Australia trade deal paves way for ‘climate-destructive deals’
By Rosie Greenaway
-June 15, 2021

Reacting to the news that Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison have agreed a free trade agreement (FTA) between the UK and Australia, the Soil Association (SA) says British farmers ‘justifiably feel betrayed’.

Johnson hails the FTA as marking ‘a new dawn in the UK’s relationship with Australia, underpinned by our shared history and common values’.

“Our new free-trade agreement opens fantastic opportunities for British businesses and consumers, as well as young people wanting the chance to work and live on the other side of the world.

“This is global Britain at its best – looking outwards and striking deals that deepen our alliances and help ensure every part of the country builds back better from the pandemic,” comments the UK’s PM.

But the news from Downing Street has been met with disappointment from some quarters. Liz Bowles, associate director of the SA, says: “Barely 24 hours after pledging more ambitious climate action through the G7 group, the UK has agreed a trade deal that threatens to offshore our climate impact and exacerbate the ecological emergency.

“Australian farmers are permitted to use growth hormones, prohibited pesticides, battery cages and sow stalls, and they are responsible for far more antibiotic use than producers in the UK. What happened to the Conservative manifesto pledge that there will be no compromise on our environmental, animal welfare and food standards?

“This deal has been agreed without adequate Parliamentary oversight or public scrutiny, and could pave the way for low standard, climate-destructive deals with other nations such as the United States and Brazil. The government’s promise of a cap on tariff-free imports for 15 years, plus tariff rate quotas and other safeguards, will offer scant reassurance to farmers who justifiably feel betrayed.”

Ikea fined over spying campaign in France

NICOLAS VAUX-MONTAGNY15 June 2021, 7:55 am



A French court has ordered home furnishings giant Ikea to pay some 1.1 million euros (£946,600) in fines and damages over a campaign to spy on union representatives, employees and some unhappy customers in France.

Two former Ikea France executives were convicted and fined over the scheme and given suspended prison sentences.

Among the other 13 defendants in the high-profile trial, some were acquitted and others given suspended sentences.

The panel of judges at the Versailles court found that between 2009 and 2012, Ikea’s French subsidiary used espionage to sift out trouble-makers in the employee ranks and to profile squabbling customers.

Ikea France was convicted of receiving personal data obtained through fraudulent means in a habitual way, and ordered to pay one million euros in fines and about 100,000 euros in damages.

Ingka Group, which owns and operates most Ikea stores, noted in a statement after the verdicts that the French retail operation “has strongly condemned the practices, apologised and implemented a major action plan to prevent this from happening again.”

“We will now review the court’s decision in detail and consider if and where any additional measures are necessary,” the group said.

Trade unions accused Ikea France of collecting personal data by fraudulent means, notably via illegally obtained police files, and illicitly disclosing personal information.

Lawyers for Ikea France denied that the company had any strategy of “generalised espionage”.

A lawyer for the unions, Solene Debarre, expressed hope that the verdict would “make some companies tremble”, adding: “One million euros isn’t much for Ikea, but it’s a symbol.”

The company, which said it cooperated in the investigation, had faced a potential financial penalty of up to 3.75 million euros.

Prosecutor Pamela Tabardel asked the court to hand “an exemplary sentence and a strong message to all companies”.

The executive who was in charge of risk management at the time of the spying, Jean-Francois Paris, acknowledged to French judges that 530,000 to 630,000 euros a year were earmarked for such investigations.

Paris — the only official to have admitted to the alleged illegal sleuthing — said his department was responsible for handling the operation on orders from former Ikea France CEO Jean-Louis Baillot.

Paris was convicted of fraudulently gathering personal data, fined 10,000 euros (£8,600) and given an 18-month suspended sentence.

Baillot, who denied ordering up a spy operation, was convicted of receiving fraudulently collected data and complicity in the scheme.

He was fined 50,000 euros (£43,000) and given a two-year suspended sentence.

Another former CEO of Ikea France was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Ikea France’s lawyer, Emmanuel Daoud, said the company had not decided whether to appeal.

