END
ANTI-2SLGBTQIA+
HATE AND VIOLENCE
IN CANADA
WRITE TO CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU

During Pride month, call on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Government of Canada to reaffirm support and solidarity for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities in Canada. You will be able to view and edit your message before it is sent.

In 2023 alone, Canada has seen a surge in anti-2SLGBTQIA+ hate motivated attacks through vandalism of Pride flags in peoples homes, schools in Nova Scotia, and Halifax, and anti-2SLGTBQIA+ protests at a children's drag story event in Montreal. In April 2023, the township of Norwich, Ontario voted to exclude pride and other non-civic flags from being displayed on municipal property. In the same month, a youth-led anti-trans group called Save Canada disrupted an International Day of Pink event being held at a local school in Ontario that was commemorating North America’s 2SLGBTQIA+ civil rights movement known as the Stonewall Riots.

“More anti-LGBT+ demonstration events have already been recorded in Canada so far this year than in all of 2021 and 2023 is on track to exceed 2022.”
- Sam Jones, Armed Conflict Location and Data Project.”

In the face of rising hate, violence, abuse and attacks on the human rights of 2SLGTBQIA+ communities, we need urgent action to prevent hate from gaining more traction in Canada.

ACT IN SOLIDARITY WITH 2SLGBTQIA+ COMMUNITIES IN CANADA

Read Amnesty's blog Anti-2SLGBTQIA+ Hate in Canada Must End

Read Amnesty’s blog about the impact of Uganda’s ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill’ on Ugandan LGBTI+ communities

Read Amnesty’s Report Pandemic or Not: We Have the Right to Live to learn more about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on LGTBQI+ communities across Asia and the Pacific Islands

Listen to the Podcast “Why has it become harder to get gender-affirming healthcare in Ontario”

Listen to the Podcast “How anti-trans hate speech online leads to real-world violence”.

US judge blocks Florida ban on trans minor care in narrow ruling, says ‘gender identity is real’

By BRENDAN FARRINGTON

June 6, 2023

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge temporarily blocked portions of a new Florida law championed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that bans transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, saying in a Tuesday ruling that gender identity is real and the state has no rational basis for denying patients treatment.

Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction, saying three transgender children can continue receiving treatment. The lawsuit challenges the law DeSantis signed shortly before he announced a run for president.

“Gender identity is real. The record makes this clear,” Hinkle said, adding that even a witness for the state agreed.

Transgender medical care for minors is increasingly under attack — Florida is among 19 states that have enacted laws restricting or banning treatment. But it has been available in the United States for more than a decade and is endorsed by major medical associations.

Hinkle’s ruling was narrowly focused on the three children whose parents brought the suit. Simone Chriss, a lawyer for Southern Legal Counsel representing the parents, said she hopes health care providers and prosecutors see the ruling as applying statewide, like when Hinkle issued an injunction in 2014 declaring the state’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional as it applied to a single couple.

“The state no longer has any valid interest in enforcing something that’s unconstitutional,” Chriss said.

As she spoke, DeSantis’s office issued a statement saying the opposite, and the law will be enforced for all except the three children.

“We will continue fighting against the rogue elements in the medical establishment that push ideology over evidence,” press secretary Jeremy Redfern said.

“Wow! Jiminy Crickets! I have no words,” Chriss said. “I am always saddened by the things our state chooses to put out.”

She said her hope is that regardless of DeSantis’ position, state attorneys won’t prosecute doctors for providing care “that is aligned with every major medical organization — not a rogue few, but all of them.”

Attention on the new law has focused on language involving minors, and Hinkle’s ruling focuses on the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The ruling doesn’t address other language that makes it difficult to near impossible for adults to receive or continue gender-affirming care.

Some Florida parents of transgender children have sought help leaving the state because of the law, including Kim, a Pensacola mother who didn’t want her last name used out of fear of her child becoming a political target. The narrow ruling doesn’t help Kim or other families who aren’t plaintiffs in the case, and she’s concerned the legal battle can stretch on for years.

In the meantime, her family is fundraising online and job-hunting to move to states that haven’t passed laws like Florida, said Kim.

“They’re moral policing,” said Kim. “Their claims are baseless, and that’s one of the hardest things to swallow — it’s based on Ron DeSantis’ personal beliefs.”

Hinkle, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, said people who mistakenly believe gender identity is a choice also “tend to disapprove all things transgender and so oppose medical care that supports a person’s transgender existence.”

Banning treatment for minors ignores risks patients might face, Hinkle said.

RELATED COVERAGE

– Transgender adults in Florida are blindsided that a new law also limits their access to health care

– Some trans people turn to crowdfunding to leave Florida after anti-LGBTQ+ laws

Research suggests that transgender youth and adults are prone to stress, depression and suicidal thoughts, and the evidence is mixed on whether treatment with hormones or surgery resolves those issues.

Even ahead of contemplating medical treatment, experts agree, allowing children to express their gender in a way that matches their identity is beneficial, such as letting children assigned male at birth wear clothing or hairstyles usually associated with girls, if that is their wish.

“There are risks attendant to not using these treatments, including the risk — in some instances, the near certainty — of anxiety and depression and even suicidal ideation. The challenged statute ignores the benefits that many patients realize from these treatments and the substantial risk posed by foregoing the treatments,” Hinkle said.

He also noted that hormone treatments and puberty blockers are often used to treat non-transgender children for other conditions, so the law makes their use legal for some, but not for others.

The three children in the lawsuit will “suffer irreparable harm” if they cannot begin puberty blockers, Hinkle said.

“The treatment will affect the patients themselves, nobody else, and will cause the defendants no harm,” Hinkle said.

Cross-dressing J. Edgar Hoover story dismissed by historians

By Jeff Stein

November 11, 2011

“Too good to check!” reporters sometimes joke when they hear a story so fantastic they fear checking it out, lest it turn out untrue.

Likewise, the public seems determined to cling to the story that J. Edgar Hoover, the piranha-jawed director of the FBI for over 40 years, liked to par-tay in a cocktail dress, fishnet stockings, full makeup and a wig.

No matter that it’s almost certainly untrue, based as it is on a single discredited source, according to almost every historian of the FBI, including the G-man’s fiercest critics.

With the opening last week of “J. Edgar,” however, the transvestite legend is likely to get fresh legs. While the movie sidesteps any reference to cross-dressing parties the G-man is alleged to have attended, it does include a poignant scene of a deeply grieving Hoover caressing, then donning, his just-deceased mother’s necklace and dress.

