#political prisoners freed

[russianprotesters]

Friends, this is me. After more than two years of prison, solitary confinement and isolation from the world and human communication, I am re-learning basic things. Talking to children, using a phone, walking the streets, driving a car. It is very unusual that you can just go wherever you want - without handcuffs and without an escort. And it still seems like some kind of movie. A very good one - but still unreal. Vladimir Bukovsky, recalling his exchange in 1976, compared this experience to the sensations of a diver who is suddenly brought to the surface. A very accurate metaphor. And we will all need some time to adapt to reality again. A huge thank you to everyone who has not forgotten about political prisoners all these years and demanded our freedom. Public opinion can move mountains, as we saw again on August 1. For us and our families, this personal hell is over — but hundreds of Russian prisoners of conscience and thousands of Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilian hostages remain in Putin's prisons. We will seek the release of each of them. A special, inexpressible thank you to my wife Evgenia. Just like two centuries ago, everything in Russia still rests on strong women.

- Vladimir Kara-Murza, August 7, 2024

https://t.me/vkaramurza2022/1684

[empyreansentinel]

if angel was raised on pandora it means that she and jack lived as residential settlers during dahls occupation. grogmouth likely worked for the flynts who, being a high status family at the time, in turn worked for dahl. baron flynt was the warden of thor, a dahl mining rig that doubled as a prison. the companys sole interest in pandora to begin with was to extract eridium and find alien relics, so a siren would be a priceless bargaining chip for their efforts. all of this to say its very possible that the flynts were the ones who sent out the order for angel to be kidnapped.

[blackpearlblast]

personality i think we should all be fucking outraged that they're trying to pass off a four day pause in their attacking as a fucking ceasefire especially since they said they would be using that time to prepare for more brutality. cynically i have to wonder if part of the reason they agreed to it is that they knew the cold, diseases, hunger, and lack of proper medical equipment would keep killing palestinians in their stead. a four day pause is a laughably small amount of time to try to address any of that, let alone recover from it. it will take years for gaza to begin to start to recover from this. the trauma will stretch beyond lifetimes. but sure, we're supposed to happy about Four Days. and i am certain that this will not apply to the vigilante settler terrorism going on in the west bank.

[it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined]

Some more context: this installation was displayed at the Tate Modern in London from 2010 - 2011, and also in 2011 Ai Weiwei was finally arrested and detained by the Chinese government after years of controversial art and speaking out against them. He was ostensibly accused of tax fraud but in reality it was considered a response to his critique of the Chinese regime. There was a huge international outcry at the time about his arrest from the US and the EU.

He was also apparently tortured while in detention (it's complicated but that's one reason why this artwork feels even more acute) and has lived and worked abroad in exile since he was finally allowed to leave China again in 2015.

my favorite piece of modern art is Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds, over one hundred million hand-painted ceramic sunflower seeds made by dozens of craftsmen

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

The number of confirmed Palestinian political prisoners has exceeded 10,000 from the West Bank and AlQuds, thousands from Gaza, and hundreds from within the lands occupied in 1948. Conditions in Zionist prisons have always been dire and have gotten significantly worse since October 2033.

Among these prisoners, over 300 are women from the occupied West Bank, while the number of women from Gaza abducted by Zionist forces remains unconfirmed.

Many women endure deliberate medical negligence, denial of communication with family and lawyers, unsanitary conditions, and severe violence. This includes psychological torture with solitary confinement, overcrowded cells filled with insects and dirt, and a lack of natural light. Prisoners are subjected to beatings, insults, threats, and sexual harassment and abuse. Strip searches are common, often used as methods of punishment and humiliation.

Despite continuous threats from the Zionist forces against freed prisoners and their families, these Palestinian women, among countless others named and unnamed, have shown immense courage and steadfastness in their choice to share the torture they have endured.

We demand the freedom of all Palestinian political prisoners. FREE THEM ALL!

[spacelazarwolf]

i’m glad that syria is free, that prisoners are being freed, that families are being reunited, and that refugees finally have the opportunity to return home. and at the same time, i’m also thinking about the fact that the syrian jews who were forced to flee syria will not be among those refugees. i’m thinking about the fact that assad demanded that syrian jews fleeing to the us be called tourists and buy round trip tickets, which meant they could not be considered refugees and therefore did not have that path to citizenship, only temporary permits and political asylum which were extremely restrictive. syrian jews in the us fought hard for their rights and it was only in 2000 that a bill was passed granting them citizenship. i’m thinking about the two elderly jewish women, two of the last three jews in syria, who live in qamishli, the same town where 57 jews were murdered in a pogrom after the 6 day war. i’m thinking about the four syrian jewish girls who were raped, murdered, and mutilated for trying to flee to israel. i’m thinking about the fact that while i am glad that syria is finally free from assad, syrian jews will likely never be able to experience that freedom for themselves.

