Canada: Police arrest dozens in bid to shut down protest

Police in Ottawa moved to clear the so-called "freedom convoy" from downtown area streets. Over 100 protesters were placed under arrest and numerous vehicles were towed.


Security forces carried out a massive operation at Ottawa's city center for protestors and trucks

Ottawa police moved Friday to shut down the protests that have blocked off streets in the downtown area of the capital and inspired similar copycat actions elsewhere in the world, arresting more than 100 and towing numerous vehicles.

Ottawa's interim police chief Steve Bell said, "We will run this operation 24 hours a day until the residents and community have their entire city back."

The 3-week-old polarizing protests ostensibly coalesced around pandemic restrictions and COVID vaccine requirements but have transformed into a wider anti-government movement.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to deal with the blockade.

What are police doing to stop the protests?

Prior to Friday's effort, police sought to disrupt the protests with threats of fines or arrests. They did so to thin the crowd and in part out of fear of escalation or violence in and around the protest encampments. Those who remain are therefore likely to be more hardened in their views.

To carry out the operation, police set up 100 checkpoints to starve the protest community of food and fuel. On Friday, hundreds of police descended on downtown in the frigid cold where snow had just fallen.

At least one driver had his window smashed and a few were pulled from vehicles and taken into custody. Others who resisted were thrown to the ground and arrested.

Even after Friday's efforts to try and remove the protesters, dozens of trucks remained. Three of the most prominent organizers were arrested, including two Thursday and one Friday.

Police have offered that it could take days to remove the protesters.
How have protesters reacted to their receding encampment?

Police have worked to push the protesters toward parliament and clear streets of their presence along the way.

Protesters have also used shovels to build chest-high snow embankments there, forming an icy barricade.

On Friday afternoon, a steady stream of vehicles departed from Ottawa's Parliament Hill.

Those protesters remained linked arms and were energized in their encounters with police, but as dusk set in, the situation became more tense.

Kevin Homaund, a trucker from Montreal, told the AP news agency, "Freedom was never free," adding, "So what if they put the handcuffs on us and they put us in jail?''

Mark, a protester from Nova Scotia who would not give his last name, told Reuters news agency, "If they want to arrest me, I'll put my hands out, and they can twist-tie me up like everybody else here. We're going peaceful."

The protesters' umbrella group, which calls itself the "freedom convoy 2022," said, "We will continue to hold the line. We refuse to bow to abuses of power. The world is watching, Canada."

ar/fb (AFP, AP, Reuters)

In GOP embrace of truckers, some see racist double standard

By COREY WILLIAMS and SARA BURNETT

1 of 6

A person in a pickup truck and trailer blocking Wellington Street watches as a semi-trailer truck drives away, during an ongoing protest against COVID-19 measures that has grown into a broader anti-government protest, in Ottawa, Ontario, on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

Former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly called Black Lives Matter protesters “thugs” and “anarchists,” said there’s “a lot of respect” for the overwhelmingly white truckers who blocked streets in the Canadian capital and shut down border crossings with the U.S. to oppose COVID-19 restrictions.

To Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, the truckers who parked bumper to bumper are “heroes” fighting for a righteous cause. Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity sent “solidarity, love and support” to the drivers, who also defied police orders to clear Ottawa’s streets and ignored a court order forbidding them from blaring their horns. GOP Sen. Rand Paul encouraged them to head south and “clog” streets in the U.S.

The embrace of the truckers by some of the nation’s most prominent conservative voices has drawn new accusations of hypocrisy and allegations that GOP leaders apply a racist double standard to large protests, including the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol involving a mostly white crowd of Trump supporters.

Earlier this month, the Republican National Committee called the Jan. 6 attack “legitimate political discourse.” But only months before the insurrection, Trump, Cruz and other conservatives excoriated protests against police brutality and racial injustice that were largely peaceful, with some instances of looting and unrest.

“This shows again that there is just an unequal right to express dissent in the United States,” said Karen Pita Loor, a professor at Boston University’s School of Law. She called conservatives’ support “two-faced,” saying that conservatives appear to support a white, conservative rights movement, but “when you have Black Lives Matter protesters on the street that are ‘thugs,’ they scare you.”

Conservatives counter that there’s a double standard on the other side — that liberals support the idea of protesting, until they disagree with the cause.

