company:the new york times

  • New York Times’s Global Edition Is Ending Daily Political Cartoons

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/business/international-new-york-times-political-cartoons.html

    The New York Times announced on Monday that it would no longer publish daily political cartoons in its international edition and ended its relationship with two contract cartoonists.

    Two months earlier, The Times had stopped running syndicated political cartoons, after one with anti-Semitic imagery was printed in the Opinion section of the international edition.

  • The woman fighting back against India’s rape culture

    When a man tried to rape #Usha_Vishwakarma she decided to fight back by setting up self-defence classes for women and girls.

    At first, people accused her of being a sex worker. But now she runs an award-winning organisation and has won the community’s respect.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-48474708/the-woman-fighting-back-against-india-s-rape-culture
    #Inde #résistance #femmes #culture_du_viol

    • In China, a Viral Video Sets Off a Challenge to Rape Culture

      The images were meant to exonerate #Richard_Liu, the e-commerce mogul. They have also helped fuel a nascent #NoPerfectVictim movement.

      Richard Liu, the Chinese e-commerce billionaire, walked into an apartment building around 10 p.m., a young woman on his arm and his assistant in tow. Leaving the assistant behind, the young woman took Mr. Liu to an elevator. Then, she showed him into her apartment.

      His entrance was captured by the apartment building’s surveillance cameras and wound up on the Chinese internet. Titled “Proof of a Gold Digger Trap?,” the heavily edited video aimed to show that the young woman was inviting him up for sex — and that he was therefore innocent of her rape allegations against him.

      For many people in China, it worked. Online public opinion quickly dismissed her allegations. In a country where discussion of rape has been muted and the #MeToo movement has been held back by cultural mores and government censorship, that could have been the end of the story.

      But some in China have pushed back. Using hashtags like #NoPerfectVictim, they are questioning widely held ideas about rape culture and consent.

      The video has become part of that debate, which some feminism scholars believe is a first for the country. The government has clamped down on discussion of gender issues like the #MeToo movement because of its distrust of independent social movements. Officials banned the #MeToo hashtag last year. In 2015, they seized gender rights activists known as the Feminist Five. Some online petitions supporting Mr. Liu’s accuser were deleted.

      But on Weibo, the popular Chinese social media service, the #NoPerfectVictim hashtag has drawn more than 17 million page views, with over 22,000 posts and comments. Dozens at least have shared their stories of sexual assault.

      “Nobody should ask an individual to be perfect,” wrote Zhou Xiaoxuan, who has become the face of China’s #MeToo movement after she sued a famous TV anchor on allegations that he sexually assaulted her in 2014 when she was an intern. “But the public is asking this of the victims of sexual assault, who happen to be in the least favorable position to prove their tragedies.” Her lawsuit is pending.

      The allegations against Mr. Liu, the founder and chairman of the online retailer JD.com, riveted China. He was arrested last year in Minneapolis after the young woman accused him of raping her after a business dinner. The prosecutors in Minnesota declined to charge Mr. Liu. The woman, Liu Jingyao, a 21-year-old student at the University of Minnesota, sued Mr. Liu and is seeking damages of more than $50,000. (Liu is a common surname in China.)

      Debate about the incident has raged online in China. When the “Gold Digger” video emerged, it shifted sentiment toward Mr. Liu.
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      Mr. Liu’s attorney in Beijing, who shared the video on Weibo under her verified account, said that according to her client the video was authentic.

      “The surveillance video speaks for itself, as does the prosecutor’s decision not to bring charges against our client,” Jill Brisbois, Mr. Liu’s attorney in the United States, said in a statement. “We believe in his innocence, which is firmly supported by all of the evidence, and we will continue to vigorously defend his reputation in court.”

      The video is silent, but subtitles make the point so nobody will miss it. “The woman showed Richard Liu into the elevator,” says one. “The woman pushed the floor button voluntarily,” says another. “Once again,” says a third, “the woman gestured an invitation.”

      Still, the video does not show the most crucial moment, which is what happened between Mr. Liu and Ms. Liu after the apartment door closed.

      “The full video depicts a young woman unable to locate her own apartment and a billionaire instructing her to take his arm to steady her gait,” said Wil Florin, Ms. Liu’s attorney, who accused Mr. Liu’s representatives of releasing the video. “The release of an incomplete video and the forceful silencing of Jingyao’s many social media supporters will not stop a Minnesota civil jury from hearing the truth.”

      JD.com declined to comment on the origin of the video.

      In the eyes of many, it contradicted the narrative in Ms. Liu’s lawsuit of an innocent, helpless victim. In my WeChat groups, men and women alike said the video confirmed their suspicions that Ms. Liu was asking for sex and was only after Mr. Liu’s money. A young woman from a good family would never socialize on a business occasion like that, some men said. A businesswoman asked why Ms. Liu didn’t say no to drinks.

      At first, I saw the video as a setback for China’s #MeToo movement, which was already facing insurmountable obstacles from a deeply misogynistic society, internet censors and a patriarchal government. Already, my “no means no” arguments with acquaintances had been met with groans.
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      The rare people of prominence who spoke in support of Ms. Liu were getting vicious criticism. Zhao Hejuan, chief executive of the technology media company TMTPost, had to disable comments on her Weibo account after she received death threats. She had criticized Mr. Liu, a married man with a young daughter, for not living up to the expectations of a public figure.

      Then I came across a seven-minute video titled “I’m also a victim of sexual assault,” in which four women and a man spoke to the camera about their stories. The video, produced by organizers of the hashtag #HereForUs, tried to clearly define sexual assault to viewers, explaining that it can take place between people who know each other and under complex circumstances.

      The man was molested by an older boy in his childhood. One of the women was raped by a classmate when she was sick in bed. One was assaulted by a powerful man at work but did not dare speak out because she thought nobody would believe her. One was raped after consuming too much alcohol on a date.

      “Slut-shaming doesn’t come from others,” she said in the video. “I’ll be the first one to slut-shame myself.”

      One woman with a red cross tattooed on her throat said an older boy in her neighborhood had assaulted her when she was 10. When she ran home, her parents scolded her for being late after school.

      “My childhood ended then and there,” she said in the video. “I haven’t died because I toughed it out all these years.”

      The video has been viewed nearly 700,000 times on Weibo. But creators of the video still have a hard time speaking out further, reflecting the obstacles faced by feminists in China.

      It was produced by a group of people who started the #HereForUs hashtag in China as a way to support victims of sexual harassment and assault. They were excited when I reached out to interview them. One of them postponed her visit to her parents for the interview.

      Then the day before our meeting, they messaged me that they no longer wanted to be interviewed. They worried that their appearance in The New York Times could anger the Chinese government and get their hashtag censored. I got a similar response from the organizer of the #NoPerfectVictim hashtag. Another woman begged me not to connect her name to the Chinese government for fear of losing her job.

      Their reluctance is understandable. They believe their hashtags have brought women together and given them the courage to share their stories. Some victims say that simply telling someone about their experiences is therapeutic, making the hashtags too valuable to be lost, the organizers said.

      “The world is full of things that hurt women,” said Liang Xiaowen, a 27-year-old lawyer now living in New York City. She wrote online that she had been molested by a family acquaintance when she was 11 and had lived with shame and guilt ever since. “I want to expand the boundaries of safe space by sharing my story.”

      A decentralized, behind-the-scenes approach is essential if the #MeToo movement is to grow in China, said Lü Pin, founding editor of Feminist Voices, an advocacy platform for women’s rights in China.

      “It’s amazing that they created such a phenomenon under such difficult circumstances,” Ms. Lü said.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/business/china-richard-liu-rape-video-metoo.html
      #Chine #vidéo

  • Betrogene Kutscher in New York - Artikelsammlung


    2014 koste eine Taxikonzession in New York mehr als eine Million Dollar

    Wie Kredite New York’s Taxifahrer ruinierten
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784212

    Taxi loan abuses part of a broader pattern in New York | American Banker
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784207

    How New York could respond to the taxi medallion lending crisis | CSNY
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784206

    How We Investigated the New York Taxi Medallion Bubble - The New York Times
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784205

    Opinion | How New York Taxi Drivers Got Mired in Debt - The New York Times
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784204

    Taxi Industry Leaders Got Rich. Drivers Paid the Price. - The New York Times
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784203

    De Blasio calls for probe of taxi lenders
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784200

    Inquiries Into Reckless Loans to Taxi Drivers Ordered by State Attorney General and Mayor - The New York Times
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784199

    Bad loans were killing the taxi industry long before Uber and Lyft: report
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784197

    As Thousands of Taxi Drivers Were Trapped in Loans, Top Officials Counted the Money - The New York Times
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784196

    ‘They Were Conned’: How Reckless Loans Devastated a Generation of Taxi Drivers - The New York Times
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784193

    Und zum Abschluß etwas Lustigeres aus New York:

    NYCTAXINEWS/CURRENT NEWS
    https://seenthis.net/messages/784190

    #USA #New_York #Taxi #Betrug #Ausbeutung

  • Zero Percent of Elite Commentators Oppose Regime Change in Venezuela
    https://fair.org/home/zero-percent-of-elite-commentators-oppose-regime-change-in-venezuela

    A FAIR survey of US opinion journalism on Venezuela found no voices in elite corporate media that opposed regime change in that country. Over a three-month period (1/15/19–4/15/19), zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took an anti–regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position. Not a single commentator on the big three Sunday morning talkshows or PBS NewsHour came out against President Nicolás Maduro stepping down from the Venezuelan government.

