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Elizabeth Vos on the social-media suppression of information that could help U.S service people refuse to join the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran as fears grow that Trump will send ground troops into the conflict.

As the U.S. and Israel’s deeply unpopular war with Iran enters its second week, social media platform X is censoring the accounts of people providing information to military servicemembers on how they can refuse to serve. This is particularly relevant as fears have grown that U.S. ground troops may enter the conflict.

The Center on Conscience & War, an 80-year-old nonprofit that, according to its website, “advocates for the rights of conscience, opposes military conscription, and serves all conscientious objectors to war,” was banned on X for 12 hours. The center’s executive director, Mike Prysner, shared a notice that the center received from X which labeled their posts as having “violated X rules” against “illegal and regulated behaviors.”

X has just suspended @CCW4COs for informing service members of their legal rights. pic.twitter.com/joNYvW9E2w

— Mike Prysner (@MikePrysner) March 7, 2026

Prysner wrote: “This is the post @CCW4COs was suspended for, informing service members of their legal right under DoDI 1332.14 to report “failure to adapt” within first 365 days of service and receive an entry-level discharge.”

This is the post @CCW4COs was suspended for, informing service members of their legal right under DoDI 1332.14 to report “failure to adapt” within first 365 days of service and receive an entry-level discharge https://t.co/PLPQslEz6x

— Mike Prysner (@MikePrysner) March 7, 2026

It remains legal to conscientiously object to military service. The only conceivable way that the post could be framed as encouraging illegal or irregular behavior would be to recast such objections as mutiny, which is exactly what pro-Israeli voices on social media have been frantically doing in the last few days.

In response to conservative commentator Candace Owens also encouraging those in the U.S. military to conscientiously object to serving in Iran, pro-Israel journalist Emily Schrader wrote on X:

“This is illegal. She is literally advocating mutiny. Under 18 U.S.C. § 2387 (Advocating overthrow or disloyalty in the armed forces). It is a crime for any person, including civilians, to willfully advocate or attempt to cause:
• insubordination in the armed forces
• disloyalty among service members
• mutiny or refusal of duty
It also criminalizes distributing materials intended to encourage those outcomes.
The penalty can be up to 10 years in prison and fines.”

Other pro-Israel voices like Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge-fund manager, reposted Shrader’s sentiments.

The social media ban on the Center for Conscience and War came less than 24 hours after its executive director, Prysner, also wrote via social media regarding anecdotal evidence of troops being readied for combat:

“I just spoke with the mother of a service member in this unit. They were given one last call home before having to turn in their phones. He told his mom they were going ‘boots on the ground’ tonight.”

I just spoke with the mother of a service member in this unit. They were given one last call home before having to turn in their phones. He told his mom the were going “boots on the ground” tonight. pic.twitter.com/3OCupSfp9Q

— Mike Prysner (@MikePrysner) March 7, 2026

As noted by The Cradle,

“Mike Prysner … said in posts on X that his office has been overwhelmed with requests for guidance from service members seeking to dodge deployment…. ‘Phone has been ringing off the hook,’ he wrote … adding that many troops had not been told the mission involved combat until the last moment and were initially informed they were heading to training.”

As veteran Greg Stoker said via X: “Service members knowing their rights is a direct threat to both the secular imperialists who own these apps and the rapturous evangelicals trying to bring about Armageddon.”

Service members knowing their rights is a direct threat to both the secular imperialists who own these apps and the rapturous evangelicals trying to bring about Armageddon.

You don’t want to be fighting for either. https://t.co/hMzq96xSir

— Greg Stoker (@gregjstoker) March 7, 2026

Some X users have also been anecdotally reporting the apparent mobilization of troops:

“Spoke to a family member tonight — a Marine stationed in California. He said half\ the troops on base have disappeared in the past couple days and that the situation is chaos with those still remaining.”

Despite official denials that troops on the ground are part of the current plan, President Donald Trump has not ruled out the possibility. Democrats expressed alarm over the possibility following a March 4 classified briefing.

Democracy Now! noted that Sen. Richard Blumenthal said, “I just want to say I am more fearful than ever, after this briefing, that we may be putting boots on the ground.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren also stated after the briefing:

“I just left a classified briefing on Iran, and here’s what I can say. It is so much worse than you thought. You are right to be worried. The Trump administration has no plan in Iran. This illegal war is based on lies, and it was launched without any imminent threat to our nation. Donald Trump still hasn’t given a single clear reason for this war, and he seems to have no plan for how to end it, either.”

The censorship of an account sharing information for troops regarding how to conscientiously object is particularly relevant now as thousands of U.S. troops are facing the potential for imminent deployment in the escalating conflict with Iran: a war largely unsupported on the home front.

Breaking news: The Army abruptly canceled a major training exercise, officials said, fueling speculation within the Defense Department that soldiers specializing in ground combat and a range of other missions may be sent to the Middle East. https://t.co/1nuTFn8acH

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 6, 2026

According to The New York Times, support for U.S. intervention in Iran is incredibly low, having “ranged from 27 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll to 41 percent in a CNN survey, far below the level of public backing that Mr. Trump’s predecessors initially enjoyed when they used force overseas.”

Many see the intervention as a war waged overwhelmingly for Israel, especially in light of broad daylight comments from figures like U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said:

“The president made the very wise decision: We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

Other veteran activists have also been speaking out against the war, and urging servicemembers to refuse to serve. As reported by Breakthrough News, at a Chicago rally on Saturday, veteran Daniel Lakemacher urged U.S. soldiers to “refuse this illegal and immoral war” on Iran.

“To all those who are not yet deployed: Now is the time to resist.”

At a Chicago rally on Saturday, veteran Daniel Lakemacher urges U.S. soldiers to “refuse this illegal and immoral war” on Iran.

The rally was part of a “Stop the War on Iran!” national day of action. The… pic.twitter.com/ukeY6Sci3i

— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) March 8, 2026

This negative sentiment was also voiced by former U.S. Marine Sgt Brian McGinnis, a Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate for North Carolina, who was dragged out of a recent congressional hearing after shouting that “America does not want to send its sons and daughters to war for Israel.”

