Month: Mar 2023

from thefreeonline March 6, 2023 by Turkish Minute

Anti-Syrian discrimination mars Turkey’s earthquake response: report

State-linked organizations providing the bulk of relief have denied aid to Syrians in some cases in Turkish provinces affected by devastating earthquakes in early February, according to earthquake survivors and rights organizations, Syria Direct, an independent media organization reporting on Syrians, said on Wednesday, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported.

Xenophobia, hate speech and hate crimes against Syrian refugees are increasing in Turkey as the country prepares for upcoming elections, and politicians from far-right parties have been fueling anti-Syrian sentiment in regions hit by the earthquakes.

3 TV stations fined $423K in total for earthquake coverage critical…A total of TL 7,990,000 ($423,000) in fines has been imposed by broadcasting watchdog the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) on three TV…

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck near the Turkish city of Gaziantep – home to around 2 million people and on the border with Syria – as people were sleeping on February 6 was followed by dozens of aftershocks, including a 7.5-magnitude temblor that jolted the region in the middle of search and rescue efforts the same day.

31 women in Turkey fell victim to femicide in January ///Women’s Rights in Turkey: 2022 in Review///Top court refuses to annul Turkey’s Istanbul Convention withdrawal

A large number of Syrians affected by the earthquakes have been temporarily evacuated by authorities to shelters in the southern Turkish province of Mersin.

Speaking to Syria Direct, a Syrian man called “Bilal” said the police escorted his family and a few dozen other Syrians in the shelter, run by the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), out on the grounds that it was reserved for Turkish citizens.

As the Syrians were leaving the shelter in Mersin on February 10, Bilal said he saw a Turkish journalist speaking to the cameras and claiming that Syrians were being expelled because they had destroyed furniture in the shelter.

When they went to an AFAD center in Mersin the next day, “The person from AFAD said, ‘You are Syrian, you already took everything, this help is for Turks. Come back in five days and we’ll see,” Bilal recounted.

5,361, including 80 minors, mistreated or tortured in Turkey in 2022:… Elderly Kurdish prisoner beaten by guards for protesting racist remarks: report

Attitudes about refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria have gradually hardened in Turkey, where they used to be welcomed with open arms, sympathy and compassion, as the number of newcomers has swelled over the past decade.

Tensions between Turks and Syrians flare up on occasion in Turkey, where refugees are blamed for many of the country’s social and economic troubles.

Hate crimes against refugees and migrants have been escalating in recent years as Turkish media, including pro-government and opposition outlets, fuel and exploit the flames of hatred against people who fled their countries and sought refuge in Turkey.

Minority and Refugee Rights in Turkey: 2022 in Review //Leader of far-right party launches campaign to deport Syrian refugees // German prosecutors investigating AKP MP over speech targeting Gülenists, “PKK members“

Anti-migrant sentiment has also been expressed by opposition politicians, including Ümit Özdağ, leader of the far-right Victory Party (ZP). In January, Özdağ launched a new campaign dubbed “Bus to Damascus” aimed at deporting Syrian refugees from Turkey.

In a propaganda video posted on Twitter by Özdağ, who has been at the forefront of anti-refugee propaganda in Turkey, party supporters were asked to share the names of refugees and to donate to the ZP so that refugees could be put on buses they call “Victory Buses” and deported to Syria.

Continue reading “Turkish Parties whip up hate crimes on Syrian Refugee earthquake victims as Election Looms”

COVID Jab Massacre – Fainting, Seizures & Sudden Death …

from thefreeonline on 5th March 2023 by Bradley Blankenship @BradBlank at HomeWorld News

Supporters of the ruling Socialist Party with millions of followers are finding themselves deplatformed as the social media giant defends the far right racist opposition who staged an ultimately failed US supported Coup.

Meta, the company that owns Facebook, has blocked a slew of accounts and groups as part of its “Adversarial Threat” program.

