The Free

Erdogan already jails hundreds for criticizing him on line.. He is already one of the world’s greatest liars, presenting his regime as innocent while jailing hundreds of thousands of innocents, invading occupying and ethnically cleansing his neighbours, banning the Kurdish language, even jailing people for singing in it, promoting ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists and converting them into his own mercenaries, subjecting his populatioin to 70% inflation to protect his elite, etc etc etc

One of the most commonly-made objections to Western liberal democracies passing censorship laws is that tyrants and dictators will then cite them as justification for their own, much more draconian censorship laws.

That is exactly what is happening in Turkey, with President Erdoğan and his nationalist allies in the Nationalist Movement Party proposing a new law that will criminalise spreading ‘fake news’ and ‘misinformation’ online – by which they mean, of course, anything criticising the Government of President Erdoğan. Ahval News has more.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling party and his nationalist allies presented legislation to parliament introducing jail sentences for persons spreading so-called fake news on the internet.

In December, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan labelled social media as one of the main threats to democracy, saying his Government would criminalise spreading fake news and disinformation online.

The digital censorship law foresees jail sentences of between one and three years for anyone who is deemed to have publicly disseminated false information regarding national security, public order, or general public health that creates anxiety, fear, or panic among the population or disturbs public peace, according to local media including the Diken news website.

Erdoğan’s Government is seeking to tighten its grip on the media and throttle dissent, a process that has accelerated since the introduction of a full presidential system of government in the summer of 2018.

The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is acting with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), has said that the law would be similar to legislation and regulations in Germany, France and the United States.

In Germany, provisions do not block access to social media and do not include criminal sanctions other than fines, Yaman Akdeniz, a professor of law at Istanbul Bilgi University, said in an analysis on May 19th for Article 19, an organisation promoting freedom of expression. In France, the law only targets election misinformation rather than criminalising disinformation per se, while U.S. measures are aimed at countering foreign propaganda and disinformation in particular with regards to elections, he said.

Turkey ranks 149th of 180 countries for media freedom, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in an annual report at the start of May. Authoritarianism was gaining ground in Turkey, threatening media pluralism, and all possible means were used to undermine critics, RSF said.

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: This is a powerful argument against the U.K. Government passing an internet censorship law. But instead of defending the Online Safety Bill against these and other criticisms, Nadine Dorries has posted a video of herself rapping about it on TikTok.

By Toby Young  /  28 May 2022 • 13.00

  Posted on May 24, 2022 by Chiapas Support Committee via thefreeonline Leave a Comment at original

By: Raúl Zibechi

With his usual lucidity, William I. Robinson wonders if the worldwide wave of protests and mobilizations will be capable of confronting global capitalism (https://bit.ly/3MjvBsl). In effect, there has been an endless chain of protests and popular uprisings since the 2008 crisis. He recalls that in the years before the pandemic there were more than 100 large protests that brought down 30 governments.

He mentions the gigantic mobilization in the United States after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, which he defines as: “an anti-racist uprising that brought more than 25 million people, mostly young people, into the streets of hundreds of cities across the country, the largest mass protest in the history of the United States.”

In Latin America the uprisings and revolts in Ecuador, Chile, Nicaragua and especially Colombia, had an extension, duration and depth rarely seen on this continent. The Colombian protest paralyzed the country for three months, showed impressive levels of popular creativity (such as the 25 resistance points in Cali) and ways of articulation between peoples, in the street, below, absolutely unprecedented.

Robinson recalls that the dominant classes pushed the cycle of mobilization back at the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the ‘70s, “through capitalist globalization and the neoliberal counter-revolution.” That was in the north, because in the global south they did it with pure bullets and massacres.

Continue reading “Zibechi: the limits of protest as a form of struggle”

“In the Dark Nights there is always the warmth of the fire!”

2022/05/27 by Giannis Michailidis on darknights via the freeonline

After 8.5 years in prison, after all these arbitrary actions against me, I decided to put an end to my 11 years of suffering, by putting a stop to the practice of pre-trial detention, or the additional punishment of escape through legal loopholes.

After 5 more months of pre-trial detention, I start a hunger strike for my release. This choice, with the deep motivation of the much desired freedom, I intend to support it with the same consistency that I have supported my choices so far and for which I am being persecuted.

“Woe to those who will accept prison as a condition of life, and from the brightest sunlight, the smallest ray” – The rallying cry of the Alikarnassos prison uprising

For 11 years I have experienced state vengeance against choices in line with my values and ideas.

The difficult journey, from which I choose to share some blatant vengeful acts of arbitrariness against me, began in the distant 2011, when an arrest warrant was issued against me for the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire case, for which I was eventually acquitted as there was not the slightest connection between me and the charge against me.

It was the incrimination of a relationship of solidarity with wanted anarchists that put me in their place when they were arrested.

After 2 years of being on the run, I too am now walking through the heavy doors of prison, as the existence of a warrant that entails a decade of incarceration has led to certain choices and consequent mistakes.

The comrades who were arrested at the time in the bank robbery in Velvento, Kozani, were tortured by the police, which is common, and then the Ministry of Public Order published photos of our swollen faces, provoking a public reaction. Of course, no police officer was accused of this by the blind Greek justice system.

Continue reading “Greece: Giannis Michailidis – I Announce a hunger strike for my release”

—by Anonymous Contributor at itsgoingdown.org via thefreeonline shared with thanks

• note. a ‘SWEEP’ in this context means a mass police attack/eviction on a houseless camp in the US.
• a ‘STRIKE’ here means a great success when you knock down all the pins, in bowling

Report on ongoing encampment defense in so-called Minneapolis, MN.

Minneapolis encampment defenders sought to “strike” back against camp sweeps on Tuesday 5/25 with a, “You Sweep? We Strike!,” breakfast and bowling event at a longstanding encampment.

Defenders of camps have been organizing weekly morning get-togethers to defend against potential evictions, and display to the city that camps have popular support as the safest alternative for unhoused neighbors while the city refuses to provide housing.

Who said camp defense can't be fun. You sweep we "strike" baby 🎳 pic.twitter.com/4ny9mo24hK

— Twin Cities Encampment Responders (@TCparkresponder) May 25, 2022

Sweeps split up communities and families; cops and public works employees allow residents only a short time to spare whatever meager belongings they can from the bulldozers.

The city recently shifted responsibility for camp evictions to the Department of Regulatory Services, whose director Saray Garnett-Hochuli recently gave a tirade before the city council in which she declared camps “will not be tolerated” in the city. Hochuli also falsely claimed that a police officer had a leg broken by camp defenders, whom she portrays as violent outside agitators.

We demand Hochuli and city departments stay in their lane, stop playing gutter politics and leave camps alone.

Continue reading “Minneapolis Bowls a Strike Against ‘Sweeps’ Eviction Attacks by City on Houseless Camps..- itsgoingdown”