He said the case was marked by a lack of hard evidence and holes, and noted that the fines were well below the maximum possible.

“The court took into account the action plan that Ikea put in place after the revelation of the facts, in 2012. That’s very satisfying,” Mr Daoud said.

The company fired four executives and changed internal policy after French prosecutors opened a criminal probe in 2012.

Trade unions alleged that Ikea France paid to gain access to police files that had information about targeted individuals, particularly union activists and customers who

THIRD WORLD USA

How Detroit residents are building their own internet

Faced with a stark digital divide, Detroit community groups are mobilizing to build an internet network block by block

By Aaron Kalischer-Coggins | May 28, 2021

VIDEO

Detroit has historically been one of the least connected cities in America, with about 40 percent of Detroit residents lacking any home internet access at all. Things are changing, though, thanks in large part to projects like the Equitable Internet Initiative (EII), a collaboration between the Detroit Community Technology Project and a network of community organizations.

EII has an ambitious goal: to strengthen neighborhoods by building low-cost, high-speed internet for the underserved communities of Detroit, to increase digital literacy, and to train residents to be “digital stewards.” And against all odds, they are succeeding.

Over the past six years, EII has built and maintained an impressive internet network across large swaths of Detroit, training digital stewards from the community to set up and install wireless access points, fiber hookups and hotspots, and educating residents on how to safely and effectively use the internet.

The onslaught of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns around the country exacerbated an issue that has been pervasive for decades: the digital divide. As many Americans logged into Zoom to conduct business, chat with their family and watch Netflix, millions of others were offline and disconnected, struggling to find information about COVID-19, schedule vaccine appointments and apply for unemployment. This is the digital divide: the gap between those who have digital connectivity, and those who do not. This disparity is especially pronounced in communities of color, as well as low income communities.

According to Nyasia Valdez, network manager for Grace in Action in Southwest Detroit, one issue behind the digital divide in Detroit is affordability for residents. “In some areas of Southwest, there is only one internet provider, versus in other areas where there are three or four. So if their only option is $100 a month, then that’s what they have to pay.”

The areas that the Equitable Internet Initiative serves are predominantly communities of color, and the digital stewards that EII train and employ come from these communities. “It’s easier to make a community member a technician than a technician a community member,” according to digital steward Shiva Shahmir.

The stewards help install and maintain EII’s high speed network, which is wireless, point-to-point and provides a 25mbps up and down speed. It utilizes donated connections from 123Net, an enterprise ISP, who beams a gigabit connection from the top of the Renaissance Center, the highest point in Detroit, to the three anchor organization partners: Grace in Action, Church of the Messiah, and North End Woodward Community Coalition. From there, the stewards create wireless distribution networks to community hubs, and then to residential homes.

Now, EII is working on resilience plans for the future. First are solar charging stations, which are set up around Detroit and provide free, high speed internet access, as well as device-charging.

EII is also creating portable network kits, which are battery-powered cases that provide wireless signal to a four block radius, and can be used in situations where there is a network outage.

Finally, EII is developing an intranet, a system for communicating offline and solely via their network. This allows people to communicate privately and offline. “Law enforcement agencies are often asking me, can they become a part of our network,” says the Rev. Wally Gilbert, project manager for EII. “I say no, we guarantee the users of our network privacy, we don’t do any data collection. We want the community to feel safe communicating.”

“Access to information is like liberty. Whenever that is restricted or limited for the sake of capitalism, it’s so symbolic of oppression because people can’t make up their own minds,” says Shahmir. “When they don’t have that information, can they really make the best decisions for themselves?”

Man-sized halibut reeled in in the North Sea

By Christian Spencer | June 11, 2021

VIDEO

Story at a glance:

A Scottish man bought a 169 pound, 6 foot long halibut caught in the North Sea for his fishmonger business.

Halibut off Alaska can weigh up to 500 pounds.

A 250 pound Alaskan halibut can lay 4 million eggs.

