Zajímavé aktuální zahraniční články

[Pavel.Moravec]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/p ... nties.html

Americká tajná služba zjistila, že Vladimir Putin nabízí vojákům v Afghánistánu peníze za každého mrtvého amerického vojáka. Několik těchto odměn bylo vyplaceno.

Americká administrativa už měsíce neví, jak s touto informací naložit..

[davkol]

“Welcome to Chechnya” Reveals the Killing of Gay People

Torture. Rape. Murder. I cannot get the gruesome images of these brutal crimes out of my head. “Welcome to Chechnya: Inside the Russian Republic’s Deadly War on Gays,” which premiered at the Sundance Festival in January and airs on HBO next week, is one of the most harrowing films I have ever seen.

“Imagine in the 21st century, in a supposedly secular country,” says David Isteev, at the start of this acclaimed documentary, “you have cases where people are killed simply because they are homosexual — where they are maimed, where the families of these people are urged to kill their children and siblings. It’s unreal.”

“Welcome to Chechnya” follows Isteev, emergency program coordinator for the Russian LGBT Network, and his fellow activists as they risk their lives trying to protect gay Chechens from being targeted both by the authorities and their own families.

Chechnya is a small Muslim-majority republic in southwestern Russia. It is also a place where gay people live in terror. Since 2017, there have been a series of state-sponsored anti-gay purges across Chechnya, in which hundreds of gay men have been arrested and detained in secret prisons. The purges were first revealed by the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta in April 2017 and later corroborated by Human Rights Watch, among others.

“We documented a large-scale, vicious, anti-gay purge” marked by “torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings,” Tanya Lokshina, the Russia program director at Human Rights Watch, told me in a phone interview from Moscow. In 2017, a detainee told Human Rights Watch, “They electrocuted us, beat us with pipes, kicked us, and punched us, they made other inmates beat us, they called us names, spat in our faces.”

…

Like every good tyrant, Kadyrov has a list of “undesirables” who are demonized and scapegoated for all of the country’s problems — and top of his list are gay people. It is the Chechen leader who ordered the rounding up and detention of gay men, who he calls “subhuman” and “devils.” In recent years, he has also been “justifying and encouraging” so-called honor killings of gay Chechens by their families while his administration, France explained to me, refuses to prosecute such crimes.

…

To be clear: There is nothing in Islam that justifies or excuses the torture or persecution of any group of human beings. Yet the fact of the matter is that homophobia, as I have written previously, is rife in many Muslim communities across the world. Chechnya, though, is in a gay-hating league of its own. As Human Rights Watch has noted, the Russian republic “is a highly conservative, traditional Muslim society; homophobia is intense and rampant, and homosexuality is generally viewed as a stain on family honor.”

Last March, more than 30 countries signed a joint statement at the U.N. Human Rights Council calling for “a swift, thorough and impartial investigation into the alleged persecution” of gay people in Chechnya. With the exception of Albania, not a single Muslim-majority country signed onto the statement. Meanwhile, Muslim communities across the West fundraise and lobby for persecuted Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingya, Uighurs … but not Chechens being “hunted” by Kadyrov and his goons. Those Chechens, it seems, are the wrong kind of Muslims — they are gay Muslims.

The vicious pogroms against gay men in Chechnya, however, cannot only be laid at the door of Islam or Muslims. Russia itself is plagued by homophobia — encouraged both by the Russian Orthodox Church and the country’s president. “It’s obvious where Putin stands,” a frustrated Russian LGTBQ activist says in “Welcome to Chechnya.” “If they told him that gays were being killed, he wouldn’t give a damn.” In 2013, Putin signed the now-notorious “gay propaganda” law, which criminalized the distribution of “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships.” Polls suggest a majority of Russians believe gays are conspiring to “destroy” the country’s values, while 1 in 5 of them want to “eliminate” gay and lesbian people from Russian society.

…

Nevertheless, France draws a direct comparison with the Holocaust. “This is the first time since Hitler’s regime that there has been an open, government-directed policy to round up and liquidate LGBTQ people,” he told me. Between 1933 and 1945, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, “an estimated 100,000 men were arrested for violating Nazi Germany’s law against homosexuality, and of these, approximately 50,000 were sentenced to prison. An estimated 5,000 to 15,000 men were sent to concentration camps on similar charges, where an unknown number of them perished.”

“Never again” has (rightly) become the global mantra, in reference to the Holocaust. But, with regard to gay people, it is happening again. Right now. In Chechnya.

…

Mehdi Hasan
June 28, 2020
The Intercept

[davkol]

Germany's top court rules against Facebook on users' data

In a major blow to Facebook, the top German court ruled the platform should suspend combining users' data from Whatsapp and Instagram without explicit consent. The US company noted the main battle was still ahead.

Facebook suffered a setback in its fight against regulators on Tuesday, when Germany's Federal Court of Justice backed the country's antitrust agency amid a larger court battle. In a fast-tracked proceeding, the Karlsruhe-based judges said Facebook needed explicit users' consent before it can merge their Facebook data with the data from other sources, including Whatsapp and Instagram.

The court found Facebook was using its dominant position to force users into giving up their data.

"Facebook does not allow for any choice," chief judge Peter Meier-Beck said.

In 2019, Germany's Federal Cartel Office pulled the brakes on Facebook's data collection and threatened billions in fines if the company failed to comply. Facebook filed an appeal, and a lower court later ruled that the US-based company did not need to comply until there is a final court decision.

