New universal jurisdiction case filed in Germany for crimes committed in Myanmar before and after the coup: On complementarity, effectiveness, and new hopes for old crimes

Written by Andrea Maria Pelliconi and Francesca Sironi De Gregorio

A few days before the second anniversary of the ‘failed coup’ in Myanmar, a case was filed in Germany against senior Myanmar military generals and ‘other actors’ identified in the complaint for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It was filed under universal jurisdiction enshrined in the German Code of Crimes against International Law (Völkerstrafgesetzbuch – VStGB) by the Thailand-based NGO Fortify Rights and 16 victims, including ten Rohingya ‘genocide survivors’ and six civilians belonging to other ethnic groups. The complaint requests the German Federal Prosecutor to open a structural investigation on allegations of crimes committed against the Rohingya people between 2016 and 2017, and against other civilians since the coup of February 1, 2021, and is the first-ever to address the full range of allegations to date. This post discusses how this latest initiative contributes to effective justice and accountability.

Other ongoing proceedings

According to the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), atrocities have intensified dramatically since the coup. However, in a field – that of international criminal justice – that is often accused of being too western-centric, ‘what’s happening in Myanmar’ risks being forgotten. Existing judicial efforts have mostly started in 2019 and focus on pre-coup violence. The International Court of Justice’s proceeding (The Gambia v. Myanmar) and the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s investigation (Bangladesh/Myanmar) are both limited to ‘clearance operations’ perpetrated by the military and other security forces against the Rohingya. The former is further limited ratione materiae to allegations under the Genocide Convention; the latter is limited ratione loci and temporis to  transnational crimes that took place – at least in part – in Bangladesh in 2016-2017. The universal jurisdiction case filed in Argentina concerns allegations of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya in 2017, although Argentinian judicial authorities seem to be also investigating the ‘ongoing genocide’ of the Rohingya who remained in Myanmar. All these cases ignore the violence experienced by other civilians and ethnic groups resulting from the coup – with the exception of the complaint filed in Turkey under universal jurisdiction which, however, is focused on allegations of torture and other crimes against humanity. 

The complaint filed in Germany is therefore ground-breaking: for the first time, there will likely be a criminal investigation on the full range of pre and post-coup allegations. The following paragraphs will discuss the advantages of domestic over international jurisdiction, and of German jurisdiction specifically.

Why domestic jurisdiction

As a general rule, domestic jurisdiction over international crimes is to be preferred over the ICC’s, as the principle of complementarity, underpinning the functioning of the Court, provides for (Article 1 Rome Statute). The ICC’s guidelines explain that, besides prosecution for crimes committed on their territory, states are entitled to investigate and prosecute on the basis of active nationality, passive nationality, or universal jurisdiction (paras. 63 and 75). Therefore, as noted for the Argentinian case, complementarity is not limited to states with links to the crimes.  The General Assembly recently emphasized ‘the importance of conducting … investigations into the most serious human rights violations in Myanmar … in order to deliver justice to victims using all legal instruments and domestic, regional and international judicial mechanisms’, and as matter of principle, domestic universal jurisdiction should be encouraged and indeed preferred.

Domestic jurisdictions also bear practical advantages, starting from their scope. Myanmar does not fulfil any conditions for the ICC’s jurisdiction, neither are they likely to materialise any soon. The ICC had to find a way around jurisdictional limitations by focusing on a limited set of crimes with a transnational element. Domestic proceedings do not face such jurisdictional constraints, and states like Germany can investigate international crimes taking place entirely in Myanmar – including post-coup ones. Moreover, while the ICC has jurisdiction only over Rome Statute crimes, Germany can cumulatively prosecute international crimes and other offences.

A second advantage is effectiveness. Although, arguably, speed and high conviction rates should not be parameters for a Court’s success, the ICC is often criticised for its relative ineffectiveness, partly due to limited resources. Domestic systems can deflect and supplement the ICC’s work and, paradoxically, can sometimes mobilise more resources to prioritise specific, targeted investigations, without the international political pressure that comes with ICC investigations. Previous experience also shows that international prosecutions tend to focus on high-level perpetrators whereas domestic universal jurisdiction ones focus on mid to low-level ‘low cost perpetrators’, because of the higher likelihood and lower political cost of ensuring their presence in the prosecuting state’s territory. Here, identified suspects include high-ranking officials, but also ‘other actors’ whom may be more effectively prosecuted at the domestic level.  

On the other hand, domestic prosecutions are not immune from politics – rather, they are subject to more parochial interests. A criticism to national courts is that their overzealousness to prosecute may lead to biased and selective justice, and lower due process standards, while ICC prosecutions – legitimised by state consent or referral by the Security Council – would be more impartial. While the lack of fair trial argument, if substantiated, would bear some merit, the political one-sidedness one yields to an accountability-oriented view of criminal justice. Domestic systems with universal jurisdiction have the advantage of direct and formal victim participation, as they typically allow victims to file, as in the present case, a complaint which judicial authorities must, at least, consider. Instead, victims can only ‘send information’ to ask the ICC Prosecutor to initiate an investigation, who, compared to many domestic jurisdictions, enjoys a rather broad (and sometimes criticised) prosecutorial discretion. Denying justice to redress-seeking victims for a potential legitimacy conundrum would be a moral own-goal. Domestic jurisdiction appears as the appropriate avenue for justice.

Why Germany’s jurisdiction

Before filing the case, Fortify Rights analysed the feasibility of 16 jurisdictions across the world. There seem to be several reasons for choosing Germany over others.

Member states of the European Union (EU) can avail themselves of judicial criminal cooperation mechanisms such as EUROPOL and Genocide Network, which provide practical, legal and financial support to joint investigation teams, enhancing the possibility of successful prosecutions. Thanks to European Arrest Warrants (EAW), suspects stepping into any EU member’s territory would be subject to a simplified surrender procedure, and crimes within the ICC’s jurisdiction do not even require dual criminality. The EU would not be a safe haven for suspects, as long as at least one state has issued an EAW.  

