The debate is over. The Israel apologists lost. And we are seeing this reflected in mainstream discourse.

Pop megastar Ariana Grande has started speaking out in support of Gaza, telling her social media followers that “starving people to death is a red line.” This is a new threshold. Opposing Israel’s genocide is now the most mainstream as it has ever been.

MSNBC just ran a piece explicitly titled “Israel is starving Gaza. And the U.S. is complicit.”, featuring a segment with the virulently pro-Israel Morning Joe slamming the mass atrocity. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, himself a former AIPAC employee, has done a 180 and is now raking Israel over the coals on the air for its deliberately engineered starvation campaign. The New York Times finally overcame its phobia of the g-word with an op-ed titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”

We’re now seeing notoriously Zionist swamp monsters in the Democratic Party like Barack Obama, Hakeem Jeffries, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar changing their tune and attacking Netanyahu and Trump for their joint genocide project in Gaza, with increasingly forceful pushback from some on the right like Marjorie Taylor Greene as well.

As western pundits, politicians, and celebrities suddenly pivot to denouncing Israel’s genocidal atrocities after two years of silence, it’s hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, we were being told that saying “death to the IDF” is a hate crime.

People who’ve been staring at this genocide from the beginning have been asking the entire time, what is it going to take? What will it take for our society to stop sleepwalking through inane trivialities and vapid distractions and start opposing the holocaust of our day?

Raining military explosives on a giant concentration camp packed full of children wasn’t enough.

Burning children alive wasn’t enough.

Systematically destroying Gaza’s entire healthcare infrastructure — up to and including entering hospitals they’ve attacked and destroying individual pieces of medical equipment one by one — wasn’t enough.

Killing more journalists than were killed in both World Wars, plus the US Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Yugoslav Wars, the War in Afghanistan, and the ongoing war in Ukraine wasn’t enough.

The systemic rape and torture of prisoners wasn’t enough.

IDF soldiers routinely sharing photos and videos of themselves mockingly dressing in the clothes of dead and displaced Palestinian women and playing with the toys of dead and displaced Palestinian children wasn’t enough.

Israeli officials openly expressing genocidal intent for the people of Gaza wasn’t enough.

The US president and Israeli prime minister openly declaring their goal of the complete ethnic cleansing of a Palestinian territory wasn’t enough.

Field testing new weapons of war on Palestinians like they’re guinea pigs in a laboratory wasn’t enough.

Leaving countless civilians to slowly suffocate or die of dehydration, trapped under the rubble of bombed buildings, wasn’t enough.

Creating an AI system to ensure that suspected Hamas fighters are bombed when they’re at home with their children and naming it “Where’s Daddy?” wasn’t enough.

Using Palestinians as human shields wasn’t enough.

Burying injured civilians alive with bulldozers wasn’t enough.

The IDF admitting to running a popular Telegram channel called “72 Virgins,” which posted extremely gory and sadistic snuff films of people in Gaza being butchered by Israeli forces, wasn’t enough.

IDF snipers routinely shooting children in the head and chest throughout the Gaza Strip wasn’t enough.

The IDF flying drones, which play the sounds of crying babies at night in order to lure out hiding civilians to murder them, wasn’t enough.

IDF troops telling the Israeli press that they’re being ordered to massacre starving civilians seeking food from aid sites wasn’t enough.

Israeli snipers targeting different body parts of starving civilians on designated days — leg day, head day, genitals day, etc — wasn’t enough.

Far right Israeli citizens setting up blockades to stop aid trucks from entering Gaza while they enjoyed parties and barbecues at the blockade sites wasn’t enough.

Using lies and propaganda to dismantle the aid system for bringing essential food and life-supporting supplies into Gaza, to replace it with a US/Israeli op where aid seekers are massacred every single day, wasn’t enough.

Using siege warfare to starve Gaza for the previous 22 months deliberately wasn’t enough.

But now that starvation has hit a critical point and deaths from malnutrition are skyrocketing, now that images of dead skeletal children are filling our screens, now that the damage to organs and brains from starvation will be irreversible in many cases — now it’s enough.

That was the line, apparently. That’s what mainstream Western consciousness has decided is too much. Everything up until that line was fine, but now it’s not fine anymore.

And the killing is still going on. The sudden awakening of conscience hasn’t translated into any material actions or changes at all yet. If it had come in October or November 2023, like it should have, we might be seeing that opposition translate into actually saving Gaza by now, but the light has only just been switched on. It’s not even guaranteed that those who are speaking up will continue to do so.

I’m glad people are waking up to the cruel reality of this nightmare. I’m grateful to each and every influential voice who uses their platform to speak out, even at this late date. I truly am.

But I also think we need to take a very hard, very uncomfortable look at ourselves as a society right now. If all those monstrous abuses were tolerable for us over these last two years, there’s something deeply and profoundly sick about our civilization.

We are not living right. We are not thinking right. We are not feeling right. We are warped and twisted. The information we consume and the norms we’ve been conditioned to accept have corrupted our souls.

We have been made into something bad. Something ugly. Something shameful. Something we need to do everything in our power to change.

We need to rescue ourselves from what we have become. We need to transform, deeply and radically, into something that could never again allow something like this to occur.

The way things are clearly isn’t working. The mainstream worldview is clearly a lie. Everything we’ve been taught to believe about our society, our nation, our government, and our world was clearly false.

We need to fight our way through the cognitive dissonance of recognizing that our entire way of looking at things as a collective has failed, and we need to find a new way of being.

Otherwise, we’re going to keep being smashed in the face with increasingly horrifying reminders of what we have allowed ourselves to become.

The lessons will repeat until they are learned.

We had better start learning them.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Caitlin Johnstone.

It’s an admission that may as well have come from The New York Times itself.

In an article titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”, a Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies named Omer Bartov argues that “Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza,” and denounces his fellow Holocaust scholars for failing to acknowledge reality.

“My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” Bartov writes. “Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer, and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one.”

And resist he did. In November 2023, Bartov wrote another op-ed for The New York Times saying, “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening.”

Apparently, he is seeing the proof now and has stopped resisting what has been clear from the very beginning. And it would seem the editors of the Gray Lady have ceased resisting as well.

The New York Times, which has an extensively documented pro-Israel bias, has frenetically avoided the use of the g-word on its pages from the very beginning of the Gaza onslaught. Even in its opinion and analysis pieces the NYT Overton window has cut off at framing the issue as a complex matter of rigorous debate, with headlines like “Accused of Genocide, Israelis See Reversal of Reality. Palestinians See Justice.” and “The Bitter Fight Over the Meaning of ‘Genocide’” representing the closest thing to the pro-Palestinian side of the debate you’d see. During the same time, we’ve seen headlines like “From the Embers of an Old Genocide, a New One May Be Emerging” used in reference to Sudan.

In an internal memo obtained by The Intercept last year, New York Times reporters were explicitly told to avoid the use of the word “genocide”, as well as terms like “ethnic cleansing” and “occupied territory”.

“‘Genocide’ has a specific definition in international law,” the memo reads. “In our own voice, we should generally use it only in the context of those legal parameters. We should also set a high bar for allowing others to use it as an accusation, whether in quotations or not, unless they are making a substantive argument based on the legal definition.”

Earlier this year, the American Friends Service Committee cancelled its paid advertisement in The New York Times calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza, saying the outlet had wanted them to change the word “genocide” to “war” in order for their ad to be published.

So there has been a significant change.

To be clear, this analysis by Omer Bartov is not significant in and of itself. He is only joining the chorus of what has already been said by human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, United Nations human rights experts, and the overwhelming majority of leading authorities on the subject of genocide.

What is significant is that even experts who’ve been resisting acknowledging the reality of the genocide in Gaza because of their bias toward Israel have stopped doing so, and that even the imperial media outlets most fiendishly devoted to running propaganda cover for that genocide have run out of room to hide.

The Israel apologists have lost the argument. They might not know it yet, but they have. Public sentiment has turned irreversibly against them as people’s eyes are opened to the truth of what’s happening in Gaza, and more and more propagandists are choosing to rescue what’s left of their tattered credibility instead of going down with the sinking ship.