The Tuesday ruling overrules the lower court's decision and orders Facebook to obey the terms set by regulators.

…

June 23, 2020
Deutsche Well / AP / Reuters

[Michael.Polak]

Docela zajímavá mezinárodní kauza - známí světoví intelektuálové stojící názorově zleva doprava se vyhrazují proti používání iliberálních metod prosazování vlastních postujů, tedy např. cenzurování debat, apod.

Originál zde:
https://harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice ... en-debate/

Piše o tom např. i Respekt:
https://www.respekt.cz/agenda/pokrok-proti-svobode

[Daniel.Vrsansky]

Novozélandská zpravodajská společnost odchází z FaceBooku
https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/06-07-20 ... rnal-memo/

[Ivor.Kollar]

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/ ... firms.html

(tyka sa mimochodom aj piratskej stranky)

[mmmonz]

Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists: https://voxeu.org/columns/topics?fbclid ... 78AxnJu2nA

[davkol]

Federal Officers Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab People In Portland, DHS Confirms

…

It had been a calm night compared with most protesting downtown. By 2 a.m. law enforcement hadn't used any tear gas and, with only a few exceptions, both the Portland, Ore., Police Bureau and federal law enforcement officers had stayed out of sight.

A block west of Chapman Square, Pettibone and O'Shea bumped into a group warning them that people in camouflage were driving around the area in unmarked minivans grabbing individuals off the street.

"So that was terrifying to hear," Pettibone said.

They had barely made it half a block when an unmarked minivan pulled up in front of them.

"I see guys in camo," O'Shea said. "Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, 'Oh s**t. I don't know who you are or what you want with us.'"

Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least Tuesday. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation about why they are being arrested, and driving off.

…

Blinded by his hat, in an unmarked minivan full of armed people dressed in camouflage and body armor who hadn't identified themselves, Pettibone said he was driven around downtown before being unloaded inside a building. He wouldn't learn until after his release that he had been inside the federal courthouse.

…

"What is happening now in Portland should concern everyone in the United States. Usually when we see people in unmarked cars forcibly grab someone off the street we call it kidnapping," said Jann Carson, interim executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, in a written statement. "The actions of the militarized federal officers are flat-out unconstitutional and will not go unanswered."

A judge has allowed the ACLU to add federal agencies to its lawsuit seeking to limit what law enforcement can do during the protests.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum announced early Saturday morning she would be filing a lawsuit against DHS, the U.S. Marshals Service, the United States Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Protection Service and their agents.

A motion for a temporary restraining order follows the lawsuit. The order seeks to stop federal authorities from unlawfully detaining Oregon residents.

…

"It's like stop and frisk meets Guantanamo Bay," said attorney Juan Chavez, director of the civil rights project at the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

Chavez has worked on litigation surrounding the weeks of protests and helped lead efforts to curb local police from using tear gas and munitions on protesters. He called the arrest by federal officers "terrifying."

…

Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon said if Wolf's visit to Portland was to inflame the situation so the president can "look tough," the acting DHS leader should leave.

"Federal forces shot an unarmed protester in the face," Merkley said in a tweet. "These shadowy forces have been escalating, not preventing, violence."

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown similarly called for federal law enforcement officers to leave Portland. She added that Wolf is on a "mission to provoke confrontation for political purposes."

"This political theater from President Trump has nothing to do with public safety," Brown said in a statement. "The president is failing to lead this nation. Now he is deploying federal officers to patrol the streets of Portland in a blatant abuse of power by the federal government."

Jonathan Levinson, Conrad Wilson, James Doubek, Suzanne Nuyen
July 17, 2020
NPR

[Pavel.Moravec]

On to není článek, ale tweet s videem, ale dost dobré o tom vědět.

V Číně se chovají tamní komunisté k Ujgurům úplně stejně, jako se choval Hitler k Židům. Posílá je transporty vlakem do koncentračních táborů.

https://twitter.com/PDog119/status/1283359233866637314

[davkol]

V Číně se chovají tamní komunisté k Ujgurům úplně stejně, jako se choval Hitler k Židům. Posílá je transporty vlakem do koncentračních táborů.

https://twitter.com/PDog119/status/1283359233866637314

Za prvé, to video je přinejmenším z loňského léta (2019), možná i starší.

Za druhé, uvedené přirovnání k Holocaustu je vrcholně nevkusné.

V Sin-ťiangu se dlouhodobě vyskytuje nejen separatismus, ale i extremismus. Části tamního islámského hnutí byly označeny za teroristické řadou států a organizací včetně EU a OSN. Tématem jsou také vazby na Da`eš, např. China: Uighurs Joining ISIS Poses Security and Economic Woes (Time, 2016). V kontextu „války s terorismem“ se Ujgurové dostali i do Guantánama. Ne že by se tam Američané chovali nějak lépe.

Takže, kdo je na videu? Vězni? Z jakého důvodu vězni? Jen tak civilisté? Co se s nimi dále děje? Píše se o převýchovných, nikoliv vyhlazovacích táborech – u nichž ani nevíme, kolik je v nich vlastně lidí. Čísla uváděná CHRD jsou extrapolací z rozhovorů s „tucty“ vesničanů a vyšší odhady pocházejí od Andriana Zenze „vedeného Bohem“ na jeho misi.

Mělo být cílem přirovnání umenšovat Holocaust (asi ne) nebo si kopnout do Číny (což by šlo dělat z mnoha jiných, lépe podložených důvodů)?