Manufactured Ignorance about the Ukrainian-Canadian Left

JEFF KOCHAN   CANADIAN POLITICS, EUROPE   JANUARY 3, 2020

Still image taken from the film The Ukrainian Labour Temple: A Cultural and Political Movement from Winnipeg’s North End (2012), directed by Aaron Floresco.

In recent years, a new academic field has emerged, called agnotology. The name comes from the old Greek agnōsis, meaning “ignorance,” and -logia, meaning “the study of.” Agnotology is the study of ignorance. More specifically, it is the study of how ignorance is often manufactured in order to obscure matters of fact.

For example, in the last century big tobacco companies funded research that obscured the health effects of tobacco. Key agents for Big Tobacco were later hired by Big Oil, where they quickly got busy manufacturing ignorance about anthropogenic climate change.

Agents of ignorance lobby news media to publish contradictory information in the name of “balance.” Despite overwhelming evidence for anthropogenic climate change, “balance” requires that a few opposing scientific voices be given equal weight.

The goal is not to replace one set of facts with another, but to create a fog of doubt about what the facts are. The resulting spectacle is meant to paralyse public opinion and promote passivity.

The Lingering Fog of Cold War Rhetoric

The Cold War is fertile ground for agnotology. It apparently fizzled out after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Yet there has been a weird resuscitation of Cold War rhetoric in twenty-first century Canada.

In 2014, Stephen Harper admonished Vladimir Putin to “get out of Ukraine”, a demand that echoed Ronald Reagan’s famous 1987 exhortation: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Also in 2014, newly elected Liberal MP Chrystia Freeland was banned from Russia for her criticism of Putin’s government. She called this an “honour” and went on to serve as Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister from 2017 to 2019, while still under the Russian ban.

Michael Chomiak and wife Alexandra, with their children in Canada in 1952.

In 2015, Freeland penned an essay for the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C., with the title “My Ukraine”. Photos on her MP website show her wearing a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt. Freeland has woven her Ukrainian heritage into her public persona as a globetrotting Canadian politician.

For many Canadians, this proves the success of multiculturalism. For many Ukrainian Canadians, it demonstrates their success in achieving full membership in Canada, while still retaining their distinct heritage.

But not everyone views Freeland’s eccentric blend of culture and politics as innocent. In 2018, Canada expelled four Russian diplomats posted in Ottawa. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cited an alleged disinformation campaign against Freeland as one reason for the expulsion.

At issue were allegations that Freeland’s Ukrainian grandfather was a Nazi collaborator. In March, 2017, two opinion pieces appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, one supporting the allegations, the other dismissing them.

This is an example of “balance” in the media. Canadians, including Ukrainian Canadians, can be forgiven for not knowing what to think as a result. The lingering fog of Cold War rhetoric turns historical fact into an uncertain phantom.

The Ukrainian-Canadian Left’s Critique of Multiculturalism

In 2009, Parks Canada designated Winnipeg’s Ukrainian Labour Temple a national heritage site. Historian Rhonda Hither, in her recent book Perogies and Politics: Canada’s Ukrainian Left, 1891-1991, describes this as a “hard-fought recognition”, as well as evidence that Canada’s Ukrainian left had become “firmly ensconced within the Canadian multicultural historical record.”

Reading Hinther’s words, Ukrainian Canadians are meant to feel proud that the actions of their leftist forebears have been finally, and fully, recognised by the Canadian state. But what was their contribution, and has it really been fully recognised?

In fact, Ukrainian-Canadian leftist leaders were decidedly critical of official multiculturalism. On first blush, this would seem at odds with their own desire for equal status as a distinct cultural group within a heterogeneous Canadian state. So why did they do it?

An early 20th century postcard of Winnipeg’s newly constructed Ukrainian Labour Temple, captioned in Ukrainian, was probably intended to be mailed to relatives in the Old Country. Source: Rob McInnes.

The answer is Québec. Hinther shows that it was rightist Ukrainian Canadians who supported state multiculturalism. By contrast, labour leader Mitch Sago, writing in the Ukrainian Canadian on May 1, 1968, condemned these rightists as a “reactionary” and “self-interested” lobby group who “provide the Anglo-Canadian establishment with a mass base for diversionary attacks upon the French Canadian people.” Sago instead told Ukrainian Canadians that “We are ethnic elements of one or the other nation in Canadian society.”

This was one year before the Waffle Manifesto was published in Canadian Dimension. As Mel Watkins has recently written, the Waffle stood for an independent socialist Canada within which Québec’s independentist movement would be respected. The Waffle quickly crashed, and the idea of a progressive, left-wing nationalism went with it.

Except in Québec. As Pierre Beaudet has observed, the independentist provincial party Québec solidaire maintains a powerful example of progressive nationalism. But this example has been largely ignored by the rest of Canada.

By the same token, the progressive nationalism of the Ukrainian-Canadian left has largely disappeared from history. With this ignorance in place, it becomes ideologically safe both to designate Winnipeg’s Ukrainian Labour Temple a national heritage site, and to celebrate this designation as a hard-fought victory for the Ukrainian-Canadian left. But who truly benefits from this arrangement?