Why the obsession with Hoover in a dress?

It’s “the sheer snicker-inducing incongruity of the visual . . . the delicious irony in the spectacle of the man who kept everyone else’s secrets having such a transgressive one of his own,” says Thomas Doherty, a Brandeis University professor and author of “Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture.”

The legend took root in 1993, with publication of “Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover,” by Irish journalist Anthony Summers. Summers’s principal source was socialite Susan Rosenstiel, the embittered former wife of millionaire bootlegger and distiller Lewis Rosenstiel, a Hoover crony who was bisexual himself.

Susan Rosenstiel had been “trying to peddle this story for years,” Peter Maas, the late organized crime chronicler, wrote in Esquire.

“She had an interest in discrediting her former husband,” Marquette University historian Athan Theoharis, author of several authoritative works on the FBI, said in an e-mail.

What lent credence to the legend was the G-man’s widely known relationship with Clyde Tolson, his elegant longtime aide, with whom he had a spouse-like, but perhaps unconsummated, relationship.

“They ate lunch together every day and dinner together almost every night. They vacationed together, staying in adjoining rooms, and they took adoring photos of each other,” writes Ronald Kessler, author of “The Secrets of the FBI” and other books on the bureau. But no evidence of sex between them exists, he and other historians point out.

The cross-dressing story is “a fabrication concocted by Susan Rosenstiel, who had served time in prison for perjury,” Kessler wrote, noting that FBI protective agents followed Hoover just about everywhere he went.

If “anything scandalous had happened with the director,” one agent told him, “it would have gone coast to coast within the bureau in 30 minutes.”

Theoharis also doubts that Hoover was gay, much less a transvestite who attended an “orgy” Rosenstiel claimed she witnessed at the Plaza Hotel in New York, hosted by Roy Cohn, top aide to the communist-hunting Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.

Doherty agrees. “I’ve always been suspect of the claims that Hoover held hands with Clyde Tolson,” as shown in the new movie, “or that he would appear in full-on drag,” he said.“It’s just one of those stories that is too good to be true.”

Summers stands by his story, and provided a copy of Rosenstiel’s sworn affidavit. He called the cross-dressing allegation “one passage in a biography of some 600 pages.”

But it was the one that stuck.

Former Washington Post “SpyTalk” blogger Jeff Stein specializes in intelligence issues.

J. Edgar Hoover: Gay or Just a Man Who Has Sex With Men?

Clint Eastwood film leaves question of homosexuality ambiguous.

By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES

November 14, 2011, 9

Nov. 16, 2011; -- J. Edgar Hoover led a deeply repressed sexual life, living with his mother until he was 40, awkwardly rejecting the attention of women and pouring his emotional, and at times, physical attention on his handsome deputy at the FBI, according to the new movie, "J. Edgar," directed by Clint Eastwood.

Filmgoers never see the decades-long romance between the former FBI director, and his number two, Clyde Tolson, consummated, but there's plenty of loving glances, hand-holding and one scene with an aggressive, long, deep kiss.

So was the most powerful man in America, who died in 1972 -- three years after the Stonewall riots marked the modern gay civil rights movement -- homosexual?

Eastwood admits the relationship between Hoover, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and Clyde Tolson, played by Armie Hammer, is ambiguous.

"He was a man of mystery," he told ABC's "Good Morning America" last week. "He might have been [gay]. I am agnostic about it. I don't really know and nobody really knew."


In public, Hoover waged a vendetta against homosexuals and kept "confidential and secret" files on the sex lives of congressmen and presidents. But privately, according to some biographers, he had numerous trysts with men, including a lifelong affair with Tolson.

Dissociation -- denying homosexuality, but displaying sexual behavior -- is "not uncommon," according to Dr. Jack Drescher, a New York City psychiatrist who is an expert in gender and sexuality.

Men with strong attractions to other men can have different degrees of acceptance from being fully closeted to being openly gay. And even if they are homosexually self-aware, they can embrace it or reject it publicly.

"We confuse sexual orientation with sexual identity," said Drescher. "Some men do not publicly identify as gay, regardless of their sexual behavior."

Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracks a group that is not labeled "gay" but "men who have sex with men."

Roy Cohn, the lawyer who served as chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in his anti-communist campaign of the 1950s and who successfully convicted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of espionage, denied he was gay, despite an attraction to men.

Cohn, who died of AIDS in 1986, was a contemporary of Hoover and according to one biography, the two attended sex parties together in New York in the 1950s.

Cohn was characterized in a scene from Tony Kuschner's play, "Angels in America," speaking to his doctor: "...you are hung up on words, on labels, that you believe they mean what they seem to mean. AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with, but they don't tell you that ... Roy Cohn is a heterosexual man, Henry, who f****s around with guys."

Hoover's degree of self-awareness may have been the same as Cohn's. Despite his same-sex dalliances, he occasionally sought a "Mrs. Hoover" and even courted -- albeit uncomfortably -- actress Ginger Rogers' mother and actress Dorothy Lamour.

Hoover's neuroses were likely rooted in childhood: He was ashamed of his mentally ill father and was dependent on his morally righteous mother, Annie, well into middle age. Until her death in 1938, Hoover had no social life outside the office.

In the film, Annie chastises her powerful son as he wilted before some of his FBI critics, telling him, "I'd rather have a dead son than a daffodil for a son."

In a 2004 biography by Richard Hack, "Puppetmaster," which was culled from the notes of Truman Capote, who had begun interviews on Hoover and Tolson's relationship, the author says Hoover was not gay, but suggests the man was vicariously turned on by the smut he collected on others.

One 200-page secret document was on the extracurricular activities of Capote himself, who was openly gay.

But Anthony Summers, who exposed the secret sex life of Hoover in his 1993 book, "Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover," said there was no ambiguity about the FBI director's sexual proclivities.

"What does Clint Eastwood know about it?" he asked ABCNews.com. Summers collaborated with historians and conducted 800 interviews for the book, including nieces and those who were young enough at the time to have known the man personally.


"We were able to get a close view of the man as an individual and as a human being -- as close as anybody who had not been afraid of him since he died," said Summers.

With interest in the Eastwood film, publishers in the U.S. and in Britain are issuing a remake of the book.

One medical expert told Summers that Hoover was "strongly predominant homosexual orientation" and another categorized him as a "bisexual with failed heterosexuality."