Despite Meta’s war against them the MAS socialists are still supported by the indigenous majority over the racist former rulers

The social media giant said it “took down three CIB (coordinated inauthentic behavior) networks – in Serbia, Cuba and Bolivia – targeting people in their own countries across many services across the internet and linked to governments or ruling parties in each state.”

But people in Bolivia took issue with this over freedom of speech concerns. According to a local media report from Kawsuchen News, “1,041 Facebook accounts, 450 Pages, 14 Groups and 130 Instagram accounts were deleted in December 2022.

All the banned accounts belonged to supporters of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS-IPSP), the party of government. Those who were banned have not been able to return. The excuse given is to accuse us of ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior.’”

As the report’s author, Oscar Alfaro, pointed out, “the accusation of ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’ is a concept based on convenience-oriented algorithms. However, such algorithms cannot discern simple social and group behavior.

In the case of Bolivia, activists have utilized social media as a platform to provide an alternative to the national media which is dominated by right-wing groups.”

Both Meta and the US are determined to provoke a race war in Bolivia in an effort to take back control of its rich natural resources.

Read more Bolivia in turmoil after governor’s arrest

Meta claims it is defending “members of the opposition,” but, in practice, this means allowing these same groups to publish open hate speech and racial discrimination against Bolivia’s indigenous majority.

These are the same groups responsible for the 2020 Bolivian coup that installed the far-right government of (now former) provisional president Jeanine Anez.

Continue reading “Meta is subverting the Bolivian majority indigenous govt while enabling the far right ex rulers”

Palestine Action activists have, this morning, pulled a van alongside Elbit Systems UAV Engines weapons factory.

from thefreeonline on March 4th 2023 by Freedom News

From inside the vehicle, they climbed on top to raise the Palestinian flag, whilst the driver locked on to the steering wheel to secure their position.

Shortly after, they were confronted by scores of Elbit’s private security and police. In total, four were arrested after taking action against the Israeli weapons factory. 

Today’s action comes amidst Israeli army invasions and settler riots in the West Bank, with Palestinians being subjected to brutal attacks, by both Israeli military and settlers. In Nablus, last week’s military invasion killed 11 and injured over 100 Palestinians, while settlers later terrorised the town of Huwara, and elsewhere in the West Bank, burning down 35 Palestinian homes, and killing one Palestinian.

 Elsewhere, activists in central Birmingham performed a banner drop with the Palestinian and Kashmiri flags, highlighting the shared plight of the two populations under military occupations using Elbit weaponry.

These attacks have been carried out with either the explicit or implicit support of the occupation regime’s cabinet ministers, with Israel’s finance minister calling for Huwara to be ‘wiped out of the earth’.

UAV Engines in Shenstone is owned by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company. Elbit Systems are the majority provider of weaponry to the Israeli military – supplying 85% of its drones and land-based military equipment, including a vast range of surveillance, munitions, ammunition, software and other military technologies.

Their Shenstone subsidiary specialises in making engines for military drones, which Elbit openly market as ‘battle-tested’ or ‘combat-proven’ on the Palestinian people.

Publicly available information demonstrates the site is directly used for the supply of weapons to Israel, as shown in its ML10 and ML11 export licenses held for sales to Israel of drones and military electronics .

Elbit’s Hermes 450 drone is powered by a Wankel-style engine made by UAV Engines Ltd in Shenstone, and has been used to surveil and attack the people of Gaza for over a decade, decimating thousands of lives.

Israel admitted in July 2022 that its Hermes 450 drones are armed, with this fact being described as “Israel’s worst kept secret” by Israeli TV Channel i24 News.

Announcing a new phase of the campaign against Elbit Systems, Palestine Action have declared a ‘siege‘ against Elbit’s Leicester drone factory from May 1st. The mass action will include hundreds staying put for weeks on end, through day and night, refusing to leave until Elbit does.