Sen. Tim Sheehy and police officers reportedly broke McGinnis’s arm as they struggled to remove him from the room. McGinnis was then charged with multiple counts of assault.

Former US Marine Sgt Brian McGinnis as he’s dragged out of Congress:

“No one wants to fight for Israel!”

Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-AIPAC) can be seen helping cops manhandle the veteran

Expect to see much more of this as the Zionist war drags on pic.twitter.com/itHaOkexf2

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 4, 2026

The violent repression of a former service member’s speech against U.S. intervention in Iran, like the social media suppression of information that might help military members use legal methods to refuse to serve in that war, demonstrates how desperate the government is to preserve its ability to force Americans to fight for Israel.

The president and his supporters seem increasingly confused when justifying the U.S. involvement to the press. When asked about U.S./Israeli strikes on Iran’s water desalination plants, Trump rambled about beheaded babies and referenced Oct. 7. This behavior is stoking public resistance to the war, including amongst members of the military.

At a time when a dangerous war of America’s own making is escalating dangerously out of control, it cannot be acceptable to censor or render it illegal for members of the U.S. military to have a conscience.

Original article:  consortiumnews.com

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“The European Union is instrumental in advocating for minority rights outside its borders, especially through its enlargement policy, but lacks the tools and motivation to effectively address minority issues within the bloc. This gap must be closed to guarantee better protection of minorities within the EU,” said Nicolas Levrat, the UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues, in a statement at the end of his visit to the EU.

“Respect for the human rights of persons belonging to minorities is one of the founding values of the EU,” Levrat said, noting that, as the Commission does not recognise a clear EU competence in this area, the EU cannot adopt laws, policies or binding measures that directly protect minorities. As an alternative, the EU should promote an approach that compels Member States to uphold this founding value.

While commending the EU’s anti-discrimination approach, which covers all minority groups including migrants and their descendants, the Special Rapporteur urged the European Commission to adopt a more comprehensive framework for minority rights. “This would ensure a more streamlined approach to minority issues across the EU and address the needs of linguistic minorities, who are currently left out of EU strategies and policies,” he said.

He also welcomed the financial support for minority-focused civil society initiatives in third countries and encouraged this focus be applied to civil society actors inside the EU.

The expert expressed profound concern about the lack of diversity among EU staff. He noted that, despite recent efforts to address this issue, minorities – especially racialised and ethnic minorities – remain severely underrepresented within the EU’s institutions, bodies, and agencies.

“The EU’s workforce remains far from representative of the diversity found within the EU,” Levrat said. “EU institutions, agencies and bodies must accelerate efforts to recruit and retain more personnel belonging to minorities.”

The Special Rapporteur welcomed the EU’s newly adopted anti-racism strategy and urged EU Member States to step up efforts to recognise the ongoing negative impact of Europe’s colonial legacy on racialised minorities.

The expert will present a full report to the Human Rights Council in March 2027.

Original artice:  www.ohchr.org

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The latest tranche of Epstein Files has put a rather unlikely figure in the spotlight: the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan religious leader’s name is mentioned hundreds of times in the newly-released documents, with suggestions and allegations that the two maintained some kind of personal relationship. A search for “Dalai Lama” elicits 156 results on the Department of Justice’s website, with other similar queries, such as “Dali Lama” (Epstein had notoriously poor spelling) also prompting dozens of relevant results. A prominent Epstein guest recalls meeting the Buddhist teacher at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion, scene of many of his most serious sex crimes. The Dalai Lama’s office has vehemently denied any connection to the disgraced pedophile and suspected Israeli intelligence operative.

Partying At Epstein’s House?

A serial networker, Epstein’s emails show that he worked hard to connect with the Dalai Lama, sending requests out to his web of contacts for an invitation. Joichi Ito, head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, helped him in his endeavors, noting that his close contact, Tenzin Priyadarshi was a Tibetan monk, MIT’s Buddhist chaplain, and had a direct line to the Dalai Lama. As he wrote:

“Yes. First step would be to meet Tenzin. His student who runs the Dalai Lama center and is now a Director’s Fellow at the Lab and going to start the ‘ethics initiative’ at the Media Lab. We’re working on some cool things like a meeting about cognitive machines and man. I think you’ll probably like him. He can get us the Dalai Lama.”

Epstein would go on to meet with Priyadarshi and donate $50,000 to the Prajnopaya Institute, a Buddhist Center he founded. In 2019, Ito resigned in disgrace over his association with Epstein.

Epstein was excited by the prospect of reeling the lama into his personal network. “I’m working on the dalai lama for dinner” he emailed Soon Yi-Previn, wife of Woody Allen. “Any date for the lunch with Woody and dalai L?” celebrity scientist Lawrence Krauss asked Epstein two weeks later.

Another message from a redacted sender also hints at a closer relationship than previously known.

“Sorry for that didn’t check my email since yesterday morning. You know that I don’t have an Internet in my phone, why didn’t you call me or text me on my phone if you need me? About the event I told you almost a month ago on the island that Dalai Lama is coming and I want to go there to see him. But I can skip this event if you need my help today.” 

It is not clear whether the reference to the “island” is Little St. James, the infamous Caribbean retreat where the billionaire trafficked and raped girls and women.

From the emails alone, it is unclear whether Epstein and the Dalai Lama ever met in person. However, Michael Wolff, journalist and Epstein associate, stated multiple times that he personally saw him at Epstein’s Manhattan residence.

Wolff told The Daily Beast Podcast that Epstein’s gigantic apartment was “filled with people you might want to meet, from Bill Gates, to Peter Thiel, to Larry Summers, Ehud Barak, Steve Bannon, Noam Chomsky, the Dalai Lama.” Host Joanna Coles interrupted Wolff, asking, “You met the Dalai Lama?” “Yeah, the list goes on, the list is extraordinary,” he replied. A shocked Coles asked him once again to clarify: “Did you actually meet the Dalai Lama at Jeffrey Epstein’s?” to which Wolff responded, “Yeah, indeed.”