    Of the 76 total articles, opinion videos or TV commentator segments that centered on or gave more than passing attention to Venezuela, 54 (72 percent) expressed explicit support for the Maduro administration’s ouster. Eleven (14 percent) were ambiguous, but were only classified as such for lack of explicit language. Reading between the lines, most of these were clearly also pro–regime change. Another 11 (14 percent) took no position, but many similarly offered ideological ammo for those in support.

    The Times published 22 pro–regime change commentaries, three ambiguous and five without a position. The Post also spared no space for the pro-Chavista camp: 22 of its articles expressed support for the end to Maduro’s administration, eight were ambiguous and four took no position. Of the 12 TV opinions surveyed, 10 were pro-regime change and two took no position.

  • Jordi Ruiz Cirera | Mexico-based Photographer

    http://jordiruizphotography.com/info-contact/info

    http://jordiruizphotography.com/work/ramallahs-youth-at-a-crossroads


    

    Jordi Ruiz Cirera is an independent documentary photographer and filmmaker from Barcelona, based in Mexico. Devoted to long-term projects, Jordi focuses on the effects of globalisation in small communities and how they are adapting to it, and, since relocating in Mexico City, on migration issues across the Americas.

    He is a recipient of Magnum Foundation’s Emergency Fund and winner of global awards including the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery in London, Magnum’s 30 under 30, POYi, Lucie Awards, Magenta Flash Forward and the AOP’s Student Photographer of the Year. His work has been exhibited widely in galleries and at festivals, and belongs to a number of private collections.

    Jordi’s work has appeared in international publications that include The New York Times, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian, Le Monde M and National Geographic’s Proof. He also works on commissions for corporate clients and non-profits such as MSF / Doctors Without Borders, the United Nations and Save the Children.

    In 2014, Jordi published his first monograph, Los Menonos, with independent publishing house Éditions du LIC. He holds a BA degree in design and an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication. Jordi is a member of Panos Pictures.

    #palstine #ramallah #photographie

  • Le régime de Maduro n’a pas enflammé un convoi humanitaire | Mediapart
    https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/100319/le-regime-de-maduro-na-pas-enflamme-un-convoi-humanitaire

    Selon une vidéo du NYT, c’est un opposant vénézuélien au régime de Maduro qui a accidentellement mis le feu à un convoi d’aide humanitaire le 23 février, et non les forces de sécurité du régime comme l’avaient affirmé sans preuve des responsables états-uniens.

    Footage Contradicts U.S. Claim That Maduro Burned Aid Convoy - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/10/world/americas/venezuela-aid-fire-video.html

    #mensonges #manipulation #etats-unis #venezuela

  • Do We Write Differently on a Screen? | The New Yorker
    https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/do-we-write-differently-on-a-screen

    But, before that, I published my first short novel, “Tongues of Flame.” I continued to write fiction by hand and then type it up. But, at least, once it was typed, you could edit on a screen. What a difference that was! What an invitation to obsession! Hitherto, there was a limit to how many corrections you could make by hand. There was only so much space on the paper. It was discouraging—typing something out time after time, to make more and more corrections. You learned to be satisfied with what you had. Now you could go on changing things forever. I learned how important it was to keep a copy of what I had written first, so as to remember what I had meant in the beginning. Sometimes it turned out to be better than the endlessly edited version.

    We had personal computers at this point, but I still wrote fiction by hand. The mental space feels different when you work with paper. It is quieter. A momentum builds up, a spell between page and hand and eye. I like to use a nice pen and see the page slowly fill. But, for newspaper articles and translations, I now worked straight onto the computer. Which was more frenetic, nervy. The writing was definitely different. But more playful, too. You could move things around. You could experiment so easily. I am glad the computer wasn’t available when I started writing. I might have been overwhelmed by the possibilities. But once you know what you’re doing, the facility of the computer is wonderful.

    Then e-mail arrived and changed everything. First, you would only hook the computer up through your landline phone a couple of times a day, as if there were a special moment to send and receive mail. Then came the permanent connection. Finally, the wireless, and, of course, the Internet. In the space of perhaps ten years, you passed from waiting literally months for a decision on something that you’d written, or simply for a reaction from a friend or an agent, to expecting a reaction immediately. Whereas in the past you checked your in-box once a day, now you checked every five minutes.

    And now you could write an article for The Guardian or the New York Times as easily as you could write it for L’Arena di Verona. Write it and expect a response in hours. In minutes. You write the first chapter of a book and send it at once to four or five friends. Hoping they’d read it at once. It’s impossible to exaggerate how exciting this was, at first, and how harmful to the spirit. You, everybody, are suddenly incredibly needy of immediate feedback. A few more years and you were publishing regularly online for The New York Review of Books. And, hours after publication, you could know how many people were reading the piece. Is it a success? Shall I follow up with something similar?

    While you sit at your computer now, the world seethes behind the letters as they appear on the screen. You can toggle to a football match, a parliamentary debate, a tsunami. A beep tells you that an e-mail has arrived. WhatsApp flashes on the screen. Interruption is constant but also desired. Or at least you’re conflicted about it. You realize that the people reading what you have written will also be interrupted. They are also sitting at screens, with smartphones in their pockets. They won’t be able to deal with long sentences, extended metaphors. They won’t be drawn into the enchantment of the text. So should you change the way you write accordingly? Have you already changed, unwittingly?

    Or should you step back? Time to leave your computer and phone in one room, perhaps, and go and work silently on paper in another. To turn off the Wi-Fi for eight hours. Just as you once learned not to drink everything in the hotel minibar, not to eat too much at free buffets, now you have to cut down on communication. You have learned how compulsive you are, how fragile your identity, how important it is to cultivate a little distance. And your only hope is that others have learned the same lesson. Otherwise, your profession, as least as you thought of it, is finished.

    Tim Parks, a novelist and essayist, is the author of “The Novel: A Survival Skill” and “Where I’m Reading From: The Changing World of Books.”

    #Ecriture #Ordinateur #Edition

  • Your Complete Guide to the N.Y. Times’ Support of U.S.-Backed Coups in Latin America
    https://www.truthdig.com/articles/your-complete-guide-to-the-n-y-times-support-of-u-s-backed-coups-in-latin-

    A survey of The New York Times archives shows the Times editorial board has supported 10 out of 12 American-backed coups in Latin America, with two editorials—those involving the 1983 Grenada invasion and the 2009 Honduras coup—ranging from ambiguous to reluctant opposition. The survey can be viewed here.

    Covert involvement of the United States, by the CIA or other intelligence services, isn’t mentioned in any of the Times’ editorials on any of the coups. Absent an open, undeniable U.S. military invasion (as in the Dominican Republic, Panama and Grenada), things seem to happen in Latin American countries entirely on their own, with outside forces rarely, if ever, mentioned in the Times. Obviously, there are limits to what is “provable” in the immediate aftermath of such events (covert intervention is, by definition, covert), but the idea that the U.S. or other imperial actors could have stirred the pot, funded a junta or run weapons in any of the conflicts under the table is never entertained.

    (bourré de citations accablantes...) #venezuela #medias

    • More often than not, what one is left with, reading Times editorials on these coups, are racist, paternalistic “cycle of violence” cliches. Sigh, it’s just the way of things Over There. When reading these quotes, keep in mind the CIA supplied and funded the groups that ultimately killed these leaders:

      – Brazil 1964: “They have, throughout their history, suffered from a lack of first class rulers.”
      – Chile 1973: “No Chilean party or faction can escape some responsibility for the disaster, but a heavy share must be assigned to the unfortunate Dr. Allende himself.”
      – Argentina 1976: “It was typical of the cynicism with which many Argentines view their country’s politics that most people in Buenos Aires seemed more interested in a soccer telecast Tuesday night than in the ouster of President Isabel Martinez de Perlin by the armed forces. The script was familiar for this long‐anticipated coup.”

      See, it didn’t matter! It’s worth pointing out the military junta put in power by the CIA-contrived coup killed 10,000 to 30,000 Argentines from 1976 to 1983.

  • In the Fake News Era, Native Ads Are Muddying the Waters
    Online experiment finds that less than 1 in 10 people can tell sponsored content from an article
    https://www.bu.edu/research/articles/native-advertising-in-fake-news-era


    This native advertisement published on the New York Times website is marked as a “paid post” at the top along with the logo of the advertiser, Shell Global.
    #publicité

  • Are U.S. newspapers biased against Palestinians? Analysis of 100,000 headlines in top dailies says, Yes – Mondoweiss

    https://mondoweiss.net/2019/01/newspapers-palestinians-headlines

    A study released last month by 416Labs, a Toronto-based consulting and research firm, supports the view that mainstream U.S. newspapers consistently portray Palestine in a more negative light than Israel, privilege Israeli sources, and omit key facts helpful to understanding the Israeli occupation, including those expressed by Palestinian sources.

    The largest of its kind, the study is based on a sentiment and n-gram analysis of nearly a hundred thousand headlines in five mainstream newspapers dating to 1967. The newspapers are the top five U.S. dailies, The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times.

    Headlines spanning five decades were put into two datasets, one comprising 17,492 Palestinian-centric headlines, and another comprising 82,102 Israeli-centric headlines. Using Natural Language Processing techniques, authors of the study assessed the degree to which the sentiment of the headlines could be classified as positive, negative, or neutral. They also examined the frequency of using certain words that evoke a particular view or perception.

    Key findings of the study are:

    Since 1967, use of the word “occupation” has declined by 85% in the Israeli dataset of headlines, and by 65% in the Palestinian dataset;
    Since 1967, mentions of Palestinian refugees have declined by an overall 93%;
    Israeli sources are nearly 250% more likely to be quoted as Palestinians;
    The number of headlines centering Israel were published four times more than those centering Palestine;
    Words connoting violence such as “terror” appear three times as much as the word “occupation” in the Palestinian dataset;
    Explicit recognition that Israeli settlements and settlers are illegal rarely appears in both datasets;
    Since 1967, mentions of “East Jerusalem,” distinguishing that part of the city occupied by Israel in 1967 from the rest of the city, appeared only a total of 132 times;
    The Los Angeles Times has portrayed Palestinians most negatively, followed by The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and lastly The New York Times;
    Coverage of the conflict has reduced dramatically in the second half of the fifty-year period.

