World News

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/19896850

The identified people include 169 babies born after the Hamas attacks of 7 October that began the war, and a man born in 1922 who had survived more than a century of war and upheaval. More than 100 pages are filled with the names of victims under 10 years old, and the first adult names do not appear until page 215.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2969062

Archived link

Chen Wenqing, head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, recently visited Lhasa, Kardze, and Chamdo, meeting with local officials to emphasize the need for heightened surveillance and control. His tour, which took place from September 10th to 13th, focused on maintaining stability and combating what the Chinese government terms “separatists”.

[...]

The official emphasized the need for legal suppression against those deemed threats to China’s stability and called for stricter management of religious activities stating, “We must resolutely crack down on separatist and sabotage activities in accordance with the law, resolutely manage religious affairs in accordance with the law, resolutely protect normal religious activities in accordance with the law.”

[...]

Concurrent with Chen’s visit, other high-ranking officials have made similar trips to the region. Zhang Jun, president of the Supreme People’s Court, advocated for “tough punishments to maintain pressure on violent terrorism, ethnic separatism and other serious criminal crimes” during his visit to courts in Tibet.

These heightened security measures have raised concerns among human rights advocates, who note that China’s broad definition of separatism often includes individuals merely critical of its policies toward Tibetans.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2956996

Archived link

At a less well-reported meeting in Beijing late last year, organised by the China-Africa Business Council, officials pushed for the rapid expansion of Chinese private security firms [in countries of the Global South]. ‘Outbound Chinese investors face security challenges and a complex environment,’ said an official statement.

[...]

Officials are concerned about the fate of programmes under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which started as a global infrastructure programme, but has evolved into an umbrella for just about everything China does overseas to further its influence. Projects have stalled or collapsed under a mountain of unsustainable debt and growing resentment at the outsize role of Chinese firms and labour. In Pakistan, for instance, Gwadar Port, built by China as key part of a $62 billion (£47 billion) China-Pakistan economic corridor has been under virtual siege by Baloch separatists, who have targeted Chinese engineers. Chinese-owned mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo have also been targeted.

A BRI working group recently highlighted the need to ‘hammer out the safety protection in a detailed way,’ according to the state-owned Xinhua news agency.

[...]

China now has overseas economic investments and assets worth well over a trillion dollars by most estimates. It has set up around 47,000 overseas firms across 190 countries or regions, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

[...]

Beijing now seems to have concluded that they are dangerously exposed, particularly at a time of growing economic stress and geopolitical tensions and require a local security apparatus to match.

[...]

The Solomon Islands provide a template for China. Last year, they signed a deal on police cooperation with Beijing as part of an upgrade of their relations to a ‘comprehensive strategic partnership’. The Chinese telecoms company Huawei is building a cellular network on the Islands, and a Chinese state company plans to redevelop the port in the capital, Honiara.

[...]

China had less success with Thailand, where the government scrapped plans for joint patrols with Chinese police in popular tourist spots following criticism that it compromised Thai national sovereignty, and a rebuke from the country’s police chief. There was also anger on social media. ‘Thailand will become a complete surveillance state’, was one typical response, though among other autocrats more welcoming of Chinese, that seems to be precisely the point.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2926436

A Hong Kong man is facing as long as 10 years in jail after he pleaded guilty to sedition for wearing a T-shirt featuring a protest slogan.

In court on Monday, Chu Kai-pong, 27, was the first person to be convicted under Hong Kong’s tough homegrown national security law enacted in March.

[...]

He was arrested on June 12 at a train station wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times”, and a yellow mask printed with “FDNOL” – the shorthand for another pro-democracy slogan, “five demands, not one less”. June 12 is a date associated with protests in the city in 2019.

[...]

Chu’s lawyer argued that the maximum he could be given would be two years.

Warning: The following article contains descriptions of violence. Some names have been changed to protect individuals’ identities.

Like many of the women inspired by the protests, Alef posted a photo on social media revealing her hair flowing freely in public. It was a simple act of solidarity with the movement against the forced wearing of the hijab.

“I didn’t really care enough to hide who I am or where the photo was taken,” she said. “I wanted to say, ‘we exist’.”

