Government report details human rights violations at US immigration detention centers

Norisa Diaz

Following outcry from immigrants rights groups and complaints made to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has recently investigated the conditions faced by over 40,000 immigrants detained each day in more than 200 immigration detention jails throughout the country.

The DHS published its findings in a report following unannounced visits to six ICE Detention facilities: Hudson County Jail (New Jersey), Laredo Processing Center (Texas), Otero County Processing Center (New Mexico), Santa Ana City Jail (California), Stewart Detention Center (Georgia), and the Theo Lacy Facility (California).

Despite its watered-down language, the DHS report, “Concerns about ICE Detainee Treatment and Care at Detention Facilities,” revealed rampant issues at both state- and county-run and private for-profit detention centers regarding inhumane treatment, lack of health, food, and safety provisions, as well as systemic practices which undermined the protection of detainees’ rights. Most detainees are charged with violation of immigration laws and are held in detention pending resolution of their cases and expedited deportation.

“The detention centers are living hells,” a California immigration attorney told the WSWS. He wished to remain anonymous to prevent retaliation against his clients. “Diseases spread, guards post racist signs in Spanish for all to see, and even getting a call through to a detainee can take hours of Kafkaesque telephone transfers and dead-end operating boards. One day, this will be remembered as an episode as equally shameful as Japanese internment.”

DHS interviewed detainees as well as ICE and detention facility workers including medical staff, grievance officers, and key oversight staff. They inspected intake processing areas, medical facilities, kitchens, dining facilities, residential areas, sleeping, showering, and bathroom facilities, legal services areas, recreational facilities, barbershops, and witnessed immigration proceedings and rights presentations.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the report was its findings that in many facilities detainees were incorrectly housed based on their criminal history, or housed before access to documentation could be ascertained, posing a potentially dangerous threat. High-risk criminal detainees had been housed with low-risk ones, the latter category comprised of those who had only broken immigration laws.

The report also found that many facilities failed to provide adequate language services, either denying access to interpreters, or posting policies in English only for many Spanish speakers.

The report also notes that facilities prevent immigrants from speaking to and understanding medical staff. “Staff did not always use language translation services, which are available by phone, during medical exams of detainees,” the report notes. “Some medical consent forms were not always available in Spanish, and staff did not always explain the English forms to non-English speaking detainees. As a result, detainees may not have been providing enough information about their medical conditions to ensure adequate medical treatment while in detention.”

The American Immigration Lawyers Association reports that violations of medical standards played a prominent role in eight deaths in immigration detention facilities from 2010 to 2012. The AILA reports that at least 10 deaths have occurred so far in 2017.

The DHS report also noted severe issues with regard to food handling and safety, endangering the health of detainees. “We observed spoiled, wilted, and moldy produce and other food in kitchen refrigerators, as well as food past its expiration date. We also found expired frozen food, including meat, and thawing meat without labels indicating when it had begun thawing or the date by which it must be used.” ICE does not require detention facilities to abide by US Department of Agriculture food safety and handling protocols.

A common thread throughout the study was that administration at these facilities failed to keep records in order to cover its actions. Investigators reviewed electronic and paper medical files and grievance logs. It investigated the health, safety, and welfare requirements, the use of segregation, force, restraints, medical and mental health care, as well as translation and interpretation and the processes by which grievances were handled within facilities.

Inspectors often found grievances that, despite being submitted in the appropriate manner, had not been followed up thoroughly, or were collected only to sit untouched. “Some detainees reported that staff obstructed or delayed their grievances or intimidated them, through fear of retaliation, into not complaining. These deterrents may prevent detainees from filing grievances about serious concerns that should be addressed and resolved,” the report noted.

Accoring to the report, staff often neglected to tell detainees why they were being segregated. Detainees were found to be held in “administrative segregation for extended periods of time without documented, periodic reviews that are required to justify continued segregation. Some detainees were locked down in their cells for violations of minor rules without required written notification of reasons for lock-down and appeal options.”

The horrific experience of US citizen Davino Watson, illegally held by ICE for three and half years, gives a glimpse into the outright negligence condoned by government officials.

Detention centers are ostensibly not intended to be places of “punishment,” though every indicator points to the similarly violent, unhealthy, and dehumanizing conditions found within US prisons. Since June there have been four hunger strikes at the private for-profit Adelanto Detention Center facility in Southern California alone, which houses 1,900 detainees. The striker’s demands include reduced bond, more time for religious services, paperwork in their native languages, higher quality food, clean water 24 hours a day, and better treatment from guards and staff.

Following a suicide by hanging in August 2017 at Adelanto, detainee Alexander Burgos Mejia, who was first on the scene, reported, “I think doing something like that is something that has crossed the mind of all of us who are locked up here.”

