DAESH is finished, what next?

The so-called Islamic State (DAESH by its Arab acronym) will be finished in a matter of weeks: Mosul is being liberated without almost any resistance, Kurdo-Arab forces have cut off Raqqa from Deir-el-Zor, Turkey marches on Al Bab along with their Al-Qaeda "moderate opposition" militias, while Syria is also force-marching to cut the Turkish advance on their sovereign territory, as well as against Palmyra. On top of that the USA has been mass-bombing Raqqa itself (and nope, nobody has cried about the "humanitarian situation" this time). There is no coalition but a general recognition that DAESH is the legitimate target, which each one is using for their own purposes. 

Military situation in Syria around February 12 per Wikimedia Commons (author: Ermanarich)

The expected end-game situation will be a partition of Syria in three areas: the main one under the legitimate Baath government, a very sizable chunk in the Northeast (plus a Kurdish enclave in the Northwest) under independent Kurdo-Arab control (Syrian Democratic Forces) and a strip of the rural Northwest under Turkish control and that of their allied militias who until recently flew the banner of Al Qaeda. 

DAESH will be then limited to dormant cells and a few guerrilla enclaves in Africa and Yemen, which may well turn their allegiance towards Al Qaeda/Turkey/Saudia/USA again or suffer the consequences. 

My big question is what next for Syria. I'm uncertain that Damascus and the YPG can get along once the common enemy has been smashed, although it will remain in the form of the FSA (Al Qaeda) and Turkey, they may both feel powerless to fight against the Turkish regional power and their NATO fallback line. Surely that won't dissuade the Kurds, who are in open war against Turkey (not by whim but because Erdogan imposed it) but I'm quite uncertain that Syria, which has not fought for the Golan Heights in many decades, was pushed out of Lebanon and has been struggling to win the "civil war" without support (Russian intervention proved decisive, no doubt) is ready to fight against the much stronger Islamo-Fascist Turkey of Erdogan. 

So my guess is that it will settle in some sort of unstable status quo, with Damascus demanding the pull back of Turkey with words rather than action, Turkey demanding "dialogue" (i.e. concesions to Islamo-Fascism and Turkmen tiny minorities) just to delay any retreat, Kurds growingly confronted with Turkey as leftover weapons and hardened warriors flow into the North of the country under Ankara's occupation, Turkey pressuring Syria to do something about it, Syria rebuilding while it looks at both sides between amused and concerned, etc. It's possible even that the Syrian Army and the SDF join forces to finally expel both "moderate" Islamo-Fascists and Turkish troops from Syrian territory but there will be no doubt a lot of distrust. 

Unless NATO collapses in the meantime (that would be very nice indeed but most unlikely), the Baghdad Railroad line (Turco-Syrian border) is a red line that Syrian forces will never cross, nor will Russian air forces if involved, only Kurds will because for them that border does not exist, just as they do not seem to exist as nation for the rest of the world. 

In any case the murderer, torturer, rapists and slavers DAESH will be gone for good. And that is indeed good. I can just hope that they arrest them as they flow back into Europe and other places, instead of letting them in as their Western protectors usually do, with the obvious intention of using them as pretext to implement every day more extremist dictatorial measures such as the permanent state of emergency in effect in France and to prop up the extremist Christo-Fascists and outright Nazis that seem to be groomed to replace the current constitutional regimes, once these are exhausted, as has happened in the USA with Trump, in Poland with Duda, etc.

Sadly enough hope alone won't do much.

Trumpinsomia

The idea of "President Trump" (or similar, if he falls down a balcony and Mike Pence takes over it won't make any difference) is beginning to affect my emotions and therefore my sleep. Yeah, the USA is far away across the Atlantic but, it's not just the main superpower, but also it is very plausible that the same will happen across Europe, with Le Pen maybe winning the French presidential election or the equally fascist Hofer quite likely winning the republic's top post in the repetition of the Austrian polls next month. The prospect of Beppe Grillo (another professional buffoon, like Trump) maybe becoming the next Prime Minister of Italy is not the least comforting either, as the unusual 5 Star Movement aligns with the Far Right beyond the Alps and is also penetrated by many neofascists inside.

Sure the Great Coalition parties are not comforting at all either but we all know that outright Fascism is much much worse, notably because it is much much more difficult to revert once in power.