The Central Tibetan Administration has categorically denied both Wolff’s claims and any deep connections between Epstein and the Dalai Lama. After analyzing the documents themselves, they concluded that they were marked by an “absence of any direct participation, confirmation, or acknowledgement by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, or by anyone acting on his behalf, in relation to Jeffrey Epstein.”

“All references to His Holiness the Dalai Lama are strictly third-party mentions, often informal, speculative, or contextual, and do not establish any interaction, relationship, or communication between His Holiness and Jeffrey Epstein,” they concluded, adding that reports stating otherwise are often the work of “Chinese state-backed media outlets” with “vested interests” against the Tibetan independence movement.

Nevertheless, the presence of the Dalai Lama in the Epstein Files evoke memories of a 2023 incident involving a young boy. At a public event in India, the then-87-year-old leader invited a child on stage, ordering him to kiss him on the cheek. Holding the boy in place, he motions to his lips, saying “I think here also.” Cupping the boy’s chin, he kisses him on the mouth, as the audience applauds. Still holding the child, he then orders him to “suck his tongue.” The visibly shaken boy pulls back in disgust.

Weeks afterward, video from the incident went viral. The Dalai Lama was condemned by Indian children’s groups, and widely accused of pedophilia. Facing a media storm, his office put out a short statement apologizing to the boy, his family, and “his many friends across the world, for the hurt his words may have caused.” “His Holiness often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras. He regrets the incident,” the note explained.

While the Dalai Lama has strenuously denied the Epstein and child abuse allegations, he has been completely open about his connections to the CIA and U.S. intelligence, groups with whom Epstein is alleged to have had close relations. For decades, the Dalai Lama was on the CIA payroll, personally receiving $180,000 per year from the agency, as part of a wider American strategy to support the Tibetan separatist movement against Communist China.

After a failed 1959 uprising, he left Tibet for India, never to return. The CIA continued to support Tibetan guerillas, however, arming, training and funding hundreds of fighters at Camp Hale in Colorado, in an attempt to destabilize the government. But after the Nixon administration’s détente with China in the early 1970s, Tibetan independence was placed on the back burner, and the CIA money for the program, including the Dalai Lama’s personal stipend, dried up. “Once the American policy toward China changed, they [the CIA] stopped their help. Otherwise, our struggle could have gone on,” the Dalai Lama said of the decision.

The CIA continues to fund Tibetan movements through front organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Every year, the NED spends millions bankrolling programs targeting Tibet, supporting media, NGOs, and other Tibetan groups who oppose the Chinese government. There are currently at least 16 active Tibetan NED projects, although the organization does not disclose who are the recipients of their largesse, for fear it would reduce their credibility. Nevertheless, NGOs such as the Tibet Justice Center and the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy are known to be financed by Washington. As are Students for a Free Tibet and media such as the China Digital Times and China Change.

The purpose of these operations, one declassified State Department document notes, is “to keep the political concept of an autonomous Tibet alive within Tibet and among foreign nations, principally India, and to build a capability for resistance against possible political developments inside Communist China.”

Bad Karma

The release of the Epstein Files has made waves across the world, as celebrities, scientists, politicians, and royals have been implicated in a vast network of trafficking and sexual abuse. In the United Kingdom, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly known as Prince Andrew) was arrested, while the house of ex-cabinet member, Lord Mandelson, was raided by the police. Meanwhile, in Norway, former prime minister Thorbjørn Jagland has been charged with aggravated corruption relating to his dealings with the disgraced New York financier.

In the United States, however, not a single individual has faced legal consequences for their actions. Moreover, the Department of Justice announced that the January 30 release of 3 million pages of documents would be its last, as it had met its legal obligations. This, despite only 2% of the total Epstein files it holds having been published (and many heavily redacted, at that).

Why Epstein wished to meet the Dalai Lama so much is unclear. The billionaire appeared to enjoy “collecting” well-known figures. The Dalai Lama himself is remaining tight-lipped. And with Epstein dead and no more files scheduled to be released, it is likely that we may never hear the final word on this mystery.

Original article:  www.mintpressnews.com

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On 4 February, the Hague Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [ICTY], transformed into the ominously sounding “Residual Mechanism,” in disregard of its established practice, declined to grant early release to Serbian prisoner Milan Martić. In the final phase of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Martić was the leader of the Serbian minority in the Krajina region of Croatia. Having completed two-thirds of his thirty-five-year sentence, Martić was under the impression that his petition for early release was opportune and would be granted. He had been accused of a variety of offences, most of them standard fare in Tribunal proceedings: murder, persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, imprisonment, deportations, the plunder, etc. But what stands out in Martić’s indictment is the charge that after the start of the Croatian offensive against Krajina Serbs in the summer of 1995 he ordered his forces to fire missiles at the Croatian capital of Zagreb, allegedly killing and injuring a number of civilians.

That is essentially the same kind of violation of international humanitarian law for which Ante Gotovina, Martić’s opponent who commanded the attacking forces on the Croatian side, was put on trial by the same Hague Tribunal. Gotovina however, unlike his Serbian counterpart Martić, was never in the situation of petitioning the Tribunal for early release. The reason for that is that he was acquitted, notwithstanding that the military operation he directed resulted in the expulsion of a quarter million Serb residents, the strafing of their refugee columns by his military aircraft, and the cold-blooded slaughter of 2,000 Serb civilians as they were fleeing desperately from Gotovina’s advancing columns.

This marks the Tribunal’s second refusal in the last several months to grant an early release petition, after rejecting a similar request filed by Gen. Radislav Krstić. Coincidentally, both prisoners whose petitions were denied just happen to be Serbs. And notably, never before that in the Tribunal’s three-decade history had an early release petition submitted by any prisoner who had served two-thirds of his sentence been denied. During the aforementioned period the Tribunal released routinely nearly a hundred convicted ICTY prisoners of diverse ethnic backgrounds, once they had satisfied the two-thirds criterion.