  • Opinion | My Sister Is in a Saudi Prison. Will Mike Pompeo Stay Silent ? - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/opinion/saudi-women-rights-activist-prison-pompeo.html

    Après le WAPO et sa page en arabe, c’est le NYT qui lance l’artillerie... L’#Arabie_saoudite critiquée dans les médias US.

    Saud al-Qahtani, a top royal adviser, was present several times when Loujain was tortured, she said. Sometimes Mr. Qahtani laughed at her, sometimes he threatened to rape and kill her and throw her body into the sewage system. Along with six of his men, she said Mr. Qahtani tortured her all night during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. He forced Loujain to eat with them, even after sunrise. She asked them if they would keep eating all day during Ramadan. One of his men answered, “No one is above us, not even God.”

    A delegation from the Saudi Human Rights Commission visited her after the publication of the reports about her torture. She told the delegation everything she had endured. She asked them if they would protect her. “We can’t,” the delegates replied.

  • A Day, a Life: When a Medic Was Killed in Gaza, Was It an Accident?
    The New York Times - By David M. Halbfinger - Dec. 30, 2018
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/30/world/middleeast/gaza-medic-israel-shooting.html

    KHUZAA, Gaza Strip — A young medic in a head scarf runs into danger, her only protection a white lab coat. Through a haze of tear gas and black smoke, she tries to reach a man sprawled on the ground along the Gaza border. Israeli soldiers, their weapons leveled, watch warily from the other side.

    Minutes later, a rifle shot rips through the din, and the Israeli-Palestinian drama has its newest tragic figure.

    For a few days in June, the world took notice of the death of 20-year-old Rouzan al-Najjar, killed while treating the wounded at protests against Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Even as she was buried, she became a symbol of the conflict, with both sides staking out competing and mutually exclusive narratives.

    To the Palestinians, she was an innocent martyr killed in cold blood, an example of Israel’s disregard for Palestinian life. To the Israelis, she was part of a violent protest aimed at destroying their country, to which lethal force is a legitimate response as a last resort.

    Palestinian witnesses embellished their initial accounts, saying she was shot while raising her hands in the air. The Israeli military tweeted a tendentiously edited video that made it sound like she was offering herself as a human shield for terrorists.

    In each version, Ms. Najjar was little more than a cardboard cutout.

    An investigation by The New York Times found that Ms. Najjar, and what happened on the evening of June 1, were far more complicated than either narrative allowed. Charismatic and committed, she defied the expectations of both sides. Her death was a poignant illustration of the cost of Israel’s use of battlefield weapons to control the protests, a policy that has taken the lives of nearly 200 Palestinians.

    It also shows how each side is locked into a seemingly unending and insolvable cycle of violence. The Palestinians trying to tear down the fence are risking their lives to make a point, knowing that the protests amount to little more than a public relations stunt for Hamas, the militant movement that rules Gaza. And Israel, the far stronger party, continues to focus on containment rather than finding a solution.

    In life, Ms. Najjar was a natural leader whose uncommon bravery struck some peers as foolhardy. She was a capable young medic, but one who was largely self-taught and lied about her lack of education. She was a feminist, by Gaza standards, shattering traditional gender rules, but also a daughter who doted on her father, was particular about her appearance and was slowly assembling a trousseau. She inspired others with her outward jauntiness, while privately she was consumed with dread in her final days.

    The bullet that killed her, The Times found, was fired by an Israeli sniper into a crowd that included white-coated medics in plain view. A detailed reconstruction, stitched together from hundreds of crowd-sourced videos and photographs, shows that neither the medics nor anyone around them posed any apparent threat of violence to Israeli personnel. Though Israel later admitted her killing was unintentional, the shooting appears to have been reckless at best, and possibly a war crime, for which no one has yet been punished. (...)

    Rouzan al-Najjar, 20, was killed by an Israeli sniper on June 1 while she was treating the wounded at protests at the Gaza border.CreditIbraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
    #Razan_al-Najjar

  • ‘It’s an Act of Murder’: How Europe Outsources Suffering as Migrants Drown

    This short film, produced by The Times’s Opinion Video team and the research groups #Forensic_Architecture and #Forensic_Oceanography, reconstructs a tragedy at sea that left at least 20 migrants dead. Combining footage from more than 10 cameras, 3-D modeling and interviews with rescuers and survivors, the documentary shows Europe’s role in the migrant crisis at sea.

    On Nov. 6, 2017, at least 20 people trying to reach Europe from Libya drowned in the Mediterranean, foundering next to a sinking raft.

    Not far from the raft was a ship belonging to Sea-Watch, a German humanitarian organization. That ship had enough space on it for everyone who had been aboard the raft. It could have brought them all to the safety of Europe, where they might have had a chance at being granted asylum.

    Instead, 20 people drowned and 47 more were captured by the Libyan Coast Guard, which brought the migrants back to Libya, where they suffered abuse — including rape and torture.

    This confrontation at sea was not a simplistic case of Europe versus Africa, with human rights and rescue on one side and chaos and danger on the other. Rather it’s a case of Europe versus Europe: of volunteers struggling to save lives being undercut by European Union policies that outsource border control responsibilities to the Libyan Coast Guard — with the aim of stemming arrivals on European shores.

    While funding, equipping and directing the Libyan Coast Guard, European governments have stymied the activities of nongovernmental organizations like Sea-Watch, criminalizing them or impounding their ships, or turning away from ports ships carrying survivors.

    More than 14,000 people have died or gone missing while trying to cross the central Mediterranean since 2014. But unlike most of those deaths and drownings, the incident on Nov. 6, 2017, was extensively documented.

    Sea-Watch’s ship and rescue rafts were outfitted with nine cameras, documenting the entire scene in video and audio. The Libyans, too, filmed parts of the incident on their mobile phones.

    The research groups Forensic Architecture and Forensic Oceanography of Goldsmiths, University of London, of which three of us — Mr. Heller, Mr. Pezzani and Mr. Weizman — are a part, combined these video sources with radio recordings, vessel tracking data, witness testimonies and newly obtained official sources to produce a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the facts. Opinion Video at The New York Times built on this work to create the above short documentary, gathering further testimonials by some of the survivors and rescuers who were there.

    This investigation makes a few things clear: European governments are avoiding their legal and moral responsibilities to protect the human rights of people fleeing violence and economic desperation. More worrying, the Libyan Coast Guard partners that Europe is collaborating with are ready to blatantly violate those rights if it allows them to prevent migrants from crossing the sea.

    Stopping Migrants, Whatever the Cost

    To understand the cynicism of Europe’s policies in the Mediterranean, one must understand the legal context. According to a 2012 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, migrants rescued by European civilian or military vessels must be taken to a safe port. Because of the chaotic political situation in Libya and well-documented human rights abuses in detention camps there, that means a European port, often in Italy or Malta.

    But when the Libyan Coast Guard intercepts migrants, even outside Libyan territorial waters, as it did on Nov. 6, the Libyans take them back to detention camps in Libya, which is not subject to European Court of Human Rights jurisdiction.

    For Italy — and Europe — this is an ideal situation. Europe is able to stop people from reaching its shores while washing its hands of any responsibility for their safety.

    This policy can be traced back to February 2017, when Italy and the United Nations-supported Libyan Government of National Accord signed a “memorandum of understanding” that provided a framework for collaboration on development, to fight against “illegal immigration,” human trafficking and the smuggling of contraband. This agreement defines clearly the aim, “to stem the illegal migrants’ flows,” and committed Italy to provide “technical and technological support to the Libyan institutions in charge of the fight against illegal immigration.”

    Libyan Coast Guard members have been trained by the European Union, and the Italian government donated or repaired several patrol boats and supported the establishment of a Libyan search-and-rescue zone. Libyan authorities have since attempted — in defiance of maritime law — to make that zone off-limits to nongovernmental organizations’ rescue vessels. Italian Navy ships, based in Tripoli, have coordinated Libyan Coast Guard efforts.

    Before these arrangements, Libyan actors were able to intercept and return very few migrants leaving from Libyan shores. Now the Libyan Coast Guard is an efficient partner, having intercepted some 20,000 people in 2017 alone.

    The Libyan Coast Guard is efficient when it comes to stopping migrants from reaching Europe. It’s not as good, however, at saving their lives, as the events of Nov. 6 show.

    A Deadly Policy in Action

    That morning the migrant raft had encountered worsening conditions after leaving Tripoli, Libya, over night. Someone onboard used a satellite phone to call the Italian Coast Guard for help.

    Because the Italians were required by law to alert nearby vessels of the sinking raft, they alerted Sea-Watch to its approximate location. But they also requested the intervention of their Libyan counterparts.

    The Libyan Coast Guard vessel that was sent to intervene on that morning, the Ras Jadir, was one of several that had been repaired by Italy and handed back to the Libyans in May of 2017. Eight of the 13 crew members onboard had received training from the European Union anti-smuggling naval program known as Operation Sophia.

    Even so, the Libyans brought the Ras Jadir next to the migrants’ raft, rather than deploying a smaller rescue vessel, as professional rescuers do. This offered no hope of rescuing those who had already fallen overboard and only caused more chaos, during which at least five people died.