Truth is slowly beginning to get a word in edgewise.

Keep pushing. Keep fighting. Keep resisting.

It’s working.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Caitlin Johnstone.

Australian solidarity activists today marked the 27th anniversary of the Biak massacre in West Papua and have warned the human rights crisis in the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian region is deteriorating.

No Indonesian security force member has ever been charged or brought to justice for the human rights abuses committed against peaceful West Papuan demonstrators.

According to Elsham Papua, a local human rights organisation, eight people were killed and a further 32 bodies were found near Biak in the following days. However, some human rights sources put the death toll at about 150.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

“Twenty seven years later, the human rights situation in West Papua continues to deteriorate,” said Joe Collins of the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) in a statement today.

“West Papuan people continue to be arrested, intimidated and killed by the Indonesian security forces.

“There are ongoing clashes between the TPNPB [West Papua National Liberation Army] and the Indonesian security forces with casualties on both sides.

“As a result of these clashes, the Indonesian security forces carry out sweeps in the area, causing local people to flee in fear for their lives.

‘Bearing the brunt’
“It’s the internal refugees bearing the brunt of the conflict.”

According to the AWPA statement, 6 July 1998 marked the Biak massacre when the Indonesian security forces killed scores of people in Biak, West Papua.

The victims included women and children who had gathered for a peaceful rally. They were killed at the base of a water tower flying the Morning Star flag of independence.

As the rally continued, many more people in the area joined in with numbers reaching up to about 500 people.

The statement said that from July 2 that year, activists and local people started gathering beneath the water tower, singing songs and holding traditional dances.

“On July 6 the Indonesian security forces attacked the demonstrators, massacring scores of people,” said the statement.

Internally displaced
Human Rights Monitor reported in its June update that more than 97,721 people in West Papua were internally displaced as a result of armed conflict between Indonesian security forces and the TPNPB.

Human Rights Watch in a media statement in May 2025 reported that renewed fighting between the security forces and the TPNPB was threatening West Papua civilians.

“As the West Papuan people struggle for their right to self-determination, they face great challenges, from the ongoing human rights abuses to the destruction of their environment,” said Collins in the statement.

“However, support/knowledge for the West Papuan struggle continues to grow, particularly in the Pacific region,” he said.

“If some governments in the region are wavering in their support, the people of the Pacific are not.

Pacific support ‘unwavering’
Jakarta has been targeting Pacific leaders with aid in a bid to convince them to stop supporting the West Papuan struggle.

Civil society and church groups continue to raise awareness of the West Papuan situation at the UN and at international human rights conferences.

“The West Papuan people are not going to give up their struggle for self-determination,” Collins said.

“Time for the countries in the region, including Australia, to take the issue seriously. Raising the ongoing human rights abuses with Jakarta would be a small start”.

• The Biak Citizens Tribunal

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Traditional conservative parties, the CDU and CSU, while reluctantly distancing themselves from the AfD, have adopted the same Islamophobic stance wrapped in a more ‘respectable’ language. In complete disregard for the lessons etched into their own Grundgesetz, the CSU have declared that Islam has no place in Germany. The CDU, having finally shed their liberal skin, publicly declared any calls for a ‘Free Palestine’ as terrorist sympathies. Their violence is sanitised and bureaucratic as they push legislation to strip dual nationals of citizenship based on their political views. So effortless is their rejection of civil rights that it would send their oligarch friends in the White-house into a jealous frenzy.

A more unexpected xenophobic turn came from the centre-left alliance under former chancellor Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). After a stabbing incident in Solingen, afraid to lose votes to the anti-immigrant wave sweeping the country, Scholz promised Germany mass deportations. This concession gave the racists all the proof they needed for the otherwise unfounded narrative of ‘the violent immigrant’. Riding this wave into right-wing populism, he promised to strengthen the borders of the fortress Europe – borders which already claim the lives of 8 000 migrants every year. And as if reading from the Trump script, the SPD oversaw the deportation orders for several EU citizens for participating in peaceful demonstrations – no charges, no trial and no global outrage.

Across the German political spectrum, in a mixture of performative Holocaust guilt and opportunism, parties have embraced the settler colonial hierarchy on which Israel was founded, with Arabs and Muslims at the bottom of their order. With revisionist logic and wishful thinking, the Bundestag passed a resolution that frames anti-Semitism as an imported middle-eastern issue. By adopting the fictional IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which includes all criticism of the state of Israel, they got the outcome they were looking for. The resolution was sharply criticised by human rights monitors as antagonistic to Arabs and Muslims and simultaneously anti-Semitic for conflating Judaism with the state of Israel. The resolution was passed with over 95% of votes.

In Germany, to wear a keffiyeh is to risk arrest and deportation. To publicly mourn the Nakba is illegal and yet when the AfD march through immigrant neighbourhoods to intimidate they call it freedom of speech. The message to the Arabs and Muslims of Germany is clear – you are at the bottom of our racial order, our human rights do not apply to you. Germany now records 5 Islamophobic incidents every day.

This perfect storm of Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment has thrown Europes largest economy back on a path of institutional racism. The wider fallout from alienating 5 million Muslims in Germany from their civil rights will undoubtedly be felt in the coming decades.

But the selective repentance, this weaponisation of Holocaust memory, serves not only to justify the suspension of civil liberties at home. It conveniently forms a theatre of morality to mask ongoing imperialist projects and to evade historical responsibilities. True atonement for the horrors of the Holocaust would include taking responsibility for the over 300 000 Europeans that moved to Palestine after World War Two and the Nakba that followed, displacing 750 000 Palestinians from their land. The victims of German genocides in Africa know not to hold their breath waiting for justice.

Colonial Amnesia

In Namibia, the German legacy of genocide is not forgotten. In a blueprint for the Gaza genocide, the pretext for this genocide was an anti-colonial uprising that killed 100 German settlers. The mass murder that followed wiped out 80% of the Herero and 50% of the Nama people, over 70 000 killed, for daring to resist colonial rule. Germany’s recognition of these atrocities, more than a century later, was embarrassingly absent of any formal reparations or land redistribution. To this day, Namibia remains in an apartheid-like inequality with 48% of Namibia’s land in the hands of just 5000 white settlers – 0.3% of the population.

The suppression of the Maji Maji rebellion in Tanzania reeks of a similar stench. Deliberate starvation was weaponised against the Muslim communities that rebelled against the colonisers. Captain Wangenheim’s words—“Only hunger and want can bring about final submission”—echo in the blockade of Gaza and in Germany’s vetoes in contempt of international law. 300 000 murdered, no reparations on the horizon, no memorial in Berlin.

When Elon Musk, the settler son of apartheid capital, fans the flames of European fascism and demands that Germany “move beyond its past guilt”, what he means is this: that Germany must stop pretending, and embrace its role in the white empire once again. And the disenfranchised Germans are listening.

In defence of genocide

In April 2025, the ICJ announced an extension of Israel’s deadline to submit a defence against the allegations of genocide brought by South Africa and supported by the majority of the world’s countries. Germany as one of the passionate defenders of Israel has been proudly diluting, stalling and vetoing calls for immediate ceasefire and sanctions on Israel. While the ruling is inevitably not going to be in Israels favour, with German sponsorship the killing can continue for another year.

The international order that was implemented after WWII, once meant to protect vulnerable groups, is now being subdued. The right to armed resistance against occupation, the blanket ban on collective punishment and withholding of aid are all conveniently ignored by the German political establishment, left to right. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Euro-Med Monitor are all screaming ‘Genocide in Gaza’ and calling out German complicity. They fell for the theatrics of ‘Nie Wieder’.

At home, repression became policy and civil rights monitors took note. Palestinian flags are banned, solidarity groups outlawed, Jewish activists arrested, Arab youth surveilled. These tactics are not new to us in the Kurdish liberation struggle. The banning of Kurdish resistance symbols and closing of book publishers, what should have triggered a constitutional crisis, was casually gifted by the German state to their friend in Türkiye. Add it to the list of ethnic cleansing campaigns sponsored by Germany.