What makes the cases of Milan Martić and Radislav Krstić so different as to justify such a radical departure from established Tribunal (or “Mechanism,” if you prefer) practice?

Setting forth her reasons for rejecting Martić’s petition, presiding judge Graciela Gatti Santana stated that in her opinion the prisoner Martić has failed to convincingly demonstrate a degree of “rehabilitation” sufficient to justify release before the completion of his full prison term. The “general good behaviour” acknowledged by the authorities in Estonia, where Martić has been serving his sentence, in the judge’s view “cannot on its own demonstrate rehabilitation of a person convicted for some of the most heinous international crimes.” She stressed that a circumstance particularly aggravating for the petitioner was the fact that “the Estonian authorities reported that Martic ‘considers himself a political prisoner’ and, “[g]enerally speaking, does not want to talk about his crimes, believing that the sentence imposed on him was politically motivated.”

Can anyone blame Martić for holding such opinions?

Judge Santana’s rationale is highly indicative of the legal culture, or perhaps more exactly the mentality, of the Hague Tribunal. She claims that proof of “rehabilitation” is a criterion for early release, but neither in Martić’s case, nor when denying the petition of Gen. Krstić on virtually identical grounds, has she indicated what in her personal view or in light of ICTY’s practice constitutes evidence of rehabilitation. Furthermore, and this is the key point, the judge disenfranchises the petitioner for the act of refusing to internalise the allegations contained in the Prosecution’s charge sheet and rejection of the verdict brought against him. The prisoner is penalised for the outrage of refusing to accept the imputation of guilt, which he must have done from the commencement of the proceedings, otherwise there would have been no need to even hold a trial.

In juridical terms, what right could the court possibly have to require a prisoner to assent to a verdict with which he strongly disagrees, and to make such involuntary assent a condition for receiving a benefit, in this case a shortened prison term? That question is particularly apt since post-trial acceptance of guilt was not a necessary condition for the early release of any other ICTY prisoner before Martić and Krstić filed their petitions.

It should be acknowledged that early release after the completion of two-thirds of the sentence is not normatively prescribed in the Statute of the Hague Tribunal. In all previous cases however it was a customary practice and was being granted routinely. Even in the absence of a formal prescription, the disruption of that practice after numerous precedents had been set presents at least two significant problems of a legal nature.

The first is the violation of the principle of equal treatment, in these instances technically not before the law but certainly in light of established institutional practice. Consistent legal practice gives rise to reasonably entertained expectations. The second issue is the ethnically discriminatory nature of the application of the abrogated principle, targeting members of only one community within a diverse prisoner pool. Ironically, ethnically based discrimination is one of the most frequent themes in Hague Tribunal indictments.

The expectation that in similar circumstances judicial organs will act similarly is fundamental to the proper operation of justice. The guarantee of legal security and predictability in the application of even informal norms is a basic value of civilised law. The alternative is descent into arbitrariness, or anomie as Emile Durkheim has called it.

Judge Graciela Gatti Santana and her colleagues on the ICTY bench apparently do not give a fig for any of those considerations. They are not in the business of administering justice in any recognisable or meaningful from but of advancing the political agenda of the institution from which pays their salaries and benefits.

There appears to be little doubt what that agenda is. Notwithstanding the uncritical and massive political and media support enjoyed by the Hague Tribunal since its inception in the mid-1990s its legacy is questionable and its reputation is tarnished. It is not widely perceived as a place where justice is not only done but also seen to be done. Its rules of evidence and procedure have deviated widely from the Western legal tradition. Under those rules, a multitude of cases stemming from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia have been adjudicated, but few serious legal scholars and observers are convinced that the verdicts reached and sentences imposed pass muster.

The oppressively burdensome standards that the Hague Tribunal is coming up with for what should be routine early release of its prisoners who meet the time served criterion has little to do with concern for the prisoners’ rehabilitation. It has much to do with the pathetic effort of a disgraced Tribunal to if possible secure its own rehabilitation. The method it uses is a cruel cat and mouse game which it plays with its helpless captives. In contemptuous disregard for the ethos of the Western legal tradition, the Hague Tribunal blackmails its prisoners, dangling before them, long after the conclusion of their trials, an uncertain prospect of early freedom in exchange for grovelling enough and violating their moral convictions with sufficient vehemence to retroactively lend credibility to the Tribunal’s defective verdicts by involuntarily altering their non-guilty pleas.

Has a better contextual explanation been written of the functioning of this evil system from the dark ages, to which the Hague Tribunal fully subscribes, than that offered by Michel Foucault in his classical study “Discipline and Punish,” pp. 37-38?

“Confession,” says Foucault, speaking of the primitive practice of what in the Middle Ages passed for “justice,” “constituted so strong a proof that there was scarcely any need to add others, or to enter the difficult and dubious combinatory of clues; the confession, provided it was obtained in the correct manner, almost discharged the prosecution of the obligation to provide further evidence (in any case, the most difficult evidence). Secondly, the only way that this procedure might use all its unequivocal authority, and become a real victory over the accused, the only way in which the truth might exert all its power, was for the criminal to accept responsibility for his own crime and himself sign what had been skilfully and obscurely constructed by the preliminary investigation.”

“It is not enough,” Foucault continues, quoting medieval torturer Ayrault, “that wrong-doers be justly punished. They must if possible judge and condemn themselves.” For all the stated reasons, “the confession had priority over any other kind of evidence. To a certain extent, it transcended all other evidence; an element in the calculation of the truth, it was also the act by which the accused accepted the charge and recognized its truth; it transformed an investigation carried out without him into a voluntary affirmation. Through the confession, the accused himself took part in the ritual of producing penal truth [la vérité pénale].”

