USA: police or terrorist occupation forces?

This happened in Georgia (USA), just a few days ago, police equipped as soldiers and acting as the most brutal occupation forces I've seen outside Palestine, attack a peaceful antifascist demo:

You can read the whole story at Raw Story.

Catalonia: Spain escalates repression, shoots itself on the foot.

Military police car taken over by protesters

Telegraphically: This morning the Spanish state has assaulted the Catalan Government (Generalitat) and arrested 12 people, including many high officers of the elect government. Last minute info indicates that masked police forces have surrounded the offices of the radical left independentist party Popular Unity Lists (CUP). Several separatist parties have abandoned the Spanish Congress as result. The center of Barcelona is full of people in spontaneous demonstration. Protests are being held in other places as well, including here in Bilbao (Basque Country). The only de facto all-Spain opposition party Podemos has called for a conference of mayors and other elect officers tomorrow in Zaragoza (the Spanish nationalist right-wing parties PP and Ciudadanos have not been invited, the Spanish nationalist center-left PSOE has rejected to go but all other forces are going). While we can't say the situation is "revolutionary", it is certainly most anomalous and in many sense "pre-revolutionary", particularly because the Spanish state cannot effectively fight against the peoples, much less with the extremely low level of legitimacy it has after so much corruption, austericide and repression. We cannot exclude at this point that a general strike of political nature could be called, even if the main unions are quite sheeply and definitely unionist.

The situation is definitely critical in any case. Some relevant Twitter hashtags: #ReferèndumCat, #MAMBO.

Kafka in the land of the Basques: five arrested for destroying ETA's arsenal

Five people were arrested in Luhuso (Labourd) on Friday night for the "crime" of destroying the arsenal of Basque guerrilla ETA, which "definitively" abandoned armed struggled five years ago but is unable to find an interlocutor to proceed to disarmament and dissolution. 

The five arrested are Jean-Noël Etcheverry, “Txet” (nonviolent ecologist), Michel Berhocoirigoin (farmer union activist), Béatrice Molle-Haran (journalist and owner of the house where the activity took place), Michel Bergougnan (member of Irulegi) y Stéphane Etchegaray, “Etxe” (cameraman in charge of filming the police op). 

Also Michel Tubiana, Honorary President of the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme, is involved in the group of peace activists but he could not arrive to the scene of the police operation in time, so he remains free so far. 

Solidarity march in Donibane-Garazi

The team, self-named "Bakea EHn" (Peace in the Basque Country) in the Twitter account they used as improvised press office on Friday night, and renamed "Artisans for Peace" by the popular protests that have taken place yesterday, had been destroying 15% of ETA's arsenal since October 3rd, in what was intended as a first batch of a longer process, now aborted by Spanish and French police forces. 

Their equipment seems to have been a workbench with a radial saw and some other tools. 

The Artisans for Peace declared themselves as members of civil society, without any link nor subordination to ETA, who had decided to begin the disarmament process with the destruction of a first stock of weapons. 

This process, initially intended to be more open and under supervision of the international mediator group, including half a dozen global personalities, was once and again aborted by the Spanish and French states and five years have passed since ETA famously declared the definitive end to armed struggle without any progress. 

It is quite symptomatic that members of the Basque civil society eventually decided to take upon their shoulders the burden of ensuring the end of ETA in spite of the French and Spanish authorities, and even more hard to believe, truly kafkian, that these two occupant powers of our country, have stopped it via repression, repression that has not ceased anyhow in these five years. 

I presume they will be accused now of "collaboration with terrorist organization", and be labeled by the Inquisition and their parrot media as "ETA members", as so often happens when you are Basque and do not think like they command you to think. In fact we are before prisoners of conscience trying to do the job that the occupant powers, which seem to desire a return to war, are not doing not allowing others to do. 

But they will once and again repeat in a choral fashion: "what ETA must do is to disarm itself and self-dissolve". How when Madrid and Paris are doing everything to impede it? How?

See also:

• ETA declares a "permanent" cease-fire
• New ETA communication: would accept informal verification of the cease fire if that helps to overcome Spanish veto to talks
• Again on the Basque Peace Process... or whatever it is
• Former British minister to Spain: 'If they want ETA's dissolution, they must make compromises'
• ETA communication demands Spain and France to do their part for peace
• ETA communication underlines that the peace process is feeble in spite of the determined commitment on the Basque side (only)
• ETA dissolves its operational structures
• Spain attacks the verifiers of the unilateral Basque "peace process"
• 10 lies on the end of armed struggle in the Basque Country
• Some thoughts on the Spain-ETA negotiations (or lack of them)

Merkel's despicable support of Erdogan threatens freedom of speech in Germany

A few weeks ago, a famous political satire program in German TV, dedicated this song to the Turkish dictator Erdogan:

No big deal, right? The same humorist, Jan Böhmermann, has made similar satirical songs on many other political figures, German or otherwise, for example Donald Trump or Yanis Varoufakis (which I liked so much I mirrored in this blog).

Well, the issue has gotten out of control. The Turkish dictator demanded Böhmerman, using a forgotten legal backdoor, section 103, that forbids criticism of foreign leaders. In order to reach the courts, the demand had to be approved by Chancelor Merkel. She signed it, just like she signed, along with all other EU leaders, giving Turkey millions of euros, which will go to the DAESH or to corruption or both, after Erdogan used masses of Syrian and Afghan refugees as a blackmail tool in a well-known development that has been at the forefront of the European and global news in the last months. 