The Canadian protests known as the Freedom Convoy were declared a national emergency and an illegal occupation of the capital. For weeks, the drivers blocked streets to oppose vaccine mandates for truckers in Canada and other pandemic restrictions. They also blocked U.S. border crossings, inflicting economic damage on both countries.

Canadian police began arresting protesters late Thursday, when they picked up two key protest leaders. Officers returned Friday morning, going door to door along a line of trucks and other vehicles after sealing off much of the downtown area to outsiders. Some protesters were led away in handcuffs.

Conservatives say there is a clear distinction between the Canadian protests and instances of violence during protests over the killing of George Floyd by a white officer in Minneapolis, including buildings set on fire in that city and Portland, Oregon.

“All Americans have the right to peacefully protest. But there’s a stark contrast between civil disobedience — which has been a time-honored tradition in our country — and burning down buildings, looting businesses, and violently attacking actual peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders,” Paul said. The Republican from Kentucky was surrounded and confronted in 2020 by people protesting the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman fatally shot by police.

A Cruz spokesperson echoed those comments, saying that the senator “has been very clear” about the right to nonviolent protest. “What people don’t have the right to do is assault another person, loot and firebomb buildings — those actions are not exercising a constitutional right no matter the circumstance.”

Hannity said this week that the difference between the Black Lives Matter protests and the truckers is that the demonstrations in Canada have been peaceful.

At the Alberta border town of Coutts, across from Montana, where a blockade disrupted trade for more than two weeks, police arrested 13 people and seized guns and ammunition earlier this week. Four men also face a charge of conspiracy alleging that they plotted to kill Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers.

The support from conservatives in the U.S. goes beyond the words of politicians. Right-wing activists who oppose pandemic mandates and Canada’s liberal prime minster, Justin Trudeau, have also donated money to the demonstrations, hoping that the protests will help motivate American voters ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Mario Morrow, a Black political consultant who has served both GOP and Democratic governors in Michigan, called Republicans’ support for the Canadian protests “hypocrisy at its highest level.”

The protests included a blockade of the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit and Windsor, Canada, and carries 25% of all trade between the two countries. The demonstrations also forced the shutdown of a Canadian Ford plant last week. Shortages due to the blockade forced General Motors to cancel a shift last week at its midsize-SUV factory near Lansing, Michigan.

Police broke the blockade at the bridge — the border’s busiest and most important crossing — last weekend, arresting dozens of demonstrators.

“There is no way that the supporters, especially Republicans, can justify the funding support, the moral support and the political statements they are making by supporting these tactics,” Morrow said. He also said the protesters would not get the same support if they were “anything other than conservative white individuals.”

“They would have been locked up — day one,” he said.

Cruz last week praised the truckers for standing up against liberals who imposed mandates they “have no right to impose.” He said the protesters spoke not just for Canadians, but also for Americans.

“I think it is powerful to watch,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Padmananda Rama in Washington contributed to this report.

That 'freedom convoy' in Ottawa? It's inspired by an Old Testament account of divine massacre

Thomas Lecaque, Alternet
February 19, 2022

A protester walks in front of parked trucks as demonstrators continue to protest the vaccine mandates implemented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on February 8, 2022 in Ottawa, Canada Dave Chan AFP

When a church announces what’s called a Jericho March (or a Jericho Walk), you might picture congregants praying, walking around a building, trumpets blasting and an odd gospel song here and there.

You might forget, however, what comes next.

From Joshua 6:20-21:

When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

Jericho Marches are organized by a group by the same name. They were created by a coalition of Christian nationalists in the US. They are co-led by a Catholic think-tank writer (Arina Grossu of the Family Research Council) and an evangelical businessman (Rob Weaver).

The Jericho Marches rose to prominence recently. Supporters have been marching around the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa for around 20 days. They are, for Americans, a gothic reminder of what had been brewing in the lead up to the J6 sacking and looting of the US Capitol.

The same toxic brew

Jericho March, the group, is one of the religious groups, movements and ideologies that were at play in the insurrection. The Uncivil Religion project has uncovered a bevy of beliefs. The Jericho Marches, however, were the principal symbol of J6 and the Christian nationalism at its heart, not only in DC but at state capitols around the country.

Christian nationalism is a religious idea that transcends borders. It attracts a lot of support from like-minded insurrectionists abroad.