Conservative Multiculturalism and Canada’s “Ethnic” Vote

In 2007, Conservative MP Jason Kenney became Canada’s first Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity. His remit was to win over “ethnic” voters for the new Conservative government. He continued this work from 2008 to 2013 as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.

In 2008, the Canadian Parliament passed into law the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (“Holodomor”) Memorial Day Act. This law designates the fourth Saturday in November as a national day of commemoration for the millions who died of famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933. The act’s preamble states that this famine “was deliberately planned and executed by the Soviet Regime under Joseph Stalin.”

In November of 2019, Kenney, now Premier of Alberta, published a video press release marking this day of commemoration. In the video, he states that the famine “was tied up with an effort of suppressing Ukrainian nationalism by the Soviet powers in Moscow.”

On the one side, nationalism. On the other, communism. This black-and-white binary once again resuscitates Cold War rhetoric. By painting the famine as a communist assault on Ukrainian nationalism, Kenney implies that those who sympathise with communism might also turn a blind eye to mass extermination.

Indeed, in that same week, Kenney tweeted about “how the Communists, and their ‘useful idiots’ in the West, covered up the famine-genocide.” He was likely referring to Dougal MacDonald, a member of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, who had a few days earlier commented on Facebook that it was “Hitlerite Nazis who created the famine myth.”

My speech at last week’s #Holodomor commemoration in Calgary.

I discussed how the Communists, and their ‘useful idiots’ in the West, covered up the famine-genocide.

Sad to see some in Canada still engaged in this genocide denial. pic.twitter.com/RrDVbasKk1

— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) November 28, 2019

MacDonald’s idiocy was, in fact, quite useful for Kenney’s conservative effort to drive a wedge between nationalism and communism. Kenney’s rhetoric obscures the fact that many on the Ukrainian-Canadian left had combined nationalism with progressive politics. This attracted the ire not only of the Ukrainian-Canadian right, but also of the Communist Party of Canada.

Former prime minister Stephen Harper (left) and Paul Grod, then President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. Photo by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

Progressive Nationalism: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

In 1962, Mitch Sago was in Vancouver fundraising for the Ukrainian Canadian when he was assaulted on the street in broad daylight, and left badly injured. As cited in Hinther’s Perogies and Politics, police concluded that the attack “was one of several … perpetuated on leading labour figures in the community during the past recent period of time.”

In 1950, the same year Canada began to admit former Ukrainian SS servicemen as immigrants, Toronto’s Ukrainian Labour Temple was bombed while hosting a children’s concert. Nobody was killed, but many were injured by flying glass. The Ukrainian-Canadian left immediately pointed to the Ukrainian-Canadian right. The right, in turn, argued that the left had bombed itself, in order to discredit the right. An RCMP investigation concluded that the right’s arguments were more convincing.

In 1940, the RCMP rounded up most of the Ukrainian-Canadian left’s leadership and placed them in an internment camp. The indefatigable Mitch Sago was among them. Leftist Ukrainian-Canadian organisations were banned, and their meeting halls were seized and sometimes sold off to groups on the Ukrainian-Canadian right.

Right-wing Ukrainian-Canadian nationalists sought to destroy the Ukrainian-Canadian left, often with considerable help from the Canadian state.

As both Hinther and historian Jim Mochoruk have shown, the Ukrainian-Canadian left was also under constant pressure from the Communist Party of Canada, which was keen to stamp out the former’s “ethnic” orientation. Canadian communist leaders were often as blind to their own Anglo-Celtic biases as were Russian and Russified leaders in Moscow when dealing with Soviet Ukraine.

Focusing on Ukraine, historian Stephen Velychenko describes this as a struggle within communism between “red nationalists” and “red imperialists.” Historian James Mace has documented the rise and fall of Ukrainian “national communism” in the early Soviet period.

Kenney’s hard line between nationalism and communism is historically false, and serves to erase from history the existence of a robust Ukrainian tradition of anti-imperialist, left-wing nationalism.

With their history thus stripped of its political richness, contemporary Ukrainian Canadians are offered a bogus choice between Stalinism and conservative nationalism.

This rich history is interesting in its own right. When reports reached Canada of the dire effects of Stalin’s policies in Soviet Ukraine, several prominent Ukrainian-Canadian leftists publicly criticised the leadership of both the Communist Party of Canada and the Ukrainian-Canadian left. Ukrainian-Canadian leftist leaders responded by expelling the dissidents and reaffirming their loyalty to the Communist Party.

Yet, as Mochoruk argues, this expression of loyalty gave cover for the continuing efforts of Ukrainian-Canadian leftist leaders to protect the autonomy of their community. Hinther’s book recounts in detail how these leaders were squeezed not only from above by the Anglo-Celtic communist elite, but also from below by a Ukrainian-Canadian rank-and-file who insisted on independence for their own distinct culture-based activism.