Hoover often suppressed his urges, but would break out in lapses that could have destroyed him -- alleged orgies in New York City hotels and affairs with teenage boys in a limousine, according to interviews conducted by Summers.

"He was a sadly repressed individual, but most people, even J. Edgar Hoover, let go on occasion," he said.

Hoover as a Cross-Dresser Is Controversial

One short scene in the film showed the FBI director in anguish over his mother's death, putting on her dress and beads, a nod to Summers expose that Hoover had been a cross-dresser.

The Washington Post recently dismissed that account because of a discredited source, but Summers maintains he had two other independent sources from different periods in Hoover's life.

Hoover often frequented New York City's Stork Club and one observer -- soap model Luisa Stuart, who was 18 or 19 at the time -- told Summers she saw Hoover holding hands with Tolson as they all rode in a limo uptown to the Cotton Club in 1936.

"I didn't really understand anything about homosexuality at the time," said Stuart. "But I'd never seen two men holding hands. And I remember asking Art [Arthur] about it in the car on the way home that night. And he just said, 'Oh, come on. You know,' or something like that. And he told me they were queers or fairies --- the sort of terms they used in those days."

Hoover promoted men inclined to homosexual indiscretions, including Tolson, who had barely 18 months experience with the FBI when he became Hoover's deputy.

The pair used to make "saucy jokes" about some of the other agents, like Melvin Purvis, who was a hero for arresting John Dillinger, according to Summers.

Purvis's son shared his father's 500-letter correspondence with Hoover, who teased the good-looking, blond-haired agent as "the Clark Gable of the FBI," even though he was heterosexual.

Many were intimate and one was highly charged with innuendo, as Hoover referred to himself as the "Chairman of the Moral Uplift Squad."

Ethel Merman, who had known Hoover since 1938, knew his sexual orientation, according to Summers. In 1978 when the actress was asked to comment on Anita Bryant's anti-gay campaign, Merman told the reporter, "Some of my best friends are homosexual. Everybody knew about J. Edgar Hoover, but he was the best chief the FBI ever had."

Harry Hay, founder of the Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights organizations, confirmed that Hoover and Tolson sat in boxes owned by and used exclusively by gay men at their racing haunt Del Mar in California.

"They were nodded together as lovers," he told Summers.

Another FBI agent who had gone on fishing trips with Hoover and Tolson revealed that the director liked to "sunbathe all day in the nude." Even novelist William Styron told Summers that he once spotted Hoover and Tolson in a California beach house -- the director painting his friends toenails.

But, according to Summers, "Nobody dared say anything, he was so powerful."

The author interviewed the widow of respected Washington, D.C. psychiatrist Dr. Marshall de G. Ruffin, who treated Hoover in 1946 after his general practitioner had been "puzzled by a strange malaise in his patient."

Monteen Ruffin told Summers that Hoover was "very paranoid" about anyone finding out, and he eventually stopped seeing the psychiatrist. She said her husband burned the evidence.

"He was definitely troubled by homosexuality," she said in 1990, "and my husband's notes would have proved that ... I might stir a kettle of worms by making that statement, but everybody then understood that he was a homosexual, not just the doctors."

As the movie depicts, after Hoover's death, his loyal secretary Helen Gandy destroys the "official and confidential" files.

When Hoover died in 1972, President Richard Nixon ordered his "dirty tricks man" Gordon Liddy to scour the FBI director's office for files. But when they arrived, someone had taken "drastic action," said Summers. Nothing but tables and chairs remained.

Summers said he is often asked, but rarely answers the question about what he personally thought of Hoover as a human being.

"Yes, I had sympathy for somebody who has to bury their real preferences through a long life in the public eye," he said. "But not sympathy for the way in which he was dictatorial, the way he behaved politically and personally to people right from the beginning in his late teens and early 20s.

"He was totally self-serving and the way in which he was a repressed homosexual didn't require him to abuse individual rights and human liberties the way he did," said Summers. "It does not begin to justify his behavior toward blacks and concoct an anonymous letter to Martin Luther King and suggest he end it all and kill himself."

Psychiatrists have concluded that Hoover "no doubt" had a narcissistic personality disorder, perhaps because of his dependency on a forceful mother who had "great expectations for her son," he said.

"Studies suggest that people with such backgrounds block their feelings and cut meaningful relationships," according to Summers, who said Hoover would have been a "perfect high-level Nazi."

However, Eastwood, who is a Republican, contends that J. Edgar Hoover was "probably good for the country," and whether he was homosexual or not makes no difference.

"I don't really know and nobody really knew," he told ABC. "It's definitely a love story. You can love a person and whether it goes into the realm of being gay or not, is here nor there."

A younger generation of gays was moved by the film precisely because it portrayed such an iconic figure's struggle with his sexuality.

"The audience I was in clearly rooted for Hoover to be gay and to have happiness in his sex and love life," said Ben Ryan, a 33-year-old novelist from New York City. "In a pivotal scene between DiCaprio and Hammer in which the two men engage in the classic brawl-leads-to-furious-kiss, everyone got so excited when they finally locked lips."

"Anyone in their right mind would see this movie and say, 'Oh, well, of course Hoover was gay,'" he said. "The more suspicious among us might think that the filmmakers were still afraid of Hoover's ghost suing them for libel if they just put it right out there that he was gay."

Still, he said, the film is a "tragic story that should hopefully teach society lessons about how dangerous sexual repression is."

Was J. Edgar Hoover a cross-dresser?

By Cecil Adams

STRAIGHT DOPE

Dec 5, 2002,


Dear Cecil: Was J. Edgar Hoover’s cross-dressing an urban legend or a fact? Are there any pictures of him in drag? Where are they if there are/were any? I have never been able to find any info on this except small references in conspiracy books. 

Cate

Cecil replies:

One more example of how the oligarchs plot to keep the truth from us, you’re thinking — not that this is something you necessarily want to see covered in sixth grade social studies. In point of fact, however, the alleged transvestitism of John Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972, has never been established, and reputable historians say it’s an urban legend.

The story probably got its start because of more plausible rumors that Hoover was gay. He and his right-hand man, Clyde Tolson, were constant companions for more than 40 years, even vacationing together, and both remained lifelong bachelors. (Hoover lived with his mom until she died in 1938.) They say Richard Nixon, on hearing of Hoover’s death, exclaimed with his customary delicacy, “Jesus Christ! That old cocksucker!”

