#anti terror law

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

Richard Medhurst, a Syrian-British independent journalist who defends Palestinians' right to resist Israeli apartheid, occupation, and other crimes, said this week that he was recently arrested at London's Heathrow Airport.

🔥 Fuel Our Work: https://bit.ly/TFTPSubs 🎙 TFTP Podcast: https://bit.ly/TFTPPodcast

#TheFreeThoughtProject #TFTP

[ashwantsafreepalestine]

Zionist says to anti-Zionist, Orthodox Jew:

"Go to Auschwitz!"

Remind me again, what’s antisemitism?

[pannaginip]

Environmental defender Rowena Dasig has gone missing after a court dismissed the trumped-up charges against her.

Dasig, who was reportedly freed from the Lucena City District Jail (LCDJ) on August 22, has not been seen or heard from since her supposed release, leaving her family, legal team, and human rights advocates concerned for her safety.

Dasig was arrested alongside community health worker Miguela Peniero on July 12, 2023, by elements of the 85th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army (IBPA).

The human rights group [Karapatan Southern Tagalog] recounted how their humanitarian team, along with the Free Owen & Ella Network, had been coordinating with LCDJ since August 21 to process Dasig’s release papers. Despite their efforts, they were met with what they called as “delaying tactics” from jail officials. The group said they were given the runaround by various offices without providing clear information.

According to LCDJ paralegal Almira Alfuerta, Dasig was allegedly picked up by her family—a claim immediately refuted by her relatives, who confirmed they had no knowledge of her whereabouts.

The disappearance of Dasig has heightened fears for her safety, especially given the long history of human rights abuses against political prisoners in the Philippines.

During her more than a year in detention, Dasig endured harassment and isolation, with her paralegals deprived from visiting and herself denied participation in activities with other persons deprived of liberty (PDLs).

2024 Aug. 24

[nando161mando]

BREAKING| Al Jazeera reports that Dutch lawyers submitted a request to the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli officials.

[cavalierzee]

The Executioners

Revealed: the faces of IDF soldiers that raided al-Shifa hospital, where the IDF committed formidable atrocities inc.

Executing blindfolded & handcuffed Gazans; running over Gazans with tanks & flattening them; killing women & children; burning & destroying the hospital..

Each one of those IDF soldiers who raided al-Shifa hospital is potentially responsible for the murder & killing of over 400 Gazan women, children & men at & around the hospital.

They all come from the Shaked Battalion (Givati Brigade), which could be placed under US sanctions by the Leahy law.

Source: Israeli media is interviewing & praising those soldiers as heroes & celebrating the atrocities they did at al-Shifa hospital as a success.

[agentfascinateur]

[sugarmarbles21]

Israelis are blowing children to pieces, quite frankly I can’t be fucked to care if their embassies go up in smoke because one building doesn’t even come close to comparing to even 1/100000th of the damage they’ve done to Palestine.

It’s because of Palestine that we have these rules in the first place! That we don’t commit acts of terror and have the people who support the Israeli regime brand us as terrorists or radicals like they have been trying for years. The only way to stop the Zionists from eradicating the Palestinians is to play politics better than they’re capable of. This is the biggest and hardest game of 3D chess in our lifetime and we need to play every move perfectly. By burning down that embassy, those people gave our enemies what they were looking for on a silver platter and they will use it as an excuse, if they can, to prolong the delay of any negotiations of a permanent ceasefire and more Palestinians will be killed during that time! I’m sorry for thinking that preventing more people from being killed by the Israeli is more important than getting some petty revenge on them.

I have only been in this movement for a couple of months now so I can’t really speak for the others who have been fighting for decades to see Palestine be finally freed. I can only speak for myself.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Adam Zivo

Published: Nov 30, 2023

Given the chance, Hamas would murder every LGBTQ person in the world

Amid renewed conflict in Gaza, a startling number of queer progressives are romanticizing Palestinians and playing down their hatred towards LGBTQ people. This whitewashing is wrong, no matter how legitimate Palestinian calls for self-determination may be.

Since the early 2000s, radical queer activists have fervently advocated for Palestinian rights under the assumption that, as both communities oppose the capitalist West, “queer liberation” cannot be disentangled from “anti-imperialism.”

This has never made much sense. Strategically aligning against a shared enemy does not necessarily make two groups friends. There are obvious tensions between Palestinians and the LGBTQ community that cannot be ignored — mainly the fact that most Palestinians, along with their political leaders, hate gay and trans people and many want them dead.

