police state

Mexico

Mexico: 140 missing in wake of Sinaloa violence

Residents of Jesús María barrio in Culiacán, capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, marched on the governor’s palace demanding action on the whereabouts of 140 community members they say have been missing since violence engulfed the city after the arrest of a top cartel kingpin. The youngest of the missing residents is said to be 12 years old. Protesters also denounced abuses by the military troops that have been patrolling Culiacán since the outburst, including illegal detentions and home searches. The arrest of Ovidio Guzmán López—son of the infamous “El Chapo” Guzmán—set off days of street-fighting between cartel gunmen and the security forces. (Map: PCL)

The Andes

Peru: state of emergency declared amid mass protests

Thousands have filled the streets of cities and towns across Peru since the ousting and detention of president Pedro Castillo. Protesters occupied the airport in the southern city of Arequipa, while mass mobilizations and road blockades also continue in Cuzco and Trujillo. Protests turned violent in Andahuaylas province, where a National Police station was overrun in the town of Chincheros. At least seven are dead in the protests by official figures—six in Andahuaylas, and five under age 18. Defense Minister Alberto Otárola announced that a state of emergency has been instated nationwide. The Defense Ministry tweeted an announcement that the armed forces will take control of strategic points including airports and hydroelectric plants in the affected areas. Alarmingly, neither announcement even mentioned Peru’s new president, Dina Boluarte, who was sworn in by Congress hours after lawmakers voted to remove Castillo last week. (Photo via KawsachunNews)

The Andes

Peru: thwarted auto-golpe or successful coup?

Facing a third round of impeachment (or “vacancy“) proceedings, Peru’s president Pedro Castillo ordered the dissolution of Congress and announced a “government of exception” that would rule by decree. But his government immediately collapsed as protesters, many armed with clubs, filled the streets of Lima. Most of his cabinet resigned, with foreign minister César Landa tweeting: “I strongly condemn this coup d’état and call on the international community to assist in the re-establishment of democracy in Peru.” Defying the dissolution order, Congress quickly approved a “vacancy” measure, calling for Castillo’s immediate ouster. The Public Ministry, the government’s prosecutorial body, confirmed that Castillo has been arrested, charged with “breaching constitutional order.” His vice president Dina Boluarte, who also condemned Castillo’s action, was sworn in as Peru’s new mandatary. National Police troops have flooded the streets of Lima, which remains under curfew. (Photo via Twitter)

Europe

Italian anarchist on prison hunger strike

Supporters are warning that Italian anarchist militant Alfredo Cospito is in danger of dying in prison after more than a month on hunger strike. Cospito, being held at Bancali prison in Sardinia, began his hunger strike in October to protest the inhumane conditions he faces under Article 41-bis of the Italian legal code, with harsh restrictions on his mobility and communication with loved ones, and no prospects for a review of his life sentence. The European Court of Human Rights in 2019 ruled that Article 41-bis, designed for terrorist and Mafia-related cases, violates the European Convention on Human Rights. Cospito is charged in a 2012 attack on a nuclear industry executive in Genoa. (Photo: Dinamo Press)

East Asia

China: nationwide protests challenge dictatorship

Following weeks of sporadic protests against the recurrent draconian COVID-19 lockdowns in China, spontaneous demonstrations broke out in cities across the country. Street demos were reported from Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangdong, Chengdu and Wuhan as well as Beijing. In addition to slogans against the lockdowns and for freedom of speech and assembly, such verboten chants were heard as “Xi Jinping, step down” and “Communist party, step down.” The spark was an apartment block fire in Urumqi, capital of western Xinjiang region, that killed at least 10 who were under lockdown orders and unable to flee. Hong Kong-based Borderless Movement left-dissident website has issued a list of “Demands from Chinese and Hong Kong Socialists” in response to the outburst, calling for an end to lockdowns and forced testing, provision of multiple vaccines, and the right to citizen and worker self-organization. The statement calls for “marginalized groups in the mainland and abroad, including Hongkongers, Taiwanese, Uyghurs and Tibetans to continue building a long-term strategic program for democratic struggle in China.” (Photo of student protest in Nanjing via Twitter)

Iran

Iran: oppose death penalty for detained protesters

Sixteen UN-appointed human rights experts called on Iranian authorities not to indict people on charges punishable by death for participating in peaceful demonstrations. “We urge Iranian authorities to stop using the death penalty as a tool to squash protests and reiterate our call to immediately release all protesters who have been arbitrarily deprived of their liberty for the sole reason of exercising their legitimate rights to freedom of opinion and expression,” the experts said in a statement. Since then at least five people have been sentenced to death on the charge of moharebeh (“enmity against God”) in connection with the anti-government protests that have been raging for two months. A popular Kurdish rap artist, Saman Yasin, is among those facing execution. Days before the UN statement, 227 members of Iran’s 290-member parliament approved a resolution demanding that the judiciary “deal decisively” with “rioters”—taken to mean imposing the death penalty. (Photo: Ottawa protest in support of Iranian uprising, via Wikimedia Commons)