Legislation passed in 2009 required that ICE end contracts with facilities that failed two inspections in a row. However, not one ICE facility has been closed due to multiple failed inspections. The DHS report concludes with toothless recommendations to ICE that function only to provide a veneer of oversight.

Workers and students must advocate the formation of defense committees to protect their friends, families, and communities from the horrors of detention and deportation overseen by Obama and handed down seamlessly to Trump. Supported by both of the ruling parties, ICE is able to act with complete impunity as it subjects immigrants and refugees to conditions worse than those of livestock.

Militarism and crackdown on refugees dominate EU summit

Peter Schwarz

The last European Union (EU) summit of the year, which began in Brussels on Thursday, is symptomatic of the state of the bloc. Divided by social and national contradictions and paralysed by political tensions, the 28 heads of government agree on only one thing: a major escalation of militarism.

No other major political project has advanced so quickly over recent months as the European military union. On Monday, the foreign ministers of the 25 participating states gave the go ahead for the first 17 projects under Pesco (Permanent Structured Cooperation). It aims in the long term to make the EU more independent from the United States. Pesco was celebrated at the summit.

EU Council President Donald Tusk described Pesco in his invitation to the summit as the “best example…that despite differences, maintaining unity is possible.” He wrote, “25 EU countries – with the consent of all EU members and within the existing Treaty rules – are launching cooperation in a new field. This example of unity in practice should be an inspiration to all of us, and hopefully a good omen for other important decisions.”

In fact, the summit’s participants are divided on virtually every other issue. This also applies to the second topic on the summit’s agenda: refugee policy.

All EU members are agreed on taking all possible measures to seal off the continent. To this end, over the past two years the EU shut down the Balkan route and entered into a dirty deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who in exchange for money ensures that hardly any refugees can reach Greece across the Aegean Sea.

In Libya, Italy and the EU are arming the so-called coast guard and other militias, which forcibly prevent refugees from travelling across the Mediterranean, detain them, torture them, and in some cases sell them as slaves. These forces are recruited from former civil war militias, including Islamists, and smuggler groups.

While this criminal policy remains essentially unchallenged, there are bitter disputes among the EU member states about the acceptance of refugees. In 2015, the EU decided by a majority to distribute some of the refugees who had arrived in Greece and Italy to other European states according to an obligatory quota system. This decision has remained largely unenforced. Eastern European states like Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary have continued to refuse to this day to accept any refugees.

Tusk, who comes from Poland, therefore proposed in a paper for the summit that the quotas be eliminated because they had proven to be divisive and ineffective. This was met with stiff resistance.

The German government stated that it does not agree with Tusk’s opinion and considers the distribution of refugees to be unavoidable. The deputy president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, said, “Either we find a European solution for the challenge of immigration, or there will be no solution.” Every single member state has to do its part, he continued.

The parliamentary leaders for the Liberals and Greens in the European parliament contradicted Tusk. “I was totally shocked by Tusk’s paper,” said the Liberal Guy Verhofstadt. And the Greens’ Ska Keller raged, “It is unacceptable that he strengthens the hand of naysayers like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.”

A further topic for discussion on Thursday evening was foreign policy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron provided an assessment of the implementation of the Minsk peace agreement in Ukraine. The summit subsequently agreed on the extension of sanctions against Russia for six months. In addition, the participants discussed the decision of US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Today, the summit participants will discuss potential reforms of the euro zone. However, no decisions on the highly contentious issue will be made. Berlin is in no position to do this because Germany has only a caretaker government.

The last item on the agenda will be the Brexit talks. After British Prime Minister Theresa May largely accepted the EU’s exit conditions, the EU Commission will recommend initiating the second phase of talks, which will deal with the future relationship between Britain and the EU. No opposition to this is expected from the summit.

But this will by no means resolve these problems. “The conclusion of the first phase of negotiations is moderate progress, since we only have ten months left to determine the transition period and our future relations with the UK,” Tusk stated in his invitation to the summit. “This will be a furious race against time.”

A sense of the disunity, weakness and division of the EU can be gauged by considering those attending the summit. It has more in common with a military hospital than the meeting of a world power’s general staff. Hardly anyone is present who is not under pressure, struggling for their political survival and deeply unpopular in their own country. The Polish and Czech prime ministers have only come to power this week, and the Austrian Prime Minister will leave office next week. The number of nationalists who view the EU with skepticism or outright opposition is growing.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is the longest-serving European head of government with 12 years in office, and who has long called the shots in the EU due to Germany’s economic weight, is currently only a caretaker chancellor and cannot take any major decisions. The government crisis could drag on for months and, should new elections be held, result in Merkel’s removal.