However, there are other EU states that would be good candidates. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of universal jurisdictions, and with the adoption of the Rome Statute, several countries – including in the EU – updated their criminal legislation and introduced the necessary legal framework to proceed with universal jurisdiction prosecutions. Following an invitation by the EU Council in 2013, for example, France created a Central Office to fight Crimes against Humanity, Genocide and War Crimes; the Netherlands established specialised units; similar mechanisms were established in Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

Over the last few years, however, Germany has been particularly active in universal jurisdiction cases and is currently conducting over 100 investigations. The country applies similar standards to the Rome Statute and the Elements of Crime, and has a solid and well-established system to prosecute international crimes. The VStGB applies also to crimes committed abroad, regardless of the nationality of the victim or perpetrators or any other connection to Germany (§ 1). However, according to Section 153f § 2 of the German Code of Criminal Procedure (Strafprozessordnung), the Prosecutor has discretionary powers to close cases, if no jurisdictional connection with Germany is present or the offence is being prosecuted by an international court or a state that has a stronger link. This does not seem the case here, especially as other current accountability efforts have a way more limited scope.

Germany also offers good prospects in terms of rules on immunity. Functional immunity does not prevent domestic universal jurisdiction prosecution of foreign lower-ranking officials performing sovereign powers, as confirmed by a 2021 Judgment. Higher-ranking officials cannot be prosecuted as long as they are in office, but immunity does not impede investigations or arrest warrants. Although trials in absentia are not possible in Germany, investigations can be conducted to secure evidence and allow for a swift start of the proceedings once the accused enters Germany (e.g. the arrest warrant issued in June 2018 against Jamil Hassan, head of the Syrian Air Force Intelligence). The proceeding could also uncover the role of ‘other actors’. While German law does not allow for criminal prosecution of private companies, structural investigations may expose their complicity in the atrocities and support other accountability mechanisms, including civil litigation. In the tortuous path against the multiple profiles of corporate responsibility in crimes committed in Myanmar, initiatives such as the complaints filed against social media platforms should be advocated for.

The case’s complexity should not, however, be underestimated. The choice of Germany was also incentivized by the recent positive experience of the trials against members of the Islamic State or the Syrian regime, fostered by strong international campaigns, but also by favorable migratory flows that brought both victims and perpetrators to Germany. This is not the case with Myanmar, which clearly poses a major challenge in fulfilling the condition of physical presence of the accused. Moreover, extra-territorial investigations always pose some concrete challenges, complicated by the foreseeable lack of cooperation of the Burmese junta. The IIMM is already facing difficulties in accessing crime scenes, victims and official documents, and getting evidence of post-coup atrocities might be even harder.

Nonetheless, as this analysis shows, Germany remains particularly suited for the job. This complaint launches a clear message that impunity for atrocities shall not be tolerated.

Multiple jeopardy?

One last point to consider is whether starting domestic alongside international proceedings would clash with the prohibition of prosecuting the same persons twice for the same conduct. Would the parallel investigations in Germany, Argentina and by the Office of the ICC Prosecutor trigger ne bis in idem?

It should be noted that this principle only applies in case of subjective and objective identity. Personal identity is confidential and cannot be assessed here, but factual identity is certainly unlikely. Even if the complaints concerned the same type of crimes, episodes and victims would differ – especially for post-coup crimes, excluded from Argentina’s and the ICC’s jurisdiction.

Further, despite its near-universal recognition, the principle typically applies within one jurisdictional system only, while ‘horizontal’ transnational application is limited. Even Article 4 of Protocol No. 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits double jeopardy within ‘the jurisdiction of the same State’ only. Therefore, the principle would not prevent trial in Germany for the same crimes tried in Argentina.

Lastly, the ‘vertical’ limb of the principle (Article 20.2 Rome Statute) is also ‘diluted’, in that it only prohibits double prosecution for the same statutory crime, but not for the same conduct. In other words, domestic courts are not prevented from prosecuting a person who was already prosecuted by the ICC for the same facts, under a different nomen criminis (e.g. equivalent ordinary crimes). This may be potentially problematic only if the same individuals were investigated for identical conducts under the same qualification. In this remote hypothesis, the German Prosecutor may decide to bifurcate the proceedings and continue to investigate post-coup events, which certainly are outside the ICC’s radar.

Conclusion

Fortify Rights’ approach of combining two different, although related, situations into one single investigation has the merit of highlighting the full range of criminal allegations against the military in Myanmar. The complaint also clearly represents a positive shift in overcoming the traditional division and stigmatization among different ethnic groups, as the cooperation of the diverse yet united front of complainants shows. Domestic universal jurisdiction should be encouraged as an effective means for delivering international criminal justice, and Germany seems a very strong candidate. Even if lodging the complaint will likely not stop the junta’s terror campaign on its own, it is a fundamental step toward reinforcing international attention over the ongoing atrocities in Myanmar and putting an end to impunity.

SHOULD CALIFORNIA FIGHT FOR OR AGAINST SILICON VALLEY?

The Growing Federal War on ‘Big Tech’ Poses a Quandary—and Exposes Our Hypocrisy

When the U.S. government seeks to crack down on "Big Tech," should California defend this signature industry? Or take it on? Columnist Joe Mathews considers this quandary in the latest Connecting California. 

Image courtesy of paolo colonnello/Flickr

by JOE MATHEWS | MARCH 7, 2023

Which side should California be on in the coming federal war against Silicon Valley?

The question feels less hypothetical after the State of the Union address, when President Biden blasted “Big Tech” and promised new restrictions on the lifeblood of Silicon Valley businesses—their ability to collect and use our data. Republicans in Congress, while rudely heckling the president in other parts of his speech, stood and applauded these threats, which makes it even more likely that Californians soon will be in a conundrum.

Because Silicon Valley is the place that exposes our state’s hypocrisy—California likes to see itself as both a public-spirited, progressive force for the future and a seat of global power and wealth.

For the most part, with the exception of some privacy regulations, California has tolerated Silicon Valley’s ruthless and reckless behavior, because we depend so heavily on it for our wealth.

We Californians will be tempted to sit on both sides of the coming war. Because Silicon Valley divides us against ourselves.

How can we not side with Silicon Valley when the feds come for its firms? The tech business fuels our economy, inspires innovation, and attracts smart people from around the world to come here. It offers compensation and stock options that make workers rich. We wouldn’t be the fourth-largest economy on Earth without it.

But how can we side with Silicon Valley in good conscience? Tech firms proudly disrupt established industries that our communities depend on. They force automation that costs jobs and lay off workers (over 100,000 so far this year) at the first sign of a slowdown. And they suck in billions in capital investment that might be more profitably devoted to public infrastructure or less speculative industries.

Of course, when we lose our jobs or our companies go under, we need support from the government. So how can we not back Silicon Valley, whose wealthy employees and investors pay the big tax bills that support our generous tax credits and programs for the poor? How bad would our schools be without all the money flowing to the state treasury from tech? Big surges in capital gains taxes patch the holes in our broken school funding system. Don’t we need to protect Silicon Valley to protect our children?