Germany’s Islamophobic turn cannot be divorced from its colonial past or its present-day imperial commitments. The AfD’s rise, the CDU’s xenophobic mimicry, and the SPD’s repressive populism are symptoms of a deeper pathology: a state apparatus that has never abandoned the hierarchies of race and empire. While the world’s gaze is fixed on the Trump administration, it is time to recognise Germany once again as a powerful xenophobic and authoritarian force in Europe.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kaveh Najafi.

Traditional conservative parties, the CDU and CSU, while reluctantly distancing themselves from the AfD, have adopted the same Islamophobic stance wrapped in a more ‘respectable’ language. In complete disregard for the lessons etched into their own Grundgesetz, the CSU have declared that Islam has no place in Germany. The CDU, having finally shed their liberal skin, publicly declared any calls for a ‘Free Palestine’ as terrorist sympathies. Their violence is sanitised and bureaucratic as they push legislation to strip dual nationals of citizenship based on their political views. So effortless is their rejection of civil rights that it would send their oligarch friends in the White-house into a jealous frenzy.

A more unexpected xenophobic turn came from the centre-left alliance under former chancellor Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). After a stabbing incident in Solingen, afraid to lose votes to the anti-immigrant wave sweeping the country, Scholz promised Germany mass deportations. This concession gave the racists all the proof they needed for the otherwise unfounded narrative of ‘the violent immigrant’. Riding this wave into right-wing populism, he promised to strengthen the borders of the fortress Europe – borders which already claim the lives of 8 000 migrants every year. And as if reading from the Trump script, the SPD oversaw the deportation orders for several EU citizens for participating in peaceful demonstrations – no charges, no trial and no global outrage.

Across the German political spectrum, in a mixture of performative Holocaust guilt and opportunism, parties have embraced the settler colonial hierarchy on which Israel was founded, with Arabs and Muslims at the bottom of their order. With revisionist logic and wishful thinking, the Bundestag passed a resolution that frames anti-Semitism as an imported middle-eastern issue. By adopting the fictional IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which includes all criticism of the state of Israel, they got the outcome they were looking for. The resolution was sharply criticised by human rights monitors as antagonistic to Arabs and Muslims and simultaneously anti-Semitic for conflating Judaism with the state of Israel. The resolution was passed with over 95% of votes.

In Germany, to wear a keffiyeh is to risk arrest and deportation. To publicly mourn the Nakba is illegal and yet when the AfD march through immigrant neighbourhoods to intimidate they call it freedom of speech. The message to the Arabs and Muslims of Germany is clear – you are at the bottom of our racial order, our human rights do not apply to you. Germany now records 5 Islamophobic incidents every day.

This perfect storm of Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment has thrown Europes largest economy back on a path of institutional racism. The wider fallout from alienating 5 million Muslims in Germany from their civil rights will undoubtedly be felt in the coming decades.

But the selective repentance, this weaponisation of Holocaust memory, serves not only to justify the suspension of civil liberties at home. It conveniently forms a theatre of morality to mask ongoing imperialist projects and to evade historical responsibilities. True atonement for the horrors of the Holocaust would include taking responsibility for the over 300 000 Europeans that moved to Palestine after World War Two and the Nakba that followed, displacing 750 000 Palestinians from their land. The victims of German genocides in Africa know not to hold their breath waiting for justice.

Colonial Amnesia

In Namibia, the German legacy of genocide is not forgotten. In a blueprint for the Gaza genocide, the pretext for this genocide was an anti-colonial uprising that killed 100 German settlers. The mass murder that followed wiped out 80% of the Herero and 50% of the Nama people, over 70 000 killed, for daring to resist colonial rule. Germany’s recognition of these atrocities, more than a century later, was embarrassingly absent of any formal reparations or land redistribution. To this day, Namibia remains in an apartheid-like inequality with 48% of Namibia’s land in the hands of just 5000 white settlers – 0.3% of the population.

The suppression of the Maji Maji rebellion in Tanzania reeks of a similar stench. Deliberate starvation was weaponised against the Muslim communities that rebelled against the colonisers. Captain Wangenheim’s words—“Only hunger and want can bring about final submission”—echo in the blockade of Gaza and in Germany’s vetoes in contempt of international law. 300 000 murdered, no reparations on the horizon, no memorial in Berlin.

When Elon Musk, the settler son of apartheid capital, fans the flames of European fascism and demands that Germany “move beyond its past guilt”, what he means is this: that Germany must stop pretending, and embrace its role in the white empire once again. And the disenfranchised Germans are listening.

In defence of genocide

In April 2025, the ICJ announced an extension of Israel’s deadline to submit a defence against the allegations of genocide brought by South Africa and supported by the majority of the world’s countries. Germany as one of the passionate defenders of Israel has been proudly diluting, stalling and vetoing calls for immediate ceasefire and sanctions on Israel. While the ruling is inevitably not going to be in Israels favour, with German sponsorship the killing can continue for another year.

The international order that was implemented after WWII, once meant to protect vulnerable groups, is now being subdued. The right to armed resistance against occupation, the blanket ban on collective punishment and withholding of aid are all conveniently ignored by the German political establishment, left to right. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Euro-Med Monitor are all screaming ‘Genocide in Gaza’ and calling out German complicity. They fell for the theatrics of ‘Nie Wieder’.

At home, repression became policy and civil rights monitors took note. Palestinian flags are banned, solidarity groups outlawed, Jewish activists arrested, Arab youth surveilled. These tactics are not new to us in the Kurdish liberation struggle. The banning of Kurdish resistance symbols and closing of book publishers, what should have triggered a constitutional crisis, was casually gifted by the German state to their friend in Türkiye. Add it to the list of ethnic cleansing campaigns sponsored by Germany.

Germany’s Islamophobic turn cannot be divorced from its colonial past or its present-day imperial commitments. The AfD’s rise, the CDU’s xenophobic mimicry, and the SPD’s repressive populism are symptoms of a deeper pathology: a state apparatus that has never abandoned the hierarchies of race and empire. While the world’s gaze is fixed on the Trump administration, it is time to recognise Germany once again as a powerful xenophobic and authoritarian force in Europe.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kaveh Najafi.

Australian-Lebanese journalist and commentator Antoinette Lattouf’s unfair dismissal case win against the public broadcaster ABC in the Federal Court on Wednesday is a victory for all those who seek to tell the truth.

It is a breath of fresh air, after almost two years of lies and uncritical reporting about Israel’s genocide from the ABC and commercial media companies.

Lattouf was unfairly sacked in December 2023 for posting on her social media a Human Rights Watch report that detailed Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.

• READ MORE: Other Antoinette Lattouf media freedom reports

Justice Darryl Rangiah found that Lattouf had been sacked for her political opinions, given no opportunity to respond to misconduct allegations and that the ABC breached its Enterprise Agreement and section 772 of the Fair Work Act.

The Federal Court also found that ABC executives — then-chief content officer Chris Oliver-Taylor, editor-in-chief David Anderson and board chair Ita Buttrose — had sacked Lattouf in response to a pro-Israel lobby pressure campaign.

The coordinated email campaign from Zionist groups accused Lattouf of being “antisemitic” for condemning Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The judge awarded Lattouf A$70,000 in damages, based on findings that her sacking caused “great distress”, and more than $1 million in legal fees.

‘No Lebanese’ claim
Lattouf had alleged that her race or ethnicity had played a part in her sacking, which the ABC had initially responded to by claiming there was no such thing as a “Lebanese, Arab or Middle Eastern Race”, before backtracking.

The court found that this did not play a part in the decision to sack Lattouf.

The ABC’s own reporting of the ruling said “the ABC has damaged its reputation, and public perceptions around its ideals, integrity and independence”.

Outside the court, Lattouf said: “It is now June 2025 and Palestinian children are still being starved. We see their images every day, emaciated, skeletal, scavenging through the rubble for scraps.

“This unspeakable suffering is not accidental, it is engineered. Deliberately starving and killing children is a war crime.

“Today, the court has found that punishing someone for sharing facts about these war crimes is also illegal. I was punished for my political opinion.”

Palestine solidarity groups and democratic rights supporters have celebrated Lattouf’s victory.