And the brown shirts are beginning to show up very clearly in the upcoming US government. For example Trump has appointed the well known extremist Stephen K. Bannon, a total psychopath, as his chief strategist.

He is not just a racist bigot, he is an extremist misogynist, confirming the worst suspicions about Trump's sexism. Just read his own articles at his own site (link1, link2), which could well have been signed by the self-appointed Caliph of Raqqa. He's also the best known leader of the so-called "alt-right", the modern version of Fascism in North America.

I watched yesterday this fragment of Michael Moore's last film, which is so well told an clairvoyant, that the very supporters of Trump used it, cutting off the last part, for their campaign. But the last part is where the panic sets on, because the foreseeing Moore states unmistakably that Trump will be "the last President of the United States".

Truly scary but it is happening right now.

And, thanks to the authoritarian complacency of his predecessors, Trump will have a lot of legal mechanisms to make his Fascism unstoppable: many emergency laws that dramatically increase presidential power, a heavily militarized police, an ultra-conservative Supreme Court, etcetera. Just as Hitler used in 1933 the emergency provisions that the pre-existing legal system allowed for emergencies, it seems very likely that Trump will do the same, even if he needs to fabricate a pretext, as Hitler did with the Reichstag fire. 

It looks very bad, because there are no legal emergency breaks for a situation like this, only a true revolution could change things but I seriously doubt that the USA is mature for such a critical scenario, really.

Heroes of our time: the man who rescues slaves from DAESH

I was really moved when I watched this documentary yesterday. It is about the plea of the women enslaved by the so-called Islamic State (DAESH) and the former smuggler who works tirelessly to rescue them, Abu Shuja. Must watch:

Source: Russia Today.

Syrian "jihad" in reality: orders from Israel and "holy" prostitution rings

A Saudi Arabian girl, aged 15, stripped naked the Islamist "holy war" against Syria in interview with Turkish newspaper Aydinlik. 

The young woman, identified as Ayeshe al-Bakr, explained that she joined the so-called jihad al-nikahl (sexual holy war), that she kept sexual relations with dozens of Al Nusra fighters and that she is now pregnant. This "sexual holy war", which is just a fanatic prostitution ring, has grown in the last years as the terrorist activities of the fascist groups have increased under US imperialist command. Some Sunni muftis have claimed that those women who provide sexual favor to jihadists will go their imaginary paradise.

She also declared that she traveled with Al Nusra's leader Abu Muhamad al-Jawlani (also transcribed as al-Joulani and al-Golani) to Palestine (West Bank), where he met Zionist officers several times.

Source: HispanTV[es].

Greece: bourgeois camp clearly heading to outright fascism

Two news snippets from I can't relax in Greece evidence how the conservative party (ND) in government (with necessary support from the so-called "moderate left") is clearly paving the way for the worst kind of fascism in the European country. 

Compulsory and arbitrary arrests for HIV tests

On one side the new Minister of Health, Adonis Georgiadis, has re-issued a decree allowing police to arbitrarily arrest people to have them made forced HIV tests. The measure was in place previously for several months until it was suspended because of popular outcry. 

However in the time it was in place many people, mostly women, were arbitrarily arrested and those who tested positive saw their names and personal data published by the government, who accused them without evidence of being "prostitutes" and "a time bomb". 

The 17 women were not just publicly defamed but kept in jail for months and subjected to a mock trial in which they were accused of "intended bodily injury". They were finally acquitted and released in March.

This is the kind of human rights abuses one would expect of a Nazi regime, right? Exactly like the massive concentration camps for immigrants, allowing police to be penetrated to the marrow by the Nazi Party (Golden Dawn) or tolerating Nazi thugs to scare the hell out of the judge who was going to try one of them. 

Forming government with the Nazis

But is looks like it will get worse: after next elections, if maths allow, they will join forces directly with the Nazis. 

That is at least what Vryonas Polydoras declared this week when asked if they would join forces with Golden Dawn to form government: "of course". 

Polydoras, who used to be minister and speaker in Parliament, added:

We demonstrate sensitivity towards Golden Dawn, which got 600,000 votes [in the last election], will get one million [votes in the next] and we have memories of the Weimar constitution. We remember the Weimar constitution.

