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The problem for humanity is that it has developed weapons that are capable of destroying all life, and these weapons are in the hands of emotional people incapable of restraint and reason. By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the […]
Rushing into Catastrophe. Intense War Fever in Washington. “America can Afford Two Wars”…?
The case against protester Sasha Skochilenko shows how the Russian criminal justice system is often broken by insane wartime laws and far-right nationalism.
from thefreeonline on 19th Oct 2023 by Sergey Smirnov in MediaZona at Open Democracy
In the Petersburg courtroom, a woman in a green sweater stands behind bars. She holds a special tool for measuring heart activity in one hand: a Holter monitor.
Her name is Sasha Skochilenko, and she has a heart defect. A cardiologist who examined the 33-year-old several times in prison has noted a sharp deterioration in her condition since she was detained in April 2022.
Note: while Sasha needs support and her case is horrifically unjust we remember it’s been taken up by the giant racist propaganda media of the west, while cancelling thousands of even worse cases of repression and state crimes in nazi led Ukraine.
It’s evening and the court is officially closed, but the trial in Skochilenko’s case is ongoing. After 7pm, the defendant asks to end the hearing early – she needs to change the battery in her heart monitor. If she doesn’t, Skochilenko says, the medical examination that she has been waiting for for a very long time will be disrupted.
But the judge claims that Skochilenko, an artist, could have ensured her heart monitor was charged in advance, and refuses.
Upset, Skochilenko asks for at least a 40-minute break to eat.
At the last few hearings she has complained about hunger. “I don’t understand why you are torturing me with hunger,” she tells the judge at the start of the hearing. She is woken up at 6am to be transported to court, so she doesn’t have a chance to eat breakfast.
The court hearings often drag on and when Skochilenko returns from court, dinner at the pre-trial detention centre is over. But Skochilenko cannot eat the dry rations that are provided for prisoners in such cases: she has a gluten intolerance. During previous hearings, Skochilenko has not been able to eat for two days in a row.
This time she took her food with her in advance. But the judge denies this request as well. Then the desperate Skochilenko asks for a 15-minute break to go to the toilet. But the judge coldly refuses this too.
Skochilenko begins to cry in the cell in the courtroom for the first time in the entire trial, which began in December 2022.
She is accused of replacing price tags in a St Petersburg supermarket with anti-war stickers. For this, she faces up to 10 years in prison.
Apparently, her actions amount to spreading “fake news” about the Russian army – a new crime that the Russian authorities have introduced since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Recently, at an event with several other Russian journalists, I was asked to name an article I am especially proud of.
In general, it is always difficult to answer this kind of question. All our coverage at Mediazona, where I am chief editor, seems important and necessary. Our team, which focuses on Russia’s law and justice system, has published well-read and well-cited stories, as well as several data studies on the number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine – which we have done together with our colleagues from Meduza, another independent outlet, and the BBC Russian service.
But after thinking a little, I realised that our most important work is the live reporting on Sasha Skochilenko’s trial.
Our coverage from the Sasha Skochilenko case shows how repression really works in Russia, how officials are trying to justify it and what kind of people are helping to imprison innocent Russian citizens.
An artist and musician, Skochilenko has been involved in many volunteer initiatives in her hometown of St Petersburg, including helping people with mental problems and authoring a comic book about depression.
The fact that the judge is clearly turning a blind eye to both the contradictions in the prosecution’s evidence and Skochilenko’s health means the trial looks more and more like open mockery.
Skochilenko was detained back in April 2022, a few weeks after the invasion began.
After the start of the war, the Russian authorities adopted a whole package of repressive laws, including a new crime on “fake news” (Article 207.3 of the Russian Criminal Code).
This new charge became key for the authorities: spreading any information about the war that contradicts the official position of the Russian Ministry of Defense can be a prosecutable offence. It was deployed actively in the first months of the invasion when the Russian authorities feared anti-war protests. And Sasha Skochilenko was one of the first arrested on “fake news” charges.
Skochilenko is accused of replacing five price tags on items in a city supermarket with anti-war stickers. They bore messages about the Russian bombing of a school in Mariupol, Russian conscripts who were sent to fight in the war, the deaths of thousands of soldiers and the corresponding silence on Russian state television, and the lies Vladimir Putin has told in his 20-year rule.
One sticker reads: “My great-grandfather fought in the Great Patriotic War [against Nazi Germany] for four years not to see Russia become a fascist state and attack Ukraine.”
Continue reading “Sasha faces 10 years in jail for anti-war stickers – now she’s being starved”When children are explicitly framed as “not innocent,” all-out genocidal warfare is possible.
from thefreeonline on 19th Oct 2023 by Antinuclear
TruthOut, By Jonathan Ofir , MONDOWEISS, October 18, 2023
t really is hard to imagine a more malicious statement than “the children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves” when children in Gaza are now being massacred by the hundreds.
But this was actually said in a recent Knesset session. And it wasn’t someone considered an extreme right-winger, but a liberal centrist – Meirav Ben-Ari from Yair Lapid’s opposition party Yesh Atid.