Last year, when journalist Emma Green wrote “A Christian Insurrection” for The Atlantic, it was subtitled it, “Many of those who mobbed the Capitol on Wednesday claimed to be enacting God’s will.”

The CBC Investigates piece on the Ottawa convoy this week is titled, “For many inside the Freedom Convoy, faith fuels the resistance.”

The links are very clear between groupings. And now, organizing in small groups and marching around Parliament, is a new Jericho March.

Spiritual warfare

Filmed versions of Jericho Marches reveal a large group in the snow, bearing primarily Canadian flags and singing hymns, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and then blowing shofars before they began marching.

The hymns and prayers were occasionally punctuated by people yelling “Freedom!” and trucks honking. One woman spoke in tongues before engaging in rhetoric I’ve seen in spiritual warfare sermons.

They prayed for healing from vaccines and for summoning the “Lord of Heaven’s armies.” As the National Review reported, the Jericho March goes every day, once around Parliament, and seven full laps on Thursdays, carrying horns and trumpets. And they hope eventually more will show up, to the tune of thousands and thousands.

Benita Pedersen, an organizer from Alberta, was interviewed by a sympathetic Christian YouTube channel about what they are doing.

Pedersen said she felt a “call on her heart” to do this. She had been given a steer horn by a local farmer. She knew she had to bring it to Ottawa and to do a Jericho March. She’s using that as a shofar.

She said that the “freedom movement” was “100 percent hand in hand with Jesus.” They go together beautifully, she said, and nonbelieving supporters should think about Jesus and about how it goes together.

Divine massacre

But, of course, this isn’t her first time.

She led an anti-vaxx rally outside of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton in September, received 10 Public Health Act tickets for organizing various anti-public health rallies in northern Alberta last year and revived her Twitter account, dormant since 2016, specifically in order to promote anti-public health events she organized and ran.


The story of Jericho is nothing to worry about.

It’s only about divine massacre.

Walls come crumbling down

They know what they are doing. One participant on TikTok recounted the biblical story before backpedaling that this was “not about crumbling walls or infrastructure,” but about softening hearts.

Previous Jericho Marches were not as benign. A year ago, in Edmonton, a Jericho March against pandemic restrictions was condemned by the conservative premier and questioned by anti-hate groups for their intention to march with tiki torches. It was joined by hate groups.

One of the organizers asked “what happened when they marched around seven times on the last day? The walls came crumbling down. Spiritually speaking, we need those corrupt walls that have been built up by the politicians to come smashing and crumbling down.”

“The Great Reset”

Back to Ottawa: Christian nationalist symbols are visible in the mob that has been marching and occupying space around Parliament for about 20 days, though in smaller numbers than in American rallies. It’s part of the broader effort to bring global attention to the “convoy.”

CBC has reported on the prayer circles and speeches and signs in the crowd. Christine Mitchell has written about the Christian nationalist imagery of 2 Chronicles in the crowd. More worrisome, though, is how much international presence, interference and support there is.

Fox News, Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino influence groups around the world that spread Facebook propaganda. All of these have directed attention to Canada and fundraised for the occupation of the city.

Franklin Graham, a J6 defender, posted a supporting Instagram video, tagged with “I’d like you to meet who Prime Minister @JustinPJTrudeau called the ‘fringe minority.’ Tell me what you think of this video.” It featured the Jericho March, among others, and it was set to “Amazing Grace,” which was sung loudly by the mob on January 6.

The Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a noted QAnon-adjacent radical traditionalist Catholic, gave a talk that linked the convoy expressly to “a worldwide chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the New World Order on the rubble of nation-states through the Great Reset desired by the World Economic Forum and by the United Nations under the name of ‘Agenda 2030.’” Viganò added:

"We know many heads of state have participated in Klaus Schwab's School for Young Leaders — the so-called Global Leaders for Tomorrow — beginning with Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, Jacinta Ardern and Boris Johnson and, before that, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair.”

We should worry

“The Great Reset” is an explicitly anti-public health conspiracy theory. Viganò has promoted it relentlessly. It is also used by anti-vaxx, anti-mask and other anti-mandate groups as their way of drumming up support internationally and bringing in more conspiracy theorists.