One wonders what he means with the references to Weimar, probably that the bourgeois collaboration of parties like his own or like PASOK in the rise of Hitler was "right".  Probably the guy thinks that anything is valid against socialism and he is surely ready to burn the Greek Parliament and blame the commies, exactly as the Nazis did with the Reichstag eighty years ago.


Update: example of highly unequal treatment to Anarchist and Fascists for the same crime

“DEMOCRACY FACTS: 

Sakkas K. He was arrested and is held in pre-trial detention for 30 months without trial. Accusation: Anarchist and possessing illegally a weapon (pistol)

Chaidas A. & Drakos P. Golden Dawn members who were arrested and were released immediately. Accusation: Possessing illegally a weapon (pistol, knifes, metal stick)

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FIGHTER AND PARA-STATE”

Notice that pre-trial detention beyond 18 months is illegal and therefore Kostas Sakkas is in hunger strike for his rights.

Source: From the Greek Streets. 

One in three women is victim of sexist violence at home

That is what Al Jazeera reports based on a WHO report. The figure of ~37% is similar across Asia and Africa, being somewhat lower but still very worrisome in the First World (~23%). 

Domestic violence leaves a dramatic legacy in survivors and children alike:

Women with a violent partner were twice as likely to suffer from depression and develop an alcohol problem, compared to women who did not experience abuse.

Victims of violence were also found to be far more likely to contract a range of sexually-transmitted diseases, from syphilis to HIV.

The study also flagged the higher likelihood of abused women having an unwanted pregnancy, an abortion, or an underweight baby - and their children were more likely to become abusers or victims in adulthood.

In the USA a major issue is that victims of domestic violence can be fired for their aggressors' behavior. Only six states have laws against it and real cases of such workplace repercussions of domestic violence are not uncommon at all (~70% of sexist violence victims are harassed or attacked at work by their "partners", being murder at their aggressor's hands a major cause of death in the workplace among women, and many of them have lost their jobs as result of their aggressor's violence spilling into the victim's job) → TP.

Galician social prisoner held for much longer than sentence, sexually abused

This case is not known (I think) even in Spain itself, however Greek counter-information blog Contra Info has a terrifying narration evidencing the impunity of terror and injustice of the the Spanish prison system that for its interest I reproduce here in full:

Spain[sic]: On the case of the prisoner in struggle Noelia Cotelo Riveiro

Noelia Cotelo Riveiro is a young woman from A Coruña, Galicia (northwestern Spain). Her sentence to serve was set at a year and a half, after stealing a car to buy some drugs. Inside the prison, the situation became complicated, and she has defended herself from the jailers. Now, five years later, she is still imprisoned.

On October 23rd, 2012, Noelia was speaking with her mother on the phone, explaining to her what was going on inside the Brieva prison (in Ávila, central Spain). At some point, a female guard urged her to finish the conversation, screaming at her: “YOU BASTARD SCUM, GET OFF THE PHONE”, but she refused. After a row with the humanguard, five other jailers forced her to drop the telephone by grabbing her wrist strongly and breaking it. They moved her to the cell and left her handcuffed to the bed until the following day, with no medical assistance at all. The next day, at the suggestion of the prison doctor, she was transferred to a hospital to be treated. The injuries and the prescribed treatment are detailed in the medical report.

During the night of October 23rd until the morning of the 24th, Noelia was sleeping handcuffed to the bed in her cell. She woke up and caught one guard by the name of Jesús (who had participated in the aforementioned assault) touching her breast and chest. Caught unawares and attempting to conceal his identity, the jailer threw the contents of a water bottle at Noelia’s face. Prisoners in adjacent cells were awakened by the row and the jailer’s flight.

Additionally, it seems that one of Noelia’s suitcases (with her winter clothes) was stolen from the warehouse of the prison facility. Apparently, her clothes were distributed to the rest of the prisoners, since one of them, María Luisa, gave Noelia back some of her pieces of clothing.

As we all know, this is not an isolated occurrence; we want to report Noelias’s situation, as well as those of many other imprisoned women and men who are systematically assaulted. Noelia had just been transferred from the prison of Picassent (Valencia), where she had filed a complaint because of ill-treatment.

