A startling Jewish Telegraphic Agency report tells of a "Jewish-led militia force" that fought in the Ukrainian revolution—under command of the far-right Svoboda party.
With pro-Russian gunmen occupying Crimea's parliament and Moscow threatening intervention, the Tatars have emerged as a dissident voice opposing union with Russia.
Ukraine's acting interior minister Arsen Avakhov said an arrest warrant has been issued for the country's fugitive president, Viktor Yanukovich, for the mass killings of protestors.
The Ukrainian protesters are demonized as “fascists,” exploiting far-right elements in their ranks—but there is a far greater case that the Yanukovich regime is truly “fascist.”
In Ukraine, Thailand and Italy, riot police stood down and ceded control of urban space to protesters—yet the demonstrators in all three countries have problematic politics.
Rival online campaigns are waged by the "Topless Jihad" and Muslim Women Against Femen. Is the Topless Jihad a defense of women's freedom, or imperialist propaganda?
The Ukraine Security Service (SBU) appears to be targeting the country's anarchist youth following an attack on a leader of the neo-fascist Right Sector. In December, the SBU carried out searches at the homes of seven anarchists in the cities of Kiev, Brovary, Dnipro and Lviv. SBU officers reportedly forced two anarchists to sign a "cooperation agreement," and one of the activists had her passport confiscated. Those targeted were members of the groups Black Banner and Ecological Initiative. The searches were carried out as part of an investigation into an attack on a Right Sector militant Dmytro "Verbych" Ivashchenko, a veteran of the war in Ukraine's eastern Donbass region. (Photo: protest outside SBU office in Kiev, via Zaborona)
A 24-year-old Crimean Tatar was sentenced by a court in Russian-annexed Crimea to 10-and-a-half years' imprisonment for supposed involvement in a volunteer force patrolling the border of Crimea and mainland Ukraine to help enforce a blockade. Video evidence introduced in the trial only showed the suspect from behind. Nonetheless, Fevzi Sahandzhy was convicted of being a member of the Asker Battalion—also known as the Noman Çelebicihan Battalion, in honor of the martyred president of the short-lived independent Crimean Republic of 1918. The Battalion began participating in the blockade of Crimea in 2015 to press demands for the release of political prisoners and restoration of freedom of speech and assembly on the peninsula. (Photo: Human Rights in Ukraine)
In Episode 17 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses growing repression against the Tatar people of the Crimea, and the abrogation of their autonomous government by the Russian authorities since Moscow's illegal annexation of the peninsula. This is a clear parallel to violation of the territorial rights of the Lakota people in the United States through construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the legal persecution of indigenous leaders who stood against it. The parallel is even clearer in the cases of the Evenks and Telengit, indigenous peoples of Siberia, resisting Russian construction of pipelines through their traditional lands. Yet the US State Department's Radio Free Europe aggressively covers the Tatar struggle, while Kremlin propaganda organ Russia Today (RT) aggressively covered the Dakota Access protests. Indigenous struggles are exploited in the propaganda game played by the rival superpowers. It is imperative that indigenous peoples and their allies overcome the divide-and-rule game and build solidarity across borders and influence spheres. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon.