As result, Böhmerman suspended his very successful satiric magazine, asking viewers to watch cat videos online instead. 

The conflict has not stopped there. Yesterday, Pirate Party's regional leader Bruno Krahm was placed under incommunicado arrest after daring to read the lyrics of the song in a public demonstration for freedom of speech at Berlin, which marched behind a banner that read: "No power for Erdogan, freedom against Erdogan". 

It has also been known that the Turkish embassy in the Netherlands is pressing Turkish expatriates to report any online comments against Erdogan or his authoritarian Islamo-Fascist regime.

I am pretty sure however that this story will end with the head of Merkel and that of her beloved friend Erdogan served on a cheap platter for the delight of us all. One head at a time anyhow and Merkel's is no doubt going to be the first one, as she has chosen to protect with her robust body the much weaker one of her Turkish crony. We Europeans are not at all in the mood for fascism. Bye Angela, good riddance.

Update on the ongoing French social uprising (video)

Good synthesis of the latest developments in the ongoing uprising in France:




From LINKS International Journal (a strongly recommended site).

Police evicts squares in France again, the struggle continues

Paris yesterday evening

The military police (gendarmerie) forcibly evicted those concentrated tonight again against the labor reform law that aims to imitate the "Spanish model" (almost 25% unemployment and nearly all new jobs extremely precarious). 

While protesters sang Moustakis' songs, police employed riot equipment (rubber bullets, tear gas) to disperse the crowds. They later pretended to the media that they only had to ask politely, what is not what the victims of the gendarmes say.

Organizers claim 1.2 million people have taken part in the protests, while police cuts down the number to 400,000. 

Popular assemblies have been called for today at 15:00 (in two hours) and pickets have been called for Tuesday 5 in the high schools (licées). 

With due caution, this looks pretty much like the squares movements of 2011 in Tunisia, Egypt, Greece and Spain, later extended to the USA even. Something to watch closely and aid all we can.

The People takes over the streets in France

Many central squares and other public spaces were occupied tonight by peaceful but angry crowds demanding the total retrieval of the labor reform, that attacks the 35-hour week and promises to capitalists easier exploitation and Spain-style lay-off rules (i.e. no rules at all, resulting in massive unemployment and only precarious low-pay jobs, sometimes no pay at all even with the pretext of getting "experience"). 

The most affected cities in the "Standing Night" (initially called only for Paris) were Paris, Lyon, Caen, Bordeaux and Nantes. In Toulouse a theater was occupied instead. In most cases, the protesters were evicted by the military police (gendarmerie) but new protests are scheduled for today, beginning now (at 18:00 is the main call for Paris' Place de la Republique).

More than a million people took place in the protests yesterday, a 24 hr. general strike. Some opinion polls estimate that the support for the PS government (totally displaced to the far right in all kind of policies) is extremely low, with the Left Front (FdG) almost taking over the hegemony of the French left (although the most benefited are no doubt the right-wing parties). This should come as no surprise since Hollande disowned all his promises and placed a quasi-fascist, former interior minister Manuel Valls, at the helm of his cabinet, who is the main one pushing for far-right policies like the permanent state of emergency or the controversial labor reform that almost make Marine Le Pen look progressive in comparison (but do not get confused please: she's Mussolini with ovaries). 

Is this protest the much awaited reactivation of the worker aspect of the class war in the heart of Europe? Clearly it is to some extent at least, although it is soon to say what effects will have. What is clear is that there is no exit to the crisis within Capitalism, hence sooner or later the socialist alternatives will take over, because there is no other possibility to get things straight. We only need a real non-manipulated, non-treacherous, real left, truly socialist, radical movement that is ready to set things straight. We also need to build it and keep it strong and healthy. 

From islamic terror to state terror: France brutally smashes Climate March

The effects of the prolonged and probably to be permanent state of emergency in France are already becoming patent: the Climate March was crushed today by the French police with tear gas and batons, just because... there is no right to demonstrate anymore in the Republique. 

Hundreds of people were arrested. 

The result of capricious state over-reaction to the terror attacks is that France is now heading to become a Islamic State of its own kind. Maybe not Islamic but similarly fascist in any case.

→ Russia Today.

"Patriot Act" in France

The DAESH attacks in Paris are, I understand, controlled and authorized by NATO's "Deep State". Much like the 9/11 attacks in the USA 14 years ago, they have two objectives:

1. To provide a "Pearl Harbor" style justification for foreign military intervention, in this case clearly focused on Syria and ignoring the actual supporters of the DAESH, such as Saudi Arabia and its Gulf vassals, Turkey or the United States, among others (Putin recently mentioned 40 countries, several of which have seats in the G20). 
2. To induce a state of panic among the European population, French particularly, in order to push ahead with anti-democratic and repressive new legislation and de facto measures. This part can be split in three categories:
1. Anti-immigration (in spite of the fact that the authors of the attacks were French or Belgian and that they had been freely traveling in and out of the Schengen area without police ever interfering).
2. Against free transit of people in the European Union. This is about the only good thing we get from this confederacy: that the artificial borders are less apparent. 
3. Reinforcement of authoritarian tendencies and particularly of the police state, dismantling democracy and human rights for the sake of "security".