After this and filing a new complaint, Noelia started a hunger strike as a means for protesting, reporting and rebelling against her situation, and making visible the acts that the system silences. Nonetheless, she had to quit after only 5 days because the prison guards used her mother’s visitation time to blackmail her and pressure her to abandon the protest.

During the month of November, a female guard slammed the cell door on Noelia’s broken hand; she was denied medical treatment; she was forced to take cold water showers; her communications were tapped and, in order to isolate her, she was denied visits while her visitation hours were reduced. In early December, Noelia was served meals on a pre-arranged tray while the rest of the prisoners could watch their food being served. Immediately after eating, Noelia would sleep until nightfall, which was not her usual habit. She was not allowed to check her food.

On December 9th, a march was called to the Brieva prison in support of Noelia and against the daily torture and abuse suffered in prisons. Dozens of people showed up to show support and solidarity with our comrade. Despite the strong presence of the Guardia Civil (military police), it was a positive experience. Cops were not able to break the bonds created by the shouts of support from the women inside that we could hear through the walls of the prison.

On December 14th, anarchist prisoner Juan Carlos Rico Rodríguez expressed his solidarity with Noelia through the following communiqué:

Today, I learned through some friends that a comrade in the women’s prison-slaughterhouse of Brieva has been tortured and that the prison guards have even tried to sexually harass her (something that is not “abnormal” at all in the Spanish slaughterhouses). Our comrade is called Noelia Cotelo.

My daughter Noelia (12 years old) and my other daughter Selena (16 years old) are also imprisoned; Noelia is in Valladolid (1, Pajarillos street) and Selena is in Ávila, another youth detention facility, as prisons for children are euphemistically called. I’ve been imprisoned for 14 years. Yet, I am perfectly aware that in a patriarchal society such us ours, imprisoned women carry a double burden: their status as prisoners and as WOMEN.

I cannot eliminate the direct culprits of this violence against women in the institutions of STATE MURDER with my own hands (which is what these tyrants deserve). Therefore, I want to express my SOLIDARITY, not only with Noelia and my daughters, but also extend it to every woman in the world who suffers the TORTURE of prison.

We should bear in mind that any kind of system that inflicts this kind of treatment on the “female” population inside their prison slaughterhouse, as well as those who sustain it, is an ill system/person. And such “illness” should be pulled up by the roots, whatever the cost. As an answer to this cruelty, I will fast symbolically on December 24th, 25th and 31st, 2012 and on January 1st and 6th, 2013.

ELIMINATE ONCE AND FOR ALL THESE PRACTICES

AND THOSE WHO PRACTICE THEM!

This is also a call to the “free society”: REVENGE!

Juan Carlos Rico Rodríguez

Aranjuez Prison Slaughterhouse

(1st Wing, Madrid, Spain)

On January 14th, 2013 we were informed that, after the riots in late December in the prison of Brieva, Noelia’s yard hours were reduced from 3 hours to 1 hour per day – or occasionally just half an hour. What’s more, the prison guard who had sexually attacked her filed a counter-complaint against Noelia (!) saying that she was the assailant; now she is the one who is suffering the consequences, spending 28 days in isolation.

After all the above, our comrade is still not willing to contribute to her own silence and fit in the mold. Noelia decided to start an indefinite hunger strike on January 8th, with the support of her fellow prisoners in struggle. Her aim is to be released from the Brieva prison and to return near her family, in Galicia. Her demands are:

* An end to mistreatment, torture, degrading treatment, beatings and verbal abuse in all prisons;

* An end to collusion between doctors and judges;

* Not one more incident of sexist violence against women, no more hazing and not one more sexual assault. No more male jailers in the women wings and prisons;

* That no law or sentence can separate a family. No to the dispersion of those in prison. Each person should stay near their place of birth. No more constant transfers from prison to prison;

* That all the people in prison be treated with dignity, that they are provided with their medical treatments, that they are attended by the necessary medical staff. That health service, something so universal, reaches them all. No more DEATHS in prisons. Enough medical malpractice;

* That we are told no more lies – rehabilitation is not humiliation. We do not need to be assimilated into anywhere, we need respect. Hatred and violence only generate more hatred and violence;

* That the so-called transparency reaches the penitentiary institutions and anything related to them. No more impunity. No more coverups of state murders;

* That this farce comes to an end. That poverty is not punished with imprisonment; that prisons do not make their living off of poor people. That this mercantilist system ends. We are people, not coins!