A Scottish fishmonger bought a halibut caught in the North Sea that was the size of an average man.


A Halibut is seen on the line of a fisherman on July 23, 2013 in Ilulissat, Greenland. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

With the help of four men, Campbell Mickel brought the nearly 170-pound, 6-foot-long fish into his store, the New York Post reported.

“It’s a beast and it wasn’t cheap that’s for sure,” Mickel said. “It was wrapped up after I bought it and shipped to me on two pallets.”

In the city of Edinburgh, Mickel has his own seafood market and sells fillets of fish to nearby restaurants.

“The hardest part was getting it into the shop window on display,” he said. “It took four men to get it up there, it’s not the easiest job in the world lifting the dead weight of 169 lbs. slimy fish. It dwarfed the other halibut next to it.”

“We have filleted it now and started delivering it to our restaurant customers around Edinburgh, so it’s fair to say halibut will be on the menu this week. Everyone is used to small halibut, a regular one weighs between 22-30 lbs., so this is really special,” he added.

While Mickel’s halibut is impressive, Alaskan halibut can grow to be 8 feet long and 5 feet wide, and weigh 500 pounds, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries.

A 50-pound female halibut can produce about 500,000 eggs, and a 250-pound female can produce 4 million eggs.

“It’s fantastic news for our seas and oceans to see this size come out,” Mickel said. “I’m delighted to see that fish this size can still exist. It’s good news for the oceans and I’m looking forward to seeing more that have had the time to thrive and grow – as this one has.”

US Senate passes bill to recognize Juneteenth as a federal holiday

By Tanner Stening | tstening@masslive.com

The U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a bill to recognize Juneteenth as a federal holiday, according The Hill.



Juneteenth, which commemorates June 19, 1865, the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas learned they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years prior, has been celebrated by Black communities for years as the day slavery officially ended in the U.S.

The bill’s passage comes just days before the holiday is celebrated on June 19, and now awaits passage in the House.

Juneteenth became an officially recognized holiday in Massachusetts, thanks to an amendment added by State Rep. Bud L. Williams, of Springfield, and Maria Duaime Robinson, of Framingham, to a COVID-19 spending bill signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker last year.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the state’s first Black governor, in 2007 signed a proclamation to recognize Juneteenth as a day of observance. For the first time in Massachusetts, the historic day will be recognized as a state holiday this coming weekend.

Biden chooses tech critic Lina Khan to lead FTC

The move could signal a more progressive agenda for the Federal Trade Commission.

Abrar Al-Heeti

CNET
June 15, 2021 

Lina Khan was confirmed by the Senate to be commissioner of the FTC on Tuesday.

Getty Images

President Joe Biden selected big tech critic Lina Khan, a Democrat, to serve as chair of the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, the agency said. Her swearing in came soon after the Senate confirmed Khan in a 69-28 vote to be a commissioner of the FTC, according to CNBC.

"I look forward to working with my colleagues to protect the public from corporate abuse," Khan said in a statement.

Khan, 32, previously worked as an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School, and served as counsel to the US House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, helping in the investigation of digital markets related to Google, Apple and other big tech companies.

Tuesday's move could indicate Biden hopes the FTC takes on a more progressive agenda, CNBC notes. The president said in March he would nominate Khan to be an FTC commissioner.

Khan will take over for FTC Acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democrat. The FTC is comprised of five commissioners, of which no more than three can be from the same party. In her role, Khan will vote on enforcement issues involving competition and consumer protection.

Khan tweeted, "I'm so grateful to the Senate for my confirmation. Congress created the FTC to safeguard fair competition and protect consumers, workers, and honest businesses from unfair & deceptive practices. I look forward to upholding this mission with vigor and serving the American public."


First published on June 15, 2021 at 2:27 p.m. PT.

