Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts
Monday, July 8, 2019
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Outlawing Public Opinion in Spain
Is this the modern democracy where public opinions matter less & less, perhaps, of no value. "Elected" governments might as well be dictatorships, because laws are being made "for the safety of the public," but they are that much against the "safety of the public."
Public is not stupid that they can be lulled into thinking that invading armies are standing at the borders & we need these strict laws against public opinions (e.g. Spain's Citizens' Security Law or Canada's anti-terrorism law). The general public is made busy by the government into surviving for themselves that they don't have time to do anything else but work, work & more work.
Is this really the modern world? Have we really progressed in a millennium when Kings used to rule the citizenry with a heavy hand?
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When Spain first started making noises about an impending "Citizens' Security Law" that would criminalise various forms of popular protest, optimists may have assumed the flirtation with overt fascism couldn't last. At the very least - they might have reasoned - the government would have to retreat to semi-fascist mode.
Not so.
Approved on March 26, & expected to come into force on July 1, the law might be mistaken for something out of the Franco playbook. Dubbed the "gag law", it prescribes fines of up to 600 euros ($635) for disrespecting police officers, up to 30,000 euros ($32,000) for disseminating images of state security forces that might endanger them or their operations, & up to 600,000 euros ($635,000) for unauthorised street protests.
Inverse logic
These punitive measures are especially handy, of course, in an era of brutal austerity measures, home evictions, & other government efforts in Spain that have triggered collective action on a mass scale. In 2012, evictions were reportedly occurring at a pace of 500 per day.
While conveniently pre-emptively criminalising protests against the legislation itself, the gag law relies on an inverse logic, in which the real threat to citizens' security comes not from the lack of a roof over one's head or a physically abusive police force but rather from opposing the injustice of such realities.
In an open letter to the European Parliament, human rights groups warned that targeting those who disseminate images of police "could hinder the documentation & reporting of abuses committed by law enforcement personnel & reinforce the climate of impunity".
Expelling justice
Tacked onto the bill as a last-minute bonus is a provision validating the summary expulsion of migrants who jump the border fence between Morocco & Spain's African outposts of Ceuta & Melilla.
After all, we can't possibly have "citizens' security" with too many black folks in the mix.
As noted on the website of the International Federation for Human Rights, the move not only "restrict[s] the right to seek asylum & violate[s] the principle of non-refoulement & the prohibition of collective expulsions" but also "exposes migrants to a serious risk of torture & ill-treatment by denying them the possibility of filing a claim against law enforcement personnel in case of abuse".
But the anti-migrant provision is merely the culmination of an already common practise of automatic deportation along the Spanish frontier. In October 2014, the AFP reported on a video of truncheon-happy Spanish police beating a young, barefoot Cameroonian man & then escorting him, in an apparently unconscious state, back to Moroccan territory.
Another good reason to discourage filming the police at work - & another reason the 600-euro fine for disrespecting the police seems a tad steep.
The old terrorism card
Of course, no citizenry would be completely secure without robust protections against "terrorism" - that time-honoured threat that has, particularly in the post-9/11 era, been invoked to justify the trampling of rights worldwide.
In addition to the Citizens' Security Law, the Spanish government has also approved reforms to the nation's criminal code that will greatly enhance its punitive capabilities.
For example, folks will now be eligible for prosecution as terrorists for such behaviour as regularly visiting websites deemed to be terrorist-friendly. Helpfully, the criminal code's definition of "terrorism" is sufficiently sweeping to prevent any potential offenders from slipping through the cracks.
Included on the list of terroristic acts are efforts to disrupt government functions & "the public peace", as well as "the commission of any serious crime against … liberty".
A recent article on the Spanish Gizmodo website points out that internet activity alone "can be punished with 1 to 5 years in prison".
Makes you wonder about the whole "liberty" clause.
The next step
Last month, the Guardian quoted Jorge Fernandez Diaz - Spain's interior minister & the curator of the Citizens' Security Law - on the merits of the initiative: "It's a law for the 21st century. It provides better guarantees for people's security & more judicial security for people's rights."