    These deaths were not merely a result of a lack of professionalism. Some of the migrants who had been brought aboard the Ras Jadir were so afraid of their fate at the hands of the Libyans that they jumped back into the water to try to reach the European rescuers. As can be seen in the footage, members of the Libyan Coast Guard beat the remaining migrants.

    Sea-Watch’s crew was also attacked by the Libyan Coast Guard, who threatened them and threw hard objects at them to keep them away. This eruption of violence was the result of a clash between the goals of rescue and interception, with the migrants caught in the middle desperately struggling for their lives.

    Apart from those who died during this chaos, more than 15 people had already drowned in the time spent waiting for any rescue vessel to appear.

    There was, however, no shortage of potential rescuers in the area: A Portuguese surveillance plane had located the migrants’ raft after its distress call. An Italian Navy helicopter and a French frigate were nearby and eventually offered some support during the rescue.

    It’s possible that this French ship, deployed as part of Operation Sophia, could have reached the sinking vessel earlier, in time to save more lives — despite our requests, this information has not been disclosed to us. But it remained at a distance throughout the incident and while offering some support, notably refrained from taking migrants onboard who would then have had to have been disembarked on European soil. It’s an example of a hands-off approach that seeks to make Libyan intervention not only possible but also inevitable.

    A Legal Challenge

    On the basis of the forensic reconstruction, the Global Legal Action Network and the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration, with the support of Yale Law School students, have filed a case against Italy at the European Court of Human Rights representing 17 survivors of this incident.

    Those working on the suit, who include two of us — Mr. Mann and Ms. Moreno-Lax — argue that even though Italian or European personnel did not physically intercept the migrants and bring them back to Libya, Italy exercised effective control over the Libyan Coast Guard through mutual agreements, support and on-the-ground coordination. Italy has entrusted the Libyans with a task that Rome knows full well would be illegal if undertaken directly: preventing migrants from seeking protection in Europe by impeding their flight and sending them back to a country where extreme violence and exploitation await.

    We hope this legal complaint will lead the European court to rule that countries cannot subcontract their legal and humanitarian obligations to dubious partners, and that if they do, they retain responsibility for the resulting violations. Such a precedent would force the entire European Union to make sure its cooperation with partners like Libya does not end up denying refugees the right to seek asylum.

    This case is especially important right now. In Italy’s elections in March, the far-right Lega party, which campaigned on radical anti-immigrant rhetoric, took nearly 20 percent of the vote. The party is now part of the governing coalition, of which its leader, Matteo Salvini, is the interior minister.

    His government has doubled down on animosity toward migrants. In June, Italy took the drastic step of turning away a humanitarian vessel from the country’s ports and has been systematically blocking rescued migrants from being disembarked since then, even when they had been assisted by the Italian Coast Guard.

    The Italian crackdown helps explain why seafarers off the Libyan coast have refrained from assisting migrants in distress, leaving them to drift for days. Under the new Italian government, a new batch of patrol boats has been handed over to the Libyan Coast Guard, and the rate of migrants being intercepted and brought back to Libya has increased. All this has made the crossing even more dangerous than before.

    Italy has been seeking to enact a practice that blatantly violates the spirit of the Geneva Convention on refugees, which enshrines the right to seek asylum and prohibits sending people back to countries in which their lives are at risk. A judgment by the European Court sanctioning Italy for this practice would help prevent the outsourcing of border control and human rights violations that may prevent the world’s most disempowered populations from seeking protection and dignity.

    The European Court of Human Rights cannot stand alone as a guardian of fundamental rights. Yet an insistence on its part to uphold the law would both reflect and bolster the movements seeking solidarity with migrants across Europe.

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/26/opinion/europe-migrant-crisis-mediterranean-libya.html
    #reconstruction #naufrage #Méditerranée #Charles_Heller #Lorenzo_Pezzani #asile #migrations #réfugiés #mourir_en_mer #ONG #sauvetage #Sea-Watch #gardes-côtes_libyens #Libye #pull-back #refoulement #externalisation #vidéo #responsabilité #Ras_Jadir #Operation_Sophia #CEDH #cour_européenne_des_droits_de_l'homme #justice #droits_humains #droit_à_la_vie

    ping @reka

    • È un omicidio con navi italiane” L’accusa del Nyt

      Video-denuncia contro Roma e l’Ue per un naufragio di un anno fa: botte dei libici ai migranti, 50 morti.

      Patate scagliate addosso ai soccorritori della Sea Watch invece di lanciare giubbotti e salvagente ai naufraghi che stavano annegando. E poi botte ai migranti riusciti a salire sulle motovedette per salvarsi la vita. Ecco i risultati dell’addestramento che l’Italia ha impartito ai libici per far fuori i migranti nel Mediterraneo. È un video pubblicato dal New York Times che parte da una delle più gravi tra le ultime stragi avvenute del Canale di Sicilia, con un commento intitolato: “‘È un omicidio’: come l’Europa esternalizza sofferenza mentre i migranti annegano”.

      Era il 6 novembre 2017 e le operazioni in mare erano gestite dalla guardia costiera libica, in accordo con l’allora ministro dell’Interno, Marco Minniti. Il dettaglio non è secondario, lo stesso video mostra la cerimonia di consegna delle motovedette made in Italy ai partner nordafricani. Una delle imbarcazioni, la 648, la ritroviamo proprio al centro dell’azione dove, quel giorno, cinquanta africani vennero inghiottiti dal mare. Al tempo era consentito alle imbarcazioni di soccorso pattugliare lo specchio di mare a cavallo tra le zone Sar (Search and rescue, ricerca e soccorso) di competenza. Al tempo i porti italiani erano aperti, ma il comportamento dei militari libici già al limite della crudeltà. Il video e le foto scattate dal personale della Sea Watch mostrano scene durissime. Un migrante lasciato annegare senza alcun tentativo da parte dei libici di salvarlo: il corpo disperato annaspa per poi sparire sott’acqua, quando il salvagente viene lanciato è tardi. Botte, calci e pugni a uomini appena saliti a bordo delle motovedette, di una violenza ingiustificabile. Il New York Times va giù duro e nel commento, oltre a stigmatizzare attacca i governi italiani. Dalla prova delle motovedette vendute per far fare ad altri il lavoro sporco, al nuovo governo definito “di ultradestra” che “ha completato la strategia”. Matteo Salvini però non viene nominato. L’Italia, sottolinea il Nyt, ha delegato alle autorità della Tripolitania il pattugliamento delle coste e il recupero di qualsiasi imbarcazione diretta a nord. Nulla di nuovo, visto che la Spagna, guidata dal socialista Sanchez e impegnata sul fronte occidentale con un’ondata migratoria senza precedenti, usa il Marocco per “bonificare” il tratto di mare vicino allo stretto di Gibilterra da gommoni e carrette. Gli organismi europei da una parte stimolano il blocco delle migrazioni verso il continente, eppure dall’altra lo condannano. Per l’episodio del 6 novembre 2017, infatti, la Corte europea dei diritti umani sta trattando il ricorso presentato dall’Asgi (Associazione studi giuridici sull’immigrazione) contro il respingimento collettivo. Sempre l’Asgi ha presentato due ricorsi analoghi per fatti del dicembre 2018 e gennaio 2018; infine altri due, uno sulla cessione delle motovedette e l’altro sull’implementazione dell’accordo Italia-Libia firmato da Minniti.

      https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/premium/articoli/e-un-omicidio-con-navi-italiane-laccusa-del-nyt

    • Comment l’Europe et la Libye laissent mourir les migrants en mer

      Il y a un peu plus d’un an, le 6 novembre 2017, une fragile embarcation sombre en mer avec à son bord 150 migrants partis de Tripoli pour tenter de rejoindre l’Europe. La plupart d’entre eux sont morts. Avec l’aide de Forensic Oceanography – une organisation créée en 2011 pour tenir le compte des morts de migrants en Méditerranée – et de Forensic Architecture – groupe de recherche enquêtant sur les violations des droits de l’homme –, le New York Times a retracé le déroulement de ce drame, dans une enquête vidéo extrêmement documentée.

      Depuis l’accord passé en février 2017 entre la Libye et l’Italie, confiant aux autorités libyennes le soin d’intercepter les migrants dans ses eaux territoriales, le travail des ONG intervenant en mer Méditerranée avec leurs bateaux de sauvetage est devenu extrêmement difficile. Ces dernières subissent les menaces constantes des gardes-côtes libyens, qui, malgré les subventions européennes et les formations qu’ils reçoivent, n’ont pas vraiment pour but de sauver les migrants de la noyade. Ainsi, en fermant les yeux sur les pratiques libyennes régulièrement dénoncées par les ONG, l’Europe contribue à aggraver la situation et précipite les migrants vers la noyade, s’attache à démontrer cette enquête vidéo publiée dans la section Opinions du New York Times. Un document traduit et sous-titré par Courrier international.

      https://www.courrierinternational.com/video/enquete-comment-leurope-et-la-libye-laissent-mourir-les-migra

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=dcbh8yJclGI

    • How We Made an Invisible Crisis at Sea Visible

      An ambitious Opinion Video project produced across three continents — in collaboration with a pioneering forensic research group — shines a spotlight on the more than 16,000 migrants who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean since 2014.

      Forensic Oceanography had created a report and a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the episode (http://www.forensic-architecture.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018-05-07-FO-Mare-Clausum-full-EN.pdf) intended partly to support a case that was about to be filed on behalf of survivors at the European Court of Human Rights.