I’m sorry, but don’t we need to protect our children from Silicon Valley? Social media companies undermine kids’ mental health. Other tech firms create games and amusements that addict and isolate our children. Why shouldn’t the Biden administration make war on firms that gather up data on our kids and use it to sell them things?

C’mon, protecting children is the job of their parents. And Silicon Valley protects the working families of the Bay Area, a rich place with high wages and generous benefits. Look at the pandemic: When tech firms shut their doors, working families in restaurants and service sectors suffered.

But isn’t that the problem—that California, and the Bay Area, are already too dependent on what trickles down from Silicon Valley—at least, the little bit that trickles down, compared to what the tech lords hoard? One survey found that 10 percent of households in the Bay Area held two-thirds of the investable assets. And in the heart of the valley—Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties—did you know that eight households hold more wealth than the bottom half of households combined?

Inequality is a problem, sure. But don’t we need to fight for Silicon Valley because California is fighting for its democracy? Our tech firms provide the tools and platforms (and the campaign donations) on which our democracy runs, right? Where do we express ourselves freely except on tech platforms?

But how can you say that when Meta, Twitter, and other tech companies routinely undermine democracy here and around the world? Social media allowed Russia and foreign actors to interfere in our elections. Overseas, tech companies collaborate with tyrannical governments in ways that put democratic advocates and activists at risk. Why should Californians fight for Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and other wealthy handmaidens of authoritarians?
Because we would be fighting for ourselves. California simply can’t allow the federal government to impose laws and regulations on any Californian—even those working in tech. We know that when Washington goes to war on us, our freedom suffers. The federal government has recently sought to strip us of the power to protect ourselves against environmental pollution, climate change, and gun violence. The U.S. Supreme Court eliminated our constitutional reproductive rights. How can we ever trust the feds?

Fair point, but Silicon Valley doesn’t respect our rights either. Tech firms steal our data, and there’s nothing we can do about it. They allow others to use their platforms to spread lies that destroy our lives—and hide behind liability shields. Silicon Valley thinks it can get away with anything because we need it.

How can we be on Silicon Valley’s side?

And how can we not be?

JOE MATHEWS writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.

ESSAY

DECOLONIZATION IS WOMEN’S WORK

March 8, 1950—International Women’s Day—Marked the Embrace of a Feminist Battle Against Imperialism


The 12-day Asian Women's Conference in Beijing saw attendees from across Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America and "forged a movement for all women to fight against colonialism and demand equal rights with full sovereignty," gender studies scholar Elisabeth B. Armstrong writes. Pictured above is the Korean delegation for the conference. Courtesy of Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College.


by ELISABETH B. ARMSTRONG | MARCH 8, 2023

It was 1950, and the world was in flames: In Vietnam, Iran, Madagascar, Algeria, West Africa, South Africa, Tunisia, Malaya, Burma, and Cuba, wars of counterinsurgency were being waged against colonial powers that refused to leave. Women, with weapons in their hands and the courage to hide soldiers, grow food for the frontlines, and pass messages across their battlefronts, took part in fighting these wars for independence. At the same time, they sought peace, freedom, and women’s rights.

On March 8, International Women’s Day, they erupted in protests to demand an end to imperialism—the starting point for imagining decolonization as a global culture.

Today, corporate sponsors have sought to commodify International Women’s Day and turn it into women’s access to rule like capitalists. But this 1950 fight for decolonization built a culture that—if you look closely—still fuels the revolutionary spirit, and promise, of the day.

International Women’s Day began as a way to join working-class women’s struggles for basic rights to livelihood with middle-class women’s fight for the vote. At the International Socialist Women’s Congress, held in Copenhagen in 1910, German activist Clara Zetkin proposed holding an international women’s day in March. These meetings and demonstrations incited protests, including the Russian Revolution in 1917. From 1922 onward, the day was mostly celebrated as a holiday in the USSR and socialist countries to honor women’s rights gained under socialism.

The need for a decolonial agenda around International Women’s Day arose from the Global South, during the anti-imperialist Asian Women’s Conference held in Beijing, China, in December 1949. There, attendees found solidarity and carried that spirit back home in countless manifestations of anticolonial feminist activism. During those 12 days in Beijing, women from across Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and South America forged a movement for all women to fight against colonialism and demand equal rights with full sovereignty. Many women from colonized countries had already joined their countries’ battles to crush colonial occupation. They had their own slogans: Bury the corpse of colonialism! If anyone is oppressed, no one is free! And they demanded that women from colonizing countries dismantle their countries’ war machines.

Women at the conference gathered at the National Art Academy tables. Courtesy of Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College.

Attendees took that charge with them when they got back home. Just two weeks after returning from Beijing, for instance, Jeanette Vermeersch, a parliamentarian and member of the French Communist Party, addressed the French parliament to call for the withdrawal of France from Vietnam: “The Vietnamese people are fighting a just war,” she said, “a war in the defense of your aggression. You are fighting an unjust war, a colonial war, a war of aggression.”

Through networks of anti-imperialist and socialist women’s groups, the message of the Asian Women’s Conference traveled around the world. It would be a global, coordinated refusal of imperialism. The conference resolution spread: Celebrate International Women’s Day, a day for working-class women’s struggles, like never before.

When International Women’s Day arrived, it joined together women from all around the world in the anticolonial struggle for their full emancipation, as women from colonizing countries like France and the Netherlands demanded an end to imperialism in solidarity with women from Vietnam, Indonesia, Tunisia, and beyond. This included the demand that women hold equal rights to fully enfranchised men, not the truncated rights of colonized men with negligible rights to vote, apartheid rules of unfree movement, fettered access to jobs, and stolen lands.

The day punctuated ongoing insurgencies by people who were geographically far from each other, but were bound by common occupiers of colonial nations.
When International Women’s Day arrived, it joined together women from all around the world in the anticolonial struggle for their full emancipation, as women from colonizing countries of France and the Netherlands demanded an end to imperialism in solidarity with women from Vietnam, Indonesia, Tunisia, and beyond.

In Mar del Plata, Argentina, leftist women’s groups—such as the Union of Argentine Women and the Women’s Cultural Group—held the Congress for Peace in dozens of cities around the country to evade the authorities (who had banned their activities) and fight for a decent standard of living and political rights. In Brazil, women chose to protest the high-level U.S. economic delegation visiting Rio de Janeiro. They printed 100,000 leaflets and covered the city with 20,000 posters under the name “Protect Brazilian Petrol” to condemn the economic treaty signed with the United States. Their slogans sought peace and an end to U.S. interference in the Brazilian economy—its own form of neoimperialism—and protested the high cost of living.