[incessantscreech2000]

Image transcriptions below:

Legendary South African Jewish Freedom Fighters

And Their Condemnation of Israel

Many people don't know that several of Nelson Mandela's closest and earliest comrades and co-conspirators were South African Jews.

These Jewish comrades and their work was pivotal to the defeat of South African apartheid, giving them a unique perspective on the state of Israel.

—

Joe Slovo (1926-1995) was a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist. In 1942, at age 16, Slovo volunteered to travel to Europe to fight the Nazis. Upon return, he studied alongside Nelson Mandela. He eventually was a founding member of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the paramilitary arm of the African National Congress.

Slovo was exiled to Mozambique by the apartheid government. Whilst there, his wife, legendary Jewish anti-apartheid activist Ruth First, was assassinated by a parcel bomb sent by the apartheid regime.

Working from abroad for the fall of apartheid, he eventually returned and became a Minister in Mandela's government. Throughout his life he remained a staunch critic of Israel.

—

"Ironically enough, the horrors of the Holocaust became the rationalization for the preparation by Zionists of acts of genocide against the indigenous people of Palestine. Those of us who, in the years that were to follow, raised our voices against the violent apartheid of the Israeli state were vilified by the Zionist press."

- Joe Slovo

—-

Denis Goldberg (1933-2020) was a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist. He spent 22 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, for his political activity alongside Mandela.

He was finally freed when his daughter, who lived in Israel, lobbied the Israeli government, which was closely allied to the apartheid regime, to release him. Due to his staunch opposition to Zionism, he refused to join her in Israel.

—

"The violence of the [South African] apartheid regime was nothing in comparison with the utter brutality of Israel's occupation of Palestine."

- Denis Goldberg

—

Beata Lipman (1928-2016) was a Jewish South African anti-apartheid activist. She drafted the original Freedom Charter in her own handwriting in 1952, which became the basis for the constitution of free South Africa after the fall of apartheid.

Lipman was a proud Jewish critic of Israel, penning many letters condeming Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

—

"We who have fought against Apartheid and vowed not to allow it to happen again can not allow Israel to continue perpetrating apartheid, colonialism and occupation against the indigenous people of Palestine. We dare not allow Israel to continue violating international law with impunity. Apartheid was a gross violation of human rights. It was so in South Africa and it is so with regard to Israel's persecution of the Palestinians!"

- Beata Lipman in joint letter

—

Ronnie Kasrils is a Jewish South African who was also a founding member and Chief of Intelligence for uMkhonto we Sizwe.

In 1992, Kasrils led an unarmed protest when the apartheid government opened fire, killing 28 of his comrades and injuring over 200 others. He went on to serve in various Ministerial roles after the defeat of apartheid.

In 2001, Kasrils was co-author of the

*Declaration of Conscience by South Africans of Jewish Descent, which calls Israel a colonial apartheid-state. He has drawn criticism for stating that Israel has behaved like the Nazis.

—

"We recognise the operation today by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza as a legitimate expression of their right to resist. We support all efforts of oppressed people to liberate themselves from their oppressors in the same way we did in our liberation struggle.

We are saddened by all violence but Israeli Jews will not realise peace until they accept a future where they will live with Palestinians as citizens in a single, democratic Palestinian state, with Palestinians being compensated for seven decades of colonisation, occupation and apartheid."

- Ronnie Kasrils, 7th October 2023

[dovesndecay]

After half a century behind bars, former Black Panther Veronza Bowers has been released. Bowers was sentenced to life in prison in 1973 for the murder of a U.S. park ranger, based on testimony from government informants. He has consistently claimed his innocence. Many call him one of the longest-serving political prisoners in U.S. history. He was freed in May from the Federal Medical Center in North Carolina.