      Their reporting was deep, but it was very technical. We wanted to build on the original research to create a short film that would sharpen the story while still embracing complexity.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/reader-center/migrants-mediterranean-sea.html
      #visibilité #invisibilité #in/visiblité #Mare_clausum

  • The History of Cartography, the “Most Ambitious Overview of Map Making Ever,” Is Now Free Online | Open Culture
    http://www.openculture.com/2018/02/the-history-of-cartography-the-most-ambitious-overview-of-map-making-ev

    Worth a quick mention: The University of Chicago Press has made available online — at no cost — the first three volumes of The History of Cartography. Or what Edward Rothstein, of The New York Times, called “the most ambitious overview of map making ever undertaken.” He continues:

    People come to know the world the way they come to map it—through their perceptions of how its elements are connected and of how they should move among them. This is precisely what the series is attempting by situating the map at the heart of cultural life and revealing its relationship to society, science, and religion…. It is trying to define a new set of relationships between maps and the physical world that involve more than geometric correspondence. It is in essence a new map of human attempts to chart the world.

    #cartographie #histoire #histoire_de_la-cartographie

  • The State of Israel vs. the Jewish people -
    Israel has aligned itself with one nationalist, even anti-Semitic, regime after another. Where does that leave world Jewry?
    By Eva Illouz Sep 13, 2018
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-state-of-israel-vs-the-jewish-people-1.6470108

    Orban, left, and Netanyahu, in Jerusalem in July 2018. DEBBIE HILL / AFP

    An earthquake is quietly rocking the Jewish world.

    In the 18th century, Jews began playing a decisive role in the promotion of universalism, because universalism promised them redemption from their political subjection. Through universalism, Jews could, in principle, be free and equal to those who had dominated them. This is why, in the centuries that followed, Jews participated in disproportionate numbers in communist and socialist causes. This is also why Jews were model citizens of countries, such as France or the United States, with universalist constitutions.

    The history of Jews as promoters of Enlightenment and universalist values, however, is drawing to a close. We are the stunned witnesses of new alliances between Israel, Orthodox factions of Judaism throughout the world, and the new global populism in which ethnocentrism and even racism hold an undeniable place.

    When Prime Minister Netanyahu chose to align himself politically with Donald Trump before and after the U.S. presidential election of 2016, some people could still give him the benefit of doubt. Admittedly, Trump was surrounded by people like Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, who reeked of racism and anti-Semitism, but no one was sure of the direction the new presidency would take. Even if Trump refused to condemn the anti-Semitic elements of his electoral base or the Ku Klux Klan, which had enthusiastically backed him, and even if it took him a long time to dissociate himself from David Duke – we were not yet certain of the presence of anti-Semitism in Trump’s discourse and strategies (especially since his daughter Ivanka was a convert to Judaism).

    But the events in Charlottesville in August 2017 no longer allowed for doubt. The neo-Nazi demonstrators committed violent acts against peaceful counter-protesters, killing one woman by plowing through a crowd with a car (an act reminiscent in its technique of terrorist attacks in Europe). Trump reacted to the events by condemning both the neo-Nazis and white supremacists and their opponents. The world was shocked by his conflation of the two groups, but Jerusalem did not object. Once again, the indulgent (or cynical) observer could have interpreted this silence as the reluctant obeisance of a vassal toward his overlord (of all the countries in the world, Israel receives the most military aid from the United States). One was entitled to think that Israel had no choice but to collaborate, despite the American leader’s outward signs of anti-Semitism.

    This interpretation, however, is no longer tenable. Before and since Charlottesville, Netanyahu has courted other leaders who are either unbothered by anti-Semitism or straightforwardly sympathetic to it, and upon whom Israel is not economically dependent. His concessions go as far as participating in a partial form of Holocaust denial.

    Take the case of Hungary. Under the government of Viktor Orban, the country shows troubling signs of legitimizing anti-Semitism. In 2015, for example, the Hungarian government announced its intention to erect a statue to commemorate Balint Homan, a Holocaust-era minister who played a decisive role in the murder or deportation of nearly 600,000 Hungarian Jews. Far from being an isolated incident, just a few months later, in 2016, another statue was erected in tribute to Gyorgy Donáth, one of the architects of anti-Jewish legislation during World War II. It was thus unsurprising to hear Orban employing anti-Semitic tropes during his reelection campaign in 2017, especially against Georges Soros, the Jewish, Hungarian-American billionaire-philanthropist who supports liberal causes, including that of open borders and immigration. Reanimating the anti-Semitic cliché about the power of Jews, Orban accused Soros of harboring intentions to undermine Hungary.

    Whom did Netanyahu choose to support? Not the anxious Hungarian Jewish community that protested bitterly against the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Orban’s government; nor did he choose to support the liberal Jew Soros, who defends humanitarian causes. Instead, the prime minister created new fault lines, preferring political allies to members of the tribe. He backed Orban, the same person who resurrects the memory of dark anti-Semites. When the Israeli ambassador in Budapest protested the erection of the infamous statue, he was publicly contradicted by none other than Netanyahu.

    To my knowledge, the Israeli government has never officially protested Orban’s anti-Semitic inclinations and affinities. In fact, when the Israeli ambassador in Budapest did try to do so, he was quieted down by Jerusalem. Not long before the Hungarian election, Netanyahu went to the trouble of visiting Hungary, thus giving a “kosher certificate” to Orban and exonerating him of the opprobrium attached to anti-Semitism and to an endorsement of figures active in the Shoah. When Netanyahu visited Budapest, he was given a glacial reception by the Federation of the Jewish Communities, while Orban gave him a warm welcome. To further reinforce their touching friendship, Netanyahu invited Orban to pay a reciprocal visit to Israel this past July, receiving him in a way usually reserved for the most devoted national allies.

    The relationship with Poland is just as puzzling. As a reminder, Poland is governed by the nationalist Law and Justice party, which has an uncompromising policy against refugees and appears to want to eliminate the independence of the courts by means of a series of reforms that would allow the government to control the judiciary branch. In 2016 the Law and Justice-led government eliminated the official body whose mission was to deal with problems of racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance, arguing that the organization had become “useless.”

    An illustration depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shaking hands with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in Auschwitz. Eran Wolkowski

    Encouraged by this and other governmental declarations and policies, signs of nationalism multiplied within Polish society. In February 2018, president Andrzej Duda declared that he would sign a law making it illegal to accuse the Polish nation of having collaborated with the Nazis. Accusing Poland of collusion in the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities would be from now prosecutable. Israel initially protested the proposed legislation, but then in June, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, signed an agreement exonerating Poland of any and all crimes against the Jews during the time of the German occupation. Israel also acceded to Poland’s move to outlaw the expression “Polish concentration camp.” Moreover, Netanyahu even signed a statement stipulating that anti-Semitism is identical to anti-Polonism, and that only a handful of sad Polish individuals were responsible for persecuting Jews – not the nation as a whole.

    A billboard displaying George Soros urges Hungarians to take part in a national consultation about what it calls a plan by the Hungarian-born financier to settle migrants in Europe, in Budapest. ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP

    Like the American, Hungarian and Polish alt-right, Israel wants to restore national pride unstained by “self-hating” critics. Like the Poles, for two decades now, Israel has been waging a war over the official narrative of the nation, trying to expunge school textbooks of inconvenient facts (such as the fact that Arabs were actively chased out of Israel in 1948). In order to quash criticism, Israel’s Culture Ministry now predicates funding to creative institutions on loyalty to the state. As in Hungary, the Israeli government persecutes NGOs like Breaking the Silence, a group whose only sin has been to give soldiers a forum for reporting their army experiences and to oppose Israeli settlers’ violence against Palestinians or the expropriation of land, in violation of international law. Purging critics from public life (as expressed in barring the entry into the country of BDS supporters, denying funding to theater companies or films critical of Israel, etc.) is an expression of direct state power.

    When it comes to refugees, Israel, like Hungary and Poland, refuses to comply with international law. For almost a decade now, Israel has not respected international conventions on the rights of refugees even though it is a signatory of said conventions: The state has detained refugees in camps, and imprisoned and deported them. Like Poland, Israel is trying to do away with the independence of its judiciary. Israel feels comfortable with the anti-democratic extreme right of European states in the same way that one feels comfortable with a family member who belches and gossips, losing any sense of self-control or table manners.

    More generally, these countries today share a deep common political core: fear of foreigners at the borders (it must be specified, however, that Israelis’ fears are less imaginary than those of Hungarians or Polish); references to the nation’s pride untainted by a dubious past, casting critics as traitors to the nation; and outlawing human rights organizations and contesting global norms based on moral principles. The Netanyahu-Trump-Putin triumvirate has a definite shared vision and strategy: to create a political bloc that would undermine the current liberal international order and its key players.

    In a recent article about Trump for Project Syndicate, legal scholar Mark S. Weiner suggested that Trump’s political vision and practice follow (albeit, unknowingly) the precepts of Carl Schmitt, the German legal scholar who joined the Nazi Party in 1933.

    “In place of normativity and universalism, Schmitt offers a theory of political identity based on a principle that Trump doubtless appreciates deeply from his pre-political career: land,” wrote Weiner. “For Schmitt, a political community forms when a group of people recognizes that they share some distinctive cultural trait that they believe is worth defending with their lives. This cultural basis of sovereignty is ultimately rooted in the distinctive geography… that a people inhabit. At stake here are opposing positions about the relation between national identity and law. According to Schmitt, the community’s nomos [the Greek word for “law”] or sense of itself that grows from its geography, is the philosophical precondition for its law. For liberals, by contrast, the nation is defined first and foremost by its legal commitments.”

    Netanyahu and his ilk subscribe to this Schmittian vision of the political, making legal commitments subordinate to geography and race. Land and race are the covert and overt motives of Netanyahu’s politics. He and his coalition have, for example, waged a politics of slow annexation in the West Bank, either in the hope of expelling or subjugating the 2.5 million Palestinians living there, or of controlling them.