Across the world, in Damascus, the Union of Syrian Women led a demonstration of women and children to the parliament to condemn war. Their protests were not without cost. Amine Aref Kassab Hasan, who had recently returned from the Beijing conference, was beaten and arrested, along with two other women and a 5-year-old girl. In Homs, another delegate of the Asian Women’s Conference, Salma Boummi, along with five other women and girls were arrested for a similar protest for peace. But in the face of the Syrian government’s violent response, 13 Syrian women’s organizations presented a memorandum to the Constituent Assembly to demand women’s equal rights, particularly equal pay for equal work. Though they were beaten back, the movement pressed onward.

Anticolonial leaders of the women’s movement, like Celestine Ouezzin Coulibaly (familiarly known as Macoucou) and Baya Allouchiche, took the lead in organizing working-class women in their countries, but also in their regions of North Africa and West Africa, respectively.

The Mongolian delegation at the conference. Courtesy of Sophia Smith Archives, Smith College.

In Ivory Coast, Coulibaly toured Sudan, Upper Volta, and Ivory Coast to spread the word after attending the Beijing conference. She described the solidarity of women she witnessed, and she told of the success won by communist women in the People’s Republic of China, who drove out an army that had far greater armaments supplied by the Americans. After touring the region, Coulibaly led demonstrations of thousands of women on International Women’s Day in Grand Bassam, the French colonial capital of Ivory Coast, in protest of police repression and the murder of women who, in December 1949, had demanded the release of political prisoners who fought for independence from French colonial rule.

Like Coulibaly, after Allouchiche returned from the Asian Women’s Conference, she galvanized women in Algeria to join the anticolonial struggle. She toured Algeria and Morocco, spending 12 days in the radical province of Oran, where women were not yet organized. She described a world of solidarity among women, one that refused to buckle under the yoke of colonialism nor the yoke of patriarchy. She dared them to imagine: “the sun that has risen in Beijing will shine for us too!” Her speeches held in the month of February tipped the balance toward solidarity and a wage strike among dockworkers. Only a week before International Women’s Day 1950, over 300 Algerian women joined the strike on the docks of Oran to protest poor working conditions and to refuse to load ships with soldiers and supplies for the colonial counterinsurgency frontlines of Vietnam.

Global anticolonial solidarity required resistance in colonial centers. Delegates from the Netherlands, the United States, France, and England who attended the conference in Beijing took direction and brought colonized women’s struggle home. On the same day as the protests in Syria, Lebanon, Ivory Coast, Argentina, Brazil, and Algeria, Dutch women supported dock workers who refused to load ships with American armaments bound for the Dutch occupation of Indonesia by laying in the road and blocking the trucks from reaching the docks. In Enshede, Dutch women connected Dutch peoples’ high cost of living to the priority given in the national budget for military purposes over the needs of the working population of the Netherlands. Bread not Barracks, they shouted.
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Formal colonialism fell in the decades after the 1949 Asian Women’s Conference. But economic colonialism continues today. Economic blockades have human rights consequences and debt packages dictate national policies. But women’s struggles for decolonization, peace, and equal rights hasn’t ebbed. If we turn our heads to Latin America, one memorable slogan from strikes held on International Women’s Day—“What they call love, we call unpaid work!”—draws the connections between the debt bondage and the need for women to provide structural networks of care. Femicide, drug trafficking, border policing, and U.S. intervention in Central America and Mexican economies have fueled endemic murders of women and girls. We see inspiration, too, from women in Mexico reacting to this, to join their internationalist call against systemic femicide, for “Ni Una Mas!” (Not One More).

International Women’s Day in 1950 revived the fight for anticolonial, anti-imperialist solidarity on the terms of the people most oppressed. Our regional and national women’s struggles are still global, still marked by economic and political colonialism in new forms. Survival for many is still precarious—we have a strong tradition in International Women’s Day to imagine an alternative future without inequity.


ELISABETH B. ARMSTRONG is a professor of women and gender studies at Smith College. Her latest book, Bury the Corpse of Colonialism: The Revolutionary Feminist Conference of 1949, comes out next week from University of California Press.

Zócalo Public Square.

WHEN ASIA AND AFRICA ENVISIONED A NEW WORLD ORDER

The 1955 Bandung Conference Created a ‘Unifying Myth of Decolonization’ and a Renewed Ethos of Self-Determination


Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ethiopian delegate Yilma Deressa, the Gold Coast's Kojo Botsio, and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (from left to right) attended the Bandung Conference, which embodied a spirit that served as "a unifying myth of decolonization," argues historian Christopher J. Lee. Public Domain.

by CHRISTOPHER J. LEE | MARCH 7, 2023

“No race holds the monopoly of beauty, of intelligence, of strength / and there is a place for all at the rendezvous of victory,” wrote the Martinican poet Aimé Césaire in Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, first published in 1939 and later translated from the French by Trinidadian intellectual C.L.R. James.

Many writers have quoted these lines from Césaire, but more striking is the fact that 16 years later, such a rendezvous did occur. In 1955, 29 countries from Africa and Asia met in Bandung, Indonesia, for the historic Asian-African Conference—a diplomatic summit of the emerging postcolonial world. The sense of common purpose and solidarity at the meeting, which became known as the “Bandung Spirit,” served as a unifying myth of decolonization. For decades, Bandung epitomized a political, cultural, and historic front against the past legacies, present dangers, and future threats of imperialism in Asia and Africa. Though real-world conflicts would erode this spirit over time, Bandung and its ethos of self-determination persisted as a global symbol and attitude in the popular imagination.

Co-sponsored by Indonesia, India, Burma (present-day Myanmar), Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), and Pakistan, the 29 invited diplomatic delegations met from April 18 to 24 to address the pressing issues facing their continents during the early Cold War period. A number of well-known leaders attended, including Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Zhou Enlai of China, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Sukarno of host country Indonesia. The remaining delegations represented countries from Japan and Jordan to Egypt and Ethiopia, as well as Sudan and the Gold Coast (Ghana), which would soon be independent in 1956 and 1957, respectively.
Bandung as a unifying myth of decolonization offered a tantalizing vision of transnational solidarities that could sidestep preexisting cultural differences and political conflicts. It attempted a remaking of the world on terms favorable to those who had been colonized for centuries across the Global South.