An ‘eternal shame’
Palestine Action Group Sydney said: “It is to the eternal shame of our national broadcaster that it sacked a journalist because she opposed the genocide in Gaza.

“There should be a full inquiry into the systematic pro-Israel bias at the ABC, which for 21 months has acted as a propaganda wing of the Israeli military.”

Racial justice organisation Democracy in Colour said the ruling “exposes the systematic silencing taking place in Australian media institutions in regards to Palestine”.

Democracy in Colour chairperson Jamal Hakim said Lattouf was punished for “speaking truth to power”.

“When the ABC capitulated to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby . . .  they didn’t just betray Antoinette — they betrayed their own editorial standards and the Australian public who deserve to know the truth about Israel’s human rights abuses.”

Noura Mansour, national director for Democracy in Colour, said the ABC had been “consistently shutting down valid criticism of the state of Israel” and suppressing the voices of people of colour and Palestinians. She said the national broadcaster had “worked to manufacture consent for the Israeli-US backed genocide”.

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance chief executive Erin Madeley said: “Instead of defending its journalists, ABC management chose to appease powerful voices . . . they failed in their duty to push back against outside interference, racism and bullying.”

Win for ‘journalistic integrity’
Australian Greens leader Larissa Waters said the ruling was a win for “journalistic integrity and freedom of speech” and that “no one should be punished for speaking out about Gaza”.

Green Left editor Pip Hinman said the ruling was an “important victory for those who stand on the side of truth and justice”.

“It is more important than ever in an increasingly polarised world that journalists speak up and report the truth without fear of reprisal from the rich and powerful.

“Traditional and new media have the reach to shape public opinion. They have had a clear pro-Israel bias, despite international human rights agencies providing horrific data on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people around Australia continue to call for an end to the genocide in Gaza in protests every week. But the ABC and corporate media have largely ignored this movement of people from all walks of life. Disturbingly, the corporate media has gone along with some political leaders who claim this anti-war movement is antisemitic.

“As thousands continue to march every week for an end to the genocide in Gaza, the ABC and corporate media organisations have continued to push the lie that the Palestine solidarity movement, and indeed any criticism of Israel, is antisemitic.

“Green Left also hails those courageous mostly young journalists in Gaza, some 200 of whom have been killed by Israel since October 2023.

“Their livestreaming of Israel’s genocide cut through corporate media and political leaders’ lies and today makes it even harder for them to whitewash Israel’s crimes and Western complicity.

“Green Left congratulates Lattouf on her victory. We are proud to stand with the movement for justice and peace in Palestine, which played a part in her victory against the ABC management’s bias.”

Republished from Green Left Magazine with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

The former head of Human Rights Watch — and son of a Holocaust survivor — says Israel’s military campaign in Gaza will likely meet the legal definition of genocide, citing large-scale killings, the targeting of civilians, and the words of senior Israeli officials.

Speaking on 30′ with Guyon Espiner, Ken Roth agreed Hamas committed “blatant war crimes” in its attack on Israel on October 7 last year, which included the abduction and murder of civilians.

But he said it was a “basic rule” that war crimes by one side do not justify war crimes by the other.

• READ MORE: Israel kills over 70 in Gaza as 549 killed seeking aid in past month
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

There was indisputable evidence Israel had committed war crimes in Gaza and might also be pursuing tactics that fit the international legal standard for genocide, Roth said.

30′ with Guyon Espiner Kenneth Roth    Video: RNZ

“The acts are there — mass killing, destruction of life-sustaining conditions. And there are statements from senior officials that point clearly to intent,” Roth said.

The accusation of genocide is hotly contested. Israel says it is fighting a war of self-defence against Hamas after it killed 1200 people, mostly civilians. It claims it adheres to international law and does its best to protect civilians.

It blames Hamas for embedding itself in civilian areas.

But Roth believes a ruling may ultimately come from the International Court of Justice, especially if a forthcoming judgment on Myanmar sets a precedent.

“It’s very similar to what Myanmar did with the Rohingya,” he said. “Kill about 30,000 to send 730,000 fleeing. It’s not just about mass death. It’s about creating conditions where life becomes impossible.”

‘Apartheid’ alleged in Israel’s West Bank
Roth has been described as the ‘Godfather of Human Rights’, and is credited with vastly expanding the influence of the Human Rights Watch group during a 29-year tenure in charge of the organisation.

In the full interview with Guyon Espiner, Roth defended the group’s 2021 report that accused Israel of enforcing a system of apartheid in the occupied West Bank.

“This was not a historical analogy,” he said, implying it was a mistake to compare it with South Africa’s former apartheid regime.

“It was a legal analysis. We used the UN Convention against Apartheid and the Rome Statute, and laid out over 200 pages of evidence.”

He said the Israeli government was unable to offer a factual rebuttal.

“They called us biased, antisemitic — the usual. But they didn’t contest the facts.”

The ‘cheapening’ of antisemitism charges
Roth, who is Jewish and the son of a Holocaust refugee, said it was disturbing to be accused of antisemitism for criticising a government.

“There is a real rise in antisemitism around the world. But when the term is used to suppress legitimate criticism of Israel, it cheapens the concept, and that ultimately harms Jews everywhere.”

Roth said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had long opposed a two-state solution and was now pursuing a status quo that amounted to permanent subjugation of Palestinians, a situation human rights groups say is illegal.

“The only acceptable outcome is two states, living side by side. Anything else is apartheid, or worse,” Roth said.

While the international legal process around charges of genocide may take years, Roth is convinced the current actions in Gaza will not be forgotten.

“This is not just about war,” he said. “It’s about the deliberate use of starvation, displacement and mass killing to achieve political goals. And the law is very clear — that’s a crime.”

Roth’s criticism of Israel saw him initially denied a fellowship at Harvard University in 2023. The decision was widely seen as politically motivated, and was later reversed after public and academic backlash.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Ortega and Bukele are polar opposites: one invests in dignity and democracy, the other in mass incarceration and imperial alliances.

Opposition media from both Nicaragua and El Salvador, along with the Washington Post, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch, all vilify Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega by equating him with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. Although Ortega and Bukele are both serving consecutive terms, and a Central American polling firm reports that they enjoy high popularity among their respective populations, the two presidents actually offer a study in contrasts.

Crime and punishment

Bukele is praised for drastically reducing violence in El Salvador, but his political career is actually based on perpetuating it. First, some history. The country’s gang problem originated in the bloody US-supported war of the 1980s, including US and Israeli funding and training of death squads, that forced thousands of young men to escape forced military recruitment by fleeing to the United States. As an underclass of undocumented immigrants, and without the support of their families, many of these young men wound up in gangs on the streets of Los Angeles or in its prisons. In the mid-1990s, thousands of these gang members were deported to El Salvador, bringing violence back to a country that had just lost 75,000 lives in a brutal conflict. As Hillary Goodfriend writes, “the devastated neoliberal economic landscape proved fertile terrain for the US gang culture imported by Salvadoran youth deported from Los Angeles in the mid-1990s.” The right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) governments of the postwar years responded to the gang problem with an iron fist.

Then from 2009-2019, while the former guerrillas (Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional—FMLN) were in office, a preventive approach was attempted. Structural problems were addressed with “unprecedented increases in social spending, including critical education, health care, land, infrastructure and agricultural investment.” But these efforts were frustrated by a majority opposition legislature that limited spending on such programs, and USAID funding for a private sector approach that favored the opposition. The FMLN also made its own mistakes, including secret negotiations (along with the Catholic Church) for a gang truce, which was initially successful but politically costly once it fell apart. Still, progress was made as Salvadoran youth found more alternatives.

Nayib Bukele arrived on the national scene as the FMLN candidate for mayor of San Salvador in 2014. There has been suspicion that his political rise was based on secret deals with the gangs, and an increasing number of international media are giving details on how that worked. He is alleged to have bribed the gangs for their loyalty in that mayoral race, outbidding the ARENA candidate by a two to one margin. Bukele soon broke with the FMLN and ran against the party in the 2019 presidential election. MS-13 gang leaders are alleged to have negotiated with him prior to the vote, demanding an end to extraditions to the US, shortened sentences, and control of territory. In return they reduced the homicide rate by hiding their crimes. After Bukele’s election, the official murder rate fell, but disappearances went up. This gang also helped him get out the vote for his legislative supermajority in 2021, sometimes violently. While he colludes with the gangs in secret, the public face of Bukele’s crime policy is a return to the repression of the ARENA years.