In a matter of 3 seconds, an item worthy of interment in Franco's mausoleum was thus recast as the pinnacle of modernity & justice.
By this logic, regression is progress, slavery is freedom, & black is white.
Meanwhile, according to the Spanish daily El Pais, a December survey indicated that 82% of respondents believed the law needed to be abandoned entirely or at least modified, while 79% considered the prescribed fines excessive. 71% contended that the project did not aim to ensure public security but rather to protect the government from protests.
It seems there's only one thing left to do: Outlaw public opinion surveys.
Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.
Public is not stupid that they can be lulled into thinking that invading armies are standing at the borders & we need these strict laws against public opinions (e.g. Spain's Citizens' Security Law or Canada's anti-terrorism law). The general public is made busy by the government into surviving for themselves that they don't have time to do anything else but work, work & more work.
Is this really the modern world? Have we really progressed in a millennium when Kings used to rule the citizenry with a heavy hand?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/04/outlawing-public-opinion-spain-150410082431492.html
When Spain first started making noises about an impending "Citizens' Security Law" that would criminalise various forms of popular protest, optimists may have assumed the flirtation with overt fascism couldn't last. At the very least - they might have reasoned - the government would have to retreat to semi-fascist mode.
Not so.
Approved on March 26, & expected to come into force on July 1, the law might be mistaken for something out of the Franco playbook. Dubbed the "gag law", it prescribes fines of up to 600 euros ($635) for disrespecting police officers, up to 30,000 euros ($32,000) for disseminating images of state security forces that might endanger them or their operations, & up to 600,000 euros ($635,000) for unauthorised street protests.
Inverse logic
These punitive measures are especially handy, of course, in an era of brutal austerity measures, home evictions, & other government efforts in Spain that have triggered collective action on a mass scale. In 2012, evictions were reportedly occurring at a pace of 500 per day.
While conveniently pre-emptively criminalising protests against the legislation itself, the gag law relies on an inverse logic, in which the real threat to citizens' security comes not from the lack of a roof over one's head or a physically abusive police force but rather from opposing the injustice of such realities.
In an open letter to the European Parliament, human rights groups warned that targeting those who disseminate images of police "could hinder the documentation & reporting of abuses committed by law enforcement personnel & reinforce the climate of impunity".
Expelling justice
Tacked onto the bill as a last-minute bonus is a provision validating the summary expulsion of migrants who jump the border fence between Morocco & Spain's African outposts of Ceuta & Melilla.
After all, we can't possibly have "citizens' security" with too many black folks in the mix.
As noted on the website of the International Federation for Human Rights, the move not only "restrict[s] the right to seek asylum & violate[s] the principle of non-refoulement & the prohibition of collective expulsions" but also "exposes migrants to a serious risk of torture & ill-treatment by denying them the possibility of filing a claim against law enforcement personnel in case of abuse".
But the anti-migrant provision is merely the culmination of an already common practise of automatic deportation along the Spanish frontier. In October 2014, the AFP reported on a video of truncheon-happy Spanish police beating a young, barefoot Cameroonian man & then escorting him, in an apparently unconscious state, back to Moroccan territory.
Another good reason to discourage filming the police at work - & another reason the 600-euro fine for disrespecting the police seems a tad steep.
The old terrorism card
Of course, no citizenry would be completely secure without robust protections against "terrorism" - that time-honoured threat that has, particularly in the post-9/11 era, been invoked to justify the trampling of rights worldwide.
In addition to the Citizens' Security Law, the Spanish government has also approved reforms to the nation's criminal code that will greatly enhance its punitive capabilities.
For example, folks will now be eligible for prosecution as terrorists for such behaviour as regularly visiting websites deemed to be terrorist-friendly. Helpfully, the criminal code's definition of "terrorism" is sufficiently sweeping to prevent any potential offenders from slipping through the cracks.
Included on the list of terroristic acts are efforts to disrupt government functions & "the public peace", as well as "the commission of any serious crime against … liberty".