The cross-dressing thing, however, is a definite no. The story appears in Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover (1993), a gossipy biography by British journalist Anthony Summers, who has also written a JFK assassination conspiracy book. Summers says he got his info from Susan Rosenstiel, fourth wife of Lewis Rosenstiel, chairman of Schenley Industries, a liquor distiller with reputed mob connections.

Ms. Rosenstiel claimed that in 1958 she and her husband went to a party at a New York hotel, where they met Hoover and McCarthy witch-hunt lawyer Roy Cohn. Hoover, whom Cohn introduced as “Mary,” was supposedly wearing a wig, a black dress, lace stockings, and high heels. Hoover went into a bedroom, took off his skirt to reveal a garter belt, and had a couple of blond boys — one wearing rubber gloves — “work on him with their hands.” Cohn and Hoover then watched while Lewis Rosenstiel had sex with the boys.

A year later Ms. Rosenstiel attended another party at the same hotel; this time Hoover wore a red dress and a black feather boa. He had one of the blond boys, who were now dressed in leather, read to him from a Bible while the other “played” with him. Hoover then grabbed the Bible, tossed it down, and told the first boy to join in.

Most researchers, including many hostile to Hoover, say this story is ludicrous. In a 1993 Esquire article, journalist Peter Maas wrote that Susan Rosenstiel, the sole source of the cross-dressing allegations, had “been trying to peddle this story for years,” apparently because she believed Hoover had put FBI agents on her tail to help her husband during their divorce. According to Ronald Kessler, author of The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI (2002), Ms. Rosenstiel did jail time for perjury in connection with a 1971 case.

Even if we set aside the teller’s credibility, it’s difficult to take this tale seriously. Hoover was an old hand at blackmail — he used incriminating information his agency collected about prominent people to maintain his hold on office and otherwise get his way. Would a man with so many enemies put himself in a position to be blackmailed by waltzing around a hotel in drag?

Summers also claims that the FBI gave the Mafia a pass for many years because mob boss Meyer Lansky had a photo of Hoover and Tolson having sex. (Apparently a photo of two men humping on a beach did exist, but one source who claims he saw it says it was too blurry to permit the men to be identified.) Though Hoover did appear reluctant to go after organized crime, most observers think that was because he preferred easy targets to bulk up his arrest records. Once ordered to take on the mob by Robert Kennedy, Hoover pursued Lansky in particular with zeal — irrational behavior if Lansky could expose him. Maas also wrote that when he asked Lansky’s closest associate about the photo, the old mafioso replied, “Are you nuts?”

Which brings us back to Tolson, and to Hoover’s rumored homosexuality. There were hints about this throughout the FBI boss’s career, some of them a little silly. A 1930s magazine article, for example, describes Hoover’s mincing step. He was a bit dandyish, favoring white linen suits as a young man; he had classical statues of male nudes at his home, and one of his hobbies was antique collecting. On the more serious side, many people sensed that his long relationship with Tolson was more than a friendship — the pair never lived together, but they’re buried side by side. Today some gay activists include Hoover and Tolson in their pantheons of famous gay couples.

Appearances notwithstanding, no one has found concrete evidence that the two men were anything other than buddies. Given Hoover’s ability to cover his tracks — his associates, with Tolson’s help, destroyed many of his files upon his death — it’s unlikely anyone ever will.

Cecil Adams

STRAIGHT DOPE

Why Are Laos Activists Being Targeted Abroad?


Deutsche Welle

2023/06/07
Critics of Laos’ repressive one-party state, both in the country and in exile in Thailand, have been targeted in a recent series of arrests and attacks.

By Tommy Walker

Political activists from Laos are facing growing threats to their safety in exile, human rights activists have warned.

The body of exiled Lao political activist Bounsuan Kitiyano was found with three gunshot wounds in a forest in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, on May 17. Kitiyano, 56, was a member of Free Lao, a Thailand-based pro-democracy group formed by Lao residents, migrant workers, and activists who oppose the one-party government in the Southeast Asian nation.

Members of the group have become a target of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, which has held power since 1975 following a civil war that led to the country’s monarchy being abolished.
Criticism of one-party state ‘off limits’

The Free Lao group is backed by the Alliance for Democracy in Laos, a Lao diaspora group based in Hagen, Germany, according to Emilie Palamy Pradichit.

Pradichit is the founder of the Manushya Foundation in Bangkok. The human rights organization promotes democracy and has assisted with activists’ protection, including helping Lao critics and bloggers in exile resettle in third countries.

“That diaspora is the old generation, they used to be monarchists. They left the communist regime in the 1970s and ‘80s and became political refugees,” Pradichit said of Free Lao.

Pradichit described the alliance as a key enemy of the Lao government. But in recent years, it has reduced its advocacy, particularly since the disappearance of Od Sayavong, a Free Lao member who had been living in Bangkok. He hasn’t been seen since August 2019.

“Since the disappearance of Od [Sayavong], [the alliance] has stopped having activities much, leaders have been relocated abroad, others have kept a low profile,” Pradichit said.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the watchdog is “worried that the Lao government is hunting the last group members of the Free Lao activists’ network in Bangkok.”


“Any sort of criticism of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic [government] or the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party leaders is really off-limits,” said Robertson.
‘Escalation of attacks’ on activists

Kitiyano is the latest in a long list of activists to be targeted. In April, Lao activist Anousa “Jack” Luangsuphom, 25, was shot in the face and chest at point-blank range by an unknown assailant while sitting in a cafe in the Lao capital, Vientiane. After surviving the ordeal, he fled the country and is currently at an undisclosed location.

The activist ran two community Facebook pages that triggered discussions on corruption and pollution, and called for more civil rights in Laos. Luangsuphom’s associates believe an undercover police officer was sent to kill him because of his work. Lao authorities said the attack was related to a personal or business dispute.

In 2019, human rights and environmental activist Houayheung “Muay” Xayabouly was arrested and imprisoned for five years by Lao authorities after she repeatedly criticized the government over the mishandling of the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy dam collapse in 2018, which killed dozens of people.


In April this year, Free Lao member Savang Phaleuth was arrested as he returned to Laos from Thailand.

“We have been unable so far to determine his fate or whereabouts. We don’t know what happened or where he is now, or how he is doing,” said Andrea Giorgetta, director for the Asia region at the International Federation for Human Rights.

He said the crackdown on Lao critics is a “concerning trend.”

“There has been an escalation in the past several weeks because of obviously attempted killings and murder. That is definitely much more an extreme measure, and definitely an escalation of attacks against government critics and activists.”