However the police state clearly failed to prevent the attacks, attacks that had been announced (for example the erratic Spanish political analyst J. Verstrynge considered a French 9/11 style attack certain and immediate in a debate two weeks ago, citing French government sources). The Schengen area was already suspended on the pretext of the Climate Summit and this was totally useless: the terrorists could travel between Paris and Brussels unhindered. Many increments of the police state (telecom spying without judicial authorization, among others) had already been approved after the Charlie Hebdo attacks and these were totally useless. The police state is useless, especially if it is the Deep State who organizes the attacks. Without purging our own hawks and secret services this kind of attacks can only happen once and again, if the shadow commanders think they are useful for their agenda of rallying the masses in favor of militarism, imperialism and repression. 

Anyway, what is happening now (source: Gara) is that President Hollande and PM Valls (what's up with France's hyper-successful police ministers: first Sarkozy, now Valls?) are promoting an increase of the police state. By the moment there is an extension of the state of emergency for three months, much more than the usual 12 days. But what they are proposing is a change of the constitution to the worse. In spite of the French nationality of the terrorists, their focus is xenophobic: allowing banning the entry in the Hexagon to double nationality citizens, speedy ways of expulsion of immigrants, and even the removal of the nationality for those indicted with "terrorism" charges (not for looting the public treasury like Sarkozy?). This last measure goes against the International Declaration of Human Rights which clearly states that people have the right to a nationality and not to be deprived of it. 

They will also forbid associations inciting to hate but it does not seem like the fascist National Front and their xenophobic discourse will be included.

Additionally more jobs will be created in the police apparatus: 5000 new gendarmes, 2800 new judiciary workers and 1000 new border officers. 

An interesting read is also Tierry Meyssan's article on the attacks. A bit clouted with lots of details but emphasizing that it is the Deep State who's running the show, largely the Pentagon directly (people like Petraeus, Clinton or Allen, and of course we can't forget the long menacing shadow of Sarkozy). Interestingly he mentions that the very day of November 13 the emergency services of Paris held a drill of reaction against multiple terrorist attacks. Coincidence? This kind of "coincidences" happen too often, so most certainly not.

India: thousands arrested in Hyderabad to prevent march against state terrorism

The state of Telangana has arrested some thousands almost overnight, mostly in Hyderabad, in order to prevent a demonstration against state orchestrated assassinations of Maoist militants. The exact figures are unclear: the Hindustan Times states that the figure is between 3000 to 4000 while Democracy and Class Struggle puts the figure of arrests as high as 10,000. 

The march, called by the Telangana Democratic Front and declared illegal by authorities, was meant to denounce the assassination by state forces of two Maoist militants in what is claimed to be a "fake encounter". 

The fact that so many people were arrested suggests that the sympathy for the Maoists is much larger than the government claims. In any case the mass arrests against freedom of speech and demonstration are symptomatic of a broken system that is leaning dangerously towards totalitarianism unable to face its own crisis in a constructive manner because it would imply giving away elite privileges.

Source: Odio de Clase.

If someone still doubts the Basque Country is occupied...

... that one only has to look at what happened yesterday in Altsasu (Navarre).

Every year the Sovereign People of Altsasu attempts to celebrate a fiesta-protest known as "Ospa Eguna" (Go Away Day), demanding the evacuation of the Spanish Military Police (Guardia Civil) from the town and valley, and more in general from the whole Basque Country, because they are disruptive, abusive and unwanted occupation forces.

And every year the occupation forces try to demonstrate they are the ones in command and not the People. That's what I call a dictatorship.

This year it was painfully obvious:

The "logic" for the military aggression was that "we don't like it". Not even using and abusing the law and the judicial system, just absolute arbitrariness from those who know that they won't be ever challenged in their own legal and political system. 

Yes, Franco won the war and his ghost is still very much alive.

Black shirts in the streets of Ferguson (USA)

They call themselves "Oath Keepers" but are a heavily armed paramilitary group ("militia"), 100% white, issuing electoral support for the extremist and racist presidential candidate Donal Trump and made up of former soldiers, police agents and other paramilitary structures. Police is allowing them to walk heavily armed in the middle of the demonstrators. Let's not forget that Ferguson is a municipality with a black majority but effectively controlled by the white minority, particularly the bourgeoisie, thanks to the very anti-democratic US electoral system, which actively works against actual popular participation and strongly favors the twin major parties.

Armed white men now walking down #Ferguson. No problem. Can you imagine armed blacks doing same? pic.twitter.com/74lOXPiLha

— Grace Lidia Suarez (@gracels) August 11, 2015

When I read this yesterday night, I could only think in Mussolini's black shirts and how similar armed far right squads brought Italy to 25 years of dictatorship after just crushing all working class organization and resistance, serving always the demands of the bourgeois oligarchs.

Of course that there are many other cases, today's Ukraine notably, backed by the same extremist oligarchs from the USA, but post-WWI Italy is archetypal.

And I don't care if their shirts are mottled or pink, nope.

What happened to Tyrone Harris?

Two days ago, when there was this huge march in commemoration of the murder at the hands of police of Michael Brown, just when the police chief was talking to the press and saying how tolerant and patient they were trying to be with popular protests, there was a mysterious shooting that left the chief open mouthed.