A recent article on the Spanish Gizmodo website points out that internet activity alone "can be punished with 1 to 5 years in prison".
Makes you wonder about the whole "liberty" clause.
The next step
Last month, the Guardian quoted Jorge Fernandez Diaz - Spain's interior minister & the curator of the Citizens' Security Law - on the merits of the initiative: "It's a law for the 21st century. It provides better guarantees for people's security & more judicial security for people's rights."
In a matter of 3 seconds, an item worthy of interment in Franco's mausoleum was thus recast as the pinnacle of modernity & justice.
By this logic, regression is progress, slavery is freedom, & black is white.
Meanwhile, according to the Spanish daily El Pais, a December survey indicated that 82% of respondents believed the law needed to be abandoned entirely or at least modified, while 79% considered the prescribed fines excessive. 71% contended that the project did not aim to ensure public security but rather to protect the government from protests.
It seems there's only one thing left to do: Outlaw public opinion surveys.
Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Friday, March 20, 2015
Racism in Canada
A long, but great, article. Racism is rampant in Canada. Until a few years back, most thought there was minimal racism in US; well, we can see how that went & still coming along since last year there.
Racism is not felt by the majority of Caucasians in Canada; be it education, jobs, & other social spheres of society. But, it is felt by non-Caucasians, be they be Natives or non-Caucasian immigrants from other countries. Assimilation is the word frequently thrown about & the society usually start blaming the immigrants (similar to in this case, Natives) for all their troubles they are facing in Canada.
As I commented in another blog post a few days ago that assimilation is a 2-way street. Natives or immigrants can only assimilate only when Caucasian Canadians also move in their direction & are willing to accept them as their equal, as Canadians.
Jobs, education, & personal safety are 3 of the most basic requirements for any person. Most parents want to see their progeny have a good education, get a good job & lead a happy, safe, & successful life. However, in many cases, be it the African-Americans in US, immigrants all over North America, or Natives in North America (US, Canada, & even Mexico), are not provided educational facilities & some who do get through the education system, they are not provided jobs, as per their education & skills dictate.
If most of the jobs are taken over by Caucasians & they are not willing to help, or "network" with, non-Caucasians (immigrants & Natives), then they are always going to feel inequality & injustice. As long as they are going to feel that way, rightly or wrongly, they will lash out against the majority populations through violent means, which then cause prisons to fill up with African-Americans in US, Natives & even immigrants in Canada, which in turn, feeds the thinking of the society that these groups of people are violent & not good for society.
We can even expand the scope & scale of this to go global. RCMP, FBI, CIA, CSIS are all trying to curb the growth of ISIS, which it is doing through recruitment of western youths. They are failing to understand this basic point that immigrant youths in the West feel rejected from the society. They see that their future seems to be bleak in the West & they feel powerless to do anything in the West. So, they find an easy outlet to move to Middle East, enroll themselves in ISIS, & start feeling like they are contributing something meaningful to a cause.
Then, we have this problem of personal safety. Be it the law enforcement agencies acting out against the minorities (cops in US assaulting minorities or even the judicial system meting out much harsher sentences to minorities for similar offences perpetrated by a Caucasian person) or general Caucasian public on the main street (American Muslims being gunned down). From a Muslim perspective, we can take the issue of Muslim women wearing hijabs in Canada. Regardless of why federal government is demonizing hijabs, the general public take that in the wrong sense & then harassing, verbally, & in some cases, physically abusing Muslim women, out on the street. Law enforcement agencies don't take those matter seriously (similar to Natives in this article). NCCM (National Council of Canadian Muslims) record multiple incidents of harassment & abuse of Muslims in Canada, but how many do we see being reported in the media?
No society can ever achieve peace until & unless it ends injustice & inequality in itself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Oh Goddd how long are aboriginal people going to use what happened as a crutch to suck more money out of Canadians?” Winnipeg teacher Brad Badiuk wrote on Facebook last month. “They have contributed NOTHING to the development of Canada. Just standing with their hand out. Get to work, tear the treaties & shut the FK up already. Why am I on the hook for their cultural support?”
