politics of cyberspace

North Africa

Moroccan feminist arrested for ‘blasphemy’

Prominent Moroccan feminist Ibtissam Lachgar was arrested by the kingdom’s Judicial Police after posting a photo of herself on social media wearing a t-shirt with the word for God in Arabic (Allah) followed by the English words: “is a lesbian.” This reference to the international feminist catchphrase “God is a lesbian” won her “blasphemy” charges from the Rabat prosecutor’s office. The charge carries penalties ranging from six months to two years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to $20,000. The penalty can be increased to five years if the offense is committed publicly or electronically. (Photo via Twitter)

Palestine

UN decries ‘weaponized hunger’ in Gaza —again

Several United Nations agencies condemned the use of starvation as a weapon of war, as malnutrition rates in Gaza spike under Israeli siege. During the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Secretary-General António Guterres stressed: “Hunger fuels instability and undermines peace. We must never accept hunger as a weapon of war.” Guterres’ statement follows Israel’s decision to permit a one-week scale-up of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, where famine conditions now prevail. UN agencies welcomed the easing of aid restrictions and so-called “humanitarian pauses” in the ongoing bombardment; however, as emphasized by UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher: “This is progress, but vast amounts of aid are needed to stave off famine and a catastrophic health crisis.” (Photo: Maan News Agency)

Syria

Syria: revolution on the razor’s edge

The investigation by the Syrian transition government into the March violence against the Alawites in Latakia province has been submitted—but the full findings have not been made public, and it apparently exonerates the government of involvement. Meanwhile southern Suwayda province has seen a perhaps even deadlier eruption of violence—this time pitting Druze against Bedouin, with the role of the government similarly the source of much contestation (and fodder for Internet partisans). And a Damascus protest against the violence and for co-existence was attacked by goons. Amid all this, Israel is militarily intervening, the government looks to Turkey for military aid, and both the US and Russia still have forces on the ground—treating the country as a Greet Power chessboard. In Episode 288 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg warns that the Syrian Revolution is poised on a razor’s edge, ready to descend into ethno-sectarian war and authoritarianism unless political space can be kept open for the secular-democratic civil resistance that began the revolution 14 years ago. (Image: Banners read “Syrians must not shed Syrian blood” and “We reject Israeli aggression against Syria.” Credit: The Syria Campaign via Facebook)

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)

Europe

UN inquiry sees Russian ‘crimes against humanity’ in Ukraine —again

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine published a report declaring Russian drone attacks on civilians in Kherson oblast to be war crimes and crimes against humanity. The commission found that roughly 150 Ukrainian civilians have been killed over the past year as a result of the systematic Russian drone attacks. In addition to direct casualties from the attacks, the report cites cases of civilian deaths due to the inability of ambulances to reach victims following drone strikes. Video evidence supports the claim that Russian forces have targeted ambulances—both while assisting injured civilians, and while parked outside hospitals. (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)

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)

Syria

UN Syria envoy: ‘fragile’ moment in transition process

The UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, warned of grave consequences for the country’s future without genuine political inclusion and urgent economic support for a successful political transition. During a briefing to the Security Council, Pedersen noted the legacies of misrule, conflict and exclusion in Syria, stating that “the situation is inherently still extremely fragile.” The new government announced by President Ahmad al-Sharaa in March is more diverse, but still includes one woman in the 22-member cabinet: Hind Kabawat, a Catholic, who was appointed as minister of Labor & Social Affairs. Recalling the recent violence in the coastal region, Pedersen urged the new government to ensure that all segments of Syrian society are protected, and to prevent individuals or groups from taking justice into their own hands or committing revenge-driven attacks. The statement noted that such sporadic incidents continue to be reported. (Photo: SANA)

South Asia

Isolated people under threat in Andaman Islands

A US national was arrested on North Sentinel Island, in India’s remote Andaman & Nicobar archipelago, for illegally seeking to make contact with the isolated Sentinelese people, an officially designated “particularly vulnerable tribal group” (PVTG). London-based Survival International expressed relief at the arrest, but called the news deeply disturbing, saying the adventurer’s actions “put the lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk,” due to their lack of immunity to common outside diseases. Within days of the arrest, a journalist with local news channel Republic Andaman was found dead—apparently targeted for his reportage on illegal logging and mining in the archipelago. And far greater threats loom; Survival warns that isolated peoples could be wiped out if New Delhi goes ahead with its plan to transform Great Nicobar Island into the “Hong Kong of India,” with massive new port facilities and rapid urbanization. (Photo: Survival International)

Greater Middle East

Signal breach exposes flippant attitude to civilian deaths

Nearly 60 people, including children, have been killed as the United States expands its two-week bombing campaign in Yemen to include (according to a review by the Associated Press) “firing at ranking personnel as well as dropping bombs in cities.” This comes as recently exposed Signal messages between senior US officials discussing the air-strikes demonstrated a flippant attitude towards the lives of Yemeni civilians. In one disturbing exchange concerning an apparent strike on a civilian apartment building, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz writes: “The first target—their top missile guy—we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.” “Excellent,” comes the reply from Vice President JD Vance. The messages, which were brought to light after a journalist from The Atlantic was mistakenly added to the officials’ group chat in a staggering breach of normal security protocols, show a callous indifference to the ethical implications of bombing civilian areas. This is perhaps unsurprising for a country that provided many of the planes and trained many of the pilots involved in the Saudi-led bombing campaign that killed over 9,000 Yemenis between 2015 and 2022. (Map via PCL)

Mexico

Trump-induced migration crisis in Mexico

President Donald Trump’s migration crackdown has been credited with reducing flows northward towards the United States, but it is leaving hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers trapped in a legal limbo further south, anxiously wrestling with what to do next. People on the move are now stranded in precarious living conditions across Mexico, more exposed than ever to violence, abuse and privation. (Photo of Tapachula migrant camp: Daniela Díaz for The New Humanitarian)

Planet Watch

Podcast: yet further thoughts on the common toad

The digitization and literal disembodiment of every sphere of human reality advances with terrifying rapidity—from the Social Security system to the New York subway system. Rather than dropping swipe-cards and bringing back tokens, returning to what was a manifestly superior and more rational system, New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority moves to a still more dystopian “contactless” credit system. Similarly, rather than phasing out automobiles, our corporate overlords are now imposing driverless cars, a further step toward making the human race redundant altogether and portending the ultimate abolition of humanity. In Episode 270 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues his Spring ritual of reading the George Orwell essay “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad“—which brilliantly critiqued technological hypertrophy and articulated an imperative for humanistic revolution and scaleback of the mega-machine way back in April 1946. (Photo: Partonez via Wikimedia Commons)