Emmanuel Macron, who won the French presidential election early this year with two thirds of the vote, is now only viewed positively by little more than a third of the French people and is continuing to lose support. The Republicans, the strongest opposition bourgeois party, apart from the neofascist National Front, has with the election of Laurent Vauquiez chosen a leader who admires US President Trump and explicitly opposes Macron’s goal of a strong EU.

Andrej Babis is attending an EU summit for the first time from the Czech Republic. The right-wing populist billionaire, also referred to as the Czech Trump, was sworn in on Wednesday. He leads a minority government. It is doubtful whether parliament will give him its confidence in January since he faces criminal charges for misappropriating millions in EU funds.

In contrast, this will be the last EU summit for Austria’s Christian Kern. Following the Social Democratic defeat in parliamentary elections, a coalition of the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) and the extreme right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) will take office next week. It is expected that Austria will subsequently cooperate closely with the EU-skeptic Visegrad states: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is also new in office. He enjoys the trust, like his predecessor Beata Szydlo, of Jaroslav Kaczynski, the leader of the governing Law and Justice Party (PiS), who pulls the strings behind the scenes. In contrast to Szydlo, Morawiecki is a financial expert and it is hoped he will win back the confidence of international finance capital.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who replaced Matteo Renzi a year ago, has never faced an election. Gentiloni and Renzi’s Democrats (PD) are performing poorly in the polls, being placed far behind a right-wing alliance led by Silvio Berlusconi and the Five Star Movement of comedian Beppe Grillo. An EU-skeptic government is expected to seize the reins of power in Rome after parliamentary elections in March.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is only holding onto power thanks to the support of the Social Democrats. As shown recently in the Catalan referendum, in order to stay in power he is resorting to authoritarian methods of rule that recall the Franco dictatorship.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras confronts mass opposition in the working class. As he took part in the Brussels summit, a 24-hour general strike occurred in Greece against his government’s austerity policies and a new anti-strike law. In Athens alone, police reported that 20,000 people took to the streets.

Tsipras was elected in 2015 by promising to end the EU-dictated austerity measures. As Prime Minister, he intensified austerity policies with the result that Greek workers have lost up to 40 percent of their income in the past seven years, and the social system has collapsed. 18,000 doctors, and many other people, have left the country.

Contrary to the claims of the bourgeois press, the European Union and its predecessor organisations never embodied the unity of Europe. They were always instruments through which the ruling class pursued its interests both at home and abroad. They enabled the major corporations and banks to organise the continent in their own interests.

But with the increase in social tensions and international conflicts, with the former protecting power of the US in particular, the divisions within the EU that twice transformed Europe into a battlefield during the last century are once again erupting to the surface.

The growth of social inequality, never-ending social cutbacks, labour market reforms and austerity measures have destroyed the trust in the traditional parties and the EU, which bear chief responsibility for this process. Since the social democratic parties, trade unions and petty-bourgeois parties, like the Greens and Syriza, unequivocally support these attacks and the EU, the main beneficiaries of the opposition to date have been right-wing, nationalist and even neofascist parties.

But this will not remain so. The predominant sentiment among workers and young people is left-wing. Many hate the right-wing parties and oppose militarism and capitalism. These sentiments require a political orientation. The answer to the transformation of the EU into a military alliance for waging war around the world, strengthening the repressive state apparatus and organising social cutbacks, is not the return to the nation state. Instead, it must be the united socialist states of Europe.

The European working class must unite and fight for a socialist programme, which connects the opposition against militarism, repression and the rise of the right with the struggle against capitalism. This is the International Committee of the Fourth International’s programme and that of its European sections, the Socialist Equality Parties.

Investigation reveals employer impunity in Canadian workplace deaths

Lee Parsons

A recent Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) investigation has drawn attention to the high number of workplace-related fatalities and the impunity that Canada’s employers enjoy when workers die on the job.

Published at the end of November, the investigation highlights that in over 250 cases of worker deaths on the job since 2007, only five jail sentences were handed out with a maximum of 120 days behind bars. The median fine for fatality-related cases was just $97,500.

Statistics for 2015, the most recent available, show that there were 852 workplace-related deaths in Canada that year, the majority being the result of job-related disease. This represents a decline from previous years, but still represents a death toll of almost four workers per day based on a 230 day work-year.

In an accompanying article titled “The price of death,” a CBC reporting team looked in detail at the cases of seven Canadians who were killed on the job. From a 22-year-old killed on her second day at work at a quarry to a 65-year-old killed just 13 days before his retirement, the article puts a human face on the ongoing loss of life that is all too common in the workplace in Canada, the US and around the world.

Referring to the $120,000 fine levied against a New Brunswick Walmart outlet for the electrocution of his son, Patrick Desjardins stated, “Walmart can earn $120,000 in 15 seconds. It’s trying to put a price tag on my son and you can’t do it … Those fines should be increased, big time.”