On January 16th Noelia asked to visit the doctor because she had an ear infection that had spread to her mouth, becoming very inflamed. But the prison guards replied that no doctors would receive her, although if she wanted to, a jailer called Adelardo would attend her. A while earlier, this same jailer gave her an incorrect dose of methadone and almost caused her to overdose. When he arrived Noelia asked him if she could go to a doctor. He replied that she did not need a doctor because she would die there. After this incident with the jailer Adelardo, Noelia was moved to another cell with an open window… just perfect for her ear infection – note that there is no heating in the prison of Brieva (where the highest temperatures are 10ºC) and that most of her winter clothes were stolen.

On January 25th there was a call at Paeria square in Lleida in support of Noelia, who is still on hunger strike.

Noelia is not alone! Down with prisons! No more prisoners!

If you want to write her and show your support:

Noelia Cotelo Riveiro, CP. Brieva, Ctra. de Vicolozano; 05194 Brieva (Ávila), Spain

See also: article in Galician language at Abordaxe.

Protests against sexist violence take over Delhi for a whole week

Thanks to Jhangora for noticing because I was oblivious, especially as the news blogs I used to follow for South Asia have been inactive for months now.

The New India shows the finger to the Old one (Hindustan Times)

As far as I could understand from several random media, the gang-rape of a young woman in a bus, whose driver did not stop nor did anything about it, and subsequent death near-death injuries caused by the attackers throwing the victim and her boyfriend off the bus while on the march, have caused six days of uninterrupted massive protests in Delhi, which have been violently repressed by authorities more concerned about tourism than about the safety of citizens, triggering in turn greater and more angry protests.

The Gate of India today (Hindustan Times)

India is a country shattered by many contradictions and widespread misogyny is one of them. However it can also be seen in the images that protesters are in many cases young men, as angry as their female peers about all this.

The huge crowds indicate generalized anger (Al Jazeera)

Update: according to K.G. Singh, the victim, 23, is in critical condition but not yet dead. He wonders if this rape-cum-murder is can be a "Tunisian moment" for revolutionary change in India. Hard to say but there are some parallels indeed.

Update (Dec 26): interesting report at Al Jazeera on the impunity of rape in India and the complicity of police → LINK.

Update (Dec 28): The government has fortified the Gate of India to impede protests from reaching the landmark (→ First Post). The victim remains in intensive care with severe brain injuries and surviving only barely (→ Reuters). H/t Jhangora (see comments).

In Nepal also (update Dec 28):

Kasama mentions that the Prime Minister of Nepal and arch-class-traitor Baburam Bhattarai has rejected to listen to women's claims, what is at least striking for someone who was a communist cadre, and still claims to be one.

The scandal, which may well cost him the post to which he clings rather desperately after most of the communist grassroots broke away with him and President Pachandra, arose after a Nepali girl was raped by police officers at the airport.

The officers have only been suspended for two months, instead of throwing them in jail for decades, castrating them or beheading them as would be justice. 

Protesters reached the Prime Minister's residence at Baluwatar this morning but were not allowed to enter.

Also another girl, raped and robbed in Punjab, was heavily pressed by police to retire the charges. Then she killed herself by poisoning (→ Russia Today).

Update (Dec 29): the unnamed victim of the brutal rape died at Singapore (→ BBC).

Galician labor union leader beaten in police station

Galician labor union activist Xexus Anxo López Pintos, CIG, who was arrested and beaten by police when they nonviolently disrupted an electoral act of the ruling party in O Ferrol, denounced to have been abused also once in the police dungeons, where he was kept shackled, beaten, threatened and insulted by one policeman, while the rest allowed it. 

López Pintos' arrest

This is not uncommon at all in Spanish police stations, what is uncommon is that a denounce against police brutality gets any media coverage or support by politicians whatsoever. While I would like to think that Spaniards and Galicians are waking up to the reality of the authoritarian regime in Madrid, it is probably just that it is electoral period (in Galicia, Western Basque Country and, soon, also in Catalonia) and that the victim is not Basque nor African (in which case he would have been ignored altogether). 

