police state

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)

North Africa

Podcast: MAGA-fascism and the struggle in Libya

Since alarming reports broke that Trump is preparing deportation flights to Libya, the plan has happily been put on hold by the courts—as well as denied by both of Libya’s two rival governments. But Libya, like El Salvador, was clearly chosen because of its horrific human rights record, with a UN investigation characterizing its treatment of detained migrants as crimes against humanity. A migrant detention center was even bombed in the inter-factional fighting in Libya six years ago, killing scores of inmates. And news of US plans to send detainees there comes just as a new round of fighting has broken out in Tripoli—involving a militia headed by the warlord “Gheniwa,” who has himself been implicated in atrocities against migrants. Bill Weinberg raises the alarm in Episode 278 of the CounterVortex podcast. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

The Amazon

Israel, UAE to assist Ecuador drug war

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa says he is seeking assistance from Israel and the United Arab Emirates to combat the drug cartels that are terrorizing the South American country. The hardline rightist who won re-election last month said Israel and the UAE have agreed to provide intelligence aid “to help” fight the narco gangs. A day after Noboa’s comments, Ecuadoran authorities announced that 11 soldiers were killed while carrying out an operation to combat illegal mining in a region near the border with Colombia. The Prosecutor General’s office said the troops were attacked by the Comandos de la Frontera, a “dissident” faction of Colombia’s FARC guerillas that controls cross-border drug trafficking and illegal gold-mining operations in the eastern province of Orellana. (Photo: Presidencia de la República del Ecuador via WikimediaCommons)

Europe

Russian activist arrested for ‘Putin Hitler’ message

A 68-year-old veteran opposition activist was arrested after displaying a sign reading “PUTIN HITLER” from a prominent bridge over the Moskva River in the center of the Russian capital. Grigory Saksonov, also known as Uncle Grisha, climbed over the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge holding the sign and clad in wetsuit before lowering himself into the water below with a rope. He was pulled out of the river by police and taken away in an ambulance. Saksonov faces charges of “taking part in an unauthorized action” and “disobeying a police officer.” Saksonov’s action came three days before Vladimir Putin presided over the 80th anniversary Victory Day parade in Red Square, a massive spectacle marking the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. (Photo via Novaya Gazeta)

North America

MAGA-fascism, Orwell and the cannabis stigma

Trump is pointing to Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s tattoos to justify his indefinite detention without charge in the ultra-oppressive Salvadoran prison gulag. These notoriously include a cannabis leaf, demonstrating the continued propaganda utility of the “Reefer Madness” stigma, even as a multi-million dollar legal industry emerges. But the White House actually added the characters “MS13” (name of the notorious Salvadoran gang) to the shot of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles in a crude photoshop job—despite transparent denials from Trump. Lubricating the emerging transnational mass detention program with this Orwellian post-truth stratagem, the Trump regime meanwhile moves toward actual deportation of US citizens. Bill Weinberg raises the alarm in Episode 277 of the CounterVortex podcast. (Photo: Donald Trump/Truth Social as seen, e.g., on CNN)

The Andes

Peru: emergency measures against illegal mining

The bodies of 13 security guards at a major Peruvian gold mine were found a week after the men were abducted from the site. Poderosa, the Peruvian company that owns and operates the mine in the northern province of Pataz, La Libertad region, confirmed the deaths after a police search-and-rescue unit recovered their bodies. Poderosa said the guards “were cruelly murdered by criminals allied with illegal mining.” In response, President Dina Boluarte has instated a curfew in Pataz province, and announced that the armed forces will take full control of the area around the mining concession. A new military base will be also established in the area. Boluarte additionally said that she will ask Congress for extraordinary powers to crack down on criminal networks, and have their activities defined as “terrorism.” (Photo: Comando Unificado Pataz via Mining.com)

