Tag: police state

East Asia
Hong Kong

Hong Kong executive pushes new security law

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee announced the commencement of a four-week consultation period for a new local security law under Article 23 of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution. Article 23 mandates that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) pass its own laws to prohibit crimes such as treason, secession, sedition and subversion against China’s Central People’s Government. Massive protests involving an estimated 500,000 participants halted the previous attempt to legislate Article 23 in 2003. The current push highlights the Hong Kong government’s efforts to address “soft resistance,” such as online activity that may jeopardize national security. (Photo: HKFP)

Europe
Moscow protest

Dozens detained at Moscow anti-mobilization protest

Russian law enforcement detained at least two dozen people at a protest in Moscow, as wives and relatives of service members fighting in Ukraine demanded their return. Those arrested included journalists covering the protest and human rights monitors. Kin of the soldiers gathered to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, outside the Kremlin walls. The demonstration marked 500 days since President Vladimir Putin ordered the mobilization of up to 300,000 military reservists for the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. The call-up prompted more than 260,000 men to flee the nation, with Moscow reportedly setting up draft offices at borders to intercept fleeing reservists. (Photo: astrapress via The Moscow Times)

Southeast Asia
Burma

Burma junta extends state of emergency again

Burma’s ruling military junta announced that it has extended the country’s state of emergency period for another six months. The junta last extended the state of emergency by six months in July 2023 and postponed an election it had promised to hold that August. The state of emergency was first declared after the February 2021 coup, and has been continuously extended since then. While Article 425 of the Constitution stipulates that a state of emergency may only be extended twice at maximum, the junta stated that the extension was necessary as Burma is in an unusual situation. The junta blamed opposition organizations for keeping the country from conducting multi-party democratic elections. (Map: PCL)

East Asia
china labor

Wildcat labor actions spread in China

Although winning no coverage in English-language media, labor actions are spreading across China in the current economic downturn in the People’s Republic. This week, workers hung banners outside the headquarters of the Guilin No. 3 Construction Company in Guangxi province to demand payment of outstanding wages owed to hundreds of employees. On the same day, migrant workers in Jinan, Shandong province, raised banners in the city’s central business district demanding payment of backlogged wages by the China Railway Construction Corporation. By definition, such actions are not authorized by the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). Numerous such recent actions were described at the symposium “Non-violent Resistance, High-Tech Totalitarianism and China’s Future,” held last weekend in Washington DC. (Image: China Labour Bulletin)

North America
rio grande

Feds blame Texas in deaths on US-Mexico border

Two migrant children and their mother drowned while trying to cross from Mexico into the United States, after Texas authorities prevented US Border Patrol agents from reaching the victims to render life-saving aid, charged US Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represents a district on the border. The US Department of Homeland Security said the three migrants drowned near Shelby Park in the border town of Eagle Pass after Texas Guardsmen “physically barred” Border Patrol agents from entering the area. Mexican officials recovered the bodies the next morning on their side of the Rio Grande, in Piedras Negras. “This is a tragedy and the State [Texas] bears responsibility,” said Cuellar in his statement detailing the series of events. (Map: Google)

The Andes
Luis Flores Solís

Peru protests: one year later

A year after the height of a protest wave that swept Peru, demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, we finally see an initial step toward justice for the some 50 slain by security forces in the repression unleashed by her regime. Judicial Power, Peru’s justice department, ordered the “preventative detention” of an officer of the National Police, as he is investigated in the slaying of a Cuzco youth last January.  On the other hand, there is outrage that Luis Flores Solís, a National Police general and a former agent of the elite Special Intelligence Group, has been named as the new chief of the Counter-Terrorist Directorate (DIRCOTE)—despite the fact that he is under internal investigation by the police force in the killing of protesters in Andahuaylas. Meanwhile, Pedro Castillo, the president whose removal from power and replacement by Boluarte in December 2022 sparked the protest wave, remains imprisoned on pre-trial detention orders. But ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year term for corruption and human rights abuses, was released last month on order of the Constitutional Tribunal, Peru’s highest court. (Photo: Wayka)