Calls for Thailand to ratify U.N. Refugee Convention

Thailand has not ratified the U.N.’s 1951 Refugee Convention, meaning the country has no specific domestic legal framework for the protection of urban refugees and asylum-seekers.

Following the Thai general elections in May, which saw the progressive Move Forward Party win the most seats and form an opposition coalition, Robertson of HRW said change is needed to protect refugees.

“The new Thai government should totally change policy and ratify the Refugee Convention. There can be no more of the ‘swap mart’ arrangements sending people back into harm’s way across the border.

“Free Lao group members are already trying to get out of Thailand, and who could blame them? There’s been little or no protection for the Free Lao,” he added.
EU to meet Laos for human rights talks

Last year, Thailand passed a law that would prevent enforced disappearances. The International Federation for Human Rights has been pushing for a stronger legal framework to protect exiled critics and refugees.

“On the legal standpoint, we have been campaigning for many years for Thailand to ratify the international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearance. The hope is that there will in fact be a [new] law for the prevention of torture and enforced disappearance in Thailand,” Giorgetta said.

The European Union is also set to meet with the Laos government this month for a human rights dialogue, Giorgetta added.

“We brief the European Commission, we normally provide alternative information from the side of civil society, to inform about the key cases […] human rights violations, impunity and so on will be in the briefing papers.”

Edited by: Sou-Jie van Brunnersum

This article was originally published on Deutsche Welle. Read the original article here.

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TNL Editor: Bryan Chou (@thenewslensintl)

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Cameroonian Women Win German Africa Prize for Peace Efforts

The 1st National Women's Convention for Peace in Cameroon, an umbrella group with 80 member organisations, has been awarded the German Africa Prize, according to Deutsche Welle.

It is the largest and most far-reaching network of women's organisations focusing on peace in Cameroon. It was established in January 2021 and is made up of organisations representing the 10 regions of Cameroon, as well as up to 25 distinct social categories of women.

The women called for an immediate cease-fire, a resumption of dialogue between the government and separatists in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon, a place for women at the negotiating table, the strengthening of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration centres and the creation of psychosocial support centres for war victims in conflict regions.

The German foundation has been committed to strengthening relations between Germany and Africa for 45 years. Since 1993, the foundation has awarded the German Africa Prize to outstanding personalities from the continent who have made exceptional contributions to democracy, peace, human rights, arts and culture, economic development, science and society.

Cameroon's English-speaking separatists launched their rebellion in 2017 after what they say was years of discrimination by the country's French-speaking majority.

The conflict has killed more than 6,000 people and displaced more than 760,000 others, according to the International Crisis Group.

More recently, thirty women kidnapped by pro-independence rebels were released, some with serious injuries. Deutsche Welle reports that the women were released on Wednesday May 24, 2023, having been captured days earlier. A prominent traditional leader in the troubled Northwest region, Fon Kevin Shumitang, was also freed after 18 months of being held captive by separatists. Government officials say the military rescued him in battles with separatist fighters, but the fighters insist that they set the traditional ruler free.

Collapse of Ukraine’s Nova Kakhovka dam an ‘ecological catastrophe’


By Josh Pennington, Jo Shelley, Olga Voitovych, Julia Kesaieva and Helen Regan, CNN
Wed June 7, 2023

02:22 - Source: CNN

CNN —

The collapse of the Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine has sparked fears of an ecological catastrophe, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky describing the situation as “an environmental bomb of mass destruction.”

Water levels on Wednesday continued to rise after the Russian-occupied dam and hydro-electric power plant was destroyed early Tuesday, forcing more than 1,400 people to flee their homes and threatening vital water supplies as flooding inundated towns, cities and farmland.

Kyiv and Moscow have traded accusations over the dam’s destruction, without providing concrete proof that the other is culpable. It is not yet clear whether the dam was deliberately attacked or whether the breach was the result of structural failure.

Zelensky, however, said Russia bears “criminal liability” and Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating the dam incident as a case of “ecocide.”

“The consequences of the tragedy will be clear in a week. When the water goes away, it will become clear what is left and what will happen next,” he said.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said Wednesday that it is investigating the incident as a war crime and as possible “ecocide,” or criminal environmental destruction.

“Ukraine has initiated proceedings over this crime, qualifying it as a violation of the laws and customs of war and ecocide. It has caused severe long-term damage to people and the environment,” Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin said in a meeting Wednesday, according to a readout from his office.

“The consequences are catastrophic. More than 40,000 people have been affected. Homes and infrastructure have been destroyed, land has become unsuitable for agriculture, and water supply has been disrupted in a number of regions, both in the government-controlled areas and in the territories temporarily occupied by Russia,” the readout added.

Concerns are now turning to the dangers to wildlife, farmlands, settlements and water supplies from the floodwaters and possible contamination from industrial chemicals and oil leaked from the hydropower plant into the Dnipro River.

The head of Ukraine’s main hydropower generating company told CNN the environmental consequences from the breach will be “significant” and damaged equipment at the plant could be leaking oil.

“First of all, the Kakhovka reservoir is likely to be drained to zero, and we understand that the number of fish will gradually go down,” said Ihor Syrota, the CEO of Ukrhydroenergo.

“Four-hundred tons of turbine oil is always there, in the units and in the block transformers that are usually installed on this equipment,” Syrota said. “It all depends on the level of destruction of the units and this equipment… If the damage is extensive, then all the oil will leak out.”

Olena stands next to the entrance to her house on a flooded street, after the Nova Kakhovka dam breached in Kherson, Ukraine, on June 6.Alina Smutko/Reuters

Ukrainian Environment Minister Ruslan Strilets said at least 150 metric tons of oil from the dam have leaked into the Dnipro and the environmental damage had been estimated at 50 million euros ($53.8 million), according to Reuters.

One environmental expert warned of the potential damage that the oil spill could cause. “Just 1 litre of oil can contaminate 1 million liters of water. So 150 tons will have numerous impacts on Ukrainian water resources and the environment,” said Yevheniia Zasiadko, Head of Climate Department at Kyiv-based environmental non-profit Ecoaction. “Oil spreads over the surface in a thin layer that stops oxygen from getting to the plants and animals that live in the water,” she said.

As the Dnipro River flows to the Black Sea, some of the oil will end in the ocean where it “will affect the marine ecosystem,” she told CNN.

Gas stations and sewage treatment plants along the river also pose an additional risk of water pollution, Zasiadko said.