This activism could be quite effective. In 1926, Ukrainian-Canadian leftists helped to elect Canada’s first communist politician, Winnipeg alderman William Kolisnyk. Ukrainian-Canadian communists served on Winnipeg’s council well into the 1930s, much to the alarm of the Ukrainian-Canadian right.

Historian Orest Martynowych notes that when one Ukrainian-Canadian alderman urged the city to assist Jewish refugees, he was ferociously attacked in the right-wing Ukrainian-Canadian press. Ukrainian-Canadian leftists were denounced as the useful idiots of a “Judeo-Bolshevik” plot.

The Question of Ukrainian-Canadian Anti-Semitism

Very little historical research has been done on attitudes toward anti-Semitism within the politically diverse Ukrainian-Canadian community. Exposing internal fissures on this point could help to blow off the fog that now shrouds the legacy of Canadian progressive nationalism.

Historian John-Paul Himka—who is Chrystia Freeland’s uncle by marriage and the son-in-law of Michael Chomiak, Freeland’s aforementioned grandfather—has written about war crimes against Jews committed by militant Ukrainian nationalists in the 1940s. He has pointed to a “blank spot” in the collective memory of Ukrainian Canadians, some of whom today celebrate these militant nationalists as heroic freedom fighters.

Himka has also charged some in the Ukrainian-Canadian community with instrumentalising the 1932-33 famine in order to promote a self-serving politics of collective victimhood.

For this, Himka says he has been accused of “treason.” The president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress has denounced him for approving of “Holodomor deniers”, that is, those who deny that the famine in Ukraine was a deliberate act of genocide orchestrated by Stalin.

Himka has criticised the term “Holodomor deniers” as an appropriation of Holocaust language, and claimed that a part of the Ukrainian-Canadian “diaspora establishment […] is rather antagonistically disposed to the Jews.”

Harsh words, but they should be considered against a historical backdrop in which Ukrainian-Canadian leftists were denounced by the Ukrainian-Canadian right as the witless agents of a “Judeo-Bolshevik” plot.

It is striking how these attacks on Himka so nicely dovetail with the Canadian conservative elite’s attempts to draw Ukrainian-Canadian “ethnic” voters into the conservative sphere. The Ukrainian-Canadian establishment’s sharp response to Himka suggests just how fragile this conservative consensus may be.

Blowing off the fog of ignorance that now hides the history of the Ukrainian-Canadian left would help to dismantle this consensus. It would throw light on the Ukrainian left’s historic and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to put into practice a progressive form of nationalism, one that protects the independence of distinct cultural groups within a shared democratic space.

Ultimately, too, clearing this fog would more generally help us to better appreciate the unique, multifaceted, and now largely forgotten history of Canadian progressive nationalism.

Jeff Kochan is a researcher at the Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstanz. He is the author of, among other works, the essay “Decolonising Science in Canada: A Work in Progress.”

Trump reportedly okayed assassinating Soleimani 7 months ago

IN A PETULANT MOMENT HE HAD OVER IMPEACHMENT

WAS ALL THE EXCUSE HE NEEDED TO USE HIS PRE SIGNED

APPROVAL

SEVEN MONTHS IS NOT IMMINENT

 IT'S PRE PLANNING ASSASSINATION 

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Gen. Qassem Soleimani's killing was reportedly in the works since June.

As other sources have reported, President Trump had been given several options for acting against Iran, ranging from the relatively delicate to the most extreme. Killing Soleimani was on the latter end of that spectrum, but Trump still went with it — provided an American was killed first, five current and former senior officials tell NBC News.

The Soleimani decision reportedly started back in June, when Iran shot down a U.S. drone over the Strait of Hormuz. John Bolton, Trump's national security adviser at the time, pushed for the harsh response of killing Soleimani, as did Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, officials said. Trump turned them down, but did say "that's only on the table if they hit Americans," a person briefed on the discussion told NBC News. That option became valid when an Iranian proxy attack killed a U.S. contractor*** and wounded U.S. service members.

This report is also backed up by a comment from Vice President Mike Pence at a Trump rally last week. "When one American life was lost at the hands of Iranian-backed militias just a few short weeks ago, President Trump launched the first air strikes against Iranian-backed militias in 10 years," Pence said to explain the rationale behind the Soleimani strike. 

Kathryn Krawczyk

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***DON'T CALL THEM CONTRACTORS THEY ARE MERCENARIES NOT BOUND BY THE REGULATIONS OF WAR OR CONFLICT

THE ATTACK WAS IN PUBLIC ON A PUBLIC HIGHWAY GOING TO A PUBLIC AIRPORT IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY NOT IRAN SO THIS WAS AN ACT OF WAR

BY PLANNED ASSASSINATION 

Does Iran Have Secret Armed Dolphin Assassins?

THE USA, RUSSIA AND ISRAEL DO

Andrew Daniels,Popular Mechanics•January 13, 2020

Photo credit: Ingo Menhard / EyeEm - Getty Images
From Popular Mechanics


In 2000, Iran purchased a fleet of killer dolphins from the Soviet Navy.