As result another African American young man was shot and severely injured, shot in the back by police officers who alleged that they were responding to fire. Strange to say the least.

Some footage has become available recently on this matter. Notably a surveillance camera caught a key fraction of the events:

We can see how people is walking around normally, relaxed, when they suddenly run all around and look for cover. Someone was shooting.

One of them, plausibly Tyrone Harris, pulls out a gun and heroically attempts to face out the attackers, moving out of camera towards them afterwards. 

According to the police version, Tyrone was shot (in the back!!!) when he was firing against plainclothes police officers. 

What is clear from the video is that, no matter how the racists want to put it, he was exerting the right to self-defense. He could not know that the attackers were police agents because they were in plainclothes (according to the police version). But in any case, why would police agents shoot to a peaceful crowd like the one we see at the beginning of the video?

That is the big question. The question is not if Harris' gun was legally owned (it was not) or if he had played the piano at the police station before (who hasn't?), the real question is why he felt the need to pull out the gun and attempt self-defense?

And the answer is very apparent in the video itself: someone was shooting from that direction. Were the shooters plainclothes' police officers? Probably but it is the Ferguson Police Department who has to explain, again. 

My impression is that some of those racist cops tried to cause an incident, shaming their own chief precisely when he was speaking to the press about how peaceful and tolerant everyone was. That it was a mini-coup consistent with the power dynamics in the beleaguered US town, which has become the epicenter of the much wider conflict between a police state in which the repressive system systematically attacks minorities, very particularly Blacks but even more so Native Americans and also Latinos, and these minorities, and in general the working class across racial and ethnic divides, who oppose it.

The intrusion of the black shirts is only another step in the restoration of the KKK order by racist terror. 

It may also be of interest this video on how Tyrone Harris was being denied an ambulance after the shooting and how the ones protesting that were eventually arrested. These are not the only peaceful protesters arrested these days in Ferguson, hundreds have been. Meanwhile racist white crackpots with guns are allowed to walk around fully armed.

Very large protests across the USA against racist killer cops

Once again the inhumane brutality of the bourgeoisie's thugs, alias police agents (yes, those are the real thugs, not a bunch of people raging because of systematic murder and abuse by the authorities), manages to trigger the just rage of many many thousands across the streets of the cities of the supposedly most powerful state on Earth, totally unable to control its own racist cops.

On Twitter:
→ #BaltimoreUprising
→ #NewYorkCity2Baltimore
→ #BlackLivesMatter
→ #FreddyGray
→ etc.

Protests shatter USA on acquittal of Ferguson cop

Almost every day a black person is killed by police in the USA. Never mind the thousands who are arrested and convicted on minor crimes such as possession of marihuana to feed the slavery system of the private prisons. Ferguson is just the tip of the iceberg of a colonial racist system in an extremely undemocratic context.

No wonder that an uproar has surged in the streets of the cities across the Imperial Core.

→ https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ferguson?src=hash

Los Angeles march took over major highway

This uproar is good and necessary and does not only answers to circumstances. However for things to get straight there needs to be a Socialist focus that tackles the problem of oligarchic rule and lack of democracy. Only People's Power can address the very urgent needs of Humankind in the USA or anywhere else. 

The objective conditions for Revolution are here, and not just in the USA, however the subjective ones are not. People is angry with very good reason but they do not seem to know yet how to tackle the prevalent injustice, how to defeat the bourgeois oligarchy and establish a Real Democracy.

Without conscience we are powerless. With class conscience we can change it all. 

Update:

The situation across the USA seems to have been developing towards increased protests all across the territory as well as towards increased violence, particularly from police forces, which had no qualm about gassing around everyone or even shooting at them with rubber bullets and possibly even live ammo (unconfirmed).  

Twitter reports from Ferguson tell of police commanding the press to leave the city at once and also of heavy automatic gunfire. This kind of violence is not only found in the suburb of St. Louis but also in many other cities. 

LA cop shooting against demonstrators with a drum-fed grenade launcher (source)

Tortures reported in political trial against Basque youths

The five youths arrested in Loiola are part of a much larger group of 28 being tried for their political activism and ideology at the Spanish Inquisition (Audiencia Nacional) these days in Madrid. 

The trial began yesterday with the victims of political persecution turning their backs to the court in signal of non-recognition and showing banners in demand of repatriation of Basque prisoners. 

After an hour and a half of suspension the farce trial continued at close doors with the declarations of the victims of persecution, most of whom have denounced tortures that forced them to sign self-inculpatory declarations. 

Ander Maeztu reported systematic beatings and the so-called "bag" torture (asphyxia by putting a bag on your head). Garazi Autor denounced sexual agressions and beatings. 

Izaskun Goñi, who knew for two years before her arrest that she was being under persecution, reported the anguish suffered for all that time expecting that any night (it's almost always by night) police entered her home and arrested her, beginning the much feared "long journey". When it finally happened she suffered a panic attack. 

Among the "evidence" against her is her participation in a protest against the murder of baker Anger Berrueta by a policeman in Pamplona in 2004. 

Ohiana López and Eneko Villegas reported systematic beatings and forced physical exercise up to extenuation. They say that their declarations are totally false. 