Viganò’s message focused on Christian nationalism from a Catholic perspective. It was also permeated with QAnon tropes:

“But, even more, dear Canadian brothers, it is necessary to understand that this dystopia serves to establish the dictatorship of the New World Order and totally erase every trace of Our Lord Jesus Christ from society, from history and from the traditions of peoples.”

The elements of spiritual warfare – repeatedly deployed by Christian nationalist groups before in service of Trump and elsewhere – on the borderline of where it crosses over into physical violence, the Jericho Marchs, the violent commentary supporting it, the prayer, the shofars, the echoes of J6 expressed from abroad and divorced from the actual Canadian context – these are a symptom of a broader problem.

Illiberalism is growing. The variant around Trump – conspiracy-laden, seditionist, Christian nationalism – is getting strong by the minute.

Last year, it was in Washington.

This year, Ottawa.

Next year? We should worry.

Mike Lindell says he'll use parachutes to deliver pillows to the Freedom Convoy after they got stuck at the US-Canada border


Bill Bostock
Thu, February 17, 2022,

Founder and CEO of My Pillow Mike Lindell at "Save America" rally in Cullman, Alabama.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images


Mike Lindell announced on Sunday he was sending 12,000 pillows to Canada's Freedom Convoy truckers.

He told Insider on Wednesday he was still awaiting a permit from Canadian customs to deliver them.

He told The Daily Beast he's now booked a helicopter to drop the pillows with tiny parachutes.

The MyPillow CEO and Trump acolyte Mike Lindell said he plans to drop pillows to truckers in the Canadian "Freedom Convoy" after his overland shipments were delayed.

The "Freedom Convoy" protests against vaccine mandates and COVID-19 restrictions started in Ottawa on January 28 and have since spread across the country, disrupting services and supply chains.

Lindell, who has backed the anti-vaccination movement, announced Sunday he was sending 12,000 pillows from his Minnesota factory to the "brave truckers" blocking roads near the US-Canada border and Ottawa.

But he told Insider's Cheryl Teh on Wednesday that the ground delivery was delayed as he awaited permission from Canadian authorities.

Lindell told The Daily Beast that he had since chartered a helicopter and planned to jettison the pillows over the truckers using "little parachutes" on Thursday.

"We need to get the MyPillows to the people!" he told the outlet.

"I just confirmed with them [helicopter company], and yes, this is the plan. We have the helicopter confirmed, but we are moving the time up to 11 a.m. [Thursday]."

Lindell told The Daily Beast he could not disclose the location of the pillow drop.

It is not clear whether Lindell would need authorization to deliver the pillows by air. The Canada Border Services Agency did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The Freedom Convoy protests have stretched on for more than three weeks, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday invoked rarely-used emergency powers to try and end the standoff. The 1988 Emergencies Act allows the government to ban public gatherings and restrict travel.

Speaking on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government was also moving to freeze the bank accounts of the truckers and suspend their vehicle insurance.

Variations of the Freedom Convoy have spread from Canada to countries including Austria, New Zealand, and France.

WE LIVE NEXT DOOR TO CONSPIRACY NATION
Jordan Klepper Confronts Canadian ‘Freedom Convoy’ Truckers, Finds a Lot of Conspiracy Nuts

Marlow Stern
Thu, February 17, 2022,

Comedy Central

Last fall, both the U.S. and Canada lifted vaccination requirements for long-haul truckers in order to combat a series of supply-chain disruptions. Those restrictions were put back in place last month, and ever since, Canadian anti-vaxxers have formed a convoy in protest of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, shutting down roads and harming businesses.

The so-called “Freedom Convoy” has become a political flashpoint, given that many of the protesters have no ties to trucking, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance. It’s been praised by culture war-obsessed right-wing troll-politicians in the U.S. like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and much of the funding for the display has come from right-wing donors in America, with some of the biggest donations given by well-heeled Republican backers.

And so, it was the perfect place for The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper to do his thing.

Klepper, of course, has garnered a reputation for confronting deranged right-wing Americans, from those storming the Capitol to try to overturn a democratic election on Jan. 6 to childish anti-vax protesters with a fetish for comparing the choice to get a vaccine in order to help prevent a deadly global pandemic that’s killed millions to Nazi Germany. The comedian’s latest “Finger on the Pulse” took him to Ottawa to try to get to the bottom of why these protesters have been making such a fuss.

“We don’t live in Germany… We don’t live in Nazi Germany. Those days are over,” one protester told Klepper. “Show me your papers don’t happen anymore. That’s a freedom that everyone should have.”