Twenty years later, we don’t know whatever happened to the mammals. But if they’re still alive, could Iran potentially use them for warfare against the U.S.?


The U.S. invented the concept of military dolphins in 1960. Today, the Navy trains about 30 dolphins and 30 sea lions at Naval Base Point Loma, San Diego to track sea mines.

As the U.S. military prepares to deal with the fallout from the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani earlier this month, we can expect Iran and Iranian-backed militias to retaliate in any number of ways, from traditional missile strikes to cyber attacks on our oil and gas facilities, banks, electrical grids, and more. But we might not want to count out the possibility of the country employing its fleet of killer Communist dolphins, which may or may not still exist.

Let’s rewind 20 years ago to the spring of 2000, when a Russian man named Boris Zhurid made a painful, fateful sale.

For years, Zhurid had been training a pack of dolphins to kill for the Soviet Navy, according to the BBC. He and other experts taught the mammals to target enemy combat swimmers and divers with harpoons strapped to their backs, capture them, and carry mines to enemy ships in suicide attacks. (The dolphins could tell the difference between Soviet and foreign subs by how their propellers sounded.)
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But when funding for that project ran out—and the Soviet dolphin program transferred to the Ukrainian Navy—Zhurid brought his animals to a private dolphinarium on the Crimean Peninsula, where they performed for tourists. Eventually, however, Zhurid couldn’t afford to feed the dolphins anymore.

“I cannot bare to see my animals starve,” the trainer told the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. “We’re out of medicine, which costs thousands of dollars, and have no more fish or food supplements.”

So Zhurid bit the bullet and sold his beloved dolphins—along with walruses, sea lions, seals, and a white beluga whale—to a custom-built oceanarium in Iran, where, the BBC reported, the trainer would be “continuing his scientific research.” Zhurid didn’t say what he and his aquatic mercenaries would do in their new home, but he did tell Komsomolskaya Pravda that he was “prepared to go to Allah, or even to the devil, as long as my animals will be OK there.”

We don’t know what ever happened to the dolphins in the Persian Gulf since that March 2000 sale. Dolphins do have a lifespan of 50 years or more, as Blake Stilwell of Military points out, so the original assassins could still very much be alive. Zhurid “could also have trained more killer dolphins for use against Western shipping,” Stilwell speculates.

If Iran is indeed relying on the mammals for reconnaissance, the country isn’t alone. Russia seized control of its dormant military dolphin program in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea. In 2016, the Russian Defense Ministry was actively scouting dolphins “with perfect teeth,” while last year, Norwegian fishermen spotted a whale wearing a harness from St. Petersburg, suggesting the Russian Navy was recruiting belugas for undersea warfare.

Of course, the U.S. invented the concept of military dolphins. In 1960, the U.S. Navy launched the Marine Mammal Program to research dolphins’ and beluga whales’ underwater sonar capabilities and see what tips the branch could take from the speedy swimmers and divers when designing its vessels. The Navy also trained dolphins, sea lions, and belugas to transport gear to divers, track and retrieve lost objects, and do some underwater spying with special mouth cameras—including during the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars.

After the Cold War, the Navy downsized and ultimately declassified the Marine Mammal Program. Today, the Navy trains about 30 dolphins and 30 sea lions at Naval Base Point Loma, San Diego to track sea mines and mark them for disposal. (Dolphins can search an area for mines much faster than humans.) The animals are part of the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific. But could our super dolphin soldiers soon have a new mission?

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Australian prime minister's approval rating goes up in flames

By Sonali Paul, Reuters•January 12, 2020



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Australian prime minister's approval rating goes up in flames
An Australian Army combat engineer from the 5th Engineer Regiment utilises a JD-450 Bulldozer to spread out burnt woodchip at the Eden Woodchip Mill in southern New South Wales

 By Sonali Paul

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Public support for Prime Minister Scott Morrison has slumped to its lowest levels amid widespread anger over his government's handling of Australia's bushfire crisis, according to a survey released by Newspoll on Monday.

At least 28 people have been killed in the fires that have destroyed 2,000 homes, and razed 11.2 million hectares (27.7 million acres), nearly half the area of the United Kingdom

Morrison has come under attack for being slow to respond to the crisis, even taking a family holiday to Hawaii while fires were burning. He acknowledged during a television interview on Sunday that he had made some mistakes.

"We have heard the message loud and clear from the Australian people," Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Monday, when asked about the poll result as he announced a A$50 million ($34.56 million) wildlife protection fund.

"They want to see a Federal Government adopt a very direct response to these natural and national disasters," Frydenberg said.

The Newspoll survey showed Morrison's approval rating dropped 8% since the last poll on Dec 8 to stand at 37%, scoring lower than opposition Labor leader Anthony Albanese.