    They have also radicalized the country’s Jewishness with the highly controversial nation-state law. Playing footsie with anti-Semitic leaders may seem to contradict the nation-state law, but it is motivated by the same statist and Schmittian logic whereby the state no longer views itself as committed to representing all of its citizens, but rather aims to expand territory; increase its power by designating enemies; define who belongs and who doesn’t; narrow the definition of citizenship; harden the boundaries of the body collective; and undermine the international liberal order. The line connecting Orban to the nationality law is the sheer and raw expansion of state power.

    Courting Orban or Morawiecki means having allies in the European Council and Commission, which would help Israel block unwanted votes, weaken Palestinian international strategies and create a political bloc that could impose a new international order. Netanyahu and his buddies have a strategy and are trying to reshape the international order to meet their own domestic goals. They are counting on the ultimate victory of reactionary forces to have a free hand to do what they please inside the state.

    But what is most startling is the fact that in order to promote his illiberal policies, Netanyahu is willing to snub and dismiss the greatest part of the Jewish people, its most accepted rabbis and intellectuals, and the vast number of Jews who have supported, through money or political action, the State of Israel. This suggests a clear and undeniable shift from a politics based on the people to a politics based on the land.

    For the majority of Jews outside Israel, human rights and the struggle against anti-Semitism are core values. Netanyahu’s enthusiastic support for authoritarian, anti-Semitic leaders is an expression of a profound shift in the state’s identity as a representative of the Jewish people to a state that aims to advance its own expansion through seizure of land, violation of international law, exclusion and discrimination. This is not fascism per se, but certainly one of its most distinctive features.

    This state of affairs is worrisome but it is also likely to have two interesting and even positive developments. The first is that in the same way that Israel has freed itself from its “Jewish complex” – abandoning its role as leader and center of the Jewish people as a whole – many or most Jews will now likely free themselves from their Israel complex, finally understanding that Israel’s values and their own are deeply at odds. World Jewish Congress head Ron Lauder’s August 13, 2018, op-ed in The New York Times, which was close to disowning Israel, is a powerful testimony to this. Lauder was very clear: Israel’s loss of moral status means it won’t be able to demand the unconditional loyalty of world Jewry. What was in the past experienced by many Jews as an inner conflict is now slowly being resolved: Many or most members of Jewish communities will give preference to their commitment to the constitutions of their countries – that is to universalist human rights.

    Israel has already stopped being the center of gravity of the Jewish world, and as such, it will be able to count only on the support of a handful of billionaires and the ultra-Orthodox. This means that for the foreseeable future, Israel’s leverage in American politics will be considerably weakened.

    Trumpism is a passing phase in American politics. Latinos and left-wing Democrats will become increasingly involved in the country’s politics, and as they do, these politicians will find it increasingly difficult to justify continued American support of Israeli policies that are abhorrent to liberal democracies. Unlike in the past, however, Jews will no longer pressure them to look the other way.

    The second interesting development concerns Europe. The European Union no longer knows what its mission was. But the Netanyahus, Trumps, Orbans and Morawieckis will help Europe reinvent its vocation: The social-democrat bloc of the EU will be entrusted with the mission of opposing state-sanctioned anti-Semitism and all forms of racism, and above all defending Europe’s liberal values that we, Jews and non-Jews, Zionists and anti-Zionists, have all fought so hard for. Israel, alas, is no longer among those fighting that fight.

    A shorter version of this article has originally appeared in Le Monde.

    • Eva Illouz : « Orban, Trump et Nétanyahou semblent affectionner barrières et murs »
      https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2018/08/08/eva-illouz-israel-contre-les-juifs_5340351_3232.html?xtor=RSS-3208
      Dans une tribune au « Monde », l’universitaire franco-israélienne estime que l’alliance du gouvernement israélien avec les régimes « illibéraux » d’Europe de l’Est crée une brèche au sein du peuple juif, pour qui la lutte contre l’antisémitisme et la mémoire de la Shoah ne sont pas négociables.

      LE MONDE | 08.08.2018 à 06h39 • Mis à jour le 08.08.2018 à 19h18 | Par Eva Illouz (directrice d’études à l’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales)

      Tribune. Un tremblement de terre est tranquillement en train de secouer le monde juif. Lorsque le premier ministre israélien, Benyamin Nétanyahou, choisit de soutenir Donald Trump avant et après l’élection présidentielle américaine de 2016, certains pouvaient encore donner à ce dernier le bénéfice du doute. Certes, Trump s’était entouré de gens comme Steve Bannon dont émanaient des relents antisémites, certes, il refusait aussi de condamner sa base électorale sympathisante du Ku Klux Klan, mais personne n’était encore sûr de la direction que prendrait sa nouvelle présidence.

      Les événements de Charlottesville, en août 2017, n’ont plus permis le doute. Les manifestants néonazis commirent des actes de violence contre des contre-manifestants pacifiques (tuant une personne en fonçant dans la foule avec une voiture), mais Trump condamna de la même façon opposants modérés et manifestants néonazis.

      Le monde entier fut choqué de cette mise en équivalence, mais Jérusalem ne protesta pas. L’observateur indulgent (ou cynique) aurait pu interpréter ce silence comme l’acquiescement forcé du vassal vis-à-vis de son suzerain : de tous les pays du monde, Israël est celui qui reçoit la plus grande aide militaire des Etats-Unis.

      Cette interprétation n’est désormais plus possible. Il est devenu clair que Nétanyahou a de fortes sympathies pour d’autres dirigeants qui, comme Trump, front preuve d’une grande indulgence vis-à-vis de l’antisémitisme et dont il ne dépend ni militairement ni économiquement.
      Une statue à Budapest

      Prenons l’exemple de la Hongrie. En 2015, le gouvernement y annonça son intention de dresser une statue à la mémoire de Balint Homan, ministre qui joua un rôle décisif dans la déportation de 600 000 juifs hongrois. Quelques mois plus tard, en 2016, il fut question d’ériger à Budapest une statue à la mémoire d’un des architectes de la législation antijuive durant la seconde guerre mondiale, György Donáth....

  • Google Employees Protest Secret Work on Censored Search Engine for China - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employees-protest-search-censored-china.html

    Hundreds of #Google employees, upset at the company’s decision to secretly build a censored version of its search engine for China, have signed a letter demanding more transparency to understand the ethical consequences of their work.

    In the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, employees wrote that the project and Google’s apparent willingness to abide by China’s censorship requirements “raise urgent moral and ethical issues.” They added, “Currently we do not have the information required to make ethically-informed decisions about our work, our projects, and our employment.”

    The letter is circulating on Google’s internal communication systems and is signed by about 1,400 employees, according to three people familiar with the document, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

    The internal activism presents another obstacle for Google’s potential return to China eight years after the company publicly withdrew from the country in protest of censorship and government hacking. China has the world’s largest internet audience but has frustrated American tech giants with content restrictions or outright blockages of services including Facebook and Instagram.

    #GAFA

  • Looking for the Enemy – Hunter Cutting – Medium
    https://medium.com/@huntercutting/looking-for-the-enemy-7b0813ff9b0c

    NYT Magazine’s Nathaniel Rich Goes Full Pogo

    According to Jake Silverstein, the editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine, “the August 5 issue of @NYTmag will be dedicated entirely to a single story, a captivating, revelatory history about the decade we almost stopped climate change, but didn’t.”

    And the breathless hype doesn’t stop there, Silverstein lauds the author, Nathaniel Rich, tweeting the piece as: “a remarkable piece of historical journalism that will change the way you think about global warming.”

    Unfortunately the early hints suggest that Rich’s piece will do anything but that.

  • ’NY Times’ uses old tricks to distort Israel’s latest attacks on #Gaza
    https://mondoweiss.net/2018/07/distort-israels-attacks

    Les vieilles ficelles du #New_York_Times, pro-#Israël #indécent,

    Falsifier la chronologie des événements,

    Distort the timeline to try and blame the Palestinians. The Times recounts yesterday’s latest news: Israeli airstrikes that killed 2 Gazans and mortar fire from Gaza that wounded 4 Israelis. But the paper nowhere mentions that 5 days earlier, on July 9, Israel had further choked off cargo shipments into Gaza, a territory which was already under a punishing blockade — a drastic act that any neutral observer might have concluded contributed greatly to the latest escalation.

    Insister sur les victimes israéliennes,

    Spend more time on Israeli victims than on Palestinian ones. Today’s online article has 6 full paragraphs on Israelis in the town of Sderot who were hurt by rockets or mortars. Three different Israelis were quoted, including one, Refael Yifrah, who said, “It’s better to be in Gaza where they get warning that they’re going to be fired upon in one neighborhood or another and they evacuate. . . Here, there’s an alert, no one knows where it going to land.”

    By contrast, the Times cited only one Palestinian by name, even though the paper has two reporters in Gaza City. The Times did report that Muhammad Abdelaal, a 30-year-old, “was interviewed at Shifa Hospital while soaked with blood and being treated for his wounds” — but, unlike the Israelis, he apparently didn’t say anything quotable.

    Présenter les déclarations non vérifiées des autorités israéliennes comme des faits avérés,

    Don’t challenge Israel’s framing of the events. The Times headline calls yesterday’s exchange the “Most Intense Fighting Since 2014 War” — without quotation marks. In fairness, the first sentence of the report does make clear that the “most intense” assessment comes straight from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But Israeli soldiers have shot dead at least 137 Gazans in the months-long Great March of Return and wounded more than 4000. Israeli snipers murdering un- or barely-armed protesters hardly qualifies as “fighting,” but it has certainly been more “intense” than yesterday’s events. Clearly Netanyahu wanted to distract world attention from those 137 dead Palestinians, and the thousands more wounded — and the New York Times let him get away with it.