In a 2019 poll conducted by the BBC, only five per cent of Palestinians in the West Bank approved of homosexuality — which was the lowest rate within the Middle East and North Africa. Gazans are generally excluded from this research, but local Islamic law mandates death or 10 years of imprisonment for homosexuality.

LGBTQ people face such dire threats to their safety in Gaza and the West Bank that hundreds have fled to Israel as refugees. When interviewed by the United Nations, escapees have recounted harrowing torture and death threats from both family members and Palestinian security forces. Yet even abroad, these people are not safe. Last year, Ahmad Abu Marhia, a 25-year-old gay man living under asylum in Israel, was kidnapped and then beheaded in the West Bank just two months before he was scheduled to immigrate to Canada.

Despite this, activists throughout the West have paraded signs bearing the message “Queers for Palestine” — a slogan that some have ridiculed as the equivalent of “Chickens for KFC.” Earlier this month a banner was hung in the University of British Columbia reading: “Trans liberation can’t happen without Palestinian liberation.”

It’s unclear why LGBTQ rights are in any way dependent on Palestinian self-determination — activist explanations here tend to be vague and muddled at best.

Is the argument that no disadvantaged social group can be free until all are? If that’s the case, then why is this logic rarely, if ever, applied to antisemitism? And if all disadvantaged groups need support, then why should any LGBTQ person, who has limited resources and time, prioritize the Palestinians over the many other communities fighting for rights and attention in the world today?

While LGBTQ people have no special obligation to support Palestinians, there is nothing wrong with defending Palestinians’ fundamental rights despite their rampant homophobia — the validity of these rights is not conditional on moral perfection, after all. If a gay man can support Afghan and Iranian women, or Uyghur Muslims, all of whom have their own prejudices, then Palestinians can be reasonably supported as well.

Deciding what social causes to support is a deeply personal choice for anyone — some LGBTQ people prioritize Palestinians, and others don’t. Each option is understandable, but which path one chooses to take should, ideally, be based on accurate information.

Rather than allow this, though, the queer left uses misleading arguments to inflate support for the Palestinian cause — firstly, by fabricating an artificial obligation to Palestinian liberation, and, secondly, by playing down the severity of Palestinian homophobia (and, by extension, Islamic homophobia).

Queer leftists are quick to argue that the Qur’an’s language on homosexuality is ambiguous, while ignoring the fact that the hadiths, which are the canonical teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, explicitly prohibit homosexuality. Muslim-majority countries do not pass discriminatory legislation arbitrarily — they work off mainstream interpretations of Shariah law.

Some queer leftists try to exonerate Palestinians of any moral responsibility for their homophobia by blaming western colonialism. To make this argument, they typically fixate on the fact that legal prohibitions on homosexuality were first introduced into the region by the British in 1936.

But the British ruled this part of the Middle East for only 30 years (from 1918 to 1948) and implemented sodomy laws for barely more than a decade. Palestinians have had 75 years to improve their attitudes and laws, but haven’t done so and show no desire for change — even though the Israelis, who also inherited these laws, were able to shed this baggage decades ago.

To blame contemporary Palestinian homophobia on a relatively brief, long-dead period of colonial rule is inane and patronizing. It implies that the Palestinians have no moral agency; that their beliefs and institutions are simply dictated by western policy choices; and that they are incapable of being held to the same ethical standards as Europeans.

Another minimization strategy is to argue that Islamic homophobia is not much worse than what is experienced in the West. For example, world-famous drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova (an Irish-American who cosplays as a Soviet citizen) recently claimed on X that anti-LGBTQ violence in Gaza is comparable to that in Scotland or Massachusetts. The post went viral and was liked over 140,000 times.

The last time I checked, gay people are not beheaded or routinely tortured in the West. While some anti-LGTBQ violence exists, only very coddled westerners can delude themselves into believing that this is similar to what occurs in Gaza, the West Bank or the rest of the Islamic world.

Some queer leftists also nonsensically claim that criticizing Palestinian homophobia “erases the existence of queer Palestinians” — but absolutely no one, except maybe Hamas, is saying that LGBTQ Palestinians don’t exist. Calling attention to social prejudice actually spotlights victims who would otherwise be forgotten. This should be glaringly obvious.