The full, over-three-hour session from Monday can be seen here. Ben-Ari is evidently getting worked up as Palestinian lawmaker Aida Touma-Sliman (around two hours into the session) bemoans the loss of civilian lives “both in the area surrounding Gaza and in Gaza,” imploring to make an effort to release hostages and to “get the civilians out of the circle of blood.” “Jews as well as Arabs, Israelis as well as Palestinians.”
Continue reading “Israeli Politician Says “Children of Gaza Have Brought This Upon Themsel”From Deir Yassin to Al-Ahli Hospital: Israel’s legacy of killing Palestinians
from thefreeonline on October 18, 2023 By Nasim Ahmed at Middle East Monitor
Images of dead and bloodied toddlers lined up on a hospital stretcher stirred outrage in Gaza and the West Bank [Screengrab/Telegram]
Israel’s propaganda machine has begun to work overtime to convince the world of the occupation state’s innocence in the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital .
Complicit in the destruction of Gaza, Western leaders aided by the media have also started to work round the clock to dutifully parrot the lies, amplifying the fog of war.
US President Joe Biden, who was the first Western leader to repeat the gruesome Israeli lie about 40 beheaded babies, dutifully trumpeted the Israeli narrative that a misfired Hamas rocket killed 500 people.
This course has been charted before. The same smokescreens used to obscure the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh are being deployed once again.
We don’t require a forensic investigation – though one should be carried out by an independent body – to hold Israel responsible for the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital.
Israel has been openly pre-justifying hospital bombing and school bombing before launching its military campaign. It’s been pre-justifying war crimes, declaring with no fear of accountability that it will impose collective punishment by denying Gazans electricity, water and food.
For decades, the brutal realities of massacres were suppressed, details buried. But slowly they came to light – stories of indiscriminate slaughter, rape, torture and exile, of defenceless civilians.
Continue reading “Israel’s 75 year long list of Massacres of Palestinians – all denied but later verified”from thefreeonline
People gather around bodies of Palestinians killed at al-Ahli Arab hospital in central Gaza, October 17, 2023
To Comment, reply, like, and dislike click here . (You may need to evade Western censorship, though RT is fairly non-partisan on Palestine) . Moderation by tolstoycomments
James Graham
the idf had already shelled the hospital earlier warning everyone to get out then try and say it wasn’t them? Lol what a pack of incompetent liars.
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James Graham
The entire world knows now the lengths the terrorist state isreal is prepared to go to, the world knows that the home made rockets Hamas has are no where near as powerful as the one that criminally dropped the hospital, murdering 100s of innocent civilians. Even the sound of the missile coming in right before the explosion indicates it was one of the type the US/isntreal uses and are fired from aircraft which last time anyone checked, Hamas has nothing of that kind or even an airforce to launch such a missile and if they did, isnreal would have shot it down whilst approaching Gaza from any direction seeing as isntreal has had Gaza surrounded for years now. Such a pathetic attempt by the idf fool on TV trying to cast the blame for an internationally recognised war crime onto Hamas just shows how desperate things are becoming for the zionist regime.
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Ini
We do not know who is behind this.
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HeartofDarkness
Israel acted after the October 7th massacre, but just how many more dead Palestinians will it take to satisfy these people?
Bahati
the whole world know who is been bombing schools, hospital, media and that is non other than the zionist
Kongling118
A bomb that can destroy 800 to 900 people in the Gaza hospital, would take a very powerful bomb, which I think Hamas is not capable of owning, instead it might be missile from US aircraft carrier or from Israel.
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Profitdealer
expert say that HAMAS rockets are not capable of inflicting this amount of firepower that killed the hundreds of people.
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Amvet
The Israelis show two photos to prove they are innocent. They are a photo of the hospital before the attack and a photo of the hospital blast. To me this is proof that the hospital was locked on as a target.
силаVправда
let’s see how many arrest warrants would be issued by the ICC
Libertus
Should come as no surprise that the Jewish monsters in Israel who are capable of carrying out 75 years of genocide against the Palestinian people whose land they’ve stolen can commit one more atrocity against them. Lying about it it’s just a small crime for the racist, genocidal, apartheid Jewish state of Israel.
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Yancey Tobias
Netanyahu aide, Hanaya Naftali, tweeted about the successful missile hit on al-Ablu hospital just after the explosion. Once it became known that hundreds upon hundreds of victims had been killed, children, women, medical staff, Naftali deleted his tweet and claimed an errant Palestinian missile hit the hospital. It is past time to end this Zionist regime with whatever it takes to end this regime.
Lex44
Continue reading “Israel and Palestinians trade blame for hospital massacre – See 100’s of comments mostly giving proofs of Israeli Guilt.”
Data on the video clip showed the launch was at 8pm local time. The hospital had been destroyed at 7:20pm local time.
Israel’s excuse is a complete whopper. Starmer’s response is a whimper
The Free 