In March 2022, Bukele instituted a state of exception which persists to this day and has led to the imprisonment of an additional 85,000 people, giving El Salvador the highest incarceration rate in the world. Several social movement leaders are among those detained without trial. Meanwhile, many Salvadorans enjoy comparative safety in the country’s streets since the gang violence is less visible and small businesses no longer have to make extortion payments. This, along with savvy manipulation of social media, has made the president extremely popular among a segment of the population, particularly voters living in the diaspora. Now Bukele has gleefully agreed to serve as an offshore jailer for Donald Trump, and seems to delight in images of dehumanized inmates in crowded cells, indicating that they will never leave. Conditions are torturous and rehabilitation is non-existent. As Alan MacLeod reports , “cruelty is the point.” And violence persists.

The photos at the top of this article show the stark contrast in attitude towards prisoners in Nicaragua vs. El Salvador. While Bukele serves cruelty and humiliation, Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega focuses on human dignity and rehabilitation—particularly through education. A recent article tells of some 8,400 inmates enrolled in university studies, vocational programs, and completing primary and secondary schooling. Inmates are also allowed to work, if they so choose, and their earnings are sent to their families. Sentences are frequently reduced for good behavior. Reconciliation is a hallmark of the Sandinista movement, which abolished the death penalty in 1979. Corporate media stories about “political prisoners” are part of a US-funded propaganda campaign and should be viewed skeptically. This article gives information about the heinous crimes committed by those US media heroes.

In Nicaragua there is minimal gang activity, drug trafficking, and drug abuse. At 6 per 100,000 inhabitants, the country’s homicide rate has been declining since 2007 and is currently just below that of the US. This decrease is thanks to successful implementation of the kinds of social programs the FMLN attempted in El Salvador, which have engaged the youth and greatly reduced poverty. It has been a steady, long-term process that prioritizes the formerly impoverished majority; not an illusion for social media. People are empowered by creative programs that help farmers feed their families and communities, support entrepreneurs in starting a business, promote women’s health and safety, reinstate rights to Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples, and allow Nicaraguans of all ages to get an education. These are not changes that can easily be turned back, and are the reason that Daniel Ortega keeps getting a larger and larger percentage of the vote in each election.

NGOs

The Washington Post and Amnesty International inaccurately equate El Salvador’s new Foreign Agents Law with Nicaragua’s non-profits law. The Nicaraguan law requires organizations to report payments coming from outside the country and tell how such money is spent, prohibiting the use of foreign monies for political activity. It is meant to curtail foreign interference like the 2018 coup attempt that subjected the Nicaraguan population to three months of politically-motivated terror. This article provides detailed documentation of the extensive flow of USAID regime-change money to Nicaraguan opposition and media outlets before 2022. In a shameless admission that they are still dependent on US funding, the Nicaraguan opposition took to social media at the start of the second Trump administration to decry the crisis they had fallen into because their US funding was cut . Contrary to what the Post and Amnesty would have us believe, media outlets dependent on US government funding are not “independent.” Unfortunately, USAID/NED funding for Nicaraguan opposition media operating outside the country has already been reinstated.

El Salvador has also been targeted by USAID in the past for political purposes, including during the FMLN administrations. US meddling is less likely to target Bukele, given his close alignment with the Trump administration. Criticism of the new law’s provision to charge Salvadoran charities a 30% tax on international donations does seem valid. In Nicaragua, most charitable organizations pay a 1% administrative fee on international donations, while the wealthiest charities pay up to 3%—a far cry from Bukele’s 30% tax.

Treatment of Migrants

Ortega never participated in the schemes the Trump and Biden administrations negotiated with Nicaragua’s northern neighbors to inhibit the flow of migrants; nor did he impose a ‘special fee’ on migrants in transit from Africa , as Bukele did. Nicaragua accepted direct flights from Haiti and Cuba as a humanitarian gesture to ease the crises that US intervention created in those countries. For a period, Nicaragua was a transit country for migrants looking for an inexpensive and safer route to the US that avoided the dangerous Darien Gap. It was rewarded with baseless accusations of “human trafficking” by the US Congress.

Meanwhile, Bukele zealously collaborates with Trump’s mass deportation/incarceration plan for migrants, even refusing to release a wrongfully deported Salvadoran man. Daniel Ortega has adamantly denounced this , demanded the return of the kidnapped Venezuelans held in El Salvador, and pleaded for respect for all migrants. Nicaraguan migrants who are deported home from the US are welcomed with free health check-ups, a meal, transportation to their home communities, and a small stipend to get re-settled.

Handling of the COVID-19 pandemic

El Salvador had one of the most authoritarian responses to the pandemic. The Bukele government shut down the economy,  used military repression to enforce a nationwide quarantine, declared a state of exception, and forced people into COVID detention centers, where many were infected and some died. Bukele tweeted sadistic photos of gang members crowded together like sardines in prisons—bragging about his repressive response with no regard for the danger of spreading the virus.

President Ortega did the exact opposite: the economy and schools remained open, while children continued to receive their daily lunches. The government deployed a massive public health campaign with house-to-house information visits, prepared public hospitals to treat COVID, established a hotline for contact tracing and monitoring of patients, and released some prisoners. No one was jailed or went hungry due to the pandemic; the government did not incur excessive debt; and Nicaragua achieved the highest vaccination rate in Central America.

Nicaragua had one of the lowest excess death rates from the pandemic in the world (292 per 100,000 inhabitants). UNICEF congratulated Nicaragua on its pandemic response because unlike children who faced lockdowns, Nicaraguan youngsters did not experience more health risks, poorer nutrition, decreased vaccination rates, or diminished education outcomes due to the pandemic.

Salvadoran children, unfortunately, faced all the detrimental effects of an extreme lockdown. The country’s democracy suffered, the economy shrank severely, and the government incurred tremendous debt. The excess death rate in El Salvador due to the pandemic was 364 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Israel and Palestine

Historically, Zionist collaboration with right-wing repression in Central America has included the selling of napalm to ARENA governments to use on the Salvadoran people, and aid for Nicaragua’s Somoza dictatorship and contra terrorists.  Now, despite Bukele’s Palestinian heritage, he has clearly allied with Israel. His imports of Israeli weapons and surveillance technology are growing at an alarming rate, and El Salvador is one of the most extensive users of Israel’s Pegasus spyware, reportedly deployed against dozens of Bukele’s critics.

In contrast, Sandinista Nicaragua has a long history of solidarity with the Palestinian people . Since October 7, 2023, Ortega has resolutely supported the Palestinian people’s right to peace and self-determination and the end of Israeli aggression. His was the first nation to join the South Africa suit at the International Court of Justice over Israel’s violations of the Genocide Convention. Nicaragua then filed its own suit against Germany for aiding and abetting genocide, which succeeded in reducing weapons sales to Israel and reinstating German funding to UNRWA. Nicaragua does this despite threats of increased sanctions from the US Congress and Israel.

Government social spending

Since Bukele became president, classic neoliberal policies have cut education, healthcare, and poverty reduction programs introduced by the FMLN governments before him. Schools are being closed and healthcare is increasingly unaffordable. Meanwhile, there are constant increases in spending on the military, policing, and prisons.

Social spending has been a priority for Nicaragua since President Ortega took office in 2007 and now constitutes 60% of the national budget. There have been vast improvements in health, education, nutrition, housing, drinking water, roads, and electricity. The country’s Human Development Index has surpassed El Salvador’s—remarkable since Nicaragua’s per capita GDP (an important component of that score) is half that of El Salvador. And Nicaragua ranks third lowest in the western hemisphere for military spending, even behind Costa Rica which supposedly has no army.