The queer left’s tendency to romanticize Palestinians and ignore their homophobia may seem strange at first, but it becomes intelligible when one remembers that this crowd often subscribes to a strain of “anti-imperialism” that interprets the world through a simplistic and reflexively anti-western framework.

This framework divides the world into a simple binary: oppressors (who are unambiguously evil) and the oppressed (who are morally pure). “Anti-imperialists” assume that: i) communities that oppose the West overwhelmingly fall into the “oppressed” class; ii) members of this class tend to have similar political and social priorities; and iii) political violence committed by the oppressed automatically counts as morally justified “resistance.”

Of course, the world does not actually conform to this framework, because global conflicts are far more nuanced than anti-imperialists are willing to admit. There is no black-and-white divide between good and evil, and no grand coalition of victims — real life is too diverse and fractured for such a simplistic narrative.

Yet false simplicity provides comfort to many queer activists, because it conceals the uncomfortable compromises that come with political life. Many progressives feel anxious about their own privileged positions in the world, and, as a result, often resort to performative righteousness to assuage these insecurities. The dynamics here are not much different from what is sometimes seen among the devoutly religious — the presence of doubt, compromise and moral greyness is psychologically unacceptable.

In the context of the Palestinians, this fundamentally selfish need for black-and-white thinking leads the queer left to minimize homophobia that, in any other context, would be unacceptable. It encourages the romanticization of Hamas, a terrorist organization that would, if given the chance, murder every LGBTQ person in the world.

If queer leftists wish to ensconce themselves in fairytales, then that’s their prerogative — but other LGBTQ people are justified in taking a skeptical approach, which, yes, can include support for Palestinians’ self-determination that uncomfortably co-exists with clear-eyed recognition of the very ugly parts of Palestinian culture.

[ashwantsafreepalestine]

Watch how Zionists treat anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews.

Zionism is a disease.

[plethoraworldatlas]

GenCon Crit Awards situation

The Crit Awards are a relatively new Awards ceremony focused on Actual Plays. They recently announced that, supposedly due to safety concerns, they will not be hosting their ceremonies at GenCon 2024. This announcement has been met with numerous tabletop gaming personalities to cancel their appearances and trips to GenCon, as well as many others voicing support for the Crit Awards and condemning GenCon. As well as others doing the opposite.

For more information, the Crit Awards released back in mid June that in addition to banning known racists, Homophobes, misogynists, Transphobes, and the like from being eligible for nominations for their awards, they would ban outspoken zionists as well. The initial statement, admittedly, is a bit vague.

This happened supposedly because the staff found out one of the then proposed nominees either was or was once part of a controversial actual play group that was explicitly zionist; Again, no major details were revealed for privacy, though further statements allude to said controversial actual play group supporting illegal settlements in some way.

Supposedly they communicated with the nominee and came to a peaceful resolution where the nomination was removed; Said nominee has not come forward at this time. The ban announcement happened shortly after.

Since the announcement of the ban, both the Crit Awards and GenCon received numerous threats of violence from numerous sources. After phone calls with GenCon representatives on Jun 24th, the Crit Awards would announce they will not be at GenCon 2024. They released a statement revealing these things, as well as condemning "harassment, violence, and terrorism" as well as stating "we take issue with the pro-imperialist, antisemitic rhetoric that conflates Judaism with zionism" and reaffirming their condemnation for the genocide.

The organization did not call for a boycott, but many individuals have announced they will not attend GenCon in solidarity.

While the Crit Awards haven't said much recently, and their statements claim it was a peaceful agreement with GenCon Staff, many individuals connected with the Crit Awards, Including the Host of the awards ceremony, who are not bound by NDAs, have gone public and stated that GenCon forced the Crit Awards to release their statement and were in fact banned and kicked out by GenCon.

It is important to note that GenCon is held in Indianapolis, Indiana. Indiana, since 2016, has TOUGH Anti-BDS laws. Part of that is banning any and all public or state funding for any group that supports any form of boycotting or BDS, as well as banning all funding from groups that support groups that support BDS.

GenCon is a massive moneymaker for Indy, so much so that the extremely conservative state government has in the past canceled planned restrictions on Abortion rights because GenCon announced it would leave Indiana if they passed said bans. The Indianapolis Convention Center is currently undergoing major renovations to nearly double its floor space and connect to both existing and new hotels, and the area is currently building multiple new hotels and other amenities; While there are many events they are making these expansions for, the fact they announced them immediately after last year's GenCon, which was the largest yet as well as heavily criticized for overcrowding and a poor initial response to it, and they were announced mainly in the context of GenCon shows that these major investments are motivated in no small part by GenCon.