As a consequence of this wide range of geographic representation, the Bandung meeting initiated a new period of postcolonial diplomacy and Third World internationalism, which comprised an alternative “third way” beyond the U.S.-led capitalist democracies of the First World and the Soviet-led communist states of the Second World. Refusing the pressures and demands of this new great power rivalry, Asian and African countries sought to define their own destinies after global decolonization.

The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference, published in 1956 by the African American novelist Richard Wright, remains the most influential account of the meeting, capturing the details of the event as well as its historic importance. The diplomatic summit struck Wright with a sense of astonishment from the moment he learned it would take place, revealing his underlying Western-centric worldview as well as his desire to connect with the wider world experiencing decolonization. Wright had already visited a part of this world as depicted in his preceding book on the British Gold Coast, entitled Black Power: A Record of Reactions in a Land of Pathos (1954). His trip to Bandung subsequently expanded his sense of decolonization and its global meanings.

The Color Curtain still retains a certain interpretive power today due to Wright’s prominence as a Black intellectual and how the conference’s themes touched upon deeper issues that Wright had grappled with for decades, including the roles of race and racial identity in the modern world, the function of class politics, and, not least, the possibilities of freedom at individual, community, and global levels. The moment of global self-determination at Bandung intersected with Wright’s own long-standing attempts at individual self-determination.

As the title of Wright’s book underscored, the group of emergent nation-states assembled at Bandung ultimately highlighted a “Color Curtain” in world affairs. Wright’s phrasing echoed both the better-known Iron Curtain, which separated Western liberal democracies from the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, and a famous remark by W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1903’s The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois declared, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, – the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.” Wright’s account therefore situated the Bandung Conference against a dominant U.S. foreign policy framework, which retained certain imperial-like qualities, as well as within a genealogy of Black American thought.

Yet the importance of Bandung was not, of course, limited to an American worldview. Sukarno’s opening address captured the moment of opportunity, both diplomatic and symbolic, for postcolonial Asia and Africa, in which he asked:


What can we do? We can do much! We can inject the voice of reason into world affairs. We can mobilise all the spiritual, all the moral, all the political strength of Asia and Africa on the side of peace. Yes, we! We, the peoples of Asia and Africa, 1,400,000,000 strong, far more than half the human population of the world, we can mobilise what I have called the Moral Violence of Nations in favour of peace.

“The Moral Violence of Nations” implied an ethical, rather than military, approach to achieving world peace. This vivid phrase set the tone for how Asian and African countries could participate in the evolving global order: as a force for solidarity and intercontinental accord, rather than conflict. Sukarno’s words consequently presaged what became the Bandung Spirit—a feeling of global political possibility when Asian and African countries collected their interests together..

Yet the Bandung Conference remained a one-time event, despite an attempt to hold a “Second Bandung” outside of Algiers in 1965. By then, the energies of decolonization had begun to dissipate in different ways. Antagonisms between Bandung attendees, such as India and China, eventually rendered moribund the potential of future diplomatic collaborations along the same lines as those in 1955. Still, the symbolism of the Asian-African Conference continued to inform intercontinental solidarity and anticolonial internationalism until the end of the Cold War. The conjoining of political stance and geographic space through the idea of Afro-Asianism generated new geopolitical alignments and aspirational projects, including the 1961 founding of the Non-Aligned Movement, a new grouping of developing nations, which Nehru largely spearheaded against China’s competitive influence. The impact of Bandung was also on display at the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana, Cuba, which inaugurated Latin America’s commitment to Third Worldism under the leadership of Fidel Castro.

Bandung as a unifying myth of decolonization offered a tantalizing vision of transnational solidarities that could sidestep preexisting cultural differences and political conflicts. It attempted a remaking of the world on terms favorable to those who had been colonized for centuries across the Global South. Yet, like most political myths, there were real-world limits that compromised its idealism. Césaire’s imagined rendezvous was both attained and incompletely realized. The work of economic, cultural, and political decolonization remains. The Bandung Conference today conjures these ghosts of unfulfilled futures, serving as a reminder of the lost political prospects and forgotten historical itineraries of the past that continue to haunt our present dreams of decolonization—and our realities.

CHRISTOPHER J. LEEis a professor of African history, world history, and African literature at the Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE. He's published seven books, including Making a World after Empire: The Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives.

Zócalo Public Square.

Russian diplomat claims West actively recruits hackers to carry out operations against Moscow

NATO countries openly moving towards militarization of cyberspace, improving methods of carrying out cyberattacks, claims Irina Tyazhlova

7/03/2023 Tuesday
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A Russian diplomat has claimed that the West is actively recruiting hackers to carry out operations against Moscow to allegedly cover its own actions against the country.

“We believe that it is no longer a secret to anyone what dictated the methodical attempts of the US and its allies to promote the topic of ‘Russian hackers’ and ‘Russian cyber aggression’. This is done with the sole purpose of hiding their own destructive actions in the information space,” Irina Tyazhlova, a Russian representative, claimed during a meeting of the UN open-ended working group on cybersecurity on Monday, according to the state news agency TASS.

Tyazhlova further claimed that NATO countries are openly moving to militarize cyberspace by building up their arsenal and by improving methods of carrying out cyberattacks, which she said has “numerous documented evidence” from confessions by high-ranking officials that have been made public.

"Russia’s information facilities keep facing massive cyberattacks, which have increased tenfold since the launch of the special operation,” Tyazhlova said, noting that “detailed instructions on the implementation and coordination of cyberattacks, and target lists that include specific government agencies, critical facilities, the media and financial structures" are published in open access on specialized forums and social networks.

Tyazhlova also said the West has unleashed a full-scale campaign against Russia since the start of Moscow’s war against Kyiv, with the intention to test the strength of the country’s economy, financial and energy sectors, as well as its main industries.

"Ukraine in this scenario is assigned the role of a testing ground. The West pumps in significant financial resources, trains personnel, provides technical assistance in building up the offensive information and communication potential of the Kyiv regime," she further claimed.

Abkhazia, Ossetia: pro-Moscow separatists more 'conciliatory' towards Tbilisi

by Vladimir Rozanskij

Situation at the border noticeably calmer. In Georgia there is political chaos over the approval of a controversial 'foreign agents' law. There are no illusions about prospects for reconciliation and recognition of separations. Engaged in Ukraine, the Russians want to keep the Caucasian front calm.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - In recent days, representatives of the Georgian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, under Russian protection, have expressed unprecedented praise for Tbilisi's political choices.