But the picture was seen by the authorities, which were trying to crush the protests, and Alef was arrested.

She says she was blindfolded, handcuffed and taken to an unknown location where she remained in solitary confinement for nearly two weeks. She was also interrogated multiple times.

In one interrogation, she says her inquisitors tried to force a confession out of her. She was made to hand over her phone to masked guards, who went through her social media posts and photos. Pictures showed she had participated in protests and that she had been shot at by security forces with pellet guns. Her interrogators also accused her of working for the US.

Alef was charged with, amongst other things, “appearing in public without a hijab” and “promotion of corruption and fornication”.

She was found guilty and although she was given a suspended sentence, she also received 50 lashes.

“A male officer told me to take off my coat and lie down,” she said. “He was holding a black leather whip and started hitting me all over my body. It was very painful but I didn’t want to show weakness.”

Palestinian history and geography were scrubbed from Israeli schoolbooks a decade ago, scholar Nurit Peled-Elhanan says.

Archived version

A Christian pastor from California has been freed from China after nearly 20 years behind bars and is back home in the U.S., the State Department said Monday.

David Lin, 68, was detained after he entered China in 2006, later convicted of contract fraud and sentenced to life in prison, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and advocacy groups.

[...]

The Biden administration has been working on David Lin’s case and those of other wrongly detained Americans in China for years and have raised them at every meeting with senior Chinese officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s meeting this summer with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Laos.

[...]

Lin was formally arrested in 2009 on suspicion of contract fraud and, after a court review, was sentenced to life in prison, China Aid said.

The charge is frequently used against leaders of churches that operate outside state-sponsored faith groups, and it is a crime that Lin denied, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a humanitarian group that advocates for prisoners in China. The commission on religious freedom says those leading and taking part in churches not sanctioned by the Chinese government “often face intimidation, harassment, arrest and harsh sentences.”

In China, all Christian churches must pledge loyalty to the ruling Communist Party and register with the government. Any unregistered congregation is considered an underground church whose activities are illegal in China. Beijing has always cracked down on “unlawful preaching,” and efforts have only intensified in the past decade.

[...]

Other Americans known to remain detained in China include Kai Li, a businessman who is being held on espionage-related charges that his family says are bogus, and Mark Swidan, who was sentenced on drug charges. The State Department’s office of the special presidential envoy on hostage affairs has designated the two as “wrongful detainees,” a label given to Americans jailed in foreign countries for what the U.S. government considers legally specious allegations or for improper motivations.

[Edit typo.]

Archived version

The Kremlin is working to systematically instill “patriotic” values in children and teenagers through a Soviet-style propaganda campaign as it looks toward preparing the next generation for a life shaped by conflict with Ukraine and the West.

“We need warriors, gunmen, stormtroopers — those who, at the president’s first call, will rush to the military enlistment offices , not Verkhny Lars,” a Russian government official said, referring to the Russian-Georgian border crossing where tens of thousands of Russians fled the country during the fall 2022 “partial” mobilization for the war.

“And there's nothing to be embarrassed about,” he said.

[...]

"Our Fatherland is in danger, threatened by the West and the United States. We no longer need hipsters, rappers, or lovers of Western culture — only Navalny supporters come from them,” he said.

Winning the hearts and minds of young people has been one of the Kremlin’s main domestic policy priorities since 2000, when Putin first became president. Putin’s early presidency saw the creation of state-funded youth movements championed by Kremlin ideologists such as admitted Western culture lover Vladislav Surkov and Vyacheslav Volodin.

[...]

The Kremlin is now transforming Rosmolodyozh, the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, into a vast new ideological body tasked with systematizing and unifying all youth ideological education initiatives, from kindergarten to higher education.

According to Russian media reports, the agency will receive a significant funding boost in the coming year, along with new leadership.

[...]

The body of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the 26-year-old Turkish American activist who was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, has arrived in Turkey ahead of her funeral. On Thursday, Ayşenur’s father, Mehmet Suat Eygi, praised Turkey for investigating the killing and called on the U.S. to do the same.