Ibon Esteban and Egoi Irisarri also denounced tortures. Esteban managed to identify one of his torturers and showed a photo of this vile man to the court. Irisarri declared that in Canillas [police station] I went through hell.

The only one not reporting tortures this first day of the trial was Endika Pérez, who was arrested by French police in the Northern Basque Country, soon after taking part in a sit-in in Izpura precisely to denounce the possibility of being arrested and deported to Spain. 

Second day of the hearing

The day began with the court sending to prison the five citizens arrested in Loiola, claiming risk of evasion, action that was opposed by the defense on the grounds that they were all the time localized and never attempted such evasion. 

Then the narrations of torture sessions continued:

Imanol Beristain reported being subjected to forced postures, beatings and kickings, sexual aggressions. He reported to have lost consciousness because of the pain, waking up drenched in sweat. 

Rubén Villa declared that he began to be tortured already in the Bilbao police station. He was told, sarcastically, that he could relax, that they would not pull out his fingernails nor bury him in quicklime (as happened to two ETA members decades ago, after being captured by the Spanish police). Then they dragged him to a window, pulling half his body out and said: this is the last time you will breathe the air of Bilbao. The forensic doctor did not even pay attention to his complains. 

Xabat Moran explained: they manage to make your head crack... your body is still yours but your head they own it. I did not control my own actions. 

Moran denounced forced postures, beating, "the bag" (asphyxiation) and insinuations that they were raping his girlfriend in the nearby room. Just an hour before being sent to the instruction judge he was naked and in state of shock in the very room he had been tortured, being that the reason he signed a false declaration. 

Ainara Ladrón reported "hell" in the journey to Madrid: they beat me, they hit me with their fists on my ribs, they pushed me against the window and yelled at me all the time. She also denounced sexual aggressions in the police station, rejecting what she signed then, even if this declaration was not self-inculpatory. She has requested to skip the bulk of the trial sessions on the grounds of being pregnant, request that has been granted.

Ikoitz Arrese, Saioa Zubiaur and Xabier Bidaurre also reported tortures in the incommunicado period of their arrest. Arrese denounced a fake execution, with a policeman placing a gun on her head. Among other tortures, Bidaurre reported that he was threatened with the rape of his companion.

The farce trial continues today. 

Source[es]: Naiz Info (link 1, link 2).

Civil resistance against political repression at Loiola

The five youths challenging the Spanish Inquisition

Several Basque youths under political persecution by the Spanish authorities have staged today, along with a huge number of supporters an act of civil resistance against the repression they are subjected to for their political ideas. The scenario chosen for this act of defiance was the Sanctuary of Loiola, a Jesuit temple erected in the home lands of Eneko Loiola, known to posterity as Ignatius of Loyola.

"Basque" police soon appeared in riot gear, their faces covered under the black masks of mercenary shame. The result can be watched in the following videos:

Sources: Borroka Garaia Da, Argia.

Masks made easy identification of the persecuted impossible

Update (Sep 24): 

Those above were just the first videos that made it to the web. The police intervention lasted three hours and included a good deal of violence. Besides the five victims of inquisitorial persecution, two others have been arrested accused of "aggression" against a policeman, almost certainly untrue.

You can watch several other videos at Muy Basto and judge yourself.

It is true that a cop was injured but that's because he slipped badly on the stairs, falling down painfully, but all on his own. 

Many citizens were also injured by police violence.

The names of the five victims of inquisitorial persecution are: Jazint Ramirez, Xabier Arina, Imanol Salinas, Igarki Robles and Irati Tobar.

Repression for civil resistance: huge fines requested against some nonviolent activists

In a distinct but related development, five Basque citizens are being judged for taking part in the "human wall" that attempted to protect another victim of political persecution, Urtza Alkorta, last year (see here and here).

Arbitrarily accused of "aggression against authorities", four of them face possible fines of € 8850, around a year's salary for many.

Source: Naiz Info[eu].

Imagine that there is a pro-occupation demo and nobody goes...

Go away!!

Yes, I'm paraphrasing the old war resisters' slogan "Imagine that there is a war and nobody goes". It's not that different in fact and that is exactly what happened.

Far right groups called for a demo in Pamplona in support of the Spanish occupation forces. Only some ten fanatics showed up and the demo was canceled right away by the organizers, admittedly because nobody had come.

It seems obvious that NOBODY supports the Spanish military and police occupation or Navarre or the Basque Country in general.

Source: Sare Antifaxista[es].



Update (Sep 24):

Image of the demo:

Satire of the failed demo:

Source: BGD!

Racist state terror in the USA

Impressive report on the state terror against the population of Ferguson (suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, USA), who protest precisely against police terrorism. From Webguerrillero:

Living under occupation in Ferguson

Webguerrillero | agosto 15, 2014

Nicole Colson reports on the uprising against police murder in a Missouri city–and the response of political and law enforcement authorities to double down on violence.

Police train machine guns on a crowd of protesters in Ferguson, Mo.
SINCE 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by an unidentified police officer in Ferguson, Mo., on August 9, the majority Black city just outside of St. Louis has been rocked by protests against the racism of a system that sees the lives of young Black men as disposable.