The positive comments came at the same time as the much-discussed 'foreign agents' law was proposed in Georgia, which is causing large street protests. The separatists believe that relations with their neighbours are also improving at this stage.

The head of the Ossetian delegation for border control, Egor Kočilev, spoke from Ergneti, the village where the meetings with Russians and Georgians for the prevention of border incidents (the so-called Mpri format) are held, saying that 'in the last month and a half the situation has been the calmest for a long time'.

In turn, the president of Abkhazia, Aslan Bžanja, said at a press conference in Sukhumi that 'the current leadership of Georgia is proving to be able to keep the situation under control'.

Statements of support for the 'pro-Russian course' of policy in Tbilisi only increase tensions in Georgia, echoing Kremlin propaganda. Kočilev emphasised that 'no incidents have occurred since 17 January, we have not had to stop anyone for infringements or violations on the Georgian side, as had been the order of the day all these years.

We only noticed a few drones passing from one side to the other, but the Georgian policemen and soldiers also behaved well'.

Until now, the separatists had always kept polemical tones towards the Georgians, but the Ossetian political scientist Vjačeslav Gobozov tries to deny the propagandistic nature of the turnaround: "These are the usual conspiracy theories, although certainly in Tsinkhval and Sukhumi they appreciate the latest choices of a government that is not considered the best possible, but at least manages to contain an unbearable opposition. There are no illusions about prospects for reconciliation and recognition of separations, but 'if nothing else, the current leadership in Tbilisi is not talking about a military solution to the problems'.

It is therefore not a tendency towards appeasement that inspires the Georgian Dream Government, but 'a more conscious assessment of how much Russia influences regional politics', says Gobozov.

According to the academic, it is not the Kremlin that is 'giving orders' to the two self-proclaimed republics, where there is a division over the maintenance of autonomy or annexation to the Russian Federation. the political scientist believes that Kočilev's statements are rather aimed at enhancing the agreements on the Mpri format, trying to involve international institutions such as the OSCE, UN and EU in order to obtain confirmations that would truly stabilise the border situation with the former motherland, reviving negotiations between the parties.

International Crisis Group analyst Olesja Vartanyan basically confirms Gobozov's version, whereby Tsinkhvali and Sukhumi's distensive statements are directed at the upcoming Geneva meetings to discuss the borders with Georgia.

It has recently been proposed to move the next meetings to Moscow, which could push Georgia to lean more towards western support, against the background of the war with Ukraine, and the separatists want to show Tbilisi that they do not want to escalate tensions.

Vartanyan notes that 'in general, the situation in the border areas has become increasingly stable since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, as observed not only by international mediators but also by representatives of the parties involved, and arrests and controls have also been resolved without too many problems'.

Evidently, Russia has every interest in not having to worry about the problems in the Caucasus as well, while it is engaged in the invasion of Ukraine, and in Georgia, too, it wants to avoid ending up in the maelstrom of war.

Rishi Sunak’s small boats plans ‘push boundaries of international law’

Rishi Sunak has “pushed the boundaries of international law” with legislation to tackle small boat crossings of the Channel, the Home Secretary has said.

By Sam Blewett

Updated 7th Mar 2023,

Suella Braverman and the Prime Minister will on Tuesday unveil their plans to remove and ban asylum seekers from re-entry if they arrive in the UK through unauthorised means.

Mr Sunak argued that his new Bill, which is key to one of his five priorities for his premiership, will “take back ­control of our borders, once and for all”.

But critics have warned the proposals are “unworkable” and will leave thousands of migrants in limbo by banning them from ever claiming British citizenship again.

Rishi Sunak has “pushed the boundaries of international law” with legislation to tackle small boat crossings of the Channel, the Home Secretary has said.

Despite plans such as forcibly removing asylum seekers to Rwanda being mired in legal challenges, ministers were expected to approach the limits of the European Convention on Human Rights with the new legislation.

Writing in the Telegraph, Ms Braverman said: “We must stop the boats and that’s what our bill will do. No more sticking plasters or shying away from the difficult decisions.

“Myself and the Prime Minister have been working tirelessly to ensure we have a bill that works – we’ve pushed the boundaries of international law to solve this crisis.

“If you come here illegally it must be that you cannot stay.”

A duty will be placed on the Home Secretary to remove “as soon as reasonably practicable” anyone who arrives on a small boat, either to Rwanda or a “safe third country”.

And arrivals will be prevented from claiming asylum while in the UK, with plans also to ban them from returning once removed.

Mr Sunak spoke to Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame before unveiling his plans, and pledged to continue working with him to ensure their stalled project works.

The Government has paid more than £140 million to Rwanda but no flights forcibly carrying migrants to the capital of Kigali have taken off because of legal challenges.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said: “The leaders committed to continue working together to ensure this important partnership is delivered successfully.”

The Prime Minister will meet France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Friday to discuss further cooperation that will be required to reduce boat crossings.

Mr Sunak admitted voters “have heard promises before” without seeing results, but insisted his legislation “will mean that those who come here on small boats can’t claim asylum here”.

He wrote in the Sun: “This new law will send a clear signal that if you come to this country illegally, you will be swiftly removed.”

The PM said it was a plan “to do what’s fair for those at home and those who have a legitimate claim to asylum — a plan to take back control of our borders once and for all”.

The Immigration Services Union representing border staff said the plans are “quite confusing” and do not seem “possible” without the Rwanda policy functioning.

Lucy Moreton, the union’s professional officer, also suggested on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that smuggling gangs will tell people “quick, cross now before anything changes”, risking an increase in the number of crossings

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer raised doubts about the legality and feasibility of the plans after the last plan failed “to get us very far”.

“Now we’ve got the next bit of legislation with almost the same billing, I don’t think that putting forward unworkable proposals is going to get us very far,” he told LBC radio.

Asked if the plan was legally feasible, the Labour leader said: “I don’t know that it is and I think we’ve got to be very careful with international law here.”

The Prime Minister has made “stopping the boats” one of his five priorities and has been under pressure to tackle the issue amid dire polling figures for the Tories.

Almost 3,000 migrants have made unauthorised crossings of the English Channel already this year.

Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said the plans “shatter the UK’s long-standing commitment under the UN Convention to give people a fair hearing regardless of the path they have taken to reach our shores”.

“The Government’s flawed legislation will not stop the boats but result in tens of thousands locked up in detention at huge cost, permanently in limbo and being treated as criminals simply for seeking refuge,” he added.

“It’s unworkable, costly and won’t stop the boats.”