It is Morrison's worst showing in the poll since he took over leadership of the ruling Liberal Party in August 2018 when a backbench uprising ousted former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

No margin of error was provided for the poll, which surveyed 1,505 people from Wednesday to Saturday, although it was about 2.5% points in previous Newspolls.

The poll was taken after Morrison announced a A$2 billion bushfire recovery fund and called out 3,000 army reservists to back up state emergency workers - responses that were viewed as belated.

Morrison said on Sunday he would take a proposal to Cabinet to hold a Royal Commission national inquiry into the bushfires, including examining the response to the crisis, the role and powers of the federal government and the impact of climate change.

After weeks of raging fires whipped up by erratic winds and temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), conditions eased over the weekend with showers forecast for New South Wales (NSW), the worst hit state, over the next few days.

"If this BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) rainfall forecast comes to fruition then this will be all of our Christmas, birthday, engagement, anniversary, wedding and graduation presents rolled into one. Fingers crossed," the NSW Rural Fire Service said on Twitter.

Here are key events in the crisis:

-Australia's pristine 'AAA' sovereign rating is not at "immediate risk" from the fiscal and economic impact of bushfires raging across the country's east coast, S&P said on Monday.

-The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said on Monday bushfire victims can submit damaged banknote claims to redeem their lost money.

-The Australian government committed A$50 million to an emergency wildlife recovery program on Monday, calling the bushfires crisis engulfing the country "an ecological disaster" that threatens several species, including koalas and rock wallabies.

-German engineering giant Siemens said it would fulfill its contract to provide signaling for a rail line to a controversial new coal mine being built by India's Adani Group in Australia's outback, drawing criticism from green groups on Monday.

-Frydenberg announced A$50 million in funding on Monday for protecting wildlife and restoring damaged habitat, with a focus on threatened species, like koalas, with heartbreaking images of rescues of burned animals having gone viral around the world.

-Since October, thousands of Australians have been subjected to repeat evacuations as huge and unpredictable fires scorched more than 11.2 million hectares (27.7 million acres), an area nearly half the size of the United Kingdom.

-Across New South Wales, 111 fires were still burning late on Sunday, 40 of them not yet contained, but none at emergency level.

-A number of fires burning in the Snowy Mountains region in New South Wales and into Victoria have merged across more than 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of land. They do not pose a threat, authorities say, despite being in an area hard to reach.

-The government said on Sunday it would provide A$76 million ($52 million) for mental health counseling and healthcare consultations to firefighters, emergency workers, individuals and communities.

-Western Australia Department of Fire and Emergency Services said on Sunday an out-of-control and unpredictable fire that is moving slowly in the state's south, poses a possible threat to lives and homes in the area.

-South Australia said on Sunday that more than 32,000 livestock animals, mostly sheep, had died in recent fires on Kangaroo Island, while fire services are working to strengthen containment lines ahead of expected worsening weather conditions on Monday.

-Thousands of Australians took to the streets on Friday to protest against government inaction on climate change, and were supported by protesters in London.

-Australia's wildfires have dwarfed other recent catastrophic blazes, with its burnt terrain more than twice the extent of that ravaged by 2019 fires in Brazil, California and Indonesia combined.


-Westpac estimated total bushfire losses to date at about A$5 billion, higher than the 2009 bushfires in Victoria but smaller than the Queensland floods in 2010/11. It forecast a hit of 0.2% to 0.5% on gross domestic product.

-The Insurance Council of Australia increased to more than A$900 million its estimate of damage claims from the fires, and they are expected to jump further.

-About 100 firefighters from the United States and Canada are helping, with 140 more expected in coming weeks.


-The fires have emitted 400 megatons of carbon dioxide and produced harmful pollutants, the European Union's Copernicus monitoring program said.

-Smoke has drifted across the Pacific, affecting cities in South America, and may have reached the Antarctic, the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization said.

(Reporting by Sonali Paul; additional reporting by Colin Packham in Sydney, Editing by Peter Cooney & Simon Cameron-Moore)

China's latest move in its Uighur crackdown is forcing Muslims to redecorate their homes to make them look more Chinese

sbaker@businessinsider.com (Sinéad Baker), Business Insider•January 13, 2020

China GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images

China's crackdown against its Uighur population reportedly involves it ordering people in the Muslim minority to redecorate their homes to make them more Chinese.

Radio Free Asia reported that Uighurs had been ordered to remove traditional furniture or design elements — and witnesses said that the vast majority are complying under threat of being sent to internment camps.

The US estimates that China has up to three million Uighur people detained in these camps, where people who have left speak of torture and medical experiments.

China denies the allegations and calls the camps "re-education" camps.

Uighurs are under heavy surveillance and China sends Chinese men to live with Uighur women, many of whose husbands have been sent to camps, and reports also say that China harvests the organs of Uighurs.

China is reportedly forcing members of its Uighur Muslim minority to redecorate their homes to make them look more traditionally Chinese.

Radio Free Asia reported that officials in China's Xinjiang western region are ordering Uighurs get rid of their their traditional home decoration and to "modernize" the spaces to make them more Chinese-influenced.