The many differences between the two presidents are best summarized by looking at them in historical perspective. Despite the hype, the young Bukele offers nothing new. He is perpetuating the cycle of physical and structural violence in his country, in collusion with the US government. The elder statesman Ortega, however, is helping his country break free from imperialist violence. That is something new.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jill Clark-Gollub.

As summer approaches, the French government and its media echo chambers are once again launching an Islamophobic offensive. By seizing on a newly released report about the so-called ‘influence’ of the Muslim Brotherhood, they are using a crude pretext to target and suppress any visible expression of Islam in society. This comes in the wake of the brutal murder of 22-year-old Aboubakar Cissé, a Malian-born carpenter who was stabbed 57 times while praying in a mosque — a horrific hate crime. We are republishing this article from last summer as a stark testament to the deep-rooted, cartoonish racism and bigotry that pervade the so-called “Cradle of Human Rights.” Although originally written for the French CGT Education teachers’ union, the article’s author has since been expelled for criticizing the Confederation’s stance on Gaza (see this petition).

The summer period is notoriously prone to forest fires, a formidable threat to our natural resources and the surrounding biodiversity. However, there is an even more insidious danger spreading through our societies, undermining our values and cohesion: irresponsible hate speech. A reminder of some recent occurrences is in order.

Occitan Hearth

At the end of April, in elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools in the Academies of Toulouse and Montpellier [French southern cities of the Occitania region], a survey on “absenteeism” during the month of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr holiday, particularly affecting priority education zones [underprivileged areas with a significant Muslim community], targeted exclusively Muslim pupils. Commissioned by the Interior Ministry, this survey was required from schools by the police and the Ministry of Education. This situation provoked a legitimate outcry.

Following the denunciation of these stigmatizing practices — which turn a basic practice of Islam into a security issue — fraught with illegality, since religious statistics (even non-nominative ones) are strictly regulated in France, the authorities, as usual, talked a lot of hot air: “clumsiness”, “badly formulated message”, “autonomous research by an intelligence officer”, “study of the impact of certain religious holidays on the operation of public services”… As if cops were known for carrying out sociological investigations in schools; as if a religion other than Islam had ever been in the line of fire; as if occasional absences, provided for in the Education Code and legally unassailable (for the time being), could harm the functioning of Europe’s most overcrowded classrooms — after Romania.

A wet-finger estimate in [the right-wing newspaper] Le Figaro, announcing a “record absenteeism rate” on the day of Eid al-Fitr 2023 due to an alleged “TikTok trend,” is said to have prompted this investigation, which is perhaps intended to provide more quantified data for future witch-hunts. The data, moreover, is hardly usable, for while some school heads and inspectors have encouraged staff to respond to these tendentious surveys, which we can only deplore and denounce, others have fortunately dissuaded them from doing so — not to mention the fact that it is difficult to presume the reason for an absence on a Friday just before the national school holidays.

The question immediately arose as to the motives behind such a survey. Was it “only” a question of stirring up yet another unfounded controversy at the expense of the Muslim community? Or is the government planning to call into question an acquired right that is in no way contentious, in the name of an ever more narrow and misguided interpretation of secularism (which could tomorrow attack pork-free or meat-free menus in school canteens, ban any refunding of half-boarding fees for Muslim pupils during the month of Ramadan, etc.)? Will staff be the next targets of these investigations? Already, some non-teaching staff have been refused a “religious holiday” leave, which is illegal and unacceptable. Any attempt to generalize these measures on the pretext of “combating separatism” and “ensuring the smooth running of the public education service” must be fiercely opposed.

PACA Hearth and Ministerial Fuel to the Fire

On June 15, the Mayor of Nice and President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur (PACA) Regional Council, Christian Estrosi, issued an alarmist press release denouncing “several extremely serious incidents” which had occurred the previous day in three Nice elementary schools, and which were reported to the School Inspection Office, then to the Prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes Department, and the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne. The following day, the French Minister of Education, Pap Ndiaye, went even further, speaking of “intolerable facts,” the “mobilization of the Values of the Republic teams in all the schools concerned to ensure full respect for the principle of secularism on a permanent basis,” and the implementation of “the necessary government measures” to ensure respect for secularism — or “laïcité” — in schools.

The alleged “facts”? Some children in 4th and 5th grades were said to have “performed the Muslim prayer in their school playground” or organized “a minute’s silence in memory of the Prophet Mahomet[1].” These were nothing more than rumors, as the expressions of doubt (“it is reported to me,” “or”) and the conditional tense (“These unacceptable situations would also have taken place in secondary schools”) clearly underlines. Worse still, before even the slightest verification of these absolutely insignificant alleged facts (it’s just a handful of 9–10 year olds having fun in the playground), Christian Estrosi likened these “attempts at religious intrusion into the sanctuaries of the Republic that are our schools” to “religious obscurantism attempting to destabilize us” and to “families who left to wage jihad in Syria,” who are reportedly beginning to return to France and sending their children “to our schools.”

Pap Ndiaye and Christian Estrosi

And without even waiting for the results of “the General Inspectorate’s investigation to establish the facts precisely and draw the appropriate conclusions” (no kidding), the full force of the law was brought to bear against this allegedly dangerous “slide” (which at this stage has not even gone beyond the stage of gossip): “meeting with all the departments concerned to set up an action plan,” “reinforcement of State action to ensure that these attacks on secularism are firmly combated,” “campaign to prevent and combat radicalization,” “firm, collective, and resolute response,” setting up “secularism and values of the Republic training courses” which “will be the subject of a common module bringing together all personnel…” The joint press release from Christian Estrosi and Pap Ndiaye concluded with a fanfare worthy of this outpouring of catastrophist press releases, disproportionate means, and withering epithets: “the principle of secularism is non-negotiable in our Republic.” Such a display of paranoia and hysteria is not surprising from the reactionary clown Estrosi, whose secular fervor is otherwise well known, but considering what Pap Ndiaye was before he plunged body and soul into the political cesspool (Pap Ndiaye was a Professor at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, focusing his research on the compared history of racially discriminatory practices in France and in America, and the Director of the French national museum of immigration], one can only feel a bitter mixture of disgust and pity)[2].

An Eternal Flame

The deep-seated motivations behind such Islamophobic outbursts are well known and have unfortunately become a constant in the discourse of Emmanuel Macron and his minions. Having faced massive popular opposition with the pension reform, they now resort to a despicable strategy of scapegoating, reminiscent of the darkest hours of France’s history. In a notorious debate with Marine Le Pen, President of the Far-Right Party “Rassemblement National” (National Rally), Macron’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin accused her of being “too soft” on Islam and refusing to “name the enemy”: “You say that Islam isn’t even a problem… You need to take vitamins, you’re not harsh enough!”

During a special evening dedicated to Samuel Paty [French teacher who was beheaded by a radicalized Islamist for showing his pupils derogatory Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting the Prophet of Islam], Darmanin also denounced “communitarianism” and the “baser instincts” of “separatism” related to clothing or food (again, no kidding). He criticized clothing stores offering “community outfits” and the “halal sections” of supermarkets, portraying these as shocking practices. His aim was to link these cultural practices, which are perfectly harmless and consensual, to terrorism — a despicable process of amalgamation, stigmatization, and the appropriation of far-right discourse that is increasingly overt in the discourse and practices of Macron and his ministers.

Far from deterring the Rassemblement National’s electorate, this trivialization has only served to consolidate and grow it, providing a vigorous “vitamin” treatment regularly administered to hate speech by those in power and their media echo chambers.

In any case, it wouldn’t be the first time that alleged TikTok “cyber-attacks on secularism” or other unverified gossip causes an uproar in the services of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of National Education. Let us mention the controversies surrounding the wearing of the abaya and the deployment of the Orwellian concept of “improvised religious clothing,” promoted during the dubious “laïcité” training courses imposed on all teaching staff throughout France. These courses provide instructions and even rhetorical and legal tools to track down alleged intentions behind the “suspicious” dresses of presumably Muslim girls. A dress bought at H&M could thus fall under the “law banning ostentatious religious signs” (which really only targeted the Islamic veil) and earn the targeted schoolgirls summons, reprimands, or even threats and exclusion if they refuse to dress in a “republican” manner: a “morality police” doubled with a “thought police” in short. And it seems that the French authorities have just introduced a “children’s games police [3].” Are we soon to see SWAT teams in primary school playgrounds? The degree of insanity is such that a sneeze from a swarthy pupil that sounds vaguely like “Allahu Akbar” would be enough to trigger such an intervention.

