police state

North America

Congress approves Trump’s mass deportation force

Donald Trump’s draconian immigration policies are to get a massive injection of cash thanks to the omnibus budget bill that the president signed into law on July 4. The bill includes over $170 billion in funding for new detention centers, deportation operations, border wall construction, and other anti-immigration initiatives. While this outlay is to be spread out over five years, critics point out that it surpasses the annual military budgets of any country on Earth except for the US and China. The bill, which narrowly passed in the House with no Democratic support, represents a massive shift of funds from basic social programs such as Medicare to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), whose budget will now overshadow that of the FBI. The ICE detention budget is to now outstrip that of the federal Bureau of Prisons, aiming at capacity to hold over 100,000 detainees. (Image: Department of Homeland Security via Florida Phoenix)

North Africa

Algeria: Kabylie independence at issue in press freedom case

A court in Algeria sentenced French sports journalist Christophe Gleizes to seven years in prison on charges of “glorifying terrorism” and “possessing propaganda harmful to the national interest.” Gleizes was arrested in Tizi Ouzou, in the restive Kabylie region, after interviewing the president of football club JS Kabylie. Authorities alleged the interviewee had ties to the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), which Algeria designated a “terrorist group” in 2021. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the sentence “is a clear indication of the government’s intolerance of press freedom.” (Map: Kabyle.com)

East Asia

Hong Kong bars ‘national security’ offenders from union organizing

The Hong Kong Legislative Council passed a law that bans anyone convicted of a “national security” offense from forming or holding a leadership position within a union. The new law amends the Trade Union Ordinance, introducing a lifetime ban on union organizing for such offenders. The move comes just as Hong Kong’s last remaining active pro-democracy party, the League of Social Democrats, announced that it is disbanding, citing fear of prosecution under the National Security Law. The territory’s largest labor confederation, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU), was forced to disband in 2021. (Photo: HKFP)

Iran

Iran: wave of repression in wake of bombardment

One result of the 12 days of war has been the intensification of repression inside Iran under the name of “defending the homeland” or “fighting espionage.” According to reports, at least 700 people have been arrested on accusations of cooperating with Israel. Six political prisoners (all with serious legal irregularities in their cases) have already been executed, labeled as “spies.” And this could be only the beginning. The “Islamic Gestapo” (Basij) have turned urban areas like Tehran into militarized zones. They roam the streets, hunting for “suspicious agents.” (Photo: Wikipedia)

Africa

Kenya: anti-police protests met with repression

Police in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, lobbed tear-gas and clashed with hundreds of demonstrators angered by the death in police custody of a 31-year old teacher, Albert Ojwang, after he was accused of having “insulted a senior person on X” (a high-ranking police officer). Police initially claimed Ojwang had committed suicide but have been forced to apologize after an autopsy contradicted their account. The protests coincided with the reading in parliament of the latest budget—nearly one year after the passage of a controversial budget galvanized youth protests that forced President William Ruto to veto the legislation, fire his cabinet, and invite opposition into government. Fearful of a repeat, the Kenyan authorities are prosecuting a young woman, Rose Njeri, for creating a website to facilitate public commentary on the bill. (Photo: Amnesty Kenya via PolicingInsight)

North America

California sues Trump admin over National Guard deployment

California filed suit against the Trump administration, asserting that its activation and deployment of the state National Guard to quell protests in Los Angeles is unconstitutional. The suit asks the US District Court for the Northern District of California to halt President Donald Trump’s “unlawful militarization” of Los Angeles. Calling Trump’s actions an abuse of power that needs to be ended, Gov. Gavin Newsom further described the administration’s move as “an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.” (Photo: US Northern Command via Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows

Trump issues new ‘travel ban’ proclamation

President Donald Trump issued a proclamation implementing a nearly full travel ban on nationals from a dozen countries, severely restricting potential entry into the United States. The proclamation is based on an executive order issued on Trump’s first day in office that laid the foundation for the administration to enact extensive immigration controls. Commentators have harshly criticized the ban, pointing out that it disproportionately affects Muslim-majority and African countries. Amnesty International’s secretary general Agnes Callamard lambasted Trump for the action, calling it “discriminatory, racist and downright cruel.” The restrictions bear a striking resemblance to Trump’s 2017 travel ban, which blocked travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries. (Photo: Minneapolis protest of 2018 Supreme Court decision upholding Trump’s first travel ban. Credit: Fibonacci Blue/Flickr)