Mehmet Suat Eygi: “America is a different country. When there is injustice or torment toward its citizens or they are killed in any country in the world, it lands on that country like the eagle on its emblem. But when the subject is Israel, there is more of an effort to dodge it. But I want to believe that people will listen to their conscience.”

Earlier this week, The Washington Post published an investigation corroborating eyewitness accounts that the protests Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi had been taking part in were already over when Israeli soldiers opened fire and killed her.

Meanwhile, three top Democrats from Ayşenur’s home state of Washington — Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray and Congressmember Pramila Jayapal — called on the Biden administration to investigate her killing. On Wednesday, hundreds of people gathered at a Seattle beach for a vigil honoring the recent University of Washington graduate.

Archived version

In a strategic move to bolster its international propaganda on Tibet, the Chinese government has launched the ‘Tibet International Communication Center’ on September 2, coinciding with Tibetan Democracy Day. This initiative is part of China’s broader strategy to control and shape the global narrative on Tibet, presenting it from a perspective aligned with its political agenda.

The establishment of the latest propaganda center was made during a group study session of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee in May 2021. On September 2nd, a meeting was held in Lhasa, attended by representatives from the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region’s Propaganda Department and China Foreign Language Bureau related to Tibet. During this round-table conference, which focused on how to build effective international communication for Tibet, the “Tibet International Communication Center” was officially established.

[...]

According to Chinese state media, Wang Junzheng, Communist Party Secretary of the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region, highlighted at the meeting the critical importance of external propaganda as a key directive of the Communist Party and the state. He reiterated the need to uphold and implement President Xi Jinping’s ideology on Tibet.

[...]

The International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), a U.S.-based advocacy group, reported on this development, expressing concern over China’s expanding efforts to dominate the global narrative on Tibet.

[...]

The ICT warned that China’s propaganda efforts concerning Tibet are likely to intensify, potentially through increased collaboration with state-controlled media and the China Tibetology Research Center, expanded use of social media platforms to promote pro-China propaganda, and pressure on international organisations to adopt China’s stance on Tibet. The group expressed concern that, as China’s propaganda machine strengthens, the voices of Tibetans will be further marginalised on the global stage, and reports of repression within Tibet may increasingly go unheard.

Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set ablaze by her former boyfriend and later died has been buried in her father's homestead in eastern Uganda.

As she was also a member of Uganda's armed forces, soldiers carried the coffin and she was given a three-volley salute.

Dickson Ndiema attacked Cheptegei with petrol just under a fortnight ago outside her home in neighbouring north-west Kenya, close to where she trained.

The 33-year-old's killing, and its brutal nature, left her family distraught and shocked many others across the world.

It underscored the high levels of violence against women in Kenya and the fact that several female athletes have been victims in recent years.

Among those at the sombre and emotional funeral ceremony in a school field in Bukwo, Cheptegei's home district, were fellow athletes wearing black T-shirts with the slogan "say no to gender-based violence".

"We are guilty as [a] government, but also the community is guilty," Kenya's Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Kipchumba Murkomen told mourners.

Archived version

As a fleet of between 600 and 1,000 mostly ageing vessels continues to sail under the umbrella of suspected flags of convenience to evade international sanctions against Russia, the role of Hong Kong in undermining the measures has become clear according to a much-cited report by the [U.S.]-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation. The findings are largely based on data from the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a non-profit devoted to identifying “illicit networks that threaten global peace and security”.

The report claims that Hong Kong’s exports of semiconductors to Russia almost doubled after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Between August and December 2023, 40 per cent of the $2 billion worth of shipments to Moscow contained goods on the US and EU’s lists of advanced components – including semiconductors, computer processors, digital storage units, and integrated circuits – many of them sought by Russia for its war effort. The report also identified numerous locally registered companies that are working with Russia, Iran and North Korea to facilitate their shipping needs, including the transport of sanctioned oil and gas.

“Simply put, Hong Kong has gone rogue,” concludes the 62-page report, Beneath the Harbor: Hong Kong’s Leading Role in Sanctions Evasion. Released in July and written by Samuel Bickett, a lawyer and former political prisoner in Hong Kong

[...]