Remove Ignorance, Not Kufiyahs: Challenging Anti-Palestinian Racism in Halifax

S.K | DOP - 12 March, 2023

Last week in Halifax several students were asked to remove their Kufiyahs, known to many as the checkered (black and white) Palestinian scarf, from their person at Park West School. To boot this was during a “Culture Day” at the school to honor the uniqueness and diversity of different peoples. 

Saltwire reported that according to Lana Khammash, president of the Atlantic Canada Palestinian Society (ACPS), the principal told students that the Kufiyah signified “war.” The Maritimes news outlet however, like several others, did not make clear whether it was the principal themselves who asked the kufiyahs be removed. 

It’s surely bad enough when anyone, let alone young people, is asked to remove their Kufiyah —representing the strength, resilience, and unity of the Palestinian people. An entirely positive symbol, there is no reason why someone should ever be asked to take it off. 

I reached out to Khammash to learn more about what happened at Park West. By phone, she shared with me that, according to information ACPS obtained, “[The principal] gave instructions [to staff]…that if the kids in the classroom are wearing the kufiyahs tell them to remove it. …[If they don’t] they will be sent to the principal’s office.” 

It surprised by that the principal would be so obvious in expressing their anti-Palestinian racism. Far from the more subtle or insidious forms of such racism, I’m used to learning about in Canada at least, their “instructions” mimic those of a dictator, issuing a public command to be carried out immediately, rather than an educational administrator—genuinely concerned about the well-being and dignity students. 

Moreover, as a principal, you should know that when you single out students, for whatever issue, it’s a serious deal. Whether the student has in fact done anything wrong the consequence of this—and I believe many of us can speak from experience having once been young students—is typically not good. They will often be left feeling fearful, ashamed or apprehensive. 

In light of that fact alone you must make extra sure that treating a student differently from others is warranted. The principal at Park West did not. Had they done so, which would have involved them doing some responsible research on what the kufiyah means (and there’s no shortage online or elsewhere to find such information), they would have learned that it does not signify war and thereafter made students remove theirs on that erroneous basis.  

The actual extent to which the principal was involved in the students removing their kufiyahs, not to mention the teachers who facilitated that, is yet to be determined by any thorough investigation. At any rate that the school played a direct role in the students removing their kufiyahs undermines what it’s set up to do: engage students in learning. Instead, it sent the message, both to the students wearing the kufiyahs and the larger student body, that “we do not tolerate or accept Palestine here.” 

Indeed this is part of the erasure, through much of the West, of Palestinian history, culture, and identity. But to say that is not enough. In addition, the message confirms that the school is committed to preventing students from learning about Palestine, through their fellow peers—as could’ve happened if Park West was hosting a Culture Day where all students were allowed to share and exchange ideas about their backgrounds, including why somewhere the kufiyah. 

I don’t think using the term “committed” is too strong, especially when we think of how the principal allegedly acted. Specifically, they did not wait til the end of the school day or another time to discuss their concern, if you will, with the students about the kufiyah. By Khammash’s account, they acted swiftly, as if the kufiyahs themselves posed a threat to the integrity of the school. And it’s not a stretch to say that in the mind of the principal that’s the exact meaning they had. After all symbols of war are often invitations to violence. The only real violence however that took place at Park West was that endured by the students who had to remove their kufiyahs, thereby forced to experience unnecessary humiliation and shame.  

By the same token, the students are wholly entitled to the apology that has been called for, on the part of those supporting the students. I would humbly suggest that the apology include robbing the student body from learning about what the kufiyah means, specifically by the school’s rendering it invisible (having certain students it off) and so not something that would otherwise provoke intellectual curiosity. This is particularly upsetting. It’s often through intellectual curiosity that we are most willing and prepared to learn, as opposed to when things are foisted on us as “mandatory”—in or outside the classroom. 

What happened at Park West speaks to the observation by the well-known Italian philosopher of education, Maria Montessori, that “the fundamental problem in education is not an educational problem at all: it is a social one. It consists in the establishment of a new and better relationship between the two great sections of society—children and adults.”

The reason for this reflects Montessori’s more general view that within society adults, whether they recognize it or not, tend to oppress children for their “own good”, as when they are enrolled, for example, by parents in extracurricular activities (e.g. athletics) that constantly trouble them and in which they take no enjoyment. The destructiveness of this dynamic was also present at Park West’s Culture Day where staff—both cruelly and paternalistically—made students remove the kufiyah as if this had some educational value. 

In a progressive school, the students would have the right to directly challenge staff, with impunity, about the “legitimacy” of having to remove the kufiyah. This has nothing to do with promoting adolescent rebellion for its own sake. Rather the right in question serves as an important check against the adult world, including teachers and administrators, who often and quite simply are wrong. Our society, however, perhaps paralleling its general attitude towards Palestine, continues to normalize the ageist view that adults are “always right.” Education is immediately jeopardized where schools, implicitly or explicitly, subscribe to this view. 

American education critic and writer Jonathan Kozol is here instructive:

Teachers have the right to see what they believe without the fear of accusation or self-accusation. No student, however, should be forced to suffer social ostracism, nor compelled to pay a price, beyond that of the moral anguish of the issue, in itself, for taking a stance in opposition to that of the teacher. Both conditions can, and must, be realized by an ethical teacher in rebellion against all that is implied, inflicted, or reflected by the standard dogmatism of the textbooks, the curricula, and the time-embedded customs and conventions that prevail today.

By the same token, we must create the conditions in schools in which teachers and students alike can engage in meaningful dialogue about Palestine. This includes Palestinian students, with the lived experience that often entails (e.g. being the target of anti-Palestinian racism or enduring the intergenerational trauma of destructive Israeli militarism), being able to challenge their teachers in the classroom when they mischaracterize Palestine itself, let alone what they might be wearing such as the kuffiyeh. 

To achieve this it is not enough that schools have “anti-oppressive” mandates. We see time and again how schools that do, whether in Toronto or Halifax, are hostile to Palestinian voices, expressions of Palestinian solidarity, and efforts to combat anti-Palestinian racism. For the same reason, it’s not assuring that the Halifax Regional Centre for Education sent a “diversity team” to Park West last Monday, to address the school’s anti-Palestinian racism. 

To be anti-oppressive in the true sense of the term we need, paralleling Palestinian activist and scholar Ramzy Baroud’s notion of solidarity as an action rather than sentimentality, to develop schools that, on the one hand, allow students and teachers to talk about the colonial reality endured by Palestine (under Israeli rule and oppression) and, on the other, how they—as citizens of the world and people of conscience—can act to end it, as genuine allies to the Palestinian people themselves. 