The response of authorities has been to flood the town with hundreds of police from dozens of neighboring cities and towns, decked out in riot gear, and armed with assault weapons, attack dogs and militarized vehicles for “crowd control.”Protesters say “keeping the peace” is the last thing on these cops’ minds–the invaders are acting in a deliberately provocative and aggressive manner, leading to an escalation of violence over several more nights of protest.
In the early morning hours of Wednesday, police shot and critically wounded another young man in Ferguson, not long after that night’s protests dispersed. Police say they were called to the area by reports of men wearing ski masks and wielding shotguns, but when they arrived at the scene, the unnamed victim flashed a handgun–”forcing” them to shoot.

But most people in Ferguson–and millions more like them around the country–can’t help but be skeptical about any police claims at this point.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

LOOKING MORE like an occupying army than anything else, the massive police presence in Ferguson is responsible for the tensions and violence in Ferguson, having inflicted violent repression on protesters for four days and nights, including tear gas and rubber and wooden bullets.
Steve Walsh was an innocent bystander. On Tuesday, He was walking to the home of his two-month-old son and the child’s mother when he got caught up in a police attack on protesters. Walsh told the Guardian that he was struck in the neck by a “wooden pellet” which left “a bloody, coin-sized wound behind his left ear,” the article stated. Walsh told the reporter “I almost fainted. Blood just started coming out.”

According to the Washington Post, the clashes come “like clockwork–when the sun goes down each night, those remaining on Ferguson’s dark streets are met by heavily armored police, prompting confrontations and injuries.”

Pictures of Ferguson on Wednesday night showed a huge cloud of smoke or gas over part of the city. Another showed what was reportedly some kind of an incendiary device used by police as it exploded in the street, throwing off a massive shower of sparks.
One writer at Jezebel described the I Am Mike Brown livestream playing on the KARG Argus Radio website:

Viewers watched as police fired rubber bullets into crowds of unarmed citizens. We watched as police advanced on a group of peaceful demonstrators. I Am Mike Brown livestream reported police were demanding that they turn off their cameras. “Because they don’t want witnesses,” the reporter said.

And no wonder. While law enforcement tries to paint protesters as violent thugs, CNN cameras caught one white cop on camera taunting demonstrators: “Bring it!” he yelled, “All you fucking animals–bring it!”

Amid the violence of police, many protesters respond with a symbolic action that is a poignant echo of how Michael Brown died: with hands raised in the air, telling police, “Hands up. Don’t shoot.” Other protesters march with signs that draw a parallel to the assertion of basic humanity during the civil rights struggle only a few hours south of Ferguson in Memphis, Tenn.: “I am a man,” “I am a woman.”

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -

IN A statement, Ferguson police “requested” that those wishing to hold vigils or protests “do so only during daylight hours in an organized and respectful manner. We further ask all those wishing to demonstrate or assemble to disperse well before the evening hours to ensure the safety of the participants and the safety of our community.”

But for police to lecture the residents of Ferguson–or anyone else–about “safety” after they gunned down an unarmed teenager and treated protesters like animals is the height of hypocrisy. The cops in Ferguson and the governmental authorities who issue their orders don’t deserve anyone’s “respect,” as their actions this past week have shown again and again.

Police still won’t release the name of the officer who shot Michael Brown, because of the “threats” he might face. But they’ve been more than happy to share with the media the names and mug shots of those arrested in the past week for supposed looting.

It’s an illustration of the racism that lies at the heart of the eruption of anger in Ferguson: A young unarmed Black man has his life stolen by a white police officer whose identity is protected–while Blacks alleged to have committed nonviolent crimes like burglary have their names dragged through the mud on the evening news.

Despite the violence of police, protesters have called out this double standard, night after night. Like Jammell Spann, a young demonstrator who yelled out at police clearing a protest, “All of my friends have been killed. I’m sick of it!”

On Thursday morning, it was reported that St. Louis Alderman Antonio French–who has been critical of Ferguson police and a presence at the protests, where he has been videotaping the police for the past several days–had been arrested. There was no word on the circumstances of that arrest as this article was being written, but it was no doubt retaliation for his criticism of the police.

The cops’ fear of independent voices like French’s is understandable–they have been going out of their way to make sure their preferred story is the only one coming out of Ferguson. As The Wire’s Arit John wrote: “In the last few days reporters have said they were barred from entering the city. Reporters who have made it in have been tear gassed and threatened by police officers, alongside the residents of Ferguson.”

Adding to the clampdown on reporting is the fact that the Federal Aviation Administration declared a “no-fly” zone for low-flying aircraft over the area on August 12, after a police helicopter was reportedly shot at–meaning that news helicopters are unable to gather aerial footage of confrontations between police and protesters.

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IN SOME cases, journalists have been turned away from press conferences, and on Twitter, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Trymaine Lee–who is Black–reported on August 12: “I’ve been told to disperse and go to my residence.”

The next day, when Washington Post reporter Wes Lowery and Huffington Post reporter Ryan Reilly questioned the pushy tactics of police and engaged in the constitutionally protected act of videotaping cops, they were immediately arrested.

The two were working from inside a local McDonald’s that reporters have been using as a hub. Police, some in riot gear, came in and demanded to see ID. According to Lowery:

Moments later, the police reemerged, telling us that we had to leave. I pulled my phone out and began recording video.

An officer with a large weapon came up to me and said, “Stop recording.”

I said, “Officer, do I not have the right to record you?”