[flowerandthesongstress]

complaints I've already seen about Coral Island, a new Indonesian kickstarter cozy game: the barman selling a ruined dish is an uncalled-for jab at restaurant workers! cats shouldn't hang out outdoors! eew, this woman shouldn't display her pregnancy stretch marks! where are all the kippot! why is everyone in such good shape! preposterous! this partially deaf character talking in caps lock is triggering me! no one in doctors without borders would be that tattooed, this dreadful representation is literal murder! no doctor would forget her paperwork at a library, for that matter! why is a japanese fisherman talking like a scottish pirate, this is inaccurate!

meanwhile in the game: I freed a stone statue from a magical underground prison and he put an enchantment on my hoe. his brother asked me if I liked figs is he flirting. my hippie boyfriend is heartbroken because his bucket-wearing pet duck is sick but shhh watching tv will heal him. last night when I talked to the outdoors cat she mentioned that she has a crippling fear of birds and thinks of getting therapy. a stem academic looks like a kpop idol and is getting enough sleep. he wears his astrophysics degree all over himself like a linguist would have worn alphabet necklaces, just to spite his dad but it's not working why is it not working ah shit it's working. mermaids hired me as a janitor. it's not pro bono I'm paid in diamonds. my neighbor is worried that his shiba inu went back to rejoin the mountain whence it came from. a turtle won't let me pass until I serve her spaghetti. I'm fighting capitalism with a literal scythe. the local blacksmith is asking my opinion regarding a legendary battle hammer and if it's worth the logistics hassle. it's been a year crabs are still dancing in celebration their zeal is admirable but their choreography could use some work. this giant monkey covered in two layers of meta wants to sell me a nostalgic souvenir. I know it because he sent me a polite letter. how many propaganda flyers can I fish out of this pond a challenge. I barged into a local lab and upended a barrel of seaweed over intricate circuitry now my flowers are five percent prettier. the scientist at the lab attached a mermish translator to my diving suit via the power of coffee. hold on I'm doing meal prep for next week let me finish putting ectoplasmic slime on okra

[warningsine]

Bangladeshi student protesters stormed a prison and freed hundreds of inmates Friday as police struggled to quell unrest, with huge rallies in the capital Dhaka despite a police ban on public gatherings.

This week's clashes have killed at least 105 people, according to an AFP count of victims reported by hospitals, and emerged as a momentous challenge to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's autocratic government after 15 years in office.

Student protesters stormed a jail in the central Bangladeshi district of Narsingdi and freed the inmates before setting the facility on fire, a police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"I don't know the number of inmates, but it would be in the hundreds," he added.

Dhaka's police force took the drastic step of banning all public gatherings for the day -- a first since protests began -- in an effort to forestall another day of violence.

"We've banned all rallies, processions and public gatherings in Dhaka today," police chief Habibur Rahman told AFP, adding the move was necessary to ensure "public safety".

That did not stop another round of confrontations between police and protesters around the sprawling megacity of 20 million people, despite an internet shutdown aimed at frustrating the organisation of rallies.

"Our protest will continue," Sarwar Tushar, who joined a march in the capital and sustained minor injuries when it was violently dispersed by police, told AFP.

"We want the immediate resignation of Sheikh Hasina. The government is responsible for the killings."

'Shocking and unacceptable'

At least 52 people were killed in the capital on Friday, according to a list drawn up by the Dhaka Medical College Hospital and seen by AFP.

Police fire was the cause of more than half of the deaths reported so far this week, based on descriptions given to AFP by hospital staff.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the attacks on student protesters were "shocking and unacceptable".

"There must be impartial, prompt and exhaustive investigations into these attacks, and those responsible held to account," he said in a statement.

The capital's police force earlier said protesters had on Thursday torched, vandalised and carried out "destructive activities" on numerous police and government offices.

Among them was the Dhaka headquarters of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which remains offline after hundreds of incensed students stormed the premises and set fire to a building.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police spokesman Faruk Hossain told AFP that officers had arrested Ruhul Kabir Rizvi Ahmed, one of the top leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

"He faces hundreds of cases," Hossain said, without giving further details on the reasons for Ahmed's detention.

'Symbol of a system'

Near-daily marches this month have called for an end to a quota system that reserves more than half of civil service posts for specific groups, including children of veterans from the country's 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Critics say the scheme benefits children of pro-government groups that back Hasina, 76, who has ruled the country since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Hasina's government is accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including by the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Her administration this week ordered schools and universities to close indefinitely as police stepped up efforts to bring the deteriorating law and order situation under control.

"This is an eruption of the simmering discontent of a youth population built over years due to economic and political disenfranchisement," Ali Riaz, a politics professor at Illinois State University, told AFP.

"The job quotas became the symbol of a system which is rigged and stacked against them by the regime."

'Nation-scale' internet shutdown

Students say they are determined to press on with protests despite Hasina giving a national address earlier this week on the now-offline state broadcaster seeking to calm the unrest.