Holocaust Survivor Sidney Zoltak Has a Message for Anti-Vaxxers Exploiting His Trauma

“Is the Germany comparison a stretch here in Canada?” countered Klepper.

“No,” he replied.

During his segment, Klepper encountered a number of protesters in the convoy who also happen to be Trump supporters—and approached one wearing a QAnon hat.

“I see the ‘Q Army’ on your hat. Is Q the American thing trying to find JFK Jr.?” asked Klepper.

“Exactly… exactly,” the man replied.

Another conspiracy theorist-convoy protester who Klepper came across said, “It’s more than just the vaccine passport and stuff… The Agenda 2030 is a good start… It’s where the world’s headed toward one government. They want to sterilize us that only certain people can have kids.”

For more, listen to The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper on The Last Laugh podcast.

Canadian trucker protests show how the loudest voices in the room distort democracy


Matthew Jordan, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Penn State

Sydney Forde, Doctoral Student in Mass Communications, Penn State
Wed, February 16, 2022, 

What happens when the voices of a few drown out the views of the many? Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images

After Canadian truckers upset with vaccination mandates made their way to Ottawa, they parked their vehicles near Parliament and started making noise – lots of it – blasting their air horns day and night, disturbing the repose of citizens at home, work and in school.

The local reaction was swift. Hundreds of noise complaints prompted Ottawan police to issue tickets and declare a state of emergency.

The noise of air horns continued, undeterred. Some residents fled the city; on Feb. 7, 2022, fed-up Ottawans filed a class-action lawsuit calling for quiet.


A lawyer representing organizers of the convoy – an amalgamation of conservative activists, anti-government agitators and conspiracy theorists – claimed that blasting hundreds of 105-decibel horns was merely “part of the democratic process.”

However, Justice Hugh McLean ruled for the plaintiffs.

“Tooting a horn,” he declared, “is not an expression of any great thought I’m aware of.”

As scholars who study media and democracy, we believe the defendants are correct to argue that they should be able to protest and contribute to an ongoing debate. However, not all voices are pitched the same. Amplified by technology, it’s easy for a loud and relentless minority to dominate the soundscape and drown out all other points of view.
Controlling noise to keep the peace

States curbing noise in defense of citizens’ right to be left alone is nothing new.

In 44 B.C., Julius Caesar ruled that “no one shall drive a wagon along the streets of Rome or along those streets in the suburbs where there is continuous housing.” By the Middle Ages, most cities had a range of bells, chimes and sound signals that were used to communicate, and people who lived there understood when they should and should not be used. During the Industrial Revolution, all kinds of new noises produced by technology disrupted the peace, requiring new laws to curtail factories, steam engines and their whistles, clanging bells, and the roaring crowds that packed cities.

By the early 20th century, as automobiles started taking over the soundscapes, cities and states around the globe created new laws that balanced drivers’ need to use horns with residents’ need to be left alone in their homes.

The Industrial Revolution introduced an array of ear-splitting technologies.

 Cartoon from Chicago Times, November 17, 1929.

This isn’t the first time that protesters have defied ordinances limiting horn use to get their point across. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, cities like Paris and London started fining drivers who abused klaxon horn technology – the “AHOOGA” horn – within city limits. Taxi drivers protested by defiantly honking their horns.

Noise is always a social problem when people have to share space. Democratic deliberation, which involves speaking, listening and often quietly thinking, depends on such community norms.

Amplification technology distorts conversations, making it possible for a few voices to drown out the many.

Media megaphones

Connected by digital telecommunication technologies, today’s vast democracies are just as vulnerable to problems caused by a different sort of amplification in local public spaces: media amplification.

Fifty years ago, the convoy and its noise would have likely remained a local ordinance issue. Instead, the story has morphed into an international incident thanks to amplification by digital and traditional media networks.

Conservative media have been framing the truckers as a grassroots movement with overwhelming support – working-class heroes fighting the repressive state.

Fox News has devoted significant coverage to the protests, while right-wing media influencers like Ben Shapiro have latched onto the “silent minority versus the state” storyline, disseminating it to their huge followings.