  • Opinion | Local Girl Makes Good - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/opinion/sunday/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-maureen-dowd.html

    WASHINGTON — At dawn on the day after the election that rocked her world and her party, working on three hours of sleep, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez walked out of her Bronx apartment building.

    “A sanitation truck pulled up,” said the 28-year-old with the contagious smile and an energy that impressed even the dragon-energy president. “The driver reached out his arm to give me a high-five. What that moment tells me is what we did was right. We are touching the hearts of working people. Democrats should be getting high-fives from sanitation truck drivers — that is what should be happening in America.”

    It has been a heady few days for Ocasio-Cortez. After failed attempts during her campaign to get a Wikipedia page because she was deemed not notable enough, she now has one. After being told by her family when she was growing up that The New York Times was too expensive to buy and being told by her teachers that the paper was too advanced for her, now she keeps landing on the front page, a metamorphosis she calls “thrilling.”

    Her mother, a Puerto Rican native, flew in from her home in Florida for the last three days of the campaign. “I think she thought I was running for a City Council seat. She’s like, ‘O.K., that’s cute, go for it,’” Ocasio-Cortez said.

    But when reporters knocked on their door, the proud mother proffered that her daughter wants to be president.

    #Politique_USA

  • Democratic Candidate Who Criticized Israel Faces Charges of Anti-Semitism - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/us/politics/democrat-israel-anti-semitism.html

    À cause d’un livre écrit en tant que journaliste il y a 27 ans, livre que le #new_york_times, dont l’objectivité envers #Israël est légendaire, avait jugé partisan et injuste à l’époque.

    WASHINGTON — On Monday evening, at the home of a retired rabbi in Charlottesville, Va., the Democratic nominee for the Fifth Congressional District of Virginia sat down with about 40 Jewish leaders to try to defuse Virginia Republican charges that she was a “virulent anti-Semite.”

    At issue was the candidate’s 27-year-old book, “Dangerous Liaison: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship,” a broadside written by Leslie Cockburn, a journalist-turned-politician, with her husband, Andrew Cockburn, that was panned in several reviews as an inflammatory screed.

    [...]

    When the book was published in 1991, a review in The New York Times described it as “largely dedicated to Israel-bashing for its own sake.”

    “Its first message is that, win or lose, smart or dumb, right or wrong, suave or boorish, Israelis are a menace,” the review said. “The second is that the Israeli-American connection is somewhere behind just about everything that ails us.”

    Ms. Cockburn told the group on Monday that she was being critical of government policy from a fact-based perspective, not out of animus toward Jews. In the interview, she said she was seeking the endorsement of J Street, a Jewish political group that has set itself up as a progressive alternative to other American Jewish organizations more uncritical of Israeli government policies.

  • How the Media Portrays Black and White Drug Users Differently | Alternet
    https://www.alternet.org/how-media-portrays-black-and-white-drug-users-differently?src=newsletter10

    How the Media Portrays Black and White Drug Users Differently
    NYT’s sympathetic coverage of white moms struggling with opioids contrasts with its hysteria over “crack babies”
    By Joyce McMillan / Salon
    May 28, 2018, 5:14 AM GMT

    The lives of the women profiled in the story are complex and the writer makes great effort to mute her judgments and witness the mothers nurturing their children. Because of this thoughtful observing, the women are shown in their wholeness. But the writer also uses descriptors that highlight the whiteness of her subjects. She highlights Alicia’s blond hair, a flaxen-haired child, and another’s hazel eyes. In a way, this is as much a story about the redemptive power of whiteness as it is about opioid use.

    The New York Times, like many major publications that have reported on the opioid epidemic, has a history of covering societal drug use. Often, publications reference the differential response to the opioid epidemic and the way that race has influenced political response. Coverage of the opioid epidemic alludes to the “cultural overreaction” to the “crack baby” and the panic over crack use in general.

    They recall the dehumanization of black women and their children, who did not benefit from the gentle words of a famed novelist. It is apt that the light shone on the New York Times, a publication that proffered racist and sensationalized journalism depicting black people as sex-crazed cocaine addicts and black children born to mothers who used cocaine as broken and irredeemable. It is not hyperbolic to claim that the New York Times had a role in the creation of the modern war on drugs, one it now deems to be a failure.

    The New York Times and other major national publications fanned the flames of the drug war, and have now pivoted their coverage to protect white victims and whiteness. Telling stories in a way that allows people to exist beyond their drug use is not the issue; it should be standard practice. What is surprising is that the New York Times and other publications have not done the work of looking through the archives to see the harm they have caused historically and presently – especially the harm done to black mothers.

    Black motherhood is a high-risk endeavor and little empathy is given to those who fall short of societal expectations. The New York Times and other major media publications are not totally responsible for the systemic racism that leaves black motherhood at the societal fringe, but they are crucial part of the mechanism. I don’t know how the media can atone for their actions in shaping the narratives of the drug war, but acknowledging the harm they caused is a start.

    #Opioides #Racisme #Médias

  • How Much Warmer Was Your City in 2017? - The New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/21/world/year-in-weather.html#lfpn

    Last year was the second hottest year on record. In a database
    of more than 3,800 cities compiled by AccuWeather, about 88
    percent recorded annual mean temperatures higher than normal.
    Enter your city below to see how much warmer or cooler it was.

    #climat #visualisation #ville

  • Des demandeurs d’asile soudanais torturés dans leur pays après avoir été expulsés par la #France

    Une enquête du New York Times a révélé dimanche soir que plusieurs demandeurs d’asile soudanais renvoyés par la France, l’#Italie et la #Belgique, avaient été torturés à leur retour dans leur pays d’origine.

    https://www.lejdd.fr/international/des-demandeurs-dasile-soudanais-tortures-dans-leur-pays-apres-avoir-ete-expuls
    #torture #asile #migrations #réfugiés #renvois #expulsions #réfugiés_soudanais #Soudan

    via @isskein sur FB

    • Et ici l’article du New York Times, repris par Lejdd :

      By Stifling Migration, Sudan’s Feared Secret Police Aid Europe

      At Sudan’s eastern border, Lt. Samih Omar led two patrol cars slowly over the rutted desert, past a cow’s carcass, before halting on the unmarked 2,000-mile route that thousands of East Africans follow each year in trying to reach the Mediterranean, and then onward to Europe.

      His patrols along this border with Eritrea are helping Sudan crack down on one of the busiest passages on the European migration trail. Yet Lieutenant Omar is no simple border agent. He works for Sudan’s feared secret police, whose leaders are accused of war crimes — and, more recently, whose officers have been accused of torturing migrants.

      Indirectly, he is also working for the interests of the European Union.

      “Sometimes,” Lieutenant Omar said, “I feel this is Europe’s southern border.”

      Three years ago, when a historic tide of migrants poured into Europe, many leaders there reacted with open arms and high-minded idealism. But with the migration crisis having fueled angry populism and political upheaval across the Continent, the European Union is quietly getting its hands dirty, stanching the human flow, in part, by outsourcing border management to countries with dubious human rights records.

      In practical terms, the approach is working: The number of migrants arriving in Europe has more than halved since 2016. But many migration advocates say the moral cost is high.
      To shut off the sea route to Greece, the European Union is paying billions of euros to a Turkish government that is dismantling its democracy. In Libya, Italy is accused of bribing some of the same militiamen who have long profited from the European smuggling trade — many of whom are also accused of war crimes.

      In Sudan, crossed by migrants trying to reach Libya, the relationship is more opaque but rooted in mutual need: The Europeans want closed borders and the Sudanese want to end years of isolation from the West. Europe continues to enforce an arms embargo against Sudan, and many Sudanese leaders are international pariahs, accused of committing war crimes during a civil war in Darfur, a region in western Sudan

      But the relationship is unmistakably deepening. A recent dialogue, named the Khartoum Process (in honor of Sudan’s capital) has become a platform for at least 20 international migration conferences between European Union officials and their counterparts from several African countries, including Sudan. The European Union has also agreed that Khartoum will act as a nerve center for countersmuggling collaboration.

      While no European money has been given directly to any Sudanese government body, the bloc has funneled 106 million euros — or about $131 million — into the country through independent charities and aid agencies, mainly for food, health and sanitation programs for migrants, and for training programs for local officials.

      “While we engage on some areas for the sake of the Sudanese people, we still have a sanction regime in place,” said Catherine Ray, a spokeswoman for the European Union, referring to an embargo on arms and related material.

      “We are not encouraging Sudan to curb migration, but to manage migration in a safe and dignified way,” Ms. Ray added.

      Ahmed Salim, the director of one of the nongovernmental groups that receives European funding, said the bloc was motivated by both self-interest and a desire to improve the situation in Sudan.

      “They don’t want migrants to cross the Mediterranean to Europe,” said Mr. Salim, who heads the European and African Center for Research, Training and Development.

      But, he said, the money his organization receives means better services for asylum seekers in Sudan. “You have to admit that the European countries want to do something to protect migrants here,” he said.

      Critics argue the evolving relationship means that European leaders are implicitly reliant on — and complicit in the reputational rehabilitation of — a Sudanese security apparatus whose leaders have been accused by the United Nations of committing war crimes in Darfur.

      “There is no direct money exchanging hands,” said Suliman Baldo, the author of a research paper about Europe’s migration partnership with Sudan. “But the E.U. basically legitimizes an abusive force.”

      On the border near Abu Jamal, Lieutenant Omar and several members of his patrol are from the wing of the Sudanese security forces headed by Salah Abdallah Gosh, one of several Sudanese officials accused of orchestrating attacks on civilians in Darfur.