Extinguishing the fires or fanning them?

At a time when violence, including far-right terrorism targeting our fellow Muslim citizens, is reaching worrying proportions, the government persists in fanning the flames of hatred with its pyromaniac actions, exacerbating the real dangers threatening civil peace. The government’s approach involves all-out repression, police and security abuses with total impunity [the French police are lately becoming seditious and openly rebellious, literally demanding a license to beat up and even kill without being bothered by any kind of justice procedure], and over-instrumentalizing trivial facts to raise the specter of fantasized threats. These tactics only serve to pit citizens against each other and divide the French society.

The republican school urgently needs resources, not diversionary strategies, artificial tensions, or a perpetual call into question of the status and fundamental rights of users and staff. The “non-negotiable” secularism promoted and ardently defended by the CGT Educ’action aims to ensure the serenity and cohesion of the educational community, not to transform staff into zealous police auxiliaries or confine an entire population to the status of suspect or “enemy within,” to be constantly monitored and held at bay.

The Republic guarantees freedom of worship and equal treatment for all its citizens. Anyone committed to republican ideals must protest against this frenzied desire to ignite bonfires from the most microscopic twigs, and against stigmatizing and discriminatory practices that tarnish France’s image abroad and regularly elicit condemnations from human rights associations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. National Education staff, in particular, must oppose these practices and report them to local union sections, which must vigorously defend all members of the educational community (staff, pupils, parents…) who fall victim to them.

ENDNOTES:

[1] The minute’s silence isn’t precisely a well-known practice in Muslim liturgy. As for the spelling “Mahomet,” we can only deplore the fact that despite the presence of the first name Mohammed in the top 10 of most given names in the current French population, and its position in the top 50 of names on French war memorials from the First World War, this backward-looking and contemptuous name dating from an era of antagonism between Christianity and Islam, and felt as an insult by millions of Muslims, remains in use.

[2] Like a downsized version of Voltaire fighting fanaticism in the days of the Inquisition, Pap Ndiaye has also taken to TV to denounce these “manifestations of religious proselytism in schools,” gargling in big words, notably BFM WC (“These facts are not acceptable in the School of the Republic… It is only natural that the Nice Academy, the Nice Rector, and the Nice Mayor should react firmly to ensure respect for the principles of secularism, which is why I have signed this joint declaration with the Nice Mayor… The parents have been summoned… The pupils have been reminded of their obligations with regard to religious neutrality, and they have been given training, because we’re talking about children after all… In secondary schools, [for similar acts] there can be sanctions [or even] temporary or permanent exclusions…”). Pap Ndiaye did not hesitate to spread false Islamophobic information, namely that these children all belonged to the Muslim faith, which was denied by Eliane’s testimony to BFM Côte d’Azur, whose non-Muslim grandson took part in these children’s games: “He should check his sources because my grandson was part of the group playing and imitating prayer. There was no intention, no religion in the middle, it was really just a game… The stigmatization of children is really lamentable… That’s why we no longer have confidence in politicians, because everything is blown out of proportion to unbelievable proportions, and this harms solidarity and life together.”

[3] Let us remind that to be valid, Muslim prayer (especially in congregations) requires the age of puberty, a precise timetable, ablutions, specific clothing, orientation towards Mecca, etc.; so many conditions that it is simply impossible to meet in an elementary school playground during the lunch break.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Salah Lamrani.

West Papuans in Merauke claim the Indonesian government is stealing land to build its global “food barn” and feed its population of 280 million.

Indonesia denies this and says all transactions are lawful.

President Prabowo Subianto’s administration wants Indonesia to be able to feed its population without imports as early as 2028, with the greater goal of exporting food.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

To get there, Indonesia plans to convert millions of hectares into farmland.

Wensi Fatubun, from Merauke in Indonesian-occupied Papua close to Papua New Guinea’s border, said forests where he grew up were being cleared.

“[The] Indonesian government took the land for the [food] security project, it was not consulted with or consented to by Indigenous Papuans,” Fatubun said.

Prabowo’s goal is a continuation of his predecessors.

National food estate project
In 2020, President Joko Widodo announced the establishment of a national food estate project which aimed at opening up new areas of farmland outside the Java main island,

It is similar to the failed Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate, spearheaded by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2010.

About 1.3 million hectares were set aside in Merauke for it — half for food crops, 30 percent sugar cane, and 20 percent for palm.

A report from the US Department of Agriculture said it encountered resistance from locals and legal challenges.

“Approximately 90 percent of the targeted areas were forest, which provided a source of livelihood for many locals. Accordingly, the development plans became a flashpoint for local activists concerned about environmental and biodiversity impacts,” the report said.

Probowo’s government has a more ambitious goal of opening up 3 million ha of agricultural land in Merauke — two million for rice and one million for sugarcane.

Human Rights Watch Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono said President Prabowo had elevated the “so-called food security issue”.

“[The President] wants Merauke in West Papua to be the so-called national food barn. This deforestation land grabbing is much more deeper in Merauke than in the past.”

Conflict has escalated
Harsono said conflict had escalated in West Papua and was now on par with some of the most violent periods in the past 60 years, but he was not sure if it was connected to the President’s focus on food security.

BenarNews reported that about 2000 troops had been deployed late last year in Merauke to provide security at a 2 million ha food plantation.

Rosa Moiwend, from Merauke, said the soldiers worked alongside farmers.

“They are expected to teach local farmers how to use mechanical agriculture equipment,” Moiwend said.

“But as West Papuan people, the presence of the military in the middle of the community, watching communities activities, people’s movement when they travel from one place to another, actually creates fear among the people in Merauke.”

Like Harsono and Fatubun, Moiwend said “land grabs” were happening.

However, she said it still involved a land broker, which created a facade of a fair procedure.

‘We do not sell land’
“Indigenous Merauke, indigenous Marind people like myself and my people, we do not sell land because land belongs to the community. It is communal land.”

However, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s Embassy in Wellington said all processes and steps involving land sales had been lawful, “always respecting the inclinations of local tribes”.

“Its development always involving local authorities, especially chief tribes for the consent of their ulayat (traditional land),” they said.

“There is no land grab without consent, and the government also working on the biodiversity conservation and forestry production to create space harmonisation model with Conservation International, Medco Group, and couple of other independent organisations.”

‘They are stripping communities’ – campaigner
West Papua Action Aotearoa spokesperson Catherine Delahunty, formerly a Green Party MP, said the region was part of the lungs of the Pacific, which was now being destroyed.

“The plan has been around for a long time but it seems to have escalated under Prabowo,” Delahunty said.

“They are stripping those lands and stripping those communities who live there from their traditional foods such as the sago palm to turn the whole of Merauke into sugar cane, rice and palm plantations.

“The effects have been massive and they’re just getting worse.”

She said New Zealand and Australia — the two “most powerful” governments in the South Pacific — were failing in their obligations to the citizens of West Papua.

“You could almost justify, because it’s a long way away from other parts of the world, that Europe and the northern hemisphere don’t really understand West Papua but there’s no excuse for us.

“These people are in our region but they’re not white people. I think there’s a huge element of racism towards Papuans and towards Pacific nations who aren’t perceived as important in the Western worldview.”

She said there was willingness to trade with Indonesia as a regional powerhouse, and New Zealand did not want to rock the boat.

That coupled with a media blackout made it easy for Indonesia to act with impunity, Delahunty said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The escalation of violence in West Papua is on par with some of the most intense times of conflict over the past six decades, a human rights researcher says.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) claims that Indonesia killed at least one civilian and severely injured another last Tuesday in Puncak Regency.

In a statement, ULMWP interim president Benny Wenda said Deris Kogoya, 18, was killed by a rocket attack from a helicopter while riding his motorbike near Kelanungin Village.