Syria

Turkey bombs Rojava, pressures Sweden

Turkish warplanes carried out air-strikes on several towns within the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Syria, known as Rojava. Among the towns hit was Kobane, from where Ankara says the order was given for the suicide attack in Istanbul that left six dead. ”Kobane, the city that defeated ISIS, is subjected to bombardment by the aircraft of the Turkish occupation,” tweeted a spokesperson for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Both the SDF and affiliated Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), named by Turkish authorities as behind the Istanbul attack, deny any involvement. Three days after the blast, Sweden acceded to Turkish demands that it stiffen “anti-terrorist” measures as a precondition for joining NATO. The Swedish Riksdag adopted a constitutional amendment facilitating passage of laws to limit freedom of association for those who engage in or support “terrorism.” Turkey has long accused Sweden of giving harbor to exiled PKK sympathizers. (Photo via ANF)

Palestine

Robo-Zionist policing of West Bank

The Israeli military has installed robotic weapons that can fire tear-gas, stun-grenades and “non-lethal” bullets in two volatile locations on the West Bank. One is atop a turret at al-Aroub refugee camp; the other in the nearby city of Hebron, where soldiers often clash with Palestinian residents. When young protesters pour into the streets hurling rocks and improvised firebombs at Israeli soldiers, the robotic weapons unleash gas and projectiles on them, according to witness accounts. The robo-weapons, produced by Israeli firm Smart Shooter, use artificial intelligence to track targets. Israel says the technology saves lives—both Israeli and Palestinian. But, as YNet states in its report on the installation, “critics see another step toward a dystopian reality in which Israel fine-tunes its open-ended occupation of the Palestinians while keeping its soldiers out of harm’s way.” (Photo: Filippo Minelli)

East Asia

Hong Kong: first conviction under Anthem Ordinance

A Hong Kong court sentenced citizen journalist Paula Leung to three months in prison—the first conviction under the territory’s National Anthem Ordinance. The law was enacted in Hong Kong on June 12, 2020, pursuant to an act passed by the People’s Republic of China in September 2017, which mandated that the semi-autonomous city bring its legal code into conformity. According to regional news outlets, Leung attended a mall screening of Olympic fencer Edgar Cheung Ka-long receiving his gold medal on July 30, 2021. During the playing of the Chinese national anthem, attendees waved the colonial-era Hong Kong flag. This was found to be in violation of Article 7 of the law, which makes it a criminal offense to “insult the national anthem,” punishable by up to three years imprisonment. (Photo: VOA via Jurist)

Central Asia

Podcast: state capitalism and the Uyghur genocide

In Episode 149 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes that the UN Human Rights Office determination that China may be guilty of “crimes against humanity” in its mass detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province is dismissed by the tankie-left ANSWER Coalition as “propagandistic.” Meanwhile, it falls to Radio Free Asia, media arm of the US State Department, to aggressively cover the very real conditions of forced labor faced by the Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples of Xinjiang—and how Western corporations benefit from it. While the Western pseudo-left betrays the Uyghurs, US imperialism exploits their suffering for propaganda against a rising China in the Great Game for the Asia-Pacific region. Figures such as Australia’s Kevin Rudd incorrectly portray a “Return of Red China,” blaming the PRC’s increasingly totalitarian direction on a supposed neo-Marxism. Fortunately, the new anthology Xinjiang Year Zero offers a corrective perspective, placing the industrial-detention complex and techno-security state in the context of global capitalism and settler colonialism. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Xinjiang Judicial Administration via The Diplomat)

North America

GOP lawmaker threatens new Indian war

In a little-noted interview on the right-wing online video show “In The Trenches with Teddy Daniels,” Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar suggested that his party’s gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, could order the state’s National Guard to surround and blockade the Tohono O’odham Nation, a Native American reservation that borders Mexico, ensuring that “no one passes.” Gosar also offered the notion that Lake could go to the US Supreme Court to seek state authority over the reservation. The Tohono O’odham tribal government cooperates with the Border Patrol, but has long opposed plans for a border wall that would cut through their traditional territory. (Map via Google)

Planet Watch

Egypt: COP27 opens amid repression

The 27th UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) opened in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh—in an atmosphere of censorship and repression. In the weeks prior to the summit, Egyptian authorities arrested hundreds of people for allegedly planning protests, with at least 151 currently detained by the Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP), according to Amnesty International. The Egyptian Front for Human Rights (EFHR) reported that in the final days of October, the SSSP ordered at least 65 people detained for 15 days on charges including publishing “fake news” and misusing social media platforms. (Image via Twitter)