Europe

Russian activists arrested for letter-writing

Police in Yekaterinburg stormed an event hosted by Russian pro-democratic opposition party Yabloko (Apple), aimed at supporting political prisoners. Authorities detained 10 attendees, with charges against them now pending at the prosecutor’s office. The raid targeted the first of a planned series of “evenings of letters,” where attendees can carry out correspondence with imprisoned individuals. According to Yabloko, a total of 952 Russians are currently imprisoned because of their political beliefs or affiliations. (Photo: Yabloko)

Europe

Russia: anti-war saboteurs face military trials

A Russian military court in Yekaterinburg sentenced 27-year-old anarchist Alexey Rozhkov to 16 years in prison for what prosecutors classified as a “terrorist act”—throwing Molotov cocktails at a military recruitment office in March 2022, causing minor damage. The incident, which occurred shortly after the start Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was one of the earliest in a brief string of such actions across Russia in protest against the war. Meanwhile, another young anarchist, Ruslan Sidiki, took the stand in his trial at a military court in Ryazan, accused of destroying railway tracks, leading to the derailment of 19 carriages of fertilizer. Sidiki is also accused of the attempted destruction of military aircraft, on both occasions using GPS-guided drones. He said he undertook the actions to halt the movement of munitions toward the border with Ukraine, and that he took measures to avoid harming humans. He said he rejected the “terrorism” charge, since his “goal was sabotage, not the intimidation of the population.” (Image of Ruslan Sidiki: Mediazona via Meduza)

Greater Middle East

Podcast: MAGA-fascism and the Gulf State tyrannies

Amid the hype about how Trump “snubbed” Netanyahu on his Middle East trip come reports that his White House is pushing a plan to relocate some 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya—which is in the midst of a massive human rights crisis. Even while on the ground in Qatar, Trump plugged his relocation scheme for the Gazans, who now face complete ethnic cleansing from the devastated Strip. In Episode 279 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg debunks the notion of a Trump tilt away from Israel, and asks why some “progressives” are joining with paleocons to view massive arms deals with the repressive and arch-reactionary monarchies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar as a good thing. (Map: PCL)

Africa

Demand release of detained Chad opposition leader

Human Rights Watch announced that former Chadian prime minister and opposition leader Succès Masra was arrested at his residence in the capital N’Djamena, urging authorities to immediately release him unless they can substantiate the charges against him. Masra is the head of Chad’s main opposition party, Les Transformateurs. His arrest followed intercommunal violence in Logone Occidental province that left at least 42 people dead. According to the public prosecutor, Masra is accused of inciting the violence through social media posts. While clashes between herders and farmers are common in southern Chad, intercommunal violence has become more acute over the past several years due to aridification of the region. Les Transformateurs described Masra’s arrest as an abduction, stating that it was carried out “outside any known judicial procedures and in blatant violation of the civil and political rights guaranteed by the constitution.” (Photo: VOA/André Kodmadjingar via Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

Cameroon: peace activist sentenced to life term

Amnesty International condemned the life sentence handed down by a military court in Cameroon against activist Abdu Karim Ali, calling it an “affront to justice” and demanding his immediate and unconditional release. According to Amnesty, Ali was arrested without a warrant and arbitrarily detained after he produced a video exposing torture carried out by the leader of a pro-government militia in Cameroon’s conflicted Southwest Region. Cameroon’s Southwest and Northwest regions have been experiencing an armed conflict since 2016 in what is known as the Anglophone crisis. Demonstrations for greater linguistic rights in the Anglophone regions were met with repression by the Francophone central authorities, leading to an initiative to secede from Cameroon as the “Federal Republic of Ambazonia.” Ali had advocated for a Swiss-led mediation process to resolve the conflict. (Map: TNH)