Strilets said downstream wildlife species found nowhere else in the world were in jeopardy, including the sandy blind mole-rat. Ukraine’s Black Sea Biosphere Reserve and two national parks were also likely to be heavily damaged, he added, Reuters reported.

The flooding has already killed 300 animals at the Nova Kakhovka zoo, according to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Tuesday the dam collapse was an “ecological catastrophe” with the destruction of newly planted crops and massive flooding “another devastating consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Rescuers evacuate local residents from a flooded area after the Nova Kakhovka dam breached in Kherson, Ukraine, on June 6.Vladyslav Musiienko/Reuters
Farming and food threats as millions in need of assistance

Before its collapse, the critical Nova Kakhovka dam was the largest reservoir in Ukraine in terms of volume.

It’s the last of the cascade of six Soviet-era dams on the Dnipro River, a major waterway running through southeastern Ukraine, and supplied water for much of southeastern Ukraine and the Crimean peninsula that was annexed by Russia in 2014.

There are multiple towns and cities downstream, including Kherson, a city of some 300,000 people before Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.

Speaking to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, the UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said its collapse is possibly the “most significant incident of damage to civilian infrastructure” since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The dam, Griffiths said, is a lifeline in the region, being a critical water source for millions of people in Kherson as well as the Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia regions, and a key source of agricultural irrigation in southern Kherson and the Crimean peninsula – impacting farming and food production.

The Ukrainian Agricultural Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) of agricultural land are expected to flood on the right bank, the west side controlled by Ukraine, following the collapse. “It was several times more on the left bank,” the statement added.

The collapse has left 94% of irrigation systems in Kherson, 74% in Zaporizhzhia and 30% in Dnipro regions “without a source of water,” according to the Ukrainian Agricultural Ministry. The ministry added that the dam will lead to “fields in southern Ukraine perhaps turning into deserts.”

Satellite images show a close-up view of the Nova Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power facility before and after the dam collapse on June 6, 2023.Maxar Technologies

Severe impact is also expected in Russian-occupied areas where humanitarian agencies are still struggling to gain access, he added.

“The damage caused by the dam’s destruction means that life will become intolerably harder for those already suffering from the conflict,” Griffiths said.

Between 35 and 80 settlements were expected to be flooded due to the breach, Zelensky said, and aid efforts are ongoing to get drinking water, hygiene kits and other supplies to affected neighborhoods.

In the low lying districts of Kherson, a CNN team on the ground saw residents evacuated from their homes carrying their possessions and pets in their arms as rising floodwaters penetrated one city block in less than an hour.

As the area is on the front lines of the conflict, the rising water brought with it an added danger of mine and explosive ordnance contamination.

“This is both a water element and a mine hazard, because mines float here and this area is constantly under fire,” said Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of Kherson’s regional military administration, who has been overseeing rescue efforts.

Satellite images show homes along the Dnipro River before and after the Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed.Maxar Technologies

Griffiths said projectiles like mines risk being displaced to areas previously assessed as safe.

Mohammad Heidarzadeh, senior lecturer in the department of architecture and civil engineering at the University of Bath in England, said the Kakhovka reservoir is one of the largest dams in the world in terms of capacity.

“It is obvious that the failure of this dam will definitely have extensive long-term ecological and environmental negative consequences not only for Ukraine but for neighboring countries and regions,” Heidarzadeh told Science Media Centre on Tuesday, adding the facility was an “embankment” dam, which means it was made of gravel and rock with a clay core in the middle.

“These types of dams are extremely vulnerable, and are usually washed away quickly in case of a partial breach… a partial damage is sufficient to cause a complete collapse of the dam because water flow can easily wash away the soil materials of the dam body in just a few hours,” he added.
Falling water supplies

Both Moscow and Kyiv noted the humanitarian and environmental consequences, while blaming each other for the dam’s destruction.

The Russian-appointed acting governor of Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, said the collapse of the dam led to “a large, but not critical” amount of water flowing down the Dnipro which resulted in the washout of agricultural fields along the coast and disruption of civilian infrastructure.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday the dam breach “has caused devastating damage to the farmland in the region and the ecosystem at the mouth of the Dnieper river.”

“The inevitable drop in the water level of the Kakhovka reservoir will affect Crimea’s water supply and will hinder the improvement of agricultural land in the Kherson region,” it said.

Several Ukrainian regions that receive some of their water supply from the reservoir of the Nova Kakhovka dam are making efforts to conserve water.

Local residents carry their personal belongings on a flooded street after the Nova Kakhovka dam collapsed, in Kherson, Ukraine, on June 6.Alina Smutko/Reuters

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, where about 70% of the city of Kryvyi Rih was supplied by the reservoir, Ukrainian authorities have asked people to “stock technical water and drinking water” and businesses to limit consumption and banned the use of hoses.

The reservoir also supplies water to the upstream Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there was “no immediate nuclear safety risk” at the plant, water from the reservoir is used to cool its reactors and emergency diesel generators.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said the UN nuclear watchdog’s staff on site have been told the reservoir is draining at 5 centimeters (2 inches) an hour and it is “estimated” that water used for the mainline of cooling “should last for a few days.”

However, should the reservoir drop below the pumping level there “are a number of alternative sources of water,” Grossi said, with the main one being the “large cooling pond next to the site.”

“It is estimated this pond will be sufficient to provide water for cooling for some months,” he added.

CNN’s Yulia Kesaieva, Richard Roth and Hira Humayun contributed reporting.

Climate another casualty of the war in Ukraine

Stuart Braun
June 7, 2023

In the year following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war's carbon bootprint is similar to the entire emissions of Belgium, conflict emission experts say.

Rebuilding civilian infrastructure generates the most carbon when counting conflict emissions

UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES/REUTERS

Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine has been highly damaging, not only in terms of civilian and military casualties, and the destruction of homes, infrastructure and the environment, but its impact on the climate.

While a burst dam in Ukraine is overt evidence of the environmental impacts of war, a new report quantifies often hidden emissions generated by the conflict that could threaten climate goals.

Released today to coincide with a preliminary meeting of climate leaders in Bonn, Germany, ahead of this year's UN climate summit in the UAE, the report by the Initiative on GHG Accounting of War breaks down the conflict emissions beyond direct warfare.

The Europe-based research group analyzed multiple sectors including emissions from fires that destroy infrastructure and the environment, the degradation of carbon sinks, post-conflict reconstruction, and the movement of refugees.