There scarcely is any need to point out the degree to which judicial practice in what is commonly known as the dark ages coincides with the contemporary modus operandi of the Hague Tribunal, the pilot programme that was set up to blaze the trail for the global reengineering of jurisprudence. The ignominious International Criminal Court is one of its offshoots, with more undoubtedly to come.

By Caitlin JOHNSTONE

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Australian authorities were fully aware that inviting Israel’s president for a visit was going to ignite unrest and furious opposition. They invited him anyway, and sent in the police to assault the protesters.

I saw a video of two cops pinning a kid in a keffiyeh face down on the ground and proceeding to punch him over and over again long after he’d been subdued.

I saw another video of police repeatedly punching a middle-aged man who was holding his hands in the air until he fell to the ground.

I saw another video of police repeatedly pepper spraying a demonstrator directly in the face as he was visibly complying with their demands to move and providing no resistance whatsoever.

I saw another video of police manhandling Muslim men who were literally on their knees praying, presenting no possible threat of any kind.

That’s right kids, welcome to Australia, where the government invites the head of a genocidal apartheid state for a happy cuddle party and then beats the shit out of anyone who opposes this.

It’s a testament to the courage and vitality of the pro-Palestine movement in Australia that people keep showing up to anti-genocide protests even as authorities do everything they can to create a chilling effect on them.

After all, this happens as the state of Queensland moves to make it illegal to utter the pro-Palestine phrases “from the river to the sea” or “globalise the intifada”, with violations punishable by two years in prison. This is easily the single most bat shit insane speech suppression legislation in Australian history, and that’s an extremely high bar.

To be clear, not one person sincerely believes that “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a genocidal or antisemitic statement. This is one of those many, many instances in which Israel supporters are pretending to believe something they do not actually believe in order to further outlaw criticism of Israel.

They’re trying to make it so that nobody feels comfortable opposing Israel’s abuses without first consulting with a lawyer about what exactly they are legally permitted to say in that moment, thereby throwing a chilling effect on pro-Palestine activism throughout the nation.

This comes weeks after the Australian government passed frightening new “hate speech” laws in the name of “combatting antisemitism” which will make it much easier to designate activist groups as “hate groups”. Australian officials have conspicuously refused to say that the new laws will not be used to ban groups for speech that is critical of Israel, which tells you all you need to know about the real intentions at work here.

This also comes as the state of New South Wales cracks down on protests with extreme aggression, banning protests in certain areas and seeking to outlaw the use of the phrase “globalise the intifada” to appease Australia’s obscenely powerful Israel lobby. Premier Chris Minns is presently defending the actions of the police he sent in to crack skulls at the Herzog protests on Monday.

Just two months ago a prominent member of the Australian Israel lobby publicly announced that he wants a total ban on pro-Palestine protests throughout the nation, and said it is criticism of Israel that is the problem, not just hatred toward Jews. Joel Burnie, Executive Manager of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), explicitly said that what he wants is “No more protests! No more protests!” in Australia.

“I for one as a Jewish leader will no long talk about antisemitism in isolation from Israel, because it’s the rhetoric and language on Israel that motivates the people to come and kill us,” Burnie said during a video conference, later adding that “ language on Israel invading all of our social spaces in Australia have made this country a very unsafe space and place for Jews.”

Increment by increment, Joel Burnie and his ilk have been getting their wish ever since. Australian civil rights are indeed being disintegrated to protect the information interests of a genocidal apartheid state.

As I often remind readers, Australia is the only so-called democracy in the world which has no national charter or bill of rights of any kind. A tremendous amount of faith has been placed in state and federal legislators to simply do the right thing, which has proved foolish and ineffective. Professor George Williams wrote for the Melbourne University Law Review in 2006:

“Australia is now the only democratic nation in the world without a national bill of rights. Some comprehensive form of legal protection for basic rights is otherwise seen as an essential check and balance in democratic governance around the world. Indeed, I can find no example of a democratic nation that has gained a new Constitution or legal system in recent decades that has not included some form of a bill of rights, nor am I aware of any such nation that has done away with a bill of rights once it has been put in place.”

This system plainly does not work. Australians desperately need speech protections enshrined in our Constitution, because we cannot trust our leaders to resist efforts to silence us whenever our speech becomes inconvenient to powerful people and influential lobbying groups.

The more aggressively they fight to silence us, the louder we need to become. It is more necessary to oppose Israel and its supporters than ever before, because now they’re coming after us and our rights. It’s not just about opposing genocide, war and apartheid anymore. It’s about fighting for our own rights and our own future.

Original article: caitlinjohnstone.com.au

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In recent years, the European Union has imposed twenty sanction packages against Russia, and their result is precisely the opposite of what was expected.

/Pogled.info/ Bulgarian MEP Petar Volgin gave an assessment of the report prepared by the Committee on the European Democracy Shield (EUDS), dedicated to the EU’s efforts to combat disinformation. The report proposes establishing new structures, backed by additional funding, against attempts by Russia and China to dominate the online environment and social networks and shape beliefs. Here is the position of Petar Volgin, a representative of “Vazrazhdane” and the “Europe of Sovereign Nations” group in the European Parliament, which he stated in the committee:

“In this 40-page report, there is a single meaningful sentence. It refers to the sentence quoting Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that ’Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.’ This sentence must be constantly recalled, because in recent years the main institutions of the European Union have been doing everything possible to destroy all opinions different from the politically correct ones.”

Petar Volgin drew attention to the fact that the report contains numerous recommendations for creating new structures and pouring millions of euros. “In the name of what? In the name of having fought disinformation. But in reality, the true goal of the so-called ’fight against disinformation’ is to totally eliminate the pluralism of opinions and create a society copied one-to-one from Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopia ’We’.”

The long-time journalist from the BNR will never end his personal battle for freedom of speech and for upholding pluralism as a foundation of democratic society. Volgin pointed out that the committee’s report contains absurd recommendations, such as that ’to protect democracy with the help of sanctions.’ “However, in recent years, the European Union has imposed twenty sanction packages against Russia, and their result is precisely the opposite of what was expected. Russia and the U.S. dictate the terms of peace, while the European Union stands with its tail between its legs in the corner,” Volgin reminded of this unpleasant fact and predicted that “the more such reports European officials produce, the more the European Union will lose its significance.”