• READ MORE: Indonesia’s Pacific manoeuvres – money, military and silencing West Papua
• Indonesia gifts $12 million grant to Fiji
• Other West Papua reports

Jemi Waker, meanwhile, sustained severe violent injuries, including to both his legs.

The statement said Waker had refused to go to hospital, fearing he would be killed if he went.

Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono said that over the past month he had received an unusually high number of messages accompanied by gruesome photos showing either Indonesian soldiers or civilians being killed.

“The fighting is much more frequent now,” Harsono said.

More Indonesian soldiers
“There are more and more Indonesian soldiers sent to West Papua under President Pradowo.

“At the same time, indigenous Papuans are also gaining more and more men, unfortunately also boys, to join the fight in the jungle.”

He said the escalation could match similarly intense periods of conflict in 1977, 1984, and 2004.

A spokesperson for Indonesia’s Embassy in Wellington said they could not confirm if there had been a military attack in Puncak Regency on Tuesday.

However, they said all actions conducted by Indonesia’s military were in line with international law.

They said there were attacks in March and April of this year, instigated by an “armed criminal group” targeting Indonesian workers and civilians.

Harsono said if the attack was on civilians, it would be a clear breach of human rights.

Confirmation difficult
However, he said it was difficult to confirm due to the remoteness of the area. He said it was common for civilians to wear army camouflage because of surplus Indonesian uniforms.

https://t.co/m15LSHXmZW

— Benny Wenda (@BennyWenda) May 7, 2025

ULMWP’s Benny Wenda said West Papuans were “a forgotten, voiceless people”.

“Where is the attention of the media and the international community? How many children must be killed before they notice we are dying?”

Wenda compared the lack of attention with the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Palestine conflict that was getting more media attention.

He said Indonesia had banned media “to prevent journalists from telling the world what is really going on”.

The Indonesian Embassy spokesperson said foreign journalists were not allowed in the area for their own safety.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a supposedly liberal organization, is also concerned. But their problem is that the president hasn’t gone far enough – at least in the case of Venezuela. HRW’s latest report on Venezuela calls for intensified illegal measures that cause misery and death, outflanking Trump from the right.

Ignoring the US hybrid war

At issue for HRW is last July’s Venezuelan presidential election that saw Nicolás Maduro declared the winner. Beyond issues with supposed electoral irregularities lies the elephant in the room that is utterly disregarded by HRW. The US hybrid war against Venezuela was the biggest obstacle to free and fair elections. Venezuelans were under economic siege with coercive measures aimed at pressuring them into backing the US-backed opposition.

Also telling is the opposition’s refusal to submit their electoral records to the Venezuelan supreme court, when summoned to do so because they do not recognize the constitutional order in Venezuela. Legally, there was no way for them to claim victory even if they had legitimately won.

Post-election protest demonstrations were predictable. The opposition, which has a long history of anti-democratic street violence, threatened them if it lost. HRW characterizes the riots as mostly peaceful, while accusing the government of responding with a “brutal crackdown.”

Yet the widespread damage of public property such as health clinics, government offices, schools, and transportation facilities – along with murders of government security personnel and party members – were inconvenient facts entirely ignored in HRW’s over 100-page report. Such actions can hardly be called peaceful, nor blamed on the government.

A cure worse than the disease

 For argument’s sake, let’s not contest HRW’s claim that the books were cooked in Venezuela’s presidential election in order to examine the NGO’s solution.

On April 29, the US State Department celebrated 100 days of “America first” accomplishments, highlighting the revocation of oil importing licenses and the establishment of potential secondary tariffs on countries that still dare to import Venezuelan oil.

The next day, HRW’s report demanded even harsher punishment. Frustrated that the “Trump administration appears to be prioritizing cooperation” with Venezuela, HRW called for expanding sanctions and deepening pressure. And this is despite Washington’s plans to further maximize its maximum pressure campaign to achieve regime change in Caracas.

Specifically, HRW urged the US and other states to “counter Maduro’s domestic carrot-and-stick incentives that reward abusive authorities and security forces, making them loyal to the government” by imposing even more “targeted sanctions.”

Further compounding the impact of individual targeted sanctions is the reality of overcompliance. Even individual sanctions end up contributing to collective punishment. A 2019 statement by HRW recognized that “despite language excluding transactions to purchase food and medicines, these sanctions could exacerbate the already dire humanitarian situation in Venezuela due to the risk of overcompliance.”

But now the 1,028 existing unilateral coercive measures (the correct term for sanctions) on Venezuela by the US and its allies apparently aren’t enough for these sadists.

HRW admits that these coercive measures have “failed to make a dent” in correcting what they see as bad behavior. Why then persist if ineffective? Perhaps, because they’re very effective in punishing errant states and warning others.

HRW also lobbied for yet more foreign intervention in Venezuela’s internal affairs: “Foreign governments should expand support for Venezuelan civil society groups… a sustained and principled international response is crucial.”

Selective sanctimony on sanctions

HRW criticized the Trump administration’s sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court (ICC) because they might potentially “chill” the tribunal’s ardor to go after Venezuela.

Revealingly, this particular HRW report shows no concern that Trump’s sanctions might stifle the court’s prosecution of the US/Zionist genocide in Palestine. What HRW is instead focused on is having the court “prioritize its investigation” of Venezuela.

HRW never mentions in this report that the US does not accept the ICC’s jurisdiction over itself. In other words, this report fails to criticize Washington’s evading accountability as long as the ICC can be weaponized against Venezuela.

The ICC has, in fact, been blatantly politicized regarding Venezuela. Caracas has requested in vain that the ICC investigate US coercive measures that have caused over 100,000 civilian deaths in Venezuela, constituting a crime against humanity.

 The HRW report is sanctimonious about the “brave efforts of [opposition] Venezuelans who risked—and often suffered,” but is callously unsympathetic regarding the devastating effects on the population at large of the very measures it is advocating.

HRW laments the US administration’s cutting funding to astroturf “humanitarian and human rights groups” promoting regime change in Venezuela. But it does not express sympathy for ordinary Venezuelans suffering economic hardship, food insecurity, or lack of medicine due to broader US sanctions. Notably absent from this report is acknowledgement of the humanitarian consequences of Washington’s unilateral coercive measures.

The human rights organization’s primary critique of the enormous humanitarian toll of the unilateral coercive measures is that they have “failed to produce a transition.”

Sanctions kill

 The HRW report frames US sanctions as supposedly justified efforts to enforce imperial restrictions on Venezuela and not as part of a regime-change hybrid war.

As Venezuelanalysis reported: “US economic sanctions against Venezuela are a violent and illegal form of coercion, seeking regime change through collective punishment of the civilian population.” Investigations by the UN’s high commissioner for human rights found “sanctions that threaten people’s lives and health need to be halted.”

Even HRW’s own World Report 2022 cited UN findings that sanctions had exacerbated Venezuela’s economic and social crises. Yet HRW apparently considers the burden warranted, which invokes Madeleine Albright’s infamous defense of Iraq sanctions: “we think the price is worth it.”

 Follow-the-flag humanitarianism

 HRW has long maintained a “revolving door” relationship with the US government personnel. The organization is also significantly associated with George Soros and his Open Society Foundations. UN Independent Expert and human rights scholar Alfred de Zayas describes how HRW and similar NGOs have become part of what he calls the “human rights industry,” instrumentalizing human rights for geopolitical agendas.

Unilateral coercive measures are a major component of the US imperial tool kit. But HRW opportunistically fails to note that such sanctions are illegal under international law. In fact, Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective penalties against protected persons.

As Mark Weisbrot with the Center for Economic and Policy Research observes, HRW has “ignored or paid little attention to terrible crimes that are committed in collaboration with the US government in this hemisphere,” while it “has repeatedly and summarily dismissed or ignored sincere and thoroughly documented criticisms of its conflicts of interest.”

 HRW recognizes that the coercive measures against Venezuela, which impact the general populace, have not succeeded in imposing an administration subservient to Washington – what they euphemistically call “restoration of democracy.” So why continue advocating more sanctions and support for Venezuela’s far-right opposition? The answer is that Washington’s NGO epigones talk “reform” but aim at fomenting insurrectionary regime change.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Roger D. Harris.