Emissions generated over the first twelve months of the war totalled 120 million tons of CO2, according to the authors. This is slightly less than the annual emissions of Belgium, whose per capita emissions in 2019 were the seventh highest in the European Union.

Titled "Climate damage caused by Russia's war in Ukraine," the report also flags the climate impact of the war after it has ended.

With "an aggressive neighbour to the east," Europe will go through major rearmament to create "sufficient deterrence," said lead author, Lennerd de Klerk.

A more robust military in Europe will see "emissions rise at a time when they have to go down," he said.

At the same time, a massive reconstruction program will further increase emissions.
Reconstruction costing the climate

Projected reconstruction constitutes around 42% of all conflict emissions for the first year of the war in Ukraine. They are by far the highest source of emissions due to the use of "very carbon intensive" concrete and steel, noted de Klerk.

Attacks on energy infrastructure during the winter months also considerably increased emissions associated with reconstruction, he explained.

The embedded carbon in building reconstruction is by far the highest source of what the report calls civilian infrastructure emissions, generating almost twice the greenhouse gases as transport and infrastructure.

Russia dominates warfare emissions

Actual warfare is the second highest source of emissions, mostly due to fossil fuel consumption.

De Klerk noted that a lack of transparency from the opposing armies made it difficult to obtain exact figures on fossil fuel use, forcing the researchers to use proxy data.

According to the report, of the near 22 million tons of CO2 generated by warfare, less than 14% was attributed to the production of ammunition and military equipment.

Meanwhile, a total of 64% of warfare emissions were generated by Russian fossil fuel use alone in the first year of the conflict.

The author says the emissions of a cruise missile are relatively small compared to the massive reliance on fossil fuel for moving around during warfare, especially given Russian military reliance on outdated and "extremely inefficient" equipment — including tanks from the 1960s.

As the war has largely been a ground war, diesel fuel has been the main source of emissions — rather than jet fuel, the dominant source of CO2 generated during the Iraq war.

 

Displacement and rebuilding are among numerous climate impacts of war

Image: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP

Military and conflict emissions go unreported

Lennerd de Klerk is at the Bonn climate talks this week as part of a consortium of military and conflict emission researchers who are lobbying for carbon bootprints to be included in the "Global Stocktake" of emissions to be finallized at COP28 — and which aims to judge progress on emission reductions.

Due to the difficulty of quantifying conflict emissions, researchers have so far mostly sought to count the carbon bootprint of the day-to-day running of global military installations.

"At 5.5% of global emissions, the big fossil fuel-reliant militaries of the world have a significant part to play in reduction and mitigation," said Deborah Burton, a conflict emissions expert at UK-based non-profit, Tipping Point North South, who is also part of a military emissions panel at the climate summit in Bonn.

But this figure is likely much higher.

"At the moment, there is only an obligation to report data on military fuel use, and this is voluntary," noted Linsey Cottrell of the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), a UK-based monitoring group.

She adds that "military fuel use, fires, use of munitions and damage to infrastructure, and all the reconstruction needs" are not included in UN emissions accounting.

According to a 2021 report by CEOBS, UK military emissions alone are at least three times higher than the 11 million tons of CO2 reported in 2018.

Negotiations at the Climate Change Conference begins in Bonn, Germany 04:32

'Climate goals at considerable risk'

Meanwhile, annual emissions from the US military, the world's largest, were higher than Sweden or Denmark when properly counted, researchers noted in 2017.

In 2020, rich countries spent six times more on militaries than public climate finance, according to Burton.

Conflict emissions are compounding the climate impacts. "The multitude of emission sources linked to fighting a war puts climate goals at considerable risk," said Cottrell.

"We wanted to show that this act of aggression not only impacts Ukrainians but all of us," said de Klerk of the broader climate consequences of military and war.

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

Stuart Braun Berlin-based journalist with a focus on climate and culture.

EU countries agree stricter reforms on asylum and migration

Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said the deal is a "good balance" of responsibility toward those seeking asylum and solidarity in the EU

 (Photo: DW)


DW

Published: 09 Jun 2023

The European Union's 27 member states have agreed on a plan to enact tougher asylum and migration policies across the bloc, officials announced on Thursday.

Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said the deal is a "good balance" of responsibility towards those seeking asylum and solidarity in the EU.

Also Read: Nearly 1 million apply for asylum in EU in 2022

Proposal was 'difficult' for Germany

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser had said on Thursday that a new reform proposal on EU migration policy was "very difficult for us in Germany" to accept, as it did not include exceptions for families with children.

She made the comments as EU interior ministers gathered in Luxembourg in a bid to reach a deal on joint migration and asylum policy.

One of the contested reforms was the introduction of preliminary checks on asylum seekers, who would then be sent back immediately if deemed that they did not have a chance to be granted asylum. Berlin wants to secure exemptions for minors and families with children.

"It is important that we come to an agreement," Germany's Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said after she arrived to the talks. "We can only handle migration together as the whole EU."

"I feel there is a common understanding which could lead to an agreement, but not at any price," she said.

Faeser said that Germany wanted to include enhanced rights for children in an EU migration deal.

"On one point we still have a real problem from the German point of view, because we want the protection of children and families with children in border procedures," she said, adding that such protections would be in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Faeser insisted that "human rights standards" were a top priority for Berlin in elaborating migration policy. She said that there was a chance EU member states could reach an agreement, but that this could not be done "at any price."

She said that the current reform compromise is "very difficult for us in Germany," but did not clarify whether Berlin would support the proposal.

Migration reforms must be solved 'together'

While the EU interior ministers meeting got underway in Luxembourg, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also held talks on migration reforms in Rome with Italy's Meloni.

"Those who want to overcome the challenges associated with refugee migration can only do so together in the European Union," Scholz said.

"All attempts to either leave the problems with someone else or to point the finger at others will fail," he added.

Italy's prime minister said that she was "convinced" that the bloc would seen reach an agreement on migration policy.

She said that the situation becomes "difficult" when the responsibility for dealing with is shifted onto other partners.

Meloni said that she would travel to Tunisia long with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Many migrant boats that attempt to traverse the Mediterranean in order to reach EU soil embark from the North African country.

Scholz reiterated Berlin's offer to take in migrants that had entered other countries on the EU's border.

Gulf states spending big on AI: Opportunity or oppression?

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are becoming some of the world's biggest spenders on artificial intelligence. At the same time, concern about AI's misuse in authoritarian states is also increasing.