      Elsewhere, the border is protected by the Rapid Support Forces, a division of the Sudanese military that was formed from the janjaweed militias who led attacks on civilians in the Darfur conflict. The focus of the group, known as R.S.F., is not counter-smuggling — but roughly a quarter of the people-smugglers caught in January and February this year on the Eritrean border were apprehended by the R.S.F., Lieutenant Omar said.

      European officials have direct contact only with the Sudanese immigration police, and not with the R.S.F., or the security forces that Lieutenant Omar works for, known as N.I.S.S. But their operations are not that far removed.

      The planned countertrafficking coordination center in Khartoum — staffed jointly by police officers from Sudan and several European countries, including Britain, France and Italy — will partly rely on information sourced by N.I.S.S., according to the head of the immigration police department, Gen. Awad Elneil Dhia. The regular police also get occasional support from the R.S.F. on countertrafficking operations in border areas, General Dhia said.

      “They have their presence there and they can help,” General Dhia said. “The police is not everywhere, and we cannot cover everywhere.”

      Yet the Sudanese police are operating in one unexpected place: Europe.

      In a bid to deter future migrants, at least three European countries — Belgium, France and Italy — have allowed in Sudanese police officers to hasten the deportation of Sudanese asylum seekers, General Dhia said.

      Nominally, their official role is simply to identify their citizens. But the officers have been allowed to interrogate some deportation candidates without being monitored by European officials with the language skills to understand what was being said.

      More than 50 Sudanese seeking asylum in Europe have been deported in the past 18 months from Belgium, France and Italy; The New York Times interviewed seven of them on a recent visit to Sudan.

      Four said they had been tortured on their return to Sudan — allegations denied by General Dhia. One man was a Darfuri political dissident deported in late 2017 from France to Khartoum, where he said he was detained on arrival by N.I.S.S. agents.

      Over the next 10 days, he said he was given electric shocks, punched and beaten with metal pipes. At one point the dissident, who asked that his name be withheld for his safety, lost consciousness and had to be taken to the hospital. He was later released on a form of parole.
      The dissident said that, before his deportation from France, Sudanese police officers had threatened him as French officers stood nearby. “I said to the French police: ‘They are going to kill us,’” he said. “But they didn’t understand.”

      European officials argue that establishing Khartoum as a base for collaboration on fighting human smuggling can only improve the Sudanese security forces. The Regional Operational Center in Khartoum, set to open this year, will enable delegates from several European and African countries to share intelligence and coordinate operations against smugglers across North Africa.

      But potential pitfalls are evident from past collaborations. In 2016, the British and Italian police, crediting a joint operation with their Sudanese counterparts, announced the arrest of “one of the world’s most wanted people smugglers.” They said he was an Eritrean called Medhanie Yehdego Mered, who had been captured in Sudan and extradited to Italy.

      The case is now privately acknowledged by Western diplomats to have been one of mistaken identity. The prisoner turned out to be Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, an Eritrean refugee with the same first name as the actual smuggler. Mr. Mered remains at large.

      Even General Dhia now admits that Sudan extradited the wrong man — albeit one who, he says, admitted while in Sudanese custody to involvement in smuggling.

      “There were two people, actually — two people with the same name,” General Dhia said.

      Mr. Berhe nevertheless remains on trial in Italy, accused of being Mr. Mered — and of being a smuggler.

      Beyond that, the Sudanese security services have long been accused of profiting from the smuggling trade. Following European pressure, the Sudanese Parliament adopted a raft of anti-smuggling legislation in 2014, and the rules have since led to the prosecution of some officials over alleged involvement in the smuggling business.

      But according to four smugglers whom I interviewed clandestinely during my trip to Sudan, the security services remain closely involved in the trade, with both N.I.S.S and R.S.F. officials receiving part of the smuggling profits on most trips to southern Libya.

      The head of the R.S.F., Brig. Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, has claimed in the past that his forces play a major role in impeding the route to Libya. But each smuggler — interviewed separately — said that the R.S.F. was often the main organizer of the trips, often supplying camouflaged vehicles to ferry migrants through the desert.

      After being handed over to Libyan militias in Kufra and Sabha, in southern Libya, many migrants are then systematically tortured and held for ransom — money that is later shared with the R.S.F., each smuggler said.

      Rights activists have previously accused Sudanese officials of complicity in trafficking. In a 2014 report, Human Rights Watch said that senior Sudanese police officials had colluded in the smuggling of Eritreans.

      A British journalist captured by the R.S.F. in Darfur in 2016 said that he had been told by his captors that they were involved in smuggling people to Libya. “I asked specifically about how it works,” said the journalist, Phil Cox, a freelance filmmaker for Channel 4. “And they said we make sure the routes are open, and we talk with whoever’s commanding the next area.”

      General Dhia said that the problem did not extend beyond a few bad apples. Sudan, he said, remains an effective partner for Europe in the battle against irregular migration.

      “We are not,” he said, “very far from your standards.”

      https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/world/africa/migration-european-union-sudan.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSo
      #externalisation

    • Soudan : des demandeurs d’asile torturés après avoir été expulsés par la France

      Un dissident politique du #Darfour, expulsé par la France fin 2017, affirme notamment avoir été électrocuté, battu et frappé avec des tuyaux en métal pendant dix jours.
      En Belgique, c’est un scandale. En France, le silence est... assourdissant. Dans une grande enquête, publiée dimanche 22 avril, le « New York Times » révèle que des demandeurs d’asile soudanais renvoyés par la France, l’Italie et la Belgique, ont été torturés à leur retour dans leur pays.

      Une enquête de Streetpress, publiée en octobre dernier, révélait déjà que la police française collaborait étroitement, et depuis 2014, avec la dictature soudanaise, et favorisait « le renvoi à Khartoum d’opposants politiques réfugiés en France ». Le titre de Streetpress parlait de lui-même : « Comment la France a livré des opposants politiques à la dictature soudanaise ».
      Le quotidien américain a de son côté retrouvé des demandeurs d’asile et a publié les témoignages de quatre d’entre eux. Ils ont été arrêtés dès leur retour puis torturés par le régime soudanais. Un dissident politique du Darfour expulsé par la France fin 2017, affirme ainsi avoir été électrocuté, battu et frappé avec des tuyaux en métal pendant dix jours. Il affirme qu’avant son expulsion, des officiers de police soudanais l’ont menacé en présence d’officiers français :
      ""Je leur ai dit : ’Ils vont nous tuer’, mais ils n’ont pas compris.""
      Des policiers soudanais dans des centres de rétention

      Interrogé par le « New York Times », le régime du général Omar el-Béchir dément. Le dictateur, qui dirige depuis 28 ans le Soudan, est visé par un mandat d’arrêt en 2008 de la Cour pénale internationale pour génocide, crimes contre l’humanité et crimes de guerre, comme le rappelle « le Journal du dimanche ».

      Comme l’écrit le quotidien américain, la Belgique, la France et l’Italie ont autorisé des « officiels soudanais » à pénétrer dans leurs centres de rétention et à interroger des demandeurs d’asile soudanais. Ces « officiels » étaient en réalité des policiers soudanais. Selon le « New York Times », les entretiens dans les centres de rétention entre les « officiels » soudanais et les demandeurs d’asile se seraient faits « en l’absence de fonctionnaire capable de traduire les propos échangés ».

      En Belgique, les révélations sur les expulsions de demandeurs d’asile soudanais ont provoqué de vives tensions. En septembre dernier, le Premier ministre belge Charles Michel a reconnu devant une commission d’enquête de son Parlement que les polices de plusieurs pays européens collaboraient étroitement avec la dictature soudanaise d’Omar el-Béchir.

      https://www.nouvelobs.com/monde/20180424.OBS5650/soudan-des-demandeurs-d-asile-tortures-apres-avoir-ete-expulses-par-la-fr

    • Et, signalé par @isskein sur FB, un communiqué de Migreurop qui date d’il y a une année. Rappel :

      L’Europe collabore avec un dictateur pour mieux expulser vers le Soudan

      Migreurop demande l’arrêt immédiat de toutes les collaborations initiées par l’Union européenne et ses Etats membres avec la dictature d’Omar El-Béchir et avec tout Etat qui bafoue les droits fondamentaux.

      http://www.migreurop.org/article2837.html

  • The Daphne Project

    Six months ago, Maltese journalist #Daphne_Caruana_Galizia was brutally killed by a car bomb just meters from her home. The investigation into her killing is ongoing, but there is little doubt that she was murdered because of her work. With a brazen, unapologetic and uncompromising style, she denounced corruption, nepotism, clientelism, and all kinds of criminal behaviours in her tiny EU member state.

    A group of 45 journalists representing 18 news organisations from 15 countries picked up Daphne’s work after it was abruptly halted by her gruesome death on the doorstep of Europe. For five months they kept digging — pouring over her findings, gathering documents, talking to sources — to try to get to the bottom of the many leads the formidable woman left behind.

    The Daphne Project is a unique collaboration coordinated and led by Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based organisation established specifically to continue the work of killed, imprisoned, or otherwise incapacitated journalists.

    The Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI) contributed with its knowledge on mafias and illicit traffics in the Mediterranean area, assigning reporters to dig on the transnational network of criminals that thrive in Malta, on related money laundering as well as on wrongdoing among Malta’s elite.

    Forbidden Stories with IRPI, OCCRP, La Repubblica, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Reuters, The Times of Malta, Le Monde, The Guardian, The New York Times, Tages-Anzeiger, Premières Lignes Télévision, Radio France, France 2, Die Zeit, Direkt 36, WDR, NDR are now shining lights onto the stories that killed her.

    On April 17, we will start revealing what Daphne left behind. Watch this space.


    https://irpi.eu/il-progetto-daphne

    #projet_Daphne #journalisme #médias #presse
    cc @albertocampiphoto @fil @reka