Original article:  pogled.info

By Robert Inlakesh

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El ecosistema financiado por Estados Unidos de «grupos de derechos humanos» iraníes, agentes israelíes y activistas monárquicos se ha convertido en una puerta giratoria de estadísticas imposibles de verificar y propaganda de atrocidades.

Desde que la República Islámica de Irán impuso un bloqueo de Internet en todo el país para reprimir lo que calificó como disturbios respaldados por inteligencia extranjera y una insurgencia terrorista, se han difundido rápidamente cifras de muertos y heridos imposibles de verificar.

Estas afirmaciones, ninguna de las cuales aporta pruebas creíbles, siguen circulando de forma coordinada, amplificadas tanto por los medios de comunicación de la oposición iraní como por la prensa occidental dominante.

En medio de la oleada de cobertura occidental sobre las protestas iraníes, una ONG con sede en Toronto publicó una afirmación escandalosa según la cual Irán había matado a 43.000 manifestantes y herido a otros 350.000.

El grupo responsable de la cifra, el Centro Internacional para los Derechos Humanos (ICHR – International Center for Human Rights, en inglés), no ofreció imágenes, datos forenses ni pruebas verificables de forma independiente. Sin embargo, esta estadística, publicada en una endeble entrada de blog de 900 palabras, fue catapultada al discurso público por el cómico británico-iraní y partidario de la oposición Omid Djalili, que la fijó en la parte superior de su perfil de X.

Tal y como se pretendía, la afirmación se hizo viral. Lo mismo ocurrió con cifras de muertos similares o incluso más extremas. Estas fueron repetidas en las redes sociales por influencers monárquicos, recicladas por medios de comunicación de la oposición como Iran International y, finalmente, lavadas en la cobertura de los medios de comunicación corporativos occidentales.

Las cifras variaban enormemente —desde 5.848 hasta 80.000 muertos— y carecían incluso de la pretensión de estar fundamentadas. Pero todas ellas tenían un claro objetivo político: construir un argumento a favor del cambio de régimen en la República Islámica.

Las tapaderas de la CIA que se hacen pasar por grupos de derechos humanos

La estimación más baja de muertes en las protestas de Irán —5848 personas— proviene del grupo estadounidense Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI, en inglés), que admite que todavía está «investigando» 17.000 casos adicionales. HRAI no es un árbitro independiente.

En 2021 se asoció con la Fundación Nacional para la Democracia (NED – National Endowment for Democracy), una herramienta de poder blando estadounidense creada bajo el mandato del expresidente Ronald Reagan para continuar la labor de la CIA bajo la cobertura de una ONG.

Otra fuente frecuente de las cifras de muertos en Irán es el Centro Abdorrahman Boroumand para los Derechos Humanos en Irán, que también está financiado por la NED. Uno de los miembros de su junta directiva es Francis Fukuyama, signatario del infame plan neoconservador para la «guerra contra el terrorismo», el Proyecto para un Nuevo Siglo Americano (PNAC – Project for a New American Century).

Luego está United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), que afirmó que 12.000 iraníes murieron en las últimas protestas. Esta organización de presión, que logró que el Foro Económico Mundial (FEM) retirara la invitación al ministro de Asuntos Exteriores de Irán, Abbas Araghchi, cuenta entre sus filas con el antiguo jefe del Mossad Meir Dagan, el actual secretario de Guerra de EE. UU. Pete Hegseth y Dennis Ross, del think tank WINEP del lobby israelí.

Estas entidades alimentan una puerta giratoria de narrativas, todas ellas diseñadas para deslegitimar a la República Islámica, descontextualizar los disturbios internos y dar luz verde a la injerencia extranjera.

Máquinas de indignación y agitadores de guerra respaldados por Israel

El ICHR, el grupo que está detrás de la afirmación de las 43.000 muertes, tiene su sede en Canadá y se centra casi exclusivamente en Irán. Celebra abiertamente los asesinatos israelíes de líderes de la resistencia, como el difunto secretario general de Hezbolá, Hassan Nasrallah, y elogia la «creciente amistad» entre Israel y la oposición iraní. Su director ejecutivo, Ardeshir Zarezadeh, ha publicado fotos de sí mismo posando con banderas israelíes y monárquicas mientras brinda con vino.

La organización también emplea un lenguaje extremadamente sesgado políticamente, como calificar al Gobierno iraní de «régimen criminal que ocupa Irán» en comunicados de prensa oficiales.

A pesar de la grandilocuencia, el informe del ICHR no ofrece pruebas. Se basa en un «análisis comparativo de investigación» no verificable y en fuentes anónimas, y afirma falsamente que el 95 % de los asesinatos se produjeron en solo dos días. No hay imágenes que se acerquen a las cifras que alega.

Por su parte, el Centro de Documentación de Derechos Humanos de Irán (IHRDC – Iran Human Rights Documentation Center), otra organización financiada por el Departamento de Estado de EE. UU., promovió en su día la extraña afirmación de que un manifestante fingió su muerte y se escondió en una bolsa para cadáveres durante tres días. Incluso el IHRDC admitió que no podía verificar la historia, pero el medio opositor Iran Internationalla difundió de todos modos, omitiendo que se trataba de una ficción.

Activistas de extrema derecha en Occidente, como Tommy Robinson, e influencers monárquicos han difundido historias aún más extravagantes, incluida la acusación de que las fuerzas de seguridad iraníes asfixian a los manifestantes metiéndolos vivos en bolsas para cadáveres. No se necesitan pruebas. Solo una nota de voz anónima.

El IHRDC también ha sido consultado por el Gobierno de Estados Unidos para orientar su política de sanciones, incluida la creación de una lista negra dirigida a ciudadanos iraníes. Su director ejecutivo, Shahin Milani, publicó recientemente en X que las propuestas del presidente estadounidense Donald Trump a los manifestantes iraníes, si «no están respaldadas por un apoyo abrumador de Estados Unidos para paralizar las fuerzas armadas del régimen», «constituirían la mayor traición de Occidente a los iraníes».