People in the West Midlands who reject British complicity in Israeli apartheid are invited to join this siege. To build up to it, Palestine Action will be hosting a talk on ‘How to Shut Elbit Down’ in Birmingham on Sunday March 5th, at the Warehouse, Allison Street, between 3:00 and 5:00pm.

Speakers will include rapper-activist Lowkey, arms trade expert Andrew Feinstein, and representatives from Palestine Action. Similar talks are planned across the country in the upcoming weeks.

‘Palestine Action’ slam into Shenstone’s Israeli arms factory in UK https://t.co/ARnmHAXN07 #BDS #WestBank #IsraeliFascism #Netanyahu #UN #US #Gaza #Settlements #Jericho #Paletinians #Palestine #Israel #NablusMassacre #Huwara #IsraelPogrom pic.twitter.com/sAn2LX1mTn

— Mike Gilliland (@MikeGilliland11) March 5, 2023

from thefreeonline on February 23, 2023 by Didi Rankovic at Reclaim The Net.

The UN is openly embracing the agenda of mobilizing to fight against perceived online hate speech and disinformation. The latest was to organize an event called, Internet for Trust.

Calls for online regulation.

If you’re tired of censorship, cancel culture, and the erosion of privacy and civil liberties subscribe to Reclaim The Net.

The unelected and well-funded organization whose purpose primarily is to facilitate conflict resolution in the real world and provide peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance in war-torn areas, is now increasingly following in the footsteps of other unelected, though less formal elite groups, like the WEF.

Fact Check: Fact-Checkers Falsely Claim They Are Fact Checkers

Now, we have announcements from one of its agencies, UNESCO – that is supposed to promote world peace and security through international education, arts and sciences cooperation, and protection of world heritage in forms of monuments, etc. – crafting its very own “guidelines” to regulate “hate speech” and “misinformation.”

According to an announcement, UNESCO has found a way to explain how (but not when or why) it started to believe it should have this power to regulate online communications by citing its mandate to promote free circulation of ideas through words and images.

“The internet and social media offer many advantages in the world today. But as we know and we have just heard, individuals are increasingly using it for disinformation. And the reality is they also propagate hate speech”.

UNESCO’s global mandate includes the promotion of the free circulation of ideas through words and images. UNESCO has therefore decided to develop, through multistakeholder consultations, principles for regulation of digital platforms guidelines whose aim is to support the development and implementation of regulation procedures to guarantee freedom of expression and access to information while managing illegal contents and any contents that can be so harmful to democracy and respect for human rights.

And instead of doing just that – the agency stopping the free circulation of often arbitrarily selected (and sometimes contrary to national law) “unwanted” information, and regulating it, is apparently the way to go.”

The Regulation of Digital Platforms guidelines, which UNESCO is developing does still pay what looks like lip service to freedom of expression and access to information – but the main goal i to “manage” what the UN has deems “illegal contents and any contents that can be so harmful to “democracy and respect for human rights.”

That’s a handily broad definition to cover a lot of things – whether truly harmful or not – and the whole idea is sure to make quite a few free speech proponents unhappy.

But those behind it are positively giddy to be working on guidelines to “support the development and implementation of regulation procedures” aimed at “guaranteeing” access to information, and freedom of expression.

The real policy is to label as illegal any content that the elite decides could harm their profits and control agenda, in the name of democracy and human rights.

In announcing the Internet for Trust conference, UNESCO mentioned looking for ways to combat hate speech, misogyny, doxxing and conspiracy theories, and even, with a straight face, suppression of free speech.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said that regulation was necessary online:

“The blurring of boundaries between true and false, the highly-organized denial of scientific facts, the amplification of disinformation and conspiracies – these did not originate on social networks,” the UNESCO head said. “But, in the absence of regulation, they flourish there much better than the truth”.

“Only by taking the full measure of this technological revolution can we ensure it does not sacrifice human rights, freedom of expression and democracy. For information to remain a common good, we must reflect and act now, together,” she said.

If you’re tired of censorship, cancel culture, and the erosion of civil liberties subscribe to Reclaim The Net..