You can watch his declarations to the press here[gal].

Sources[ga]: La Haine, Kaos.


Politician resigns on rape gaffe

A former Galician deputy and recently appointed advisor to the Spanish Ministry of Work, José Manuel Castelao Bragaña, has resigned after he made the following public comment:

Laws, like women, are there to be violated.

In case you wonder, there is absolutely no ambiguity in the original Spanish, where the word "violar" is the only common one for "to rape". As in English, it also applies to any other kind of breach, like the one implied here of breaking the law.

In my opinion, he should be imprisoned for apology of sexist violence, like that imam who called for beating one's wife. 

Source: Público[es].

New York Hashidic Jews morally lynch community member who reported child abuse

Hasidic Judaism is one of those ultra-freaky religious sects or rather cults, as it's being evidenced now. Their members are notorious for their pre-modern dressing code, misogyny and extensive hysteric ritualism. 

A New Yorker member of this odd community, Mordechai Jungres, denounced a fellow member of the community to police for sexual abuse of his mentally disabled son. The reaction was totally cult-like, like you could expect from Scientologists and such: Jungres is since then receiving curses and threats for "turning a fellow Jew". 

The first shock came when Mordechai Jungreis learned that his mentally disabled teenage son was being molested in a Jewish ritual bathhouse in Brooklyn. The second came after Mr. Jungreis complained, and the man accused of the abuse was arrested.

Old friends started walking stonily past him and his family on the streets of Williamsburg. Their landlord kicked them out of their apartment. Anonymous messages filled their answering machine, cursing Mr. Jungreis for turning in a fellow Jew. And, he said, the mother of a child in a wheelchair confronted Mr. Jungreis’s mother-in-law, saying the same man had molested her son, and she “did not report this crime, so why did your son-in-law have to?”

These people seem to prefer children with disabilities to suffer sexual abuses at the hands of their members than impart justice (it does not seem that any kind of community justice, i.e. lynching, was implemented instead, what surely means that they are alright with "a fellow Jew" sexually abusing another "fellow Jew").

Source: Brown Pundits (source to NYT but it's pay per view).

Greek state in Nazi-like attack against prostitutes

From the Greek Streets reports how the Greek authorities, in the latest show of their lack of ethics or even a varnish of hypocrisy that could pass for it, have been persecuting prostitutes, forcing them to have HIV tests and exposing publicly, with the help of the mainstream media, their names and photos in what they claim to be a campaign for the protection of Greek households. 

Just in case some reader does not understand how serious this is: 

1. About men who go whoring:
1. Real proud men don't do that.
2. If you do, use a damn fucking condom!
3. These men are, if anyone, the criminals and never the victims: they are taking advantage of women pushed by Capitalism and Patriarchy to have to sell their dignity for survival or similar reason.
2. Prostitutes are essentially the victims of the system: sometimes pushed to do a demeaning but highly demanded job for economic reasons or in other cases, way too often, even forced to their condition by direct violence of criminal gangs, who trade and exploit them as slaves. 

By acting the way they do, the infamous Goldman-Sachs-IMF-ECB-Merkozy-Papademos  government is implying that customers of prostitution mafias are "victims" (instead of the selfish criminal accomplices they actually are) and that sex-workers (slaves?) are "criminals" of sorts for having the disgrace of being forced to have sex without condom by pimps and customers.

As in the infamous surgery-religious nonsense that sells circumcision as a false "prevention" against AIDS, the whole discourse is brutally male-centric and misogynistic: while in heterosexual intercourse women have all the tickets to get infected and males only now and then do (the virus travels in the direction of fluids indeed), the discourse only attempts to help (???) promiscuous men, often whore-goers or even rapists, totally disregarding the health and safety of women who are misleadingly portrayed as mere vehicle of contagion, just as in the old Judeo-Christiano-Muslim junk of women being the source of all sins and what not. 

It sucks and must be denounced as the fascist totalitarian unacceptable abuse it is. 

Not just that, the culprits of these Nazi abuses must be sent to jail or equivalent: they must not be left at large or we risk Europe decaying into the worst Neonazi nightmare. We must react and we must make these Nazi criminals pay for their arrogant crimes against human dignity, freedom and against workers' rights.