However, after the aforementioned event where GenCon protested the state's government and threatened to leave, GenCon has changed tune over the years, soften criticism despite the government being more overtly anti-choice than before, and most crucially, has signed massive partnership extension deals with Indianapolis and Indiana. These contract mean GenCon is planned to stay in Indiana until 2030; These contracts are often renegotiated often, so there are no plans to leave the state soon.

It has been suggested that GenCon was either pushed to kick out the Crit Awards, or did so preemptively to avoid backlash from the state government, which would definitely include threats to the multi-year multi-million deals with the state. While GenCon is still one of the largest annual moneymaking events in Indianapolis, there are many more events scheduled to take place in the Indy Convention Center as part of a wider plan to expand the number of events in Indy. This includes the 100th anniversary meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as the National Eucharistic Conference, the first in nearly half a century.

The point is, things have clearly changed, and GenCon both is no longer inclined to protest the state government and no longer as large a player despite making more money every year due to the sheer amount of other events, meaning the state government now has more power in the relationship and can threaten GenCon with cutting funding as well as outright expulsion from the state.

The Crit awards initial statements were very vague and were understandably criticized, and their later statements go out for their way to emphasize that they are against antisemitism and antisemitic individuals were already banned under the previous rules, and they stress that they want to avoid conflating Judaism with zionism. The massive amounts of threats sent to both the Crit Awards and GenCon are unacceptable, and some have reported that it was coordinated by various online groups after reports of the Crit Awards updated rules were done by newsites.

GenCon is getting criticized for the situation, the Crit Awards are being criticized as well, people have been realizing that GenCon notably puts up less of a fight with the conservative state government which gets them criticized more, and people are both pulling out and some are even planning on attending with pins that support the Crit Awards (as GenCon can be a big financial investment and some simply can't afford to not go after buying badges and/or booths)

GenCon starts in less than a months time, August 1st through the 4th. The Crit Awards will be held virtually.

[pannaginip]

PAMALAKAYA on Facebook:

ALERT!

Denounce the series of harassment against elderly fisherfolk leader Ka Romy Antazo.

Antazo, 80 years old, is former Secretary General of PAMALAKAYA and now a retired fisherman in Laguna de Bay.

During his active years in PAMALAKAYA, he was at the forefront of the fisherfolk’s campaign for the conservation of Laguna de Bay against profit-driven and destructive projects, including coastal conversion, reclamation, and proliferation of corporate-owned fish pens.

The veteran fisherfolk leader has been repeatedly approached by state agents and offered him livelihood support and assistance in exchange for his “cooperation”.

It has been presumed that the said “cooperation” equates that Antazo will be presented by the authorities as a “rebel returnee” to turn against and establish the red-tagging of progressive and mass-based organizations.

[...]

We are extremely alarmed over these incidents, as these could subject Antazo to further and worse kinds of attacks because of his firm stand against the authorities’ demands.

Moreover, the consistent effort to coerce Antazo to cooperate with the authorities is part of the Marcos Jr. administration’s tactics in counterinsurgency campaign, which blatantly violates the rights of civilians to freedom of expression and association.

We call on the human rights and environmental defenders, fisherfolk advocates, and champions of democracy, to denounce the government’s anti-democratic schemes that put our leaders and members at risk of exploitation and injustice.

2024 Jun. 11

[nando161mando]

"For nearly a decade, Israel has been surveilling senior International Criminal Court officials and Palestinian human rights workers as part of a secret operation to thwart the ICC’s probe into alleged war crimes, a joint investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal."

[cavalierzee]

Zion Rider Urinates On Mosque

James Nunn shares a photo of himself urinating on a mosque in Tyler, Texas, while wearing a star of david jacket.

[agentfascinateur]

Bravo UK Independents!

👏👏 ⚖️ 🇵🇸

Wanting the UK to abide by the ICC!

[ashwantsafreepalestine]

Damn, maybe Hamas shouldn't have have held kidnapped people in Rafah then.

Very much an 'actions have consequences' sort of situation.

So based on your logic, October 7 was entirely the fault of Israel and the IDF? Interesting.