SHE BELIEVES IN GOD NOT EVOLUTION

Marjorie Taylor Greene leads conspiracy-heavy attack on Fauci

Alexander Nazaryan
·National Correspondent
Tue, June 15, 2021,

WASHINGTON — One after another, some of the most conservative members of the House of Representatives took to the stage at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to denounce Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top medical adviser to President Biden, and to air other pandemic-related grievances.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who was introducing a bill to reduce Fauci’s salary to $0 and have him account for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, led the attacks. The proposed legislation, called the Fire Fauci Act, stands no chance of passage in a House controlled by Democrats.

Nevertheless, the highly vituperative affair — replete with reminders that Fauci was an “unelected bureaucrat” — was indicative of how the bespectacled, Brooklyn-born immunologist continues to be at the center of every ongoing debate related to the coronavirus, including the economic costs of lockdowns (low, says a new study, though there are, of course, social and psychic costs to isolation) and the efficacy of wearing masks (exceptionally high, the discomfort of masking aside).

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. (Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Bitter recriminations over the handling of the pandemic continue to fill the national discourse, even as that pandemic ends. Conservatives believe that restrictions were onerous and unnecessary, while liberals and progressives have criticized former President Donald Trump’s response. Trump frequently undermined and threatened Fauci, eventually making Dr. Scott Atlas, a controversial Stanford-affiliated physician, his top coronavirus adviser.

Even as the pandemic ebbs in the United States, the attacks against Fauci have intensified. Critics have used his emails, released recently under a Freedom of Information Act request, to buttress their claims. Those show that he was uncertain about the efficacy of masks in the early stages of the pandemic. So were many others at a time early on when how the virus spread was poorly understood. One email Fauci received in January 2020 did raise the possibility of a lab escape, but there is no evidence he concealed critical information about the origins of the virus. Such information has been exceptionally difficult to come by for investigators outside China.

“Please cover his emails,” Greene said. “Get the truth out.” The emails were extensively covered by the Washington Post and other outlets, but conservatives who have been suspicious of Fauci and the scientific establishment from the start insist that the messages merit more investigation.

Taylor and her co-sponsors on the anti-Fauci bill (Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky; Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona; Mary Miller of Illinois; Buddy Carter of Georgia; Bob Good of Virginia; Matt Gaetz and Greg Steube of Florida; and Mo Brooks of Alabama) claim that Fauci knowingly funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that made the virus more lethal. Although that laboratory did receive National Institutes of Health funding through a New York-based organization called the EcoHealth Alliance, both Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins have explicitly said that Chinese grant recipients were prevented from using U.S. funds for so-called gain-of-function research, which makes a pathogen either more transmissible or more potent to see how it might then behave.

Rep. Thomas Massie calls for the firing of Dr. Anthony Fauci at the Capitol on Tuesday. (Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Conservatives are unconvinced. Now that Fauci is associated with Biden, not Trump, their attacks are seemingly intended to imply that the new administration is incapable of holding China to account. Biden has, in fact, called for a more complete investigation of how the coronavirus originated.

“Were we all victims of a bioweapon?” wondered Greene, a onetime adherent of the QAnon conspiracy theory who has also mused about “Jewish space lasers” and more recently dismissed evolution. She demanded “reparations” from the Chinese government, which has sought to distance itself from any responsibility for the origins of the virus, going so far as to call for investigations of bioweapons at American facilities. Yet scientists have become increasingly emboldened in arguing that the lab escape theory needs a harder look, with greater cooperation from China. The notion that China unleashed a bioweapon on the world, however, is not considered a credible hypothesis.

Trump was sometimes irritated with Fauci’s media appearances, and by the high degree of trustworthiness he was afforded by the public. Those grievances plainly persist. “Dr. Fauci leveraged his position as a leading figure in the White House to become a celebrity,” charged Rep. Biggs.

Greene and others spoke standing beside a placard that said: “Fauci lied. People died.” The words were accompanied by a photo of a masked Fauci, who is head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He has been in the federal government for 40 years and has served seven consecutive presidents, including Trump.