Esto forma parte de una estrategia más amplia de Estados Unidos, por la que Washington ha invertido fondos en docenas de ONG centradas exclusivamente en Irán, desde organizaciones de defensa de los derechos de la mujer hasta grupos de defensa de las minorías étnicas, todas ellas encargadas de alimentar la narrativa del cambio de régimen.

Fabricando atrocidades, blanqueando mentiras

El canal de propaganda va desde los influencers online hasta los medios de comunicación occidentales. Tomemos como ejemplo a la activista online Sana Ebrahimi, que afirmó que habían muerto 80.000 manifestantes, citando únicamente a un amigo «en contacto con fuentes dentro del Gobierno». Su publicación obtuvo más de 370.000 visitas.

Poco después, la emisora de radio británica LBC News citó a un «activista iraní de derechos humanos» llamado Paul Smith, que elevó el número de muertos a entre 45.000 y 80.000. Resulta que Smith es un agitador del cambio de régimen en las redes sociales que apoya la intervención militar estadounidense en Irán.

En octubre de 2025, el diario israelí Haaretz reveló cómo Tel Aviv financia granjas de bots que hablan farsi para promover a Reza Pahlavi, el hijo exiliado del antiguo monarca de Irán, y difundir propaganda antigubernamental. Estos mismos bots ayudaron a inflar las narrativas de las protestas en Irán en 2022. Se trata de una campaña de guerra digital enmascarada como indignación popular.

La revista Time afirmó que 30.000 iraníes habían sido asesinados, citando a dos funcionarios anónimos del Ministerio de Salud. Iran International superó esa cifra, citando sus propias fuentes no verificables para alegar que había más de 36.000 muertos.

Solo Amnistía Internacional, a pesar de su postura hostil hacia Teherán, se abstuvo de dar una cifra concreta, limitándose a decir que habían muerto «miles de personas». Esa estimación coincide aproximadamente con las cifras de Teherán: la Fundación de Mártires y Asuntos de Veteranos de Irán informa de 3.117 muertes, entre ellas 2.427 civiles y personal de seguridad.

Cuando las mentiras se convierten en «casus belli»

Hay muchas críticas legítimas que se pueden hacer al Estado iraní. Pero lo que estamos viendo ahora es una ofensiva coordinada de desinformación impulsada por redes respaldadas por Washington, los brazos propagandísticos de Tel Aviv, monárquicos y otros opositores en el exilio, y una prensa corporativa complaciente.

Las grotescas cifras de muertos y las historias fantasiosas de atrocidades que se difunden siguen un guion imperialista ya conocido: los bebés falsos en incubadoras en Kuwait en 1990, las afirmaciones falsas sobre armas de destrucción masiva en Irak en 2003, el «genocidio» libio inventado en 2011 y las interminables fabricaciones sobre armas químicas en Siria. En todas las ocasiones, el objetivo era el mismo: crear un «casus belli».

Las personas que murieron en las protestas de Irán se han convertido en accesorios de otra guerra narrativa respaldada por potencias extranjeras, sentando las bases para una intervención selectiva disfrazada de preocupación humanitaria.

Publicado originalmente por geopoliticarugiente.com

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The mass protests in Minneapolis against Trump’s immigration crackdown have the potential to spark a nationwide revolt. Protesters are calling for a national general strike.

The proximate cause of public anger is the lethal violence of federal police raids against immigrants. But that abuse has broadened to trigger a wider range of popular anger with and repudiation of the Trump administration’s increasingly dictatorial conduct.

Two American citizens have now been gunned down in the street by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol. Videos have shown masked agents manhandling peaceful protesters, ramming doors of homes armed with assault rifles and without warrants, and snatching families into detention centers.

Scenes across U.S. cities now resemble how American troops kicked down doors in Afghanistan, Iraq, and numerous other foreign places.

Video footage proves that senior Trump administration officials have been telling barefaced lies to justify the brutal violence and violation of basic human rights.

The latest victim was Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and intensive care nurse, who was shot in the back as he was pinned to the ground by a group of border patrol agents. Pretti was a licensed gun holder whose pistol was removed from his waistband by the agents, who then shot him 10 times at point-blank range in the back. It was a public lynching.

Kristi Noem, Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” who “brandished a semi-automatic weapon” at officers. Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, claimed the nurse was intent on committing a massacre. He wasn’t. He was trying to help a woman who had been knocked to the ground by the agents.

Bystanders and several videos clearly show Pretti was not holding a gun. He was holding a mobile phone in the air, above his head, when immigration agents pepper-sprayed him and started beating him to the ground. He was not threatening any of them. He was shot dead without provocation. Executed.

Two weeks before that, on January 7, another Minneapolis resident, Renée Nicole Good, was shot in the face as she politely drove away from ICE officers. Again, Trump officials maligned her with claims that she “weaponized” her vehicle and was putting officers in danger, who shot her in self-defense. Her killer pointed his gun through the driver’s window and shot her point-blank in the head.

None of the killers has been charged. There have not even been criminal investigations. Local police forces have been prevented from securing the crime scenes.

The people of Minneapolis are furious and disgusted by Trump’s goon squads, who have descended on this and other cities under the guise of rounding up illegal aliens.

The cold-blooded murder of U.S. citizens has shocked the nation with a dreadful realization that Trump is running the country like a police state.   Even mainstream pundits like Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary under Clinton, are using words like “fascism” and “Gestapo” to describe what’s going on.

Worryingly for Trump, polls show that there is mounting public anger among all voters, Republicans, Democrats, and independents. There is a growing sense that the United States is descending into a despotic regime where the Constitutional rights of citizens are no longer respected.