The Andes
Quito police

‘State of armed conflict’ declared in Ecuador

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency in the country after the escape of Adolfo Macías Villamar AKA “Fito,” leader of the Los Choneros narco-gang, from Littoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil. Macías had been serving a 34-year sentence since 2011 for drug trafficking, murder, and organized crime. As news broke of his disappearance, six other correctional facilities across the country exploded into riots. The situation escalated the following day, when hooded gunmen interrupted a live television broadcast in Guayaquil, taking reporters and staff hostage. Noboa responded by declaring a state of “internal armed conflict” in the country, ordering security forces to “neutralize” designated “terrorist organizations” and “non-state actors,” including Los Choneros, Los Lobos and Los Tigueronesnarco-gangs. (Photo: Indymedia Ecuador)

Watching the Shadows
killer robots

Demand international treaty to ban ‘killer robots’

Countries that approved the first-ever United Nations General Assembly resolution on “killer robots” should promote negotiations on a new international treaty to ban these weapons, and regulate “autonomous weapons systems” generally, Human Rights Watch said. Last month,152 countries voted in favor of the resolution on the dangers of lethal autonomous weapons. General Assembly Resolution 78/241 acknowledges the “serious challenges and concerns” raised by “new technological applications in the military domain, including those related to artificial intelligence and autonomy in weapons systems.” (Image: Rally on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, protesting against a Board of Supervisors vote to authorize police use of deadly-force robots, Dec. 5, 2022. Credit: Pax Ahimsa Gethen via Wikimedia Commons)

Europe
Kremlin

Russia: unprecedented number of treason cases in 2023

The Russian authorities opened 70 cases in 2023 for “state treason” or “secret cooperation with a foreign state or organization,” according to a report from the human rights organization Perviy Otdel. Out of the 70 new cases initiated in 2023, in addition to 28 pending from previous years, courts found defendants guilty in 37 cases, marking an historical high. Some cases progressed swiftly from initiation to final judgment, spanning a mere month. Often, the Federal Security Service (FSB) conducted online sting operations, particularly targeting individuals opposing the war in Ukraine. Those charged under the treason statute, Article 275of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, may face from 12 years to life imprisonment. (Photo: Wikipedia)

East Asia
Chanpo

Arrests at Hong Kong’s ‘patriots-only’ election

Hong Kong Chief Executive Ka-chiu Lee applauded the “good turnout” in the city’s “patriots-only” District Council elections—despite a turnout of only 27.5%, the lowest in any race since the return to Chinese rule in 1997. He also charged that protesters had attempted to “sabotage” the vote. Four of the city’s leading democracy advocates were pre-emptively arrested for supposedly planning protests before the polls opened. This was the first district-level vote since Hong Kong’s government overhauled the electoral system, instating changes that effectively made it impossible for pro-democracy candidates to run. Most of the city’s pro-democracy activists are now behind bars, in exile, or silenced by fear of repression. (Photo of League of Social Democrats chair Chan Po-ying: HKFP)

Europe
Kurmasheva

Russia prolongs detention of Tatar-language journalist

A district court in Kazan, capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, extended the detention of Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist holding joint Russian and United States citizenship. Kurmasheva, who reports for the Tatar-language service of US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), was first detained in October. She faces charges of failure to register as a “foreign agent,” an offense that carries a potential five-year prison term. The decision extending her pre-trial detention through early February was made without actually setting a trial date. (Photo: The Moscow Times)

Greater Middle East
Galatasaray

Turkey: vigil for disappeared resumes after five years

A group of Turkish mothers whose sons and daughters were forcibly disappeared in the 1980s and ’90s held a public vigil in Istanbul without police interference. This marked the first time the “Saturday Mothers” group has been allowed to proceed with such an event since police dispersed their last gathering in August 2018. The group’s vigils had persisted for nearly three decades. The vigil was resumed after Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that suppression of the event violated participants’ rights. (Photo via Twitter)