Firing him would be difficult, since Fauci is a senior public servant, not an appointed official. Nor are congressional Democrats, or the president, bound to take personnel advice from the most radical members of the opposition party, some of whom called into question Biden’s legitimate victory in last November’s election.

Dr. Anthony Fauci at a Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill on May 26. (Sarah Silbiger/Reuters)

Among the participants in Tuesday’s anti-Fauci fusillade was Rep. Brooks, who last week was sued by Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., for his alleged role in inciting pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6. In response to a question from Yahoo News, Brooks angrily denied that the anti-China rhetoric on display Tuesday could be fueling attacks against Asian Americans. He noted that Chinese Americans “are not necessarily members of the Chinese Communist Party.”

The purpose of Tuesday’s rally was largely symbolic, more significant in what it says about how conservatives plan to litigate the pandemic in the coming months, ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Even as life returns to normal in many parts of the country, there remain uncertainties about the upcoming school year, about how long white-collar workers will continue to work from home and just how much effort should go into investigating the origins of the coronavirus, not to mention how to prevent the next pandemic.

“Let’s not divide people with politics,” said Greene, who less than 24 hours earlier had called a press conference to apologize for having compared pandemic restrictions to the horrific treatment of Jews by Nazis during World War II. A skilled cultural warrior with little interest in seeking legislative solutions, Greene understands that the pandemic remains a motivating issue for both sides of the nation’s gaping political divide.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene holds a press conference outside the Capitol following a private visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Monday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

Fauci has been living under heightened security for months. That is likely to continue as long as he remains at the center of conservatives’ ire. Last month the National Review ran a cover story on what it deemed “the unforced errors of America’s political doctor,” mockingly depicting him as a would-be saint. And the anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to release a book highly critical of Fauci in September. As of Monday evening, that book was among the bestselling on Amazon.

Republicans introduce bill to fire Fauci, face of US Covid response

US Republicans including congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (2ndL) introduced a measure that would remove pandemic expert Anthony Fauci from his government job

 JIM WATSON AFP
Issued on: 15/06/2021 - 

Washington (AFP)

Several Republican lawmakers, eager to blame a US government official for the response to the coronavirus pandemic, introduced a bill Tuesday to fire Anthony Fauci, the face of American efforts to combat Covid-19.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene led a handful of colleagues in announcing the so-called Fire Fauci Act, which would reduce the famed infectious disease expert's government salary to zero and require the Senate to confirm someone to fill his position.

Fauci, who has advised seven US presidents, had become a trusted figure in the government's Covid-19 response, beginning with his work during Donald Trump's administration.

But conservatives have taken aim at his performance, accusing him of misleading Americans and providing contradictory advice on masks and social distancing.

"Dr Fauci was not elected by the American people. He was not chosen to guide our economy. He was not chosen to rule over parents and their children's education," Greene told reporters.

"But yet Dr Fauci very much controlled our lives for the past year."

The bill is not expected to receive a floor vote in the Democratically-controlled House.

Greene, whose extremist statements have made her a controversial figure in Congress, pointed to a series of Fauci emails that Republicans seized on to argue that he misled Americans and initially dismissed the idea that Covid-19 may have originated in a Chinese laboratory.

"It's time to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci and give answers to the American people," she said.

The White House defended Fauci this month after the emails surfaced, calling him "an undeniable asset" in the pandemic response.

Greene also aimed a fiery accusation at China, voicing suspicion that a Wuhan laboratory was seeking to weaponize the virus.

"Why would there ever be viruses created, taken out of nature, that can be shared and passed among bats or other creatures, and then harnessed and changed into some sort of virus that can be spread among people? There's a word for that: it's called bioweapon," she said.

"Were we all victims of a bioweapon? We demand answers."

China also must be held accountable, she said, noting the Wuhan Institute of Virology's "gain-of-function" research, in which scientists increase the strength of a virus to better study its effects on hosts.

This week the Chinese scientist at the center of theories that the pandemic originated with a leak from her specialized Wuhan lab denied her institution was to blame for the health disaster.