Some might object that this turns schools into sites of activism. That however is the point. Education is empty, if not altogether self-serving if it is not empowering students to figure out how to overturn injustice. This might ruffle staff at Park West but it’s how young people, however gradually, transform humanity for the better. 

By Paul Salvatori

Source: The Palestine Chronicle

SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/03/time-to-challenge-canadian-schools-anti.html

Time to Challenge Canadian Schools’ Anti-Palestinian Racism

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/03/remove-ignorance-not-kufiyahs.html

Remove Ignorance, Not Kufiyahs: Challenging Anti-Palestinian Racism in Halifax

Sportswashing: when money talks, everyone listens


Newcastle United football club badge, 23 March 2019 [Kelly McClay/Flickr]


Yvonne Ridley
yvonneridley
February 28, 2023

No one likes to be ignored, but before it can happen, you have to be heard in the first place. In many ways, that makes the deliberate turning of a deaf ear even more upsetting and offensive.

Such disregard is practiced by too many supporters of Saudi-owned Newcastle United Football Club. The so-called Toon Army turned out in force at the weekend to watch their team in a cup final at Wembley Stadium. Among those cheering on the Magpies was at least one of the brothers of Saudi sportswasher-in-chief, the much-feared Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Since the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia became the heir to the throne, the number of executions in the kingdom has almost doubled. The past six years are among the bloodiest in its modern history. Human rights depend entirely on his whims and fancies.

In August 2021, when rumours were rife about the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United, I went to watch the first home game of the season against West Ham United. Before the match, I helped to hand out 5,000 leaflets drawing attention to the appalling human rights record of the Saudi regime and soon-to-be owners of the club. In particular, I highlighted the plight of my old friend, Saudi architect and engineer Dr Ahmed Farid Moustapha, who was (and still is) in an unknown location in Saudi Arabia. We continue to try to get him released from the hellhole in which he is undoubtedly being held by the Saudi regime.

Standing alongside human rights group SANAD outside St James' Park on that Saturday afternoon, our leaflets were largely accepted with hangdog expressions, feelings of guilt or embarrassment. The truth is that my beloved football club has sold its soul for success on the field and most fans have accepted the situation. Fans like me are being ignored.

I don't have to live under such a brutal regime, so I'm not suffering any hardship as a result of my protest. However, fellow fans know the position with the Saudis but choose to ignore the kingdom's lack of human rights. The plight of others just doesn't matter in and around St James', it seems.

"What can we do?" one fan asked me. "There's nothing we can do, it's not our fault. Just enjoy the good times, we've waited long enough for this." He wasn't the only one, those who were with me on that day confirmed.

In many ways, though, he was right. Would Bin Salman, who holds the power of life and death in his blood-stained hands, ever save anyone from death row? Last year he made a mockery of the US President, the so-called most powerful man on the planet, when Joe Biden humiliated himself by asking the prince during a state visit to lower oil prices and improve his human rights record. After a jocular fist bump, the smirking Bin Salman did neither. So even if the tens of thousands of Newcastle fans at Wembley last weekend had voiced some sort of protest, it too would have fallen on deaf Saudi ears.

But what about Bin Salman's younger brother, though? Prince Turki Bin Salman was there for the Carabao Cup Final sporting a Newcastle scarf in team colours. He might have sat up and taken notice if only the fans had decided to make their voices heard about Saudi human rights, or their absence. It's all a moot point now, of course, but what if…?

The rejuvenated club still failed to pick up a trophy at Wembley, losing 2-0 against Manchester United. After the eye-watering amounts of money pumped into Newcastle, there may well be other opportunities for Newcastle fans to voice their concerns on the biggest of football's stages and shame Bin Salman into doing something positive. We can but hope.

Another football fan who knows exactly what it is like to be ignored is Abdullah Al-Howaiti, whose plight is being highlighted by the members of the pressure group Newcastle United Fans Against Sportswashing. Last weekend they attempted to shame their fellow supporters into adopting the case of Al-Howaiti who, at the tender age of 14, was tortured into confessing to a crime and put on death row in Saudi Arabia six years ago. The group has also sent a letter on behalf of a grieving family member to Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe after Hassan Al-Rabea was renditioned from Morocco to answer charges in Saudi for exercising his right to free speech on social media. His tweets could see him sentenced to 90 years in prison.

Ordinary fans were said to be outraged that Howe has been dragged into the sportswashing row, but they needn't worry too much; so far, he has chosen to ignore the letter. He alone knows why, but imagine the impact he could have if he issued a few well-chosen words about Saudi Arabia's human rights record. The tens of thousands of fans who hang onto his every word would follow suit, I'm sure. Sitting in silence is not an option for anyone with an ounce of compassion, Eddie. And you have compassion, we know; your efforts to get players and coaches to open up to and support each other is strong evidence of that.

Mohammed Bin Salman might treat the US president with contempt, but he does care deeply about Brand Saudi and its global reputation. That is why any comments from the Newcastle manager would be taken seriously; more, I believe, than Joe Biden's idle threats.

Someone else who cannot be ignored is football legend Cristiano Ronaldo who now plays for Saudi club Al-Nassr. As the highest-paid professional footballer ever, his contract apparently includes off-field promotional activities as well as playing commitments. Nobody in football understands personal branding and the power of marketing like Ronaldo. He is the most followed person in the world on Instagram with a staggering 546 million followers.

As such, it is hardly surprising that another human rights group, Reprieve, has taken up the case of Abdullah Al-Howaiti and is urging Ronaldo to support the young man. There is no game more inclusive than football, and still no name bigger than Cristiano Ronaldo. As well as his mission to increase the kingdom's visibility in international sport and entertainment, he has promised to encourage developments across the country. Will he accept this challenge and take up Al-Howaiti's case? If anyone can, Ronaldo can. The now 20-year-old young football fan will certainly hope that Reprieve's campaign criticising Saudi Arabia's claim to have eliminated the death penalty for children is a success, and that Ronaldo can play a part.

There is so much good that could be done with the Saudi millions, but using them to sportswash the kingdom's human rights failings is not one of them. Come on football fans everywhere, support your club and stand up for justice. Sportswashing money talks, and everyone listens. But you can talk as well. Your collective voice will not only be heard, but the owners will also listen. The Amanda Staveleys of this world have to, because PR is important. They know that, and we know that, so when we all talk, we can make sure that they listen.

READ: Russia-Saudi talks on a comprehensive settlement for Yemen conflict

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.