Nearly half of Bangladesh's 64 districts reported clashes on Thursday, broadcaster Independent Television reported.

The network said more than 700 people had been wounded throughout Thursday including 104 police officers and 30 journalists.

London-based watchdog NetBlocks said Friday that a "nation-scale" internet shutdown remained in effect a day after it was imposed.

"Metrics show connectivity flatlining at 10% of ordinary levels, raising concerns over public safety as little news flows in or out of the country," it wrote on social media platform X.

(AFP)

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

The Popular Front mourns the great national leader, the martyr and activist Yahya Sinwar "Abu Ibrahim", head of the Hamas movement, architect of the Al-Aqsa Flood epic, and one of the most prominent symbols of the Palestinian struggle.

With great pride and honor, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in the name of its Secretary-General and his Deputy, mourns the hero of Palestine and its martyr, the great national leader, the fighter, the resistance fighter and the freed prisoner, the head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, the martyr and activist Yahya Sinwar "Abu Ibrahim", (https://t.me/PalestineResist/63239?single) the engineer of the epic of Al-Aqsa Flood and the hero of the Battle of Saif Al-Quds (https://t.me/PalestineResist/40776). He was martyred in a heroic clash in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, along with a number of his comrades, to join the caravan of the great martyrs of the homeland and the just cause of Palestine and the dignity and freedom of the Arab nation.

Palestine, the Palestinian national cause and struggle, the resistance factions and the entire nation have lost a great leader who never retreated. He spent his life in the midst of the resistance, fiercely defending the rights of his people and their land, embodying in his life an exceptional model of a fighter who is attached to the concerns of his people. His martyrdom while fighting in the front lines in defense of Palestine immortalizes him in the memory of the nation as an undefeated leader who did not hesitate to take his path to victory or the martyrdom he attained in the most honorable positions, fighting and defending his people.

The great martyr, through his struggle and positions, was a symbol of steadfastness, will, firmness, and an iron character that did not know submission or defeat. He played a pioneering role in the development of the resistance, and contributed effectively with a group of fighters from various factions in leading the prisoner movement during his long years of imprisonment, where he fought heroic battles against the prison administration, always emphasizing the unity of the resistance ranks in confronting the occupation, which he established in the present after his liberation.

The martyr proved his competence and courage in leading the military and political resistance, and did not retreat from any of the national constants. His voice was loud in defending the prisoners and the Palestinian cause, steadfast in his positions, and aware of the importance of national unity and joint resistance.

The Popular Front extends its sincere condolences to the family of the martyred leader Abu Ibrahim and to the brothers in the Hamas movement, stressing that the blood of the heroic leaders will not be wasted in vain, and that the martyrdom of the leader constitutes new fuel for the fire of resistance, and his pure blood will remain a witness that these people are not defeated, but rather their determination increases whenever the enemy tries to extinguish the flame of their struggle, and whenever the enemy thinks that by assassinating a leader it will eliminate the resistance, dozens of new leaders are born from his blood, more steadfast and determined, as experience has confirmed that the martyrdom of leaders does not stop the march, but rather consolidates it and ignites the arenas of confrontation, and this is what will happen.

Glory and eternity to the martyrs…and the inevitable victory for Palestine.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Central Media Office October 18, 2024

Note - Graphic: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine exalts the great national leader Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Al-Sinwar "Abu Ibrahim," Head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement "Hamas" and the architect of the epic of the Al-Aqsa Flood and the most prominent symbols of the Palestinian struggle, who dismounted on Thursday, October 17, 2024, after engaging in an armed clash with the treacherous zionist gangs on the soil of the city of Rafah.

[russianprotesters]

“ I wish freedom for everyone else! I demand freedom for everyone else! I ask for freedom for everyone else! In a few years, it will happen again, so that everyone will remember, so that everyone will know that in the end love will always win! “Sasha Skochilenko read her first poems after her release. Let us recall that a St. Petersburg activist was sentenced to 7 years in prison under the article on “fake news” about the army for placing several pacifist price tags in the Perekrestok store. The harsh sentence for the pacifist girl caused a huge resonance in society. After the verdict was announced, people in the hall chanted “Shame!”, expressing their disagreement with the verdict. Single pickets were held on the streets of many cities in support of Sasha Skochilenko. In addition, a petition demanding the immediate release of the artist due to her state of health was signed by more than 400 doctors. Yesterday the girl was released and left Russia as part of the exchange procedure.

https://t.me/rusnews/57610

[graveyardcuddles]

Sorry I blew up your steel watch foundry and freed all the political prisoners you were keeping hostage and ruined the grand plan we had been passionately working on together for years thus betraying your ultimate trust in me as the one person you considered a potential equal but hey at least you get the watch me kill you in the Wavemother's Robe.