The day after Alex Pretti was murdered, Trump’s top concern was griping about a legal challenge to stop plans for his new $400 million ballroom at the White House. Meanwhile, the First Lady was holding a private screening of a cheesy film, “Melania,” depicting her glamorous return to the White House after the 2024 election.

But it’s the blatant lies and slander being told about the victims of Trump’s immigration paramilitaries. People across the U.S. are sickened by the outrageous White House denials and impunity given to state killers, while innocent victims exercising their right to peaceful protest are denigrated as “domestic terrorists.”

In a telling move, Trump has made a U-turn in a “conciliatory” phone call to the Democratic Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, about the violence in Minneapolis. The president is trying to back away from the false claims that were made by Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller.

Gregory Bovino, the ICE chief in Minneapolis, has been transferred. Tom Homan, the White House’s Border Czar, is taking over the anti-immigration operations.

These moves indicate that Trump realizes he is losing the issue of his immigration crackdown, which is being seen as a wider wedge for repressive federal power. A political powder-keg is building, and it needs to be defused.

Trump and his acolytes had for weeks been accusing Walz and other Democratic leaders of inciting the public protests against ICE and border patrol raids.

Trump claims the protests are a cover-up of widespread fraud of state funds by Somali immigrants that the Democrats have facilitated. There is scant evidence of this alleged scam, which appears to have been largely whipped up by MAGA-type influencers to justify the anti-immigrant crackdown.

Border Czar Homan is now reportedly mediating with Walz and other Democratic leaders to dampen the public fury over the ICE violence.

Trump reportedly told Governor Walz that he is considering withdrawing some ICE personnel from Minneapolis. But there is no guarantee that that will happen, nor is there any direction on launching criminal investigations of the ICE agents who have unlawfully killed two U.S. citizens.

It remains to be seen if the mass protests in Minneapolis and seething public repudiation of the Trump regime across the United States will be placated by the latest advertised moves to curtail ICE operations.

There have been growing, widespread calls for a general strike across the U.S. Those calls have come from communities and workers, not from the Democratic Party leadership. There appears to be a revolutionary mass movement to bring the entire country to a halt – infused with anger not just over ICE killings and abuses but also over exploding levels of wealth inequality and Trump’s overseas wars and support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The Democratic Party and the Republicans are two sides of the same coin when it comes to supporting capitalist corruption and inequality, and overseas wars. But the Democrats have always had a special function of diverting and defusing a radical public movement rejecting the War Party duopoly.

Trump’s police state has mobilized a wide rejection of the mainstream political and media establishment. Minneapolis is a potential historic turning point towards a genuinely radical popular movement based on values of equality and workers’ rights.

The conciliatory engagement by Democrats with Trump to de-escalate the violence on America’s streets that he has unleashed could end up channeling the protests into a safe dead-end of bipartisan compromise. Then again, the disgust and desire for radical change may be too big to contain.

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According to a recent tabletop simulation, what the Trump administration is doing in Minneapolis is exactly what is needed to pit brother against brother in the United States.

Since January 6, around 2,000 ICE agents have stormed Minnesota in response to a vast fraud scheme that saw Somali scammers steal billions of dollars from the state. This has led to neighborhoods across the state being terrorized by masked agents who are indiscriminately and aggressively harassing and seizing individuals right off the streets and in their homes.

On January 7, ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who has been branded a “domestic terrorist” by the Trump administration, who appeared to be attempting to flee police officers in her vehicle before she was shot in the head three times. Rather than investigate the actions of the officer who shot Ms. Good, the Trump administration has announced “absolute immunity” for ICE agents, as well as members of Custom and Border Patrol.

“That guy is protected by absolute immunity,” Vice President JD Vance said of the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, who killed Ms. Good. “He was doing his job.”

The violence being perpetrated against innocent civilians did not stop with Ms. Good. Federal agents have forcibly taken thousands of individuals to detention facilities, regardless of their legal status. They have shot protesters in the legs while blinding two activists with so-called “less deadly” munitions. They fired teargas canisters at the car of a family carrying six children, sending one child to the emergency room. They aggressively dragged a woman out of her car and on to the ground screaming.

Meanwhile, instead of investigating the conduct of the officer who shot Renee Good, the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, and Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, accusing them of conspiring to obstruct federal agents. Renee Good’s widow is also under investigation.

If you think all of this resembles the early rumblings of a civil war, you are not alone. The scenario closely mirrors one explored in an October 2024 tabletop exercise conducted by the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL), at the University of Pennsylvania. In that simulated exercise, an American president initiated a highly unpopular law-enforcement operation in Philadelphia when he attempted to bring Pennsylvania’s national guard under executive control. When the governor balked and the guard pledged its loyalty to the state, the president deployed active-duty troops, resulting in an armed conflict between state and federal forces. According to Claire Finkelstein, the director of CERL, the “core danger we identified is now emerging: a violent confrontation between state and federal military forces in a major American city.”

Ominously, none of the participants, which included top-ranking former military and government officials, considered the explosive scenario unrealistic. In a rapidly evolving emergency such as the one in Minnesota, courts would most likely be “unable or unwilling to intervene in time, leaving state officials without meaningful judicial relief.” In other words, a full-blown clash between the state and federal forces, otherwise known as a civil war.

In such a scenario, military leaders must be prepared to “assess the legality” of their orders. Even under the Insurrection Act, federal troops are not legally permitted to attack protesters unless they are defending themselves from an imminent threat. Yet as we saw with the cold-blooded murder of Renee Good, such egregious conduct is already happening in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents.

In November, Washington was rocked by comments by Democrat Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, and five other veterans, who implored military leaders to “refuse illegal orders” against American citizens, even if the orders come from the Commander-in-Chief. While that may sound like nothing more than good old fashion common sense, it opened the door to the Trump administration accusing Kelly of treason and sedition.

Though the Philadelphia simulation appears to resemble the harsh events citizens in Minneapolis have experienced at the hands of ICE agents, the simulation misses one key factor: currently, municipal and state officials don’t seem interested in attacking ICE agents anytime soon. Let’s pray that that trend continues.