Money can also amplify, and reporters have traced much of it back to international groups utilizing hacked Facebook pages. One Bangladeshi marketing firm specializing in computational propaganda easily exploited Facebook’s lax oversight – and the way its algorithm rewards divisive content – to pump up the volume on misinformation about the legality of mandates, provoking a sense of grievance that allowed it to raise millions in dark money.

The amplification has distorted the public health conversation and the reality of public opinion.

Over 80% of Canadians and 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated. Meanwhile, Canada’s biggest trucking alliance, the CTA, has denounced the noisy agitators: “CTA believes such actions — especially those that interfere with public safety — are not how disagreements with government policies should be expressed.”

Many truckers in Canada, including the nearly 1 in 5 who have South Asian heritage, do not feel heard. Sagroop Singh, the president of the Ontario Aggregate Trucking Association, where more than half of truckers are South Asian, stated, “We don’t even know who the organizers of this protest are. Nobody asked us if we agree with their demands.”

Many truckers think this incident has prioritized the divisive rhetoric of American and international far-right groups over their voices, diverting the conversation away from important issues for Canadian truckers, like road safety and higher wages.
Like speaking, listening is also a right

In a pluralistic democracy, it is important that all voices be heard.

But the truckers who occupied Ottawa and a growing number of sites along the border using noisy intimidation aren’t merely asking to be heard; they are drowning out dialogue and stoking fears of a violent insurrection.

Freedom of speech should not only be measured by an absence of limits on who can speak: Along with the right to be heard is what filmmaker Astra Taylor has called “the right to listen.” You can’t hear other voices in a pluralistic democracy if a disruptive minority, amplified by money and noise-making technology, has the dial on their amp turned up to 11.

When the loudest voice in the room is rewarded with disproportionate media attention, it negates the rights of others. Having a conversation about ways to lower the decibels isn’t a matter of censorship. It’s about balancing a shared soundscape so that a full range of voices can be heard.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Matthew Jordan, Penn State and Sydney Forde, Penn State.

Read more:

Our centuries-long quest for ‘a quiet place’

Have we become too paranoid about mass shootings?

HINDUTVA DISINFORMATION

Posts share photos of two different women after hijab ban protests in India

AFP India
Fri, February 18, 2022

Following a ban on Islamic headscarves in schools in a southern Indian state that sparked protests, Facebook posts shared two photos that they claimed both show a Muslim student who was harassed for wearing a hijab at a college. The posts claimed one of the photos shows the student without her hijab, and accused her of hypocrisy. In fact, the photo shows a different woman, who told AFP her image had been misused.

"Whoever thinks these are two different women needs to wear glasses," reads a Hindi-language Facebook post shared on February 10, 2022.

The top photo shows a woman wearing make-up and Western clothes alongside the caption: "This is normal life".


The bottom photo of a woman wearing a black hijab includes the caption: "This is propaganda life".

The picture of a woman wearing a hijab was taken from a widely-shared video of a student shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest") after being harassed by Hindu men in the southern Indian state of Karnataka.

The student, later identified as Muskan Khan, gave interviews to various Indian media outlets including NDTV and The Wire.

In the same state, a local school's decision to ban hijabs from the classroom sparked protests in February 2022 and highlighted religious tensions in majority-Hindu India.


Screenshot of the misleading post taken on February 15, 2022 ( Uzair RIZVI)

The image was shared alongside a similar claim on Facebook here, here, here and here.

However, the claim is false.

The girl without the headscarf is not Muskan Khan.

A keyword and reverse image search found the original photo posted on May 13, 2018 on the Facebook profile of Najma Nazeer.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the image in misleading posts (left) and Nazeer's image from her Facebook profile (right):


( Uzair RIZVI)

Nazeer describes herself as a social activist. She joined regional political party Janata Dal (Secular) in 2020, local media reported.

Contacted by AFP, she said her photo had been misused in social media posts about the hijab row.

"They are sharing my image because they are against me as I work for constitutional rights," she said.

Below is a different photo of Nazeer (left) taken from her Facebook profile and the photo of her circulating in the misleading posts (right):


( Uzair RIZVI)



SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

New observations help explain universe's most energetic objects

Handout image shows active galaxy Messier 77 and its active galactic nucleus

Wed, February 16, 2022
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Observations showing a roughly donut-shaped cloud of cosmic dust and gas shrouding a huge black hole at the heart of a galaxy similar in size to our Milky Way are providing scientists with new clarity about the universe's most energetic objects.