Another day in Winnipeg, another hateful screed against the city’s growing indigenous population. This one from a teacher (now on unpaid leave) at Kelvin High School, long considered among the city’s progressive schools.
Badiuk’s comments came to light the day Rinelle Harper—the shy 16-year-old indigenous girl left for dead in the city’s Assiniboine River after a brutal sexual assault—spoke publicly for the first time after her recovery. She called for an inquiry to help explain why so many indigenous girls & women are being murdered in Winnipeg, & elsewhere in Canada.
Badiuk’s comments came while the city was still reeling from the murder of Tina Fontaine, a 15-year-old child from the Sagkeeng First Nation who was wrapped in plastic & tossed into the Red River after being sexually exploited in the city’s core.
They came the very week an inquest issued its findings in the death of Brian Sinclair, an indigenous 45-year-old who died from an entirely treatable infection after being ignored for 34 hours in a city ER.
They came in the wake of a civic election dominated by race relations after a racist rant by a frontrunner’s wife went viral: “I’m really tired of getting harassed by the drunken native guys” downtown, Gord Steeves’s wife, Lori, wrote on Facebook. “We all donate enough money to keep their sorry asses on welfare, so shut the f–k up & don’t ask me for another handout!” The former city councillor & long-serving, centrist politician didn’t bother apologizing.
“We value dogs more than we do these women,” says indigenous playwright Ian Ross.
When measuring racism, social scientists tend to rely on opinion polling & media analyses. Last year, for example, Winnipeg recorded the highest proportion of racist tweets of the 6 Canadian cities known for high levels of hate crime, according to data collected by University of Alberta researcher Irfan Chaudhry. (Manitoba recorded the second-highest rate of hate crimes last year, after Ontario, according to a recent report.)
1 in 3 Prairie residents believe that “many racial stereotypes are accurate,” for example, higher than anywhere else in Canada. In Alberta, just 23% do, according to polling by the Canadian Institute for Identities & Migration (CIIM). And 52% of Prairie residents agree that Aboriginals’ economic problems are “mainly their fault.” Nationally, the figure drops to 36%.
1 in 3 North End residents drop out of school before Grade 9.... 1 in 6 children are apprehended by Manitoba’s Child & Family Services. Girls as young as 11 or 12 routinely work the stroll. On North Main Street, traffic slows to a stall when intoxicated residents stumble across the street. Solvent abuse is as common as alcoholism here, & rising. Even in December’s cold, kids as young as 9 clutch gas-soaked rags; some have begun stuffing them directly into their mouths for a more powerful high.
“I used to tell myself I wouldn’t live to see my sweet 16,” says 24-year-old Jenna Wirch. “I was sure I was going to die before then.” Both Wirch’s sisters committed suicide when they were growing up. 4 of her closest friends have also died by suicide. One hung herself in an alley using her dog’s leash. She was 11. Wirch’s mom put her to work in the sex trade before her 10th birthday. She ran away at 11, then bounced between the street & a long list of foster homes. One was a crack house. Two friends were stabbed to death in front of her, one with a machete. This is a North End childhood.
The area’s hospitalization rate for violence is almost 7 times that of the wider city. Within a year, roughly 20% of youth treated for violence will be back in hospital seeking treatment for another injury, says Carolyn Snider, an ER doctor at the core area Health Sciences Centre.
That’s just a reality of having brown skin in Winnipeg, says Jacinta Bear, who manages the North End Hockey Program. ... “Our team has heard it all,” says Bear .... “Even opposing coaches & refs call our kids ‘dirty little Indians.’”
A few years ago, the federal government investigated claims that indigenous Winnipeggers were being denied housing due to discrimination. The Canadian Mortgage & Housing Corporation pulled together a random survey of Aboriginal renters. The results were damning. 1 in 3 told the CMHC that after showing up to visit an available suite they were told it had “just been rented.” More than 30% felt they had been driven to neighbourhoods in the core, where the poverty rate & the incidence of crime more than doubles the wider city & jobs are scarce.