This includes replacing rugs and pillows traditionally used to sleep on with beds and the introduction of other furniture like desks, Radio Free Asia reported — with the threat of being placed in an internment camp if they do not comply.

The US State Department estimated last year that China could have up to three million Uighur people detained in these camps and in prisons across Xinjiang.

China calls them "re-education" camps, while those who have left speak of torture and medical experiments in the places. China denies such actions.

As well as these camps, China has taken steps to remove features of Uighur culture.

uighur china prison camps protest xinjiang Achmad Ibrahim/AP

China also runs a "Pair Up and Become Family" program, where it sends Chinese men to live with Uighur women, many of whose husbands have been sent to these camps.

Radio Free Asia previously reported that the men often sleep in the same bed as the women, and discuss the ideology of China's Communist Party during their stay.

One US-based Uighur activist, whose family are detained, called it "mass rape."

"The government is offering money, housing, and jobs to Han people to come and marry Uighur people," the unnamed activist said.

According to Radio Free Asia, China has created a $575 million fund to "modernize" the Uighur people, which includes destroying traditional design features in their homes.

Radio Free Asia spoke to one person in the region who said that Uighur people are complying with the order, and that around 80% or 90% of people in one village have complied.

FILE PHOTO: A propaganda banner and a security camera are placed on the walls of a mosque in the Old City in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China September 6, 2018. Picture taken September 6, 2018. REUTERS/Thomas PeterMore

It also spoke to one resident whose husband is at a Chinese camp who said that she had changed her home such that "you can't even recognize it anymore" and that she had "gotten rid of pretty much all of the carpets" under the order.

"We don't even wait for the officials to tell us what to do anymore because we all are so enlightened now," she said.

China sees Uighurs' religion as a threat, and began its movement against the people in 2016.

Reports have detailed a coordinated government effort detain them, and to subject them to extremely high levels of surveillance, including installing spyware on their phones and forbidding them from communicating with people outside of the Xinjiang region.

China has also been accused of harvesting organs from persecuted groups including Uighurs, though it denies this.

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China defends barring Human Rights Watch head from Hong Kong

Jing Xuan TENG, AFP•January 13, 2020
  

Kenneth Roth was supposed to give a press

 conference in Hong Kong to unveil the 

New York-based rights group's latest global survey

 (AFP Photo/JOHN MACDOUGALL)

Beijing (AFP) - China on Monday defended barring the head of Human Rights Watch from entering Hong Kong, saying non-governmental organisations were responsible for political unrest in the city and should "pay the proper price".

Kenneth Roth was supposed to give a press conference in Hong Kong this week to unveil the New York-based rights group's latest global survey, which accuses China of prosecuting "an intensive attack" on international human rights agencies.

The long-time executive director said Sunday that he was turned back by authorities at the city's airport.

China last month announced sanctions on American NGOs, including HRW, in retaliation for the passage of a US bill backing Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement.

"Allowing or not allowing someone's entry is China's sovereign right," foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regular press briefing.

"Plenty of facts and evidence show that the relevant NGO has through various means supported anti-China radicals, encouraged them to engage in extremist, violent and criminal activity, and incited Hong Kong independence separatist activities," Geng said.

"They bear major responsibility for the current chaos in Hong Kong. These organisations should be punished, and should pay the proper price."

Hong Kong has been battered by nearly seven months of occasionally violent protests, its biggest political crisis in decades.

Millions have turned out on the streets of the semi-autonomous financial hub to demand greater democratic freedoms.

"Why does Beijing advance the ludicrous fiction that @HRW incited the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests?" Roth fired back on Twitter.

"Because it is desperate to pretend that hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens aren't protesting Beijing's increasingly dictatorial rule."

- Not the first -

Roth joins a growing list of openly critical academics, researchers, politicians and activists who have been refused entry in recent years.

Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet was denied a visa renewal without reason in 2018 after he hosted a talk with the leader of a small and now banned independence party at the city's press club.

Last September, an American academic was barred from entering after he testified in a Congressional hearing alongside prominent Hong Kong democracy activists.

"I had hoped to spotlight Beijing's deepening assault on international efforts to uphold human rights," Roth said. "The refusal to let me enter Hong Kong vividly illustrates the problem."

Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, said that when Roth asked why he was prevented from entering Hong Kong, he was only told that it was "immigration reasons".

"What we believe is that he was stopped because the Chinese government is afraid to have the world know what they are doing to the people of Hong Kong and the people of China," Robertson told AFP in Bangkok.

The unrest that began last June is the biggest crisis the former British colony has faced since its return to Chinese rule in 1997.

Under the terms of the handover, Hong Kong enjoys unique freedoms unseen on the mainland, but in recent years fears have increased that these liberties are being chipped away as Beijing exerts more control over the territory.

China and the Hong Kong administration have refused to cede to the protesters' demands, which include fully free elections in the city, an inquiry into alleged police misconduct, and amnesty for the nearly 6,500 people arrested during the movement -- nearly a third of them under the age of 20.

Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondents' Club, which was to host Roth's press conference on Wednesday, said in a statement it was concerned that the city's government was using the immigration department to "act punitively against organisations and media representatives it does not agree with, which is a violation of the commitment to free expression and free speech in Hong Kong law."

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The True Aim of the Gun Sanctuary Movement

WHITE POWER MILITIA'S LIKE RUBY RIDGE

Francis Wilkinson,Bloomberg•January 13, 2020

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- At first glance, the Second Amendment sanctuary movement currently burrowing into rural Virginia looks like a ballistic twist on the immigrant sanctuary cities movement. Both movements defy the law, one to protect undocumented immigrants from legally sanctioned deportation, the other to protect unlicensed firearms from legally sanctioned regulation.

But there is a significant difference, more political than legal. One sanctuary movement aims to protect a vulnerable population from personal harm. The other movement seeks to protect a group’s capacity to do harm — no matter how loud the outcry from a population vulnerable to gun violence.

Advocates for immigrant sanctuaries commonly invoke humanitarian, economic and public-safety arguments. Leaders of the guns-everywhere-for-anybody movement tend to dress up their concerns in the legal finery of the Second Amendment (minus the “well-regulated militia” part). Their argument, reduced to its essence, is two words: It’s unconstitutional.

Roughly 100 Virginia cities and counties have embraced some kind of sanctuary provision regarding guns. Other locales around the nation have as well. In the extremes of gun culture, commonplace proposals are treated as existential threats.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, now has a legislative majority in Richmond, and a host of gun proposals is in the works. They include background checks for all gun sales, bans on assault weapons, silencers and high-capacity magazines and a limit on gun purchases to one per month. (Michael Bloomberg, the founder of Bloomberg LP and a Democratic candidate for president, has voiced his support for the proposals.)

The National Rifle Association, which has its headquarters in Virginia, and other gun-rights groups are rallying to fight the proposals, sometimes with a curious inattention to detail. Last month Erich Pratt, senior vice president of Gun Owners of America, and Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, released a 12-page letter to the people of Virginia. Over 12-single-spaced pages, they never quite get around to saying what those proposed regulations are — their broad outlines were debated in the campaign — or what makes them so awful. You will search the document in vain for the phrase “background check” or the word “silencer.”

You just have to take Pratt and Van Cleave at their word. And their word, which appears no fewer than 19 times, is “unconstitutional.” If any proposal “affects any law-abiding person,” Van Cleave told the Washington Post, “then we oppose it.”

One possible explanation for the pair’s reticence is that Pratt and Van Cleave have gotten a whiff of some polling data and it doesn’t smell good. A November survey of 901 registered Virginia voters found that 86% support making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks, while 73% support a “red flag” law enabling family members or police to obtain a court order to remove guns temporarily from those deemed a threat to themselves or others. A majority of Virginians, 54%, even support a ban on the semi-automatic rifles frequently called “assault weapons.”

As it turns out, gun regulation is pretty popular in Virginia, as it is in many other states (at least 17 of which have some type of red flag law). That, more than anything, also explains the resort to Second Amendment sanctuaries.

“Looking at a map of Virginia,” Pratt and Van Cleave wrote, “it becomes clear that only a few, geographically small, yet heavily populated, jurisdictions have declined to stand up against the current threats to the Virginia and United States Constitutions.”

In other words, the “heavily populated” parts of Virginia do not have the same view of gun rights as the sparsely populated parts. And since the Virginia legislature was duly elected by popular vote, legislators will likely be more responsive to the interests of the majority than of the minority.

America is a representative democracy. But the gun lobby and other parts of the conservative coalition are increasingly skeptical of that. Armed with an all-purpose Constitution that means whatever they want it to mean, they seek to block popular government action.

The Second Amendment sanctuaries emerging in Virginia and elsewhere may mark a burgeoning conservative counterculture. Contempt for the “geographically small, yet heavily populated” regions where most Americans reside is becoming a conservative tic. It’s the impetus behind those triumphal MAGA maps depicting countless hectares of American forest, farm and pasture in bold Republican red, while little enclaves such as Brooklyn, with a higher population than 15 states, are dismissed with a tiny blotch of blue.

Densely populated America, in other words, is not real America, and opposing real America is by definition unconstitutional. What the gun sanctuary movement is seeking is not protection from government overreach, but from democracy.

To contact the author of this story: Francis Wilkinson at fwilkinson1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Francis Wilkinson writes editorials on politics and U.S. domestic policy for Bloomberg Opinion. He was executive editor of the Week. He was previously a writer for Rolling Stone, a communications consultant and a political media strategist.

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

The Iran Crisis Is Far From Over

Cyril Widdershoven Oilprice.com January 12, 2020

After a week of extreme turmoil in the Middle East, due to the killing of Iranian IRGC leader Soleimani, Iran’s 2nd in command, and the Iranian missile retaliation, global media and analysts are getting convinced that there is room for negotiation.