Scientists on Wednesday said their observations involving the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 77 and its surrounding cloud lend support to predictions made three decades ago about what are called "active galactic nuclei."

These are places at the centers of many large galaxies that have tremendous luminosity - sometimes outshining all of a galaxy's billions of stars combined - and produce the universe's most energetic outbursts seen since the Big Bang event 13.8 billion years ago. The energy arises from gas violently falling into a supermassive black hole that is surrounded by a cloud of tiny particles of rock and soot along with mostly hydrogen gas.

Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects possessing gravitational pulls so powerful even light cannot escape. Supermassive black holes, which reside at the center of many galaxies, including our own, are the largest of them.

Messier 77, also called NGC 1068 or the Squid Galaxy, is located 47 million light years - the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) - from Earth in the constellation Cetus. Its supermassive black hole has a mass roughly 10 million times greater than our sun.

The observations, using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert, provided strong support for what is called the "unified model" of active galactic nuclei. This model holds that all active galactic nuclei are basically the same but that some appear from the vantage point of Earth to have different properties.

Some look intensely bright because the position of their ring-like cloud does not obscure the gas plummeting into the black hole from our viewing angle. Others look dark because the cloud blocks our view of what is truly happening.

Messier 77's active galactic nucleus is one of the dark ones, but the new observations indicate that it actually possesses the same qualities as the bright ones.

"The dust and gas in these clouds are probably blown out of the atmospheres of stars at a larger distance - hundreds of light years - from the black hole, and are falling in towards the center under the influence of the black hole gravity," said Violeta Gamez Rosas, an astronomy doctoral student at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the research published in the journal Nature.

"Some clouds spiral in towards the black hole while others are pushed up into a 'fountain' that falls back onto the galaxy. Because of the dust, it is very difficult to see with telescopes what is going on in this region, but it is easier at infrared wavelengths than at normal visible wavelengths because the dust does not absorb infrared light as much," said study co-author Walter Jaffe, a Leiden University astronomy professor.

The Milky Way's supermassive black hole, which has a mass 4 million times greater than the sun, is currently "fairly quiet," Gamez Rosas said, but previously may have been more active like Messier 77's.

Gamez Rosas expressed satisfaction at studying active galactic nuclei.

"A lot of it is pure fascination with explosions on such gigantic scales, and the challenge of trying to explain them with what we think we know about physics," Gamez Rosas said.

"There is also the challenge of trying to build and operate telescopes to make these images of things so far away," Gamez Rosas added. "And there is the peace of mind that results from the knowledge that there is a large, complex, varied universe that goes its own way whatever we do on Earth."

(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

Officials: Florida plan has fed manatees 25 tons of lettuce





An adult and young manatee swim together in a canal, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022, in Coral Gables, Fla. The round-tailed, snout-nosed animals popular with locals and tourists have suffered a major die-off because their preferred seagrass food source is disappearing due to water pollution from agricultural, urban, septic tank and other sources. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)More

CURT ANDERSON
Wed, February 16, 2022, 


ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The unprecedented human effort to feed starving Florida manatees has so far provided the lovable marine mammals with more than 25 tons of lettuce, officials said Wednesday.

The round-tailed, snout-nosed animals popular with locals and tourists have suffered a major die-off because their preferred seagrass food source is disappearing because of water pollution from agricultural, urban, septic tank and other sources.

Officials say the feeding program involving donated romaine lettuce at a Florida Power & Light plant on the east coast is attracting about 300 to 350 manatees per day. It’s been as many as 800 manatees at times, sometimes less than 60 as they move around the waterways.

“We’re making a difference,” said Ron Mezich of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission during an online news conference Wednesday. “It gives us the greatest exposure to the greatest number of animals.”

Last year, a record 1,101 manatee deaths were recorded, largely from starvation. The typical five-year average is about 625 deaths. So far this year, 164 manatee deaths have been listed, only five from collisions with boats, according to state wildlife commission statistics.

“We've seen an uptick in mortalities,” said Tom Reinert, FWC south regional director and spokesman for the state-federal effort to save manatees. “We are adjusting our program to get as much food to manatees as we can.”

Normally, wildlife experts advise against feeding wild animals because they begin to associate humans with food. And it remains a crime for a person to feed manatees on their own, although officials say many people want to help.