[un-ionizetheradlab]

Russia just freed SIXTEEN political prisoners in a prisoner swap with the West!

Among the released political prisoners are:

Oleg Orlov, a longtime dissident and the co-chair of Memorial, an organization created in 1989 to chronicle the USSR's human rights abuses and educate Russians about the history of political repression;

Sasha Skochilenko, an LGBTQ artist who was imprisoned in April 2022 for replacing price tags at grocery stores with data about Russian destruction in Ukraine, deemed treasonous under Russia's "fake news" law;

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a political dissident who was fundamental in bringing about the Magnitsky Act to sanction Russian human rights abusers, and who was poisoned twice by the KGB in attempted assassinations before being sentenced to 25 years in prison for "treason";

Evan Gershkovich, a young American journalist who was arrested in Russia while reporting for the Wall Streeet Journal in March 2023 and sentenced to 16 years in prison for "espionage";

Paul Whelan, American former Marine who was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor for "espionage";

Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty who was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison for spreading "fake news" about the war in Ukraine;

Andrei Pivovarov, an opposition activist who headed the pro-democracy organization Open Russia before being imprisoned in a Siberian penal colony infamous for its torture of prisoners;

Ilya Yashin, a young opposition politician who was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for publishing YouTube videos about the war in Ukraine; when Russian authorities "encouraged" him to leave the country, he chose instead to stay;

Lilia Chanysheva, opposition activist and regional coordinator of Navalny HQ; in her final speech before the Russian court, she tried in vain to appeal to the judge's sense of empathy: "If you put me in jail for 12 years, I will be too old to bear a child. Give me a chance to be a mother!";

Kevin Lik, a dual German-Russian citizen who was arrested as a minor for "photographing military sites" shortly before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine; he was the youngest person ever to be convicted of treason in Russia;

Rico Krieger, a German man sentenced to death in Belarus for supposedly planting explosives on a railroad track to help the Ukrainian army;

Dieter Voronin, a dual German-Russian citizen and political scientist who was arrested in 2021 in connection to a treason case involving Russian journalist Ivan Safronov;

Patrick Schobel, a German man arrested in February 2024 at the Pulkovo International Airport in St Petersburg when customs officers found cannabis gummies in his luggage, in a scenario very similar to that of Brittney Griner;

German Moyzhes, a dual German-Russian citizen and lawyer who was charged with treason for helping Russians obtain European residency permits;

Vadim Ostanin, opposition activist and Navalny associate arrested in 2021 for his work with Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation;

Ksenia Fadeyeva, dissident and Navalny associate sentenced to 9 years in prison.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Being a “centrist” sounds eminently reasonable, doesn’t it? A centrist is a moderate, right? Someone who is rational and practical and takes the middle ground. Someone who isn’t extreme like those crazy ideologues on the far right or far left. A centrist, logic dictates, is really what everyone should strive to be. But stop for a moment and ask yourself how you would define a centrist in more specific terms. When you start spelling out what the word really means, it becomes clear that it obfuscates more than it illuminates. The word does not describe a set of ideas so much as it reinforces a system of power. This, of course, is a feature not a bug of political language. As George Orwell wrote in his famous essay Politics and the English Language: “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” Orwell wrote that essay in 1946. Today, 78 years later, it feels just as relevant. Look, for example, at the carnage in Gaza and the West Bank. Look at the statements from Israeli leaders that clearly suggest genocidal intent. Look at the tragedies that barely make a dent in the public consciousness any more. Last week, for example, an Israeli airstrike killed four-day-old twins, along with their mother and grandmother, when their father went to collect birth certificates in central Gaza. Look at the levels of brutality that barely seem to register any more: there is video evidence of the sexual abuse of Palestinians at a notorious Israeli military prison (though the more accurate term is “torture camp”) and, even with that evidence, we know there will be no real accountability. Look at the dead. Nearly 40,000 people in Gaza are now dead, including nearly 15,000 children. When you look at the scale of devastation, it seems likely that those figures are an underestimate. Further, counting the dead is excruciatingly difficult: kids are being blown into fragments so small that their surviving relatives have to collect pieces of them in plastic bags. Then there are the tens and thousands more who are now dying from starvation, or facing a looming polio epidemic. Look at the West Bank, meanwhile, where Israel has published plans for new settlements, which violate international law. Since 7 October, the Israeli army and settlers have displaced 1,285 Palestinians and destroyed 641 structures in the West Bank, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Ethnic cleansing is taking place before our eyes. Now look at how all of this is being justified. This war isn’t just being waged with bombs, it’s being waged with “euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness”. When you lay out what is happening in clear language, it is indefensible. So political language dresses all those dead and starving children up in euphemism. It obscures ethnic cleansing with vagaries. Don’t believe your eyes, political writing says. What you are seeing is far more complex than your eyes can possibly comprehend.