“Colonialism didn’t just impact Aboriginal people,” says Perry Bellegarde, the new national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. “It forever changed the way the European population on the Prairies would see Aboriginals as a problem, never a partner.”
The province imprisons a higher proportion of its indigenous population than apartheid South Africa did its black population. 65% of inmates at Stony Mountain Penitentiary, a medium-security prison just outside Winnipeg, are indigenous, the country’s highest Aboriginal incarceration rate measured by jail.
Racism is not felt by the majority of Caucasians in Canada; be it education, jobs, & other social spheres of society. But, it is felt by non-Caucasians, be they be Natives or non-Caucasian immigrants from other countries. Assimilation is the word frequently thrown about & the society usually start blaming the immigrants (similar to in this case, Natives) for all their troubles they are facing in Canada.
As I commented in another blog post a few days ago that assimilation is a 2-way street. Natives or immigrants can only assimilate only when Caucasian Canadians also move in their direction & are willing to accept them as their equal, as Canadians.
Jobs, education, & personal safety are 3 of the most basic requirements for any person. Most parents want to see their progeny have a good education, get a good job & lead a happy, safe, & successful life. However, in many cases, be it the African-Americans in US, immigrants all over North America, or Natives in North America (US, Canada, & even Mexico), are not provided educational facilities & some who do get through the education system, they are not provided jobs, as per their education & skills dictate.
If most of the jobs are taken over by Caucasians & they are not willing to help, or "network" with, non-Caucasians (immigrants & Natives), then they are always going to feel inequality & injustice. As long as they are going to feel that way, rightly or wrongly, they will lash out against the majority populations through violent means, which then cause prisons to fill up with African-Americans in US, Natives & even immigrants in Canada, which in turn, feeds the thinking of the society that these groups of people are violent & not good for society.
We can even expand the scope & scale of this to go global. RCMP, FBI, CIA, CSIS are all trying to curb the growth of ISIS, which it is doing through recruitment of western youths. They are failing to understand this basic point that immigrant youths in the West feel rejected from the society. They see that their future seems to be bleak in the West & they feel powerless to do anything in the West. So, they find an easy outlet to move to Middle East, enroll themselves in ISIS, & start feeling like they are contributing something meaningful to a cause.
Then, we have this problem of personal safety. Be it the law enforcement agencies acting out against the minorities (cops in US assaulting minorities or even the judicial system meting out much harsher sentences to minorities for similar offences perpetrated by a Caucasian person) or general Caucasian public on the main street (American Muslims being gunned down). From a Muslim perspective, we can take the issue of Muslim women wearing hijabs in Canada. Regardless of why federal government is demonizing hijabs, the general public take that in the wrong sense & then harassing, verbally, & in some cases, physically abusing Muslim women, out on the street. Law enforcement agencies don't take those matter seriously (similar to Natives in this article). NCCM (National Council of Canadian Muslims) record multiple incidents of harassment & abuse of Muslims in Canada, but how many do we see being reported in the media?
No society can ever achieve peace until & unless it ends injustice & inequality in itself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Oh Goddd how long are aboriginal people going to use what happened as a crutch to suck more money out of Canadians?” Winnipeg teacher Brad Badiuk wrote on Facebook last month. “They have contributed NOTHING to the development of Canada. Just standing with their hand out. Get to work, tear the treaties & shut the FK up already. Why am I on the hook for their cultural support?”
Another day in Winnipeg, another hateful screed against the city’s growing indigenous population. This one from a teacher (now on unpaid leave) at Kelvin High School, long considered among the city’s progressive schools.
Badiuk’s comments came to light the day Rinelle Harper—the shy 16-year-old indigenous girl left for dead in the city’s Assiniboine River after a brutal sexual assault—spoke publicly for the first time after her recovery. She called for an inquiry to help explain why so many indigenous girls & women are being murdered in Winnipeg, & elsewhere in Canada.