Hong Kong’s China-friendly administration makes no pretence about observing sanctions. “The Government does not have the legal authority to, and it will not implement, unilateral sanctions imposed by other countries,” a spokesman for the administration said

[...]

Bickett’s conclusion: “Hong Kong has become essential to Russia’s efforts to evade sanctions by offering a politically safe and corporate-friendly location to set up subsidiaries for the ownership of shipping vessels.”

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/28943365

Shukran Karisa Mangi always showed up drunk at work, where he dug up the bodies of doomsday cult members buried in shallow graves. But the alcohol couldn’t numb his shock the morning he found the body of a close friend, whose neck had been twisted so severely that his head and torso faced opposite directions.

This violent death upset Mangi, who had already unearthed children’s bodies. The number of bodies kept rising in this community off Kenya’s coastline where extremist evangelical leader Paul Mackenzie is accused of instructing his followers to starve to death for the opportunity to meet Jesus.

In one of the deadliest cult-related massacres ever, at least 436 bodies have been recovered since police raided Good News International Church in a forest some 70 kilometers (40 miles) inland from the coastal town of Malindi. Seventeen months later, many in the area are still shaken by what happened despite repeated warnings about the church’s leader.

Archived version

Drastic political changes have created an increasingly restricted environment for journalists in the semi-autonomous Chinese city once regarded as a bastion of press freedom in Asia.

Selina Cheng, chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, said in a news conference that this was the largest-scale harassment of reporters in the city that they are aware of.

Cheng said her group found that people describing themselves as patriots have sent anonymous complaints to at least 15 journalists’ family members, the employers of their family members, their landlords and other related organizations since June. She said the attacks appeared to be “systematic and organized” and that she was among those targeted.

Many of the letters and emails threatened the recipients that if they continued to associate with the reporters in question or their family members, they could be endangering national security, the association said.

In addition, posts on Facebook targeting at least 36 journalists called their articles inflammatory and described legitimate reporting as problematic or illegal, the group said. Violent online threats were also made against some journalists and members of the association’s executive committee, it said.

"This type of intimidation and harassment, which includes sharing false and defamatory content, and death threats, damages press freedom in Hong Kong and we should not tolerate it,” Cheng said.

[...]

Since the introduction of a Beijing-imposed national security law in 2020, two news outlets known for critical coverage of the government, Apple Daily and Stand News, were forced to shut down after the arrest of their senior management, including Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai.

[...]

In March, Hong Kong enacted another security law that deepened fears over civil liberties and press freedom. In August, two former editors of Stand News were convicted in a sedition case widely seen as a barometer for the future of the city’s media freedoms. The ruling drew criticism from foreign governments.

Hong Kong was ranked 135 out of 180 territories in Reporters Without Borders’ latest World Press Freedom Index, down from 80 in 2021.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2806976

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine there have been regular reports of Russians reporting neighbours, colleagues and acquaintances to the police over alleged anti-war statements.

Denunciations have led to arrests, prosecutions and, in some cases, long prison sentences.

But why has snitching become commonplace? And what are the implications for Russian society?

[...]

Free speech in Russia was already under attack, but days after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Vladimir Putin took it to a whole new level.

A few days after ordering Russian troops into Ukraine for what he called a “special military operation”, President Putin signed into law repressive legislation designed to silence or punish criticism.

Russians could now be prosecuted for “discrediting the use of the Russian armed forces” and receive long prison sentences for spreading “knowingly false information” about the army.

[...]

The authorities also signalled a hunt for internal enemies. President Putin declared:

“…any nation, and even more so the Russian people, will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and will simply spit them out like an insect in their mouth, spit them onto the pavement. I am convinced that a natural and necessary self-detoxification of society like this will strengthen our country, our solidarity and cohesion…”

In this atmosphere of “us” against “them”, reports started coming in of Russians snitching on Russians for opposing the war in Ukraine - of students informing on teachers, professors on students, work colleagues on each other.

[...]

This has revived memories of the Soviet past when denunciation was actively encouraged by the authorities. Under dictator Joseph Stalin, the prison camps, or Gulag, were full of victims who had been snitched on by their fellow citizens.