He backed off but told me to hurry up. So I gathered my notebook and pens with one hand while recording him with the other hand.

As I exited, I saw Ryan to my left, having a similar argument with two officers. I recorded him, too, and that angered the officer.

Apparently not exiting the restaurant fast enough for the cops, a confused Lowery was arrested–and so was Reilly:

Multiple officers grabbed me. I tried to turn my back to them to assist them in arresting me. I dropped the things from my hands.

“My hands are behind my back,” I said. “I’m not resisting. I’m not resisting.” At which point one officer said: “You’re resisting. Stop resisting.”

That was when I was most afraid–more afraid than of the tear gas and rubber bullets.

“They essentially acted as a military force,” Reilly later told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “It was incredible. The worst part was he slammed my head against the glass purposefully on the way out of McDonald’s, and then sarcastically apologized for it.”

The reporters were told they were under arrest for trespassing in a McDonald’s–but the officers refused to give them their names or badge numbers. Once word got around to police officials that two reporters had been arrested, they were quickly released.
Residents of Ferguson, however, don’t know when they’ll be released from the police occupation they now live under.

“It’s like the elephant in the room,” Yusra, a resident of East St. Louis, told The Daily Beast’s Justin Glawe. “We are being occupied.”

She added: “They say it’s the death of three men that started a chain reaction of death and destruction in Gaza. Will we as a people rise up like the people of Gaza? Will our community be bombed like last night with tear gas? That was a terrorist attack.”

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BUT TO hear St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar tell it, the police have acted as a model of restraint.

“To maintain that restraint, it is, frankly, remarkable,” Belmar said of his officers after several nights of protests, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The police say they won’t release the name of the officer who shot Michael Brown out of “fears for his safety.” They’ve had no comment about Dorian Johnson’s claim that officers refused to take his statement. According to Freeman Bosley, Johnson’s lawyer and the former mayor of St. Louis, Bosley contacted the police to offer an interview with his client–the person standing closest to Michael Brown when he was shot.

“They didn’t even want to talk to him,” Bosley told MSNBC. “[The police] don’t want the facts. What they want is to justify what happened…What they are trying to do now is justify what happened instead of trying to point out the wrong. Something is wrong here, and that’s what it is.”
Dorian Johnson told MSNBC that he understands the outrage that protesters in Ferguson feel toward police:

There are two crowds. An older crowd that wants justice, but there’s anger. Then it’s the younger crowd that wants revenge, but there’s anger there, too. What do you expect when something is steadily occurring and it’s hurting the community and nobody is speaking out or doing anything about it. I feel their anger, I feel their disgust.

But according to Ferguson City Police Chief Thomas Jackson, the “trouble” in Ferguson is being caused by “outside agitators.” On Fox News’ Hannity show, Jackson said:

It’s a lot of outside agitators that are causing the violence. We’ve had several very peaceful protests–they’re angry, they have questions they want answers to. I understand that. I get that. But the community has now stepped up once this violence happened. Our community leaders, the clergy, some of the activists, have stepped forward and said, “Enough is enough.”

That tactic–pitting “good” protesters against “bad” ones, and blaming violence and property destruction on “outside agitators”–is a tried-and-true method of police and the state. During the civil rights movement, complaints about “outside agitators” and “mobs bent on violence” were part of an attempt to divide and conquer, as Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor explained in a SocialistWorker.org article about the urban rebellions of the 1960s:

[T]he rebellions are seen as the dysfunctional cousin to the peaceful and nonviolent Southern civil rights movement. Thus, while the civil rights movement is universally lauded as successful because of its strategic emphasis on nonviolence, the riots are universally condemned because of the violence inherent in them. Moreover, they are also blamed for alienating white allies and supporters, and are widely viewed as the origins of white “backlash politics.”

A New York Times editorial, written only a few weeks after the riots in Detroit in 1967, captured this argument: “The riots, rather than developing a clamor for great social progress to wipe out poverty, to a large extent have had the reverse effect and have increased the crises for use of police force and criminal law.”
Yet that perspective didn’t appear to correspond with a number of polls taken 10 days later that showed massive support for the expansion of social programs aimed at mitigating the material deprivation that many connected with the spreading violence.
In a poll of both African Americans and whites, strong majorities supported anti-poverty programs. As a Washington Post headline summarized, “Races agree on ghetto abolition and the need for a WPA [the federal Works Projects Administration]-style program.” Some 69 percent of Americans supported federal efforts to create a jobs program, and 65 percent believed in tearing down ghettos. Another 60 percent supported a federal program to eliminate rats, and 57 percent supported summer camp programs for Black youth.

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THAT FERGUSON was a powder keg of anger waiting to explode isn’t the fault of “outside agitators,” nor of its majority African American population. It is the fault of the racist system–and, in particular, the sentries of that system, the police–responsible for the killing of Michael Brown.