Badiuk’s comments came while the city was still reeling from the murder of Tina Fontaine, a 15-year-old child from the Sagkeeng First Nation who was wrapped in plastic & tossed into the Red River after being sexually exploited in the city’s core.
They came the very week an inquest issued its findings in the death of Brian Sinclair, an indigenous 45-year-old who died from an entirely treatable infection after being ignored for 34 hours in a city ER.
They came in the wake of a civic election dominated by race relations after a racist rant by a frontrunner’s wife went viral: “I’m really tired of getting harassed by the drunken native guys” downtown, Gord Steeves’s wife, Lori, wrote on Facebook. “We all donate enough money to keep their sorry asses on welfare, so shut the f–k up & don’t ask me for another handout!” The former city councillor & long-serving, centrist politician didn’t bother apologizing.
“We value dogs more than we do these women,” says indigenous playwright Ian Ross.
When measuring racism, social scientists tend to rely on opinion polling & media analyses. Last year, for example, Winnipeg recorded the highest proportion of racist tweets of the 6 Canadian cities known for high levels of hate crime, according to data collected by University of Alberta researcher Irfan Chaudhry. (Manitoba recorded the second-highest rate of hate crimes last year, after Ontario, according to a recent report.)
1 in 3 Prairie residents believe that “many racial stereotypes are accurate,” for example, higher than anywhere else in Canada. In Alberta, just 23% do, according to polling by the Canadian Institute for Identities & Migration (CIIM). And 52% of Prairie residents agree that Aboriginals’ economic problems are “mainly their fault.” Nationally, the figure drops to 36%.
1 in 3 North End residents drop out of school before Grade 9.... 1 in 6 children are apprehended by Manitoba’s Child & Family Services. Girls as young as 11 or 12 routinely work the stroll. On North Main Street, traffic slows to a stall when intoxicated residents stumble across the street. Solvent abuse is as common as alcoholism here, & rising. Even in December’s cold, kids as young as 9 clutch gas-soaked rags; some have begun stuffing them directly into their mouths for a more powerful high.
“I used to tell myself I wouldn’t live to see my sweet 16,” says 24-year-old Jenna Wirch. “I was sure I was going to die before then.” Both Wirch’s sisters committed suicide when they were growing up. 4 of her closest friends have also died by suicide. One hung herself in an alley using her dog’s leash. She was 11. Wirch’s mom put her to work in the sex trade before her 10th birthday. She ran away at 11, then bounced between the street & a long list of foster homes. One was a crack house. Two friends were stabbed to death in front of her, one with a machete. This is a North End childhood.
The area’s hospitalization rate for violence is almost 7 times that of the wider city. Within a year, roughly 20% of youth treated for violence will be back in hospital seeking treatment for another injury, says Carolyn Snider, an ER doctor at the core area Health Sciences Centre.
That’s just a reality of having brown skin in Winnipeg, says Jacinta Bear, who manages the North End Hockey Program. ... “Our team has heard it all,” says Bear .... “Even opposing coaches & refs call our kids ‘dirty little Indians.’”
A few years ago, the federal government investigated claims that indigenous Winnipeggers were being denied housing due to discrimination. The Canadian Mortgage & Housing Corporation pulled together a random survey of Aboriginal renters. The results were damning. 1 in 3 told the CMHC that after showing up to visit an available suite they were told it had “just been rented.” More than 30% felt they had been driven to neighbourhoods in the core, where the poverty rate & the incidence of crime more than doubles the wider city & jobs are scarce.
“Colonialism didn’t just impact Aboriginal people,” says Perry Bellegarde, the new national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. “It forever changed the way the European population on the Prairies would see Aboriginals as a problem, never a partner.”
The province imprisons a higher proportion of its indigenous population than apartheid South Africa did its black population. 65% of inmates at Stony Mountain Penitentiary, a medium-security prison just outside Winnipeg, are indigenous, the country’s highest Aboriginal incarceration rate measured by jail.
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