"How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?" Dr Shi Zhengli told The New York Times.

Another fire Fauci sponsor, congressman Mo Brooks, expressed support for Greene's bioweapons theory, saying a country would only make a virus more contagious for "militarization purposes."

Coronavirus was likely present in US from December 2019: study

Issued on: 15/06/2021 

A phlebotomist takes blood through a finger prick during a Covid-19 antibody test Frederic J. BROWN AFP

Washington (AFP)

A new antibody testing study published Tuesday has found further evidence that the coronavirus was present in the United States from at least December 2019, weeks before the first confirmed case was announced on January 21.

The National Institutes of Health study analyzed 24,000 stored blood samples contributed by volunteers across the country from January 2 to March 18, 2020.

Antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus were detected via two different serology tests in nine patient samples, according to the paper, which was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The participants were outside the major hotspots of Seattle and New York City, thought to be the key entry points of the virus to the United States.

The first positive samples came from participants in Illinois and Massachusetts on January 7 and 8, 2020, respectively, suggesting that the virus was present in those states in late December.

"Antibody testing of blood samples helps us better understand the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the US in the early days of the US epidemic, when testing was restricted," said lead author Keri Althoff, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The research builds on a similar investigation published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last November that reached the same conclusion.

But since there are uncertainties surrounding serology testing, further confirmation builds extra confidence in the finding.

To help minimize the possibility of false positives, the team used two separate tests on each sample, searching for antibodies that bind to different parts of the virus.

The types of antibodies they were looking for are called Immunoglobulin G, or IgG, which "neutralize" the virus' ability to invade cells and do not appear until two weeks after a person has been infected.

It therefore follows that study participants with these samples were exposed to the virus at least several weeks earlier.

Limitations include that the number of samples taken from many states was low -- just a few dozen or hundred,

The authors also do not know whether the participants became infected during travel, or within their own communities, and would like to see their work confirmed in further study.

Finally, there is a possibility that the antibodies they detected were formed against infection to other coronaviruses, such as the four that cause common colds.

But since other research has shown that "cross-reactivity" between these coronaviruses is low, the team estimated that the probability all nine samples were false positives was one in 100,000.

The US death toll from Covid-19 surpassed 600,000 on Tuesday, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

THE UNDEAD PARTY

Algeria’s establishment FLN wins parliamentary poll

Issued on: 15/06/2021 

The president of the National Independent Elections Authority (ANIE), Mohamed Charfi, speaks during a press conference in Algiers on June 15, 2021. © Ryad Kramdi, AFP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Algeria's National Liberation Front (FLN) party won weekend parliamentary elections with a significantly reduced number of seats and with the country's lowest ever turnout at 23 percent, the electoral board said Tuesday.

According to initial figures, the FLN, the North African country's single party for decades and the main component of the outgoing parliament, led with 105 out of 407 seats in Saturday's poll, the head of the National Independent Elections Authority (ANIE) said.

The result comes somewhat as a surprise, as the party had been considered moribund after the rule of ousted former autocrat Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

However, it would also indicate that the FLN has lost more than 50 seats and controls less than a quarter of the new assembly.

Independents were second with 78 seats while the moderate Islamist party Movement of Society for Peace (MSP), which had previously claimed its candidates were ahead in most regions, was third with 64, electoral commission chief Mohamed Chorfi said.

"The foundations of this parliament have been built in total freedom and transparency for the people," he added.

Democratic National Rally (RND), traditional ally of the FLN and also linked to Bouteflika's rule, was on 57 seats.

Only 5.6 million of more than 24 million eligible voters lodged a ballot at Saturday's polls -- a record low turnout of just 23.03 percent -- with more than a million invalid votes cast, the ANIE said in provisional figures.

The long-running Hirak protest movement which ousted Bouteflika from power had boycotted the vote, as with a constitutional referendum in November that gave additional powers to the presidency and the army.