By: Deutsche Welle
June 7, 2023 

Artificial Intelligence words are seen in this illustration taken March 31, 2023. 

(Image: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)


Written by Cathrin Schaer

The world’s best-known arbiter of artificial intelligence isn’t sure if the new technology might not pose a danger to people in the Middle East.

“There have been reports and concerns raised about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia that involve the use of digital technologies,” ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence language model that’s been making international headlines since it was introduced last November, replies when a DW journalist asks whether it might cause problems in the Middle East. But, the robotic assistant added, “it is important to note that these reports and allegations are not limited to artificial intelligence specifically but encompass a broader range of digital technologies and their potential misuse.”

Recent high-profile cases involving Saudi Arabia include the country using digital technologies to spy on dissidents and their families overseas, as well as trying to infiltrate Twitter in order to identify government opponents using anonymous accounts.
Also read | Former US Intelligence officer claims country possesses alien craft: Report

This is why there are concerns about what the country’s government might do with its increasingly rapid deployment of artificial intelligence, or AI, a technology whose implications are already regularly questioned by digital rights activists.

“The use of so-called AI and AI-based systems is increasing all over the world, and they open up novel ways of potentially infringing on people’s most basic rights by surveilling or manipulating them,” Angela Mueller, the head of policy and advocacy at Berlin-based organization, Algorithm Watch, told DW. “There is definitely the danger that the use of AI-based systems will further exacerbate existing injustices, especially when such states [without human rights protections or rule of law] now boost AI development and use by billions of dollars,” she pointed out.

Big spenders on AI

The most recent market intelligence suggests that governments of wealthy oil-producing Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are now spending as much, if not more, than some individual European countries on advancing AI-related technologies at home.

A report on worldwide AI expenditure by the International Data Corporation says the Middle East will be spending $3 billion (€2.8 billion) on AI this year, rising to $6.4 billion by 2026. Investment will continue to ramp up, market researchers say, with the region seeing annual growth in spending of almost 30% in this technology over the next three years. That’s “the fastest growth rate worldwide over the coming years,” they note.
Also read | Homo naledi, long-lost human species, buried their dead and carved cave symbols, say scientists

A much-hyped term, AI covers a wide range of digital technologies. It can mean anything from the speedy processing of large amounts of digital data for analysis, to what’s known as “generative AI.” The latter, which includes the attention-getting and much-discussed ChatGPT, is considered one of the most exciting developments in AI because it “generates” information and insights as it evolves.

“The more computing power, data and users it gets, the better it [generative AI] performs, sometimes in unexpected ways,” Deutsche Bank research analysts explained in a briefing on the technology. “Its talents range from sifting through data and recognizing images and speech, to identifying sentiment in swathes of documents and generating text, images and code. Future iterations will soon do still more. Most importantly, it synthesizes these tools so they feed on each other.”

Favored Gulf strategy

Gulf states are spending so much on AI because it is an important part of future plans to develop their national economies away from oil income.

The UAE was the first in the region to adopt a national AI strategy in 2017 and became the first country in the world to appoint a minister for artificial intelligence. Other countries, including Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, have since followed suit, most of them over the past three years.

Saudi Arabia is particularly notable because it intends to use all kinds of AI in its futuristic city-building project, Neom, and it has the wealth to invest in these technologies both via state funding and through its state-controlled sovereign wealth fund.

Perceptions of AI in the Gulf states also differ. A 2022 IPSOS survey of international attitudes toward AI asked people whether they thought using AI in consumer products and services offered more advantages than disadvantages. Just over three-quarters of Saudi Arabians were enthusiastic, agreeing that it offered more benefits, compared to only 37% of the more cautious German respondents.

How is AI being used?

Currently in the Gulf states, AI technologies are being used for the same kinds of things they are in other countries: for example, as chatbots on retailer websites or to streamline state services for power and water, enhance digital financial services like web-based banking, analyze the performance of companies like the Emirates airline, or to provide insights from local health care data. In late May, the UAE released its own version of ChatGPT .

None of this is necessarily nefarious. But the same concerns that have been expressed about the use of AI elsewhere also apply here.

Digital rights activists are not seriously worried about a science-fiction-style scenario where robots kill us all. They’re more concerned about data security, surveillance, content filtering, the targeted dissemination of propaganda, accuracy in AI analysis and bias, as well as the potential for “dual use” of certain AI-linked technologies.

For example, AI-powered facial recognition has potential for dual use, for both civilian and military purposes. On one hand, it’s useful on Facebook to find your friends. On the other, it could be used to identify protesters at an anti-government demonstration.

As Geoffrey Hinton, the respected AI pioneer who made international headlines when he quit his job at Google recently, told The New York Times, “it is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it [AI] for bad things.”

Bad actors and autocrats

So what happens when AI ends up in the hands of autocratic governments, such as those in the big-spending Gulf states? The countries may have some trappings of democracy, but they are essentially led by royal families who tolerate little dissent and no political opposition.

“In countries where the authorities already target human rights defenders and journalists for peacefully exercising their rights, the implications [of AI] can be even more devastating,” Iverna McGowan, director of the European office of the Centre for Democracy and Technology, or CDT, told DW.

In a 2022 summary of the laws that currently pertain to AI in the Middle East, researchers at multinational legal firm Covington and Burling pointed out that no legislation on AI exists in the region as yet. This is also true for many other jurisdictions, they added. The sector is largely unregulated.

Both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have published ethical guidelines for the use of AI. However, neither country’s guidelines, which include a checklist of do’s and don’ts for software developers, are legally binding. That’s something they have in common with heavily criticized ethical guidelines on AI elsewhere.

“AI ethical principles are useless, failing to mitigate the racial, social, and environmental damages of AI technologies in any meaningful sense,” Luke Munn, an Australian digital cultures researcher, argued last year in the journal AI and Ethics. Part of the reason for this is the lack of any laws backing up the ethical guidelines, he wrote. “The result is a gap between high-minded principles and technological practice.

CDT director McGowan agreed. “Voluntary measures in the context of such systemic repression will be nothing other than window dressing,” she told DW.

“These systems open up novel ways of potentially infringing on people’s most basic rights by surveilling or manipulating them, by preventing their means to have a say and to defend themselves,” Algorithm Watch’s Mueller concluded. “The combination of opacity, sensitive areas and these potential impacts are especially problematic in contexts where there is no reliable protection of human rights and the rule of law.”

First published on: 07-06-2023