[...]

In order to defend the indefensible, politicians and political writers move away from concreteness, from clear language, and hide behind the respectableness of terms like “centrism”. Pro-Palestinian protesters are labelled the far-left or extremists. Continuing to unconditionally send arms to Israel and shield the country’s far-right government from accountability, however, is considered a centrist – and therefore reasonable – position.

[...]

As Orwell wrote, atrocities can be defended, “but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties”. If the Democratic party were to be honest about why it is doing very little to stop the carnage in Gaza and the settlements in the West Bank, the bluntest argument would be along the lines of: “Israel is an important tool in maintaining US imperialism and western interests. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is expedient to those interests. Human rights law doesn’t apply to atrocities enabled by the west.” Of course, being pro-ethnic cleansing doesn’t quite square with the do-gooding branding of the Democratic party. Instead, we are bombarded with the idea that massacring children is somehow a centrist and moderate position.

22 August 2024

[reasonsforhope]

Paywall-Free Article

"In one of its first big decisions, Britain’s new Labour government on Friday [July 12, 2024] announced the early release of thousands of prisoners, blaming the need to do so on a legacy of neglect and underinvestment under the Conservative Party, which lost last week’s general election after 14 years in power.

With the system nearly at capacity and some of the country’s aged prison buildings crumbling, the plan aims to avoid an overcrowding crisis that some had feared might soon explode.

But with crime a significant political issue, the decision is a sensitive one and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, a former chief prosecutor, lost no time in pointing to his predecessors to explain the need for early releases.

“We knew it was going to be a problem, but the scale of the problem was worse than we thought, and the nature of the problem is pretty unforgivable in my book,�� Mr. Starmer said, speaking ahead of the decision while attending a NATO summit in Washington...

Under the new government’s plan, those serving some sentences in England and Wales would be released after serving 40 percent of their sentence, rather than at the midway point at which many are freed “on license,” a kind of parole.

The even earlier releases will not apply to those convicted of more serious crimes, including sexual offenses, serious violence and terrorism. But Mark Icke, vice president of the Prison Governors’ Association, told the BBC that the plan could remove from the system “between 8,000 and 10,000 people,” providing “some breathing space.”

[Note: And more importantly - breathing space for thousands of people who have been unjustly imprisoned for minor offenses, as well as their families.]

Despite some early releases under the previous government, the strain on the prison system has been relentless. In England and Wales, the prison population stands at 87,505 — very close to the maximum capacity of 88,956 — according to the latest official data...

In its first week in power, Labour has said that it is grappling with a difficult inheritance after years of restraint in spending on public services under the Conservatives. In one of her first acts in government, the new chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, has ordered a review of Britain’s public finances.

Before Labour had won the election, it identified the strain on Britain’s prisons as a potentially major problem. The issue was cited on an internal list of key concerns; others included the strain on the overburdened health care system and financial pressure on municipalities and universities.

The prison population of England and Wales has doubled over the last 30 years, despite a decline in crime rates, and it has increased by 13 percent in the past three years...

Rory Stewart, a former Conservative prisons minister, said that Britain had incarcerated too many people, including for minor crimes such as repeated failure to pay council tax, which is levied by local authorities for municipal services.

According to Mr. Stewart in remarks to the BBC, imprisoning people for minor crimes “doesn’t protect the public. It doesn’t help these people get away from offending. And it creates these violent, filthy, shameful places which our prisons have become today.” The Conservative and Labour parties, he added, had “competed with each other on being more and more ferocious in demanding longer and longer sentences.”

Mr. Starmer has raised hopes among those who want to change that policy by appointing a prominent advocate of overhauling the prison system, James Timpson, as prisons minister. Mr. Timpson, a businessman, has a record of employing former prisoners in an effort to give them a second chance."

-via The New York Times, July 12, 2024