(AFP)

FASCISTS PASS ANTI HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
Lawmakers in Hungary pass anti-LGBT law ahead of 2022 election

Issued on: 16/06/2021 - 

FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators protest against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the latest anti-LGBTQ law in Budapest, Hungary, June 14, 2021. © REUTERS/Marton Monus

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Hungary's parliament passed legislation on Tuesday that bans the dissemination of content in schools deemed to promote homosexuality and gender change, amid strong criticism from human rights groups and opposition parties.

Hardline nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who faces an election next year, has grown increasingly radical on social policy, railing against LGBT people and immigrants in his self-styled illiberal regime, which has deeply divided Hungarians.

His Fidesz party, which promotes a Christian-conservative agenda, tacked the proposal banning school talks on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) issues to a separate, widely backed bill that strictly penalises paedophilia, making it much harder for opponents to vote against it.

The move, which critics say wrongly conflates paedophilia with LGBT issues, triggered a mass rally outside parliament on Monday, while several rights groups have called on Fidesz to withdraw the bill.

Fidesz lawmakers overwhelmingly backed the legislation on Tuesday, while leftist opposition parties boycotted the vote.

Under amendments submitted to the bill last week, under-18s cannot be shown any content that encourages gender change or homosexuality. This also applies to advertisements. The law sets up a list of organisations allowed to provide education about sex in schools.

The U.S. Embassy in Budapest said it was "deeply concerned" by anti-LGBTQI+ aspects of the legislation.

"The United States stands for the idea that governments should promote freedom of expression and protect human rights, including the rights of members of the LGBTQI+ community," it said in a statement on its website.

Restrictions

Gay marriage is not recognised in Hungary and only heterosexual couples can legally adopt children. Orban's government has redefined marriage as the union between one man and one woman in the constitution, and limited gay adoption.

Critics have drawn a parallel between the new legislation and Russia's 2013 law that bans disseminating "propaganda on non-traditional sexual relations" among young Russians.

Poland's conservative ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), Fidesz's main ally in the European Union, has taken a similarly critical stance on LGBT issues. Budapest and Warsaw are at odds with the European Union over some of their conservative reforms.

The European Parliament's rapporteur on the situation in Hungary, Greens lawmaker Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, slammed the new law on Tuesday: "Using child protection as an excuse to target LGBTIQ people is damaging to all children in Hungary."

Orban has won three successive election landslides since 2010, but opposition parties have now combined forces for the first time and caught up with Fidesz in opinion polls.

Hungary passes ban on LGBTQ+ content in schools tied to child sex abuse law
By Sommer Brokaw

Protesters march to oppose LGBTQ+ related amendments to a national child sex abuse law at the parliament building in Budapest, Hungary, on Monday. The amendments include changes in sex education curricula in schools. Photo by Szilard Koszticsak/EPA-EFE


June 15 (UPI) -- Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday passed a ban against certain LGBTQ+ content in schools through amendments that were made to a national child sex abuse law.

Hungarian Parliament voted to adopt the law that increases sentences for sex crimes and creates a public database of sex offenders. But it also includes late changes that restrict LGBTQ+ content for students under 18 in schools.

The law restricts education and advertising deemed to "popularize" homosexuality or gender identification outside of the that assigned at birth. It also restricts sexual education to teachers and organizations approved by the government.

The national assembly passed the law 157-1 after a plea from one of Europe's leading human rights officials to abandon it as "an affront" against the LGBTQ+ community.

"This is a dark day," Amnesty International Hungary Director David Vig said in a statement. "This new legislation will further stigmatize the [LGBTQ+] people and their allies. It will expose people already facing a hostile environment to even greater discrimination."

"Tagging these amendments to a bill that seeks to crack down on child abuse appears to be a deliberate attempt by the Hungarian government to conflate pedophilia with [LGBTQ+] people," he added.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is also president of the ruling Fidesz political party, has been accused of using the child abuse law to gain support in his conservative base ahead of elections next year and to shifhe focus away from other scandals.

The majority Fidesz-controlled Hungarian Parliament previously enacted legislation barring gay couples from adopting children.