Ferguson is a community where the stamp of racism and inequality is imprinted on every aspect of life–from jobs to housing to racial profiling. It was once known in the area as a haven for Blacks who sought to escape poverty and violence in St. Louis, and who were prevented from living in more affluent neighborhoods as a result of redlining and other discriminatory housing practices. But as Blacks moved into Ferguson, whites fled, a New York Times editorial reports:

In 1980, the town was 85 percent white and 14 percent black; by 2010, it was 29 percent white and 69 percent Black. But Blacks did not gain political power as their numbers grew. The mayor and the police chief are white, as are five of the six City Council members. The school board consists of six white members and one Hispanic. As [University of Iowa professor Colin] Gordon explains, many Black residents, lacking the wealth to buy property, move from apartment to apartment…

The disparity is most evident in the Ferguson Police Department, of which only three of 53 officers are Black. The largely white force stops Black residents far out of proportion to their population, according to statistics kept by the state attorney general. Blacks account for 86 percent of the traffic stops in the city, and 93 percent of the arrests after those stops.

Ferguson residents have spoken powerfully in ways that put a human face on these statistics. As Michael Brown’s mother Leslie McSpadden told CNN’s Don Lemon in between sobs, “Just because my son is a 6’4″ male Black walking down the city street does not meet he meets the profile for anything other than just walking down the street.”

Michael Brown Sr. said in the same interview, “My son don’t have justice, and we don’t have no peace. If he has no justice, we won’t get no peace.”

That’s why the smear that the people of Ferguson have engaged in unrestrained “looting” and “rioting” since the death of Michael Brown is so despicable.

The biggest property damage was done to a QuikTrip convenience store that was set on fire and then tagged with anti-police graffiti. As it turned out, the crowd likely turned its anger on the store when word spread that someone at the store made the call to police reporting an alleged case of shoplifting, which was reportedly the pretext for the officer to stop Michael Brown in the first place. Other targets of protesters include a Walmart and check-cashing store–that is, symbols of poverty and exploitation in an impoverished neighborhood.

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PERHAPS REALIZING that the heavy-handed response from cops has only inflamed the situation, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced on Thursday that he was going to pull St. Louis County police out of Ferguson–reportedly assuring clergy and community members that there will be “operational shifts” and “you all will see a different tone.”

It would be hard for the police and politicians to do any worse than they already have in infuriating the people of Ferguson. But however “different” the tone of police enforcement is, the angry tone of the protest won’t change. It is a bitter reaction to the injustice at the heart of not only Michael Brown’s death, but the death of John Crawford, a 22-year-old Black man shot and killed by police in a Beavercreek, Ohio, Walmartbecause he was carrying a toy gun; of the death of Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old Black man shot and killed by police as he lay on the sidewalk in South Los Angeles, complying with their orders; of the death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Black man choked to death by police on a Staten Island sidewalk in New York; of the death of Dante Parker, a 36-year-old Black man Tasered to death by police in Victorville, Calif.

These are just some of the most recent examples of Black lives stolen by police murder. And beyond the killings, untold numbers of people–men and women–have their lives upended by an injustice system that is racist to its core.

And what has been the response of America’s first Black president to this epidemic of Black lives stolen? Almost total silence.

The president expressed his condolences over the killing of Michael Brown, calling it “heartbreaking.” But as tear gas and rubber bullets were being fired at protesters and riot police roamed the streets of Ferguson on Wednesday night, White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz tweeted from Martha’s Vineyard, where the president is currently vacationing: “Readout of tonight’s social gathering coming shortly–spoiler alert: a good time was had by all.”

Obama’s failure to offer any substantial political initiative on the urgent question of fighting racism is because he is dedicated to maintaining the system that produces it.

Instead, we should be looking to the example of those fighting racism and fighting to win justice for Michael Brown–and all the other “Michael Browns” across this country whose names we don’t yet know.
Like those at the historically Black Howard University where, on Wednesday night, during a meeting about freshman move-in, students felt compelled to respond to Michael Brown’s death and the protests in Ferguson. In solidarity, hundreds gathered for a powerful picture–hands raised, faces defiant.


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Also: arrests in New York protests in solidarity with Missouri (video). 

Police repression of solidarity with Palestine in Paris - 50,000 march in London for Gaza

As I mentioned before the fascistoid Government of Manuel Valls tried to forbid a demonstration of solidarity with Gaza in Paris. In the last minute the courts reversed the Government's decision and authorized it but by then only the New Anticapitalist Party was standing for the march, legal or not. 

For two hours the demonstration, which gathered several thousands, marched through Paris chanting "we all are Palestinians", "no to Gaza blockade", "Israel assassin, Hollande accomplice", etc.

However at 16:20 police attacked the march, apparently unprovoked, triggering a street battle around the North Rail Station of the city. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].


50,000 march in London

In England instead everything was more peaceful and some 50,000 people (up to 100,000, according to some sources) marched through the streets of London in support of the victims of Zionist murderous madness. 

Some few hundreds fascists rallied in support of Genocide in a separate location.

Source: Jews sans frontieres.

French State bans Palestine solidarity demos

Surprising even for a government led by such a fascist beast as Manuel Valls. As the British conservative newspaper Daily Mail reports

France's Socialist government provoked outrage today by becoming the first in the world to ban protests against Israeli action in Palestine.

In what is viewed as an outrageous attack on democracy, Socialist Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said mass demonstrations planned for the weekend should be halted.

Mr Cazeneuve said there was a ‘threat to public order’, while opponents said he was ‘criminalising’ popular support of the Palestinian people. 

Jews sans frontieres also mentions that this has been pushed by a fascist organization known as Jewish Defense League (LDJ by its French acronym but an international group), which has been actively attacking Internationalist protests against the genocide in Gaza.