Central America

Panamanian workers on indefinite strike

Panamanian construction workers, teachers’ unions, and popular organizations launched an indefinite strike to protest the government’s proposed reforms to the pension system and to demand an end to US interference in the country. Protestors, led by the construction union SUNTRACS, were met by police repression in various parts of the country, including tear gas aimed directly at students. In addition to fears that reforms to the country’s social security system will lead to its privatization, the country’s grassroots organizations believe that President José Raúl Mulino has undermined Panamanian sovereignty by not being firm enough in his negotiations with the Trump administration over control of the Panama Canal. (Image: SUNTRACS)

The Caribbean

Growing climate of fear in Trinidad & Tobago

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged political candidates in Trinidad & Tobago (T&T) to reaffirm their commitment to press freedom ahead of the upcoming elections, following a sharp drop in the country’s security ranking on RSF’s World Press Freedom Index. Rising crime and the declaration of a state of emergency have caused the country’s security score, ranking the level of safety for journalists, to fall from 6th to 24th in 2024. By the end of 2024, the traditionally stable country’s murder rate had surged to one of the highest per capita in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 624 homicides in a population of just 1.5 million people. Most killings were linked to organized crime, as more than 100 gangs are believed to be active in the two-island nation. (Photo: Christianwelsh via Wikimedia Commons)

Europe

Crimean Tatar activists get prison after ‘illegal’ trial

Six Crimean Tatar men received long prison terms from a Russian court, following a trial considered “illegal” by the Ukrainian government and human rights groups. The Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don handed down 14-year sentences to Khalil Mambetov, Refat Seydametov, Osman Abdurazakov, Leman Zekeriayev and Ekrem Krosh. Ayder Asanov was given 11 years. Although accused of “participation in the activities of a terrorist organization” and “preparation for the violent seizure of power” under the Russian Criminal Code, the charges concern their involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a transnational Muslim civic organization that is banned in Russia but is legal in Ukraine and most countries around the world. Additionally, the nonviolent activities in question took place in Crimea, which Russia has illegally occupied and declared annexed since 2014. Kyiv, and governments around the world, recognize Crimea as part of Ukraine. (Photo: Crimean Solidarity via KHPG)

Central America

MAGA-fascism and the struggle in El Salvador

US-directed repression and counter-insurgency in El Salvador in the 1980s allowed the imposition of “free trade” or “neoliberal” regimes in the generations since then—ultimately culminating in the adoption of CAFTA. This, in turn, has exacerbated the expropriation of the traditional lands of the peasantry by the agro-export oligarchy. It also led to the hypertrophy of the narco economy and a new nightmare of violence, which Nayib Bukele has exploited to establish a new dictatorship. This dictatorship is now openly in league with Donald Trump, and has in fact become critical to his fascist agenda. In Episode 275 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks down El Salvador’s historical role as a laboratory of genocide and police-state methods for US imperialism, and the imperative of trans-national resistance. (Map: University of Texas)

Europe

Russia: youth gets prison for poetic anti-war protest

A court in St. Petersburg sentenced 19-year-old activist Daria Kozyreva to two years and eight months in prison for “discrediting the armed forces” by publicly posting 19th-century Ukrainian poetry in protest of Russia’s war in Ukraine. On the second anniversary of the start of invasion last February, Kozyreva taped a piece of paper bearing a quote from Testament, by Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko, onto his statue in a St. Petersburg park. The excerpt read: “Oh bury me, then rise ye up / And break your heavy chains / And water with the tyrants’ blood / The freedom you have gained.” (Photo: Mediazona via Novaya Gazeta)

Watching the Shadows

Trump-Bukele detention deal heads for clash with courts

The Trump administration’s deportation policies took center stage this week as Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele visited the White House, courts continued challenging the legality of the deportations, and a Maryland senator travelled to El Salvador in an attempt to make contact with a man known to have been wrongfully deported. With Trump now openly defying the federal courts—and, in fact, seeking to expand indefinite detention of deportees in El Salvador’s prison system—the long-awaited showdown between the executive and judiciary appears to have arrived. (Photo: WikiMedia via Jurist)