U.S. President Trump stated that he is open for dialogue with Iran, a move that calmed markets worldwide. Oil prices, which had spiked on the risk of an all-out war between the US and Iran and the possible fall-out for oil and gas production in the region, are now falling back to pre-Soleimani assassination levels.

OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo and UAE’s Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei added to this bearish sentiment by saying that there is no risk of an oil shortage if hostilities do flare up. Al Mazrouei also reiterated that he doesn’t see any risk that Iran will close the Strait of Hormuz. This was confirmed by his Iranian colleague Zanganeh, who claimed that the crisis is profitable for Iran as oil and gas prices increased. These official statements need, however, to be taken with a truckload of salt. OPEC’s confidence that there is enough spare capacity in the market, and that there is ample supply, is a political statement to quell existing fears. The spare capacity of OPEC is at present almost totally in the hands of two main players, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, while the rest of the members are struggling to reach even their own set targets. In case of a military confrontation between Iran (or proxies) and the US, a real possibility exists that total OPEC spare capacity is taken out. No other producer could substitute a possible loss of Saudi oil production.

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In reality, the crisis in Iran and Iraq will have a much larger impact than experts at Top-5 banks and trading houses are currently anticipating. At the same time, media reporting is biased, looking for possible light at the end of the tunnel, while taking any positive statement made by Washington, Riyadh-Abu Dhabi or Tehran as fact. The conflict is not over, you could even say that the current status of the conflict is like a smoldering peat-fire. You can feel the heat but you don’t see the flames.

Related: Iranian Cyberattack Hits Bahrain Oil Company

Assessments of last week’s developments have been largely looking at conventional military reactions. The Iranian missile attack on US forces in Iraq has been without casualties, reported in the media as a low-intensity retaliatory strike by Iran. The reality is more diffuse. Tehran has understood at present that an all-out military reaction, leading to a lot of US or Western casualties, was not going to be beneficial to the cause of the Mullahs. However, a reaction to Soleimani’s killing was demanded by extremist forces inside of Iran and its proxies. To expect that this will be the only reaction by Iran is naive. Trump has upped the ante, and Iranian leader Khamenei and his IRGC compatriots will almost certainly react in kind. Several scenarios need to be addressed by analysts and be integrated in their oil and gas assessments. Forget the Strait of Hormuz as the risks for Iran are likely higher than for its direct opponents. Other options are more likely.





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A proxy response via Hezbollah, Hamas or the pro-Iranian Shi’a militias in Iraq, against the main oil and gas operations of Western and Arab national oil companies now seems the most likely reaction. This type of response can be executed by proxies at a low cost, as these targets are easily accessible and high profile. Even without the direct involvement of Iran (IRGC), Tehran can put immense pressure on its Arab neighbors while at the same time hitting Western and Asian economies. Next to this, Tehran could escalate the proxy war by Hezbollah or Hamas against Israel.

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Even if no direct war is expected, as indicated by UAE Energy Minister Suhail today at the UAE Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi, experts expect that energy and water sectors in the Arab countries could be targeted. As shown by the Abqaiq attack, all these operations are very vulnerable to drones or possibly cyberattacks. By striking critical infrastructure, Iran and proxies will be able to destabilize not only the economies of the GCC region, but deal a blow to global economies too.

Related: Bearish Sentiment Returns To Oil Markets

A real asymmetric war threat is the use of cyberattacks to bring down specific or nationwide assets, such as oil-gas assets, desalination and power plants (IWPP). Tehran already has threatened to start a cyberwar against the U.S. and its allies, but at present no actions have been reported. Saudi Aramco, ADNOC or BAPCO could be targeted. Qatar’s energy installations are less vulnerable, looking at the reasonably strong relations between Doha and Tehran. Qatar, however, could get caught in the crossfire because of its large U.S. and Western military presence.

More worrying could be a cyberattack or even missile attack on energy-water projects, as this type of infrastructure is crucial for the entire region. A proxy or asymmetric war strategy by Iran is the most feasible and will be hard to counter by the West or Arab states. The Mullah regime understands its options. A full-scale attack on Saudi Arabia or Abu Dhabi, or a military confrontation in Iraq will be met this time by a large military reaction by U.S. President Trump, with possible support of his NATO partners.

Looking at the current situation, Iranian leader Khamenei and his cohorts will need to react soon. A long delay will be considered a sign of weakness. WWIII can be virtually ruled out as Iran is too weak and the Western-Arab alliance has not yet got enough men on the ground. Proxy wars will continue to plague the region, and these conflicts could escalate further if Iran continues its current nuclear program.

The above scenarios could all have a detrimental impact on oil and gas production and exports from the world’s most important hydrocarbon region. Taking out Saudi or UAE oil infrastructure will remove spare capacity with a bang. Just the disruption of Iraqi oil supply could cause a shock in the world’s oil markets. Geopolitics are real and even if the risk premium in oil prices seems to be fading, analysts should not ignore the current risks in the Middle East, The East-Mediterranean and Libya.

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