The best way is to donate money, they say, through a sponsored entity, and to make sure to report any sick or struggling manatee.

“Feed them with your dollars,” Reinert said.

Looking at the big picture, there are an estimated 8,800 or so manatees in Florida waters. That's a big improvement from the roughly 2,000 animals in the 1990s, part of the reason they were delisted from endangered to threatened by the federal government.

But even with this unusual die-off, Reinert said there's only a 1% chance of manatees becoming extinct in the wild any time soon. The key will be restoring seagrass beds, which is a long-term project funded by $8 million in state dollars so far.

“You can't just go out and plant a bunch of seagrass,” he said. “Projects are getting started and are in the planning stages.”

New Omicron Subvariant BA.2 Spreading Rapidly, Accounts For Roughly 1 Out Of Every 5 New Covid Cases Sequenced Globally, Says WHO

Tom Tapp
Wed, February 16, 2022


The World Health Organization has released a new report on Omicron sub-variant BA.2 which shows the strain accounted for 21.5% of all new Omicron cases analyzed worldwide in the first week of February. Omicron, in turn, represented nearly all of the variants identified globally (98.3%) in the genomically-sequenced samples submitted to the GISAID data-sharing hub in the previous 30 days.

Translation: BA.2 is spreading rapidly, though it is unclear to what effect.

BA.2 — sometimes called “Stealth Omicron” — accounted for the majority of new cases identified in 10 countries as of Monday. Those include Denmark, India, China, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Guam, Montenegro, Nepal, Pakistan and the Philippines. The report notes, however, that there are massive differences
in its spread across the globe “with the South-East Asia Region reporting the highest prevalence of BA.2 among Omicron sequences (44.7%) and the Region of the Americas reporting the lowest prevalence (1%).”

That’s good news for the U.S., most of which is removing restrictions after the winter Omicron wave. The prevalence of BA.2 has tripled from 1.2% during the week ending 29 January 2022 to 3.6% during the week ending 5 February 2022, but it still makes up a very small proportion of new cases.

By contrast, the new Omicron strain’s prevalence in South Africa rose from 27% on February 4 to 86% by February 11. In the United Kingdom it jumped six-fold from January 17-31, from 2.2% to 12%. Denmark saw its BA.2 numbers double from the last week of 2021 to mid-January 2022, from 20% to 45%. It became the dominant variant in that country by the third week of January, at 66% of sequenced samples.

Chart Showing growth of variants: Omicron BA.1 in purple & BA.2 in lavender 

- Credit: Emma B. Hodcroft, https://covariants.org/

A late-January report from the Statens Serum Institut, which operates under the auspices of the Dutch Ministry of Health, found that BA.2 will likely account for “nearly 100% of all cases by mid-February 2022.” The report also found that “BA.2 may be approx. 30% more transmissible than BA.1 (the original Omicron). “Consequently,” the assessment continues, “this quick increase in BA.2 may lead to a steeper epidemic curve with a higher peak and may postpone the time at which infection rates decline until February.”

The WHO, which was among the first prominent bodies to raise concern over the new strain, created a chart outlining its current thinking about BA.2, which indicates its real departure from other variants is, indeed, in transmissibility.

. - Credit: WHO

WHO

The reasons for the differences in rates of spread among countries are unclear. “The difference in growth potential between countries may be linked to differences in vaccination coverage and contact patterns arising because of restrictions, population densities, etc.,” the WHO report suggests. But an analysis of those factors does not provide clarity.

Denmark recently dropped nearly all of its restrictions, but its citizens are highly vaccinated, at over 80% according to Johns Hopkins University. By comparison, 65% percent of U.S. citizens are vaccinated. Yet we have not experienced the kind of growth that Denmark has, although we are only now broadly lifting masking restrictions.

Meanwhile South Africa, where Omicron was first identified and where BA.2 is now dominant, has just 29% of its population fully vaccinated, but still requires masks in indoor public places.

As for population density, Denmark overall is far more concentrated than either South Africa or the United States — which, of course, does have highly dense urban centers.

One thing that is clear: Cases are down in all three countries, despite the growth of BA.2. Also on the way down, however, is the number of tests, which muddies the analysis. Test positivity in all three countries is also a mixed bag, with Denmark moving up to at 35% the last week of January, the U.S. falling to 8.7% today and South Africa trending down to 11.3% in the first week of February.