete Pattisson/The Guardian

Pete Pattisson in Doha

THE GUARDIAN
Fri 23 Sep 2022 

In a dusty car park, near to one of the largest labour camps in Qatar, Worker A gets into my car. I will call him Worker A, not because I do not want to reveal his name, but because I do not know his name.

He only agrees to talk to me after I show him my name on the articles I have written and match it to my passport. I hand over my phone to prove I am not recording anything.


The reason he is reluctant to talk, he tells me, is that his employer had recently used a “spy” to root out troublemaking employees. “Everyone is afraid to speak out but we’re dying inside,” he says.

He claims they work 12-hour shifts for six days a week, but do not receive the legal rate for overtime pay. In all, he says, they earn the equivalent of about £335 a month. “Our manager has a [nice car] but on my salary I couldn’t even afford to buy its four tyres. I’m earning peanuts,” says Worker A.

In their labour camp, he alleges, six workers share a room, which is also illegal, and the food is so bad that he says “dogs wouldn’t eat it”.

He tells me about a co-worker, a young man who recently collapsed and died at his workplace, after saying he was feeling unwell but being ordered to work regardless.

Another source sent me a photo of the deceased worker. When I first met her, I asked if I could add her number to my phone so we could keep in touch. She told me to wait because her boss might be watching. A few minutes later, she discreetly slipped me a note with her number on it.

On a recent reporting trip I met up with another worker I had kept in touch with for years. Someone saw us talking and a few days later he was summoned by the police and interrogated.

This is how we report on the buildup to the world’s greatest football tournament: through secret meetings in car parks and messages that can be set to disappear within five minutes. Every sentence I write is carefully constructed so that I do not reveal anything that would put someone at risk.
This is how we report the buildup to the world’s greatest football tournament – through secret meetings and messaging apps

What are these workers afraid of? Being sent home. Because for all the problems they face, the brutal truth is that they need the work – and they need to pay off the debts they took on to get the work.

When the pandemic began, one worker told me everyone was terrified, but not of Covid. “Most of us borrowed money to come here. If we were sent home, how could we repay our debts? We’re afraid to return empty-handed,” he said.

“When they see you are trying to fight for your rights, they find any little excuse to send you home,” said another.

That fear even extends beyond Qatar’s borders. This week I was filming interviews with Nepali workers who had been sent home from Qatar recently, as companies wrap up construction projects on the eve of the World Cup. They had been promised two years of work, but had barely been in Qatar for six months and were struggling to repay their debts.

They agreed to talk, but at the end of each interview they said they feared being barred from getting another job in Qatar if they spoke out.


Workers at Qatar’s World Cup stadiums toil in debt and squalor

Every time workers tell me of the problems they have faced in Qatar, I ask: will you go back? And the answer is almost always “yes”, because they have so few other options. A day of manual labour in Nepal can earn as little as 400 rupees (£2.75), and so even Qatar’s paltry minimum wage, equivalent to about £8 a day, appears attractive.

Under Qatari employment law, foreign workers have the right to change jobs if their contract is terminated and legal procedures are in place if an employee does not receive their wages or allowances at the end of their contract.

The Qatari government also said a fund to support workers, including by reimbursing unpaid wages or benefits, had paid out £152.5m by last month.

Qatar – and all the other Gulf states – could tell a compelling story about how it has created opportunities and alleviated poverty for millions. And to an extent is has. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Qatar has also exploited that poverty, and the desperation of so many, to build the infrastructure for their nation and the World Cup.

“I pay school fees for three boys [back home]. They are my life,” Worker A tells me. “That’s why I’m here. If I go home now, my kids will starve.”

And so, for many like him, the only thing worse than being in Qatar is not being in Qatar.

UK environment laws under threat in ‘deregulatory free-for-all’

Campaigners say revoking of post-Brexit protections amounts to legislative vandalism

The environmental laws lined up for removal include those covering water quality and sewage, clean air, habitat protections and the use of pesticides. 

Photograph: Leslie Garland Pictures/Alamy

Sandra Laville

THE GUARDIAN

Environment correspondent

Fri 23 Sep 2022

Hundreds of Britain’s environmental laws covering water quality, sewage pollution, clean air, habitat protections and the use of pesticides are lined up for removal from UK law under a government bill.

Environmentalists accused Liz Truss’s government of reneging on a commitment made after Brexit to halt the decline of nature by 2030. They say the revoking of 570 environmental laws that were rolled over from EU law after Brexit amounts to a deregulatory free-for-all leaving the environment unprotected.

The RSPB said it was deeply concerned that the government was about to start a full-on attack on the laws that protect nature.

The bill laid before parliament outlines how 570 environmental laws, and hundreds more covering every government department, including transport, health and social care, working hours and other areas, are being lined up to be removed from UK law or rewritten. These include the habitat regulations that have been vital in the protection of places for wildlife in the last 30 years and laws covering the release of nitrates and phosphates into rivers.

The laws were retained after Brexit when the then Conservative environment secretary, Michael Gove, promised the UK’s environmental laws would not be watered down.

The retained EU law revocation and reform bill was laid before parliament on Thursday. Its purpose is to “revoke certain retained EU law; to make provision relating to the interpretation of retained EU law and to its relationship with other law; to make provision relating to powers to modify retained EU law to enable the restatement, replacement or updating of certain retained EU law; to enable the updating of restatements and replacement provision.”

Laying the bill before parliament, the business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, said: “Retained EU law was never intended to sit on the statute book indefinitely. The time is now right to bring the special status of retained EU law in the UK statute book to an end on 31 December 2023, in order to fully realise the opportunities of Brexit and to support the unique culture of innovation in the UK.

“The bill will sunset the majority of retained EU law so that it expires on 31 December 2023. All retained EU law contained in domestic secondary legislation and retained direct EU legislation will expire on this date, unless otherwise preserved.”

Richard Benwell, the chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said scrapping the laws would be “legislative vandalism”. Rewriting them would pose an unacceptable delay to the protections the current law offered to the environment, he said.

The Conservative manifesto promised “the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth”.

Ruth Chambers, a senior fellow at Greener UK, said the planned derailing of hundreds of laws protecting air, rivers, wildlife and food standards would derail the government’s pledges and put public health at risk.

Chambers said the December 2023 timescale was far too tight, adding: “The new government is hurtling towards a deregulatory free-for-all where vital environmental protections are ripped up and public health is put at risk.”

“Ministers are pressing for the biggest ever law-scrapping exercise to be completed within just 15 months, at the same time as cutting civil service and departmental budgets.

“Not only is this undeliverable in the timeframe, it risks terrible consequences and renders the government’s promises to recover nature and rid our rivers of sewage obsolete.