In a separate article, University of Ottawa criminologist Steve Bittle condemned the hollowness of changes made to the criminal code following the 1992 Westray mine explosion in Nova Scotia in which 26 miners were killed. These changes provide for the prosecution of employers and managers for criminal negligence in workplace accidents. Hailed at its passage in 2004 as a landmark reform to government occupational health and safety regimes, the “Westray law” has changed nothing. Looking at the record since then, according to Bittle, merely exposes the “woeful state” of “health and safety regulation overall.”

After inquiries made to the Department of Justice, the CBC learned that the federal government is planning to spend $13 million over five years to improve compliance and enforcement of the Westray law by the provincial bodies that are largely responsible for the regulation of occupational health and safety. Not only is this tantamount to an admission that employers have being allowed to escape prosecution and punishment for even fatal health and safety violations. Given the token amount being invested—little more $2.5 million per year—it effectively ensures that the industrial slaughter will continue.

This is in keeping with the policies of successive federal and provincial governments, which have sought to create the conditions for maximizing corporate profits. Workplace regulations have been systematically eviscerated and the public bodies charged with overseeing them starved of cash, as part of a general ruling-class assault on worker rights and public services. Social inequality has risen to unprecedented levels, with the average earnings of the top 100 CEOs being close to 200 times that of an average worker. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau never tires of boasting to wealthy corporate audiences about Canada’s “stable” business environment.

The CBC investigation compiled its statistics through mining data from individual provinces whose time frames varied. The data shows a wide variation in how penalties for workplace fatalities are handed out across the country. For example, the median penalty in British Columbia—where industries with high accident rates such as lumber, mining, fishing and construction are all major employers—was $26,563, while in Alberta it was $275,000, the highest in the country. Quebec was the only province that could not provide statistics on penalties for workplace deaths. Its laws provide the country’s lowest financial penalties for health and safety violations and it is also the only province that does not allow for jail time in such cases.

The wide discrepancies in provincial legislation and enforcement have produced a regulatory patchwork, which has proven virtually worthless for workers in every region. Ontario, BC, Nova Scotia and Alberta are the only provinces where an employer has been sent to jail in relation to workplace fatalities, while Nunavut and the Northwest Territories do not have even a single conviction for workplace fatalities. In all but one case the sentence given out was 60 days behind bars or less and it is noted that even among these, none were criminal convictions for what could be termed an actual “occupational-related” charge.

The CBC notes that while some provinces have recently increased the maximum penalties for violations of occupational health and safety laws, the maximums are almost never levied. Referring to the attitudes of companies involved, Katherine Lippel, the Canada Research Chair on occupational health and safety, said, “It’s just the cost of doing business.” And for families, she added, “There is no justice being done in the sense that the company is not being hurt the way their son or their daughter or their father has been hurt.”

Provincial regulators raise various economic concerns in justifying lax enforcement, all of which only demonstrate the subservience of the capitalist state to the interests of the corporate elite. In economically vulnerable regions such as New Brunswick, officials have raised the fear of bankrupting employers, while authorities in BC claim that basing administrative penalties on an employer’s payroll may account for the traditionally lower fines levied in that province.

The CBC report claimed that trade union officials have for years been vigorously pressing employers and governments to improve occupational health and safety. This is a lie. As part of their transformation into appendages of corporate management and the state, the trade unions have collaborated in the imposition of devastating attacks on wages and working conditions, including in some of the most physically demanding and dangerous industries, such as auto and steel.

Nor does the CBC account address the unions’ political support for pro-big business parties like the Liberals and New Democrats, all of whom have been complicit in the attack on worker rights, including workplace regulations, the slashing of public spending, and maintenance of a low-tax regime for the corporate elite.

The CBC investigation follows a Globe and Mail report last month that detailed the woeful lack of available data on workplace fatalities and disease in Canada. The Globe noted that unlike the US, Australia, and Britain, “Canada has no national source of information on the rate of on-the-job deaths.” The lack of reliable data on workplace casualties hampers the tracking of safety trends and the effectiveness of accident prevention in various industries.

Statistics Canada has not carried out a national analysis in over 20 years and even available data must be purchased by anyone wanting to know the relative dangers of various occupations. The Globe reporters were obliged to sift the data to produce their report on the most dangerous industries. They put fisheries and forestry at the top of the list.

The figures produced by CBC are almost certainly an underestimation of the scale of the problem. Its investigation noted that the 232,629 claims the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada recorded in 2015 for work-related injury or disease only include those that were accepted by the board. They further noted that the various statistics don’t show the adverse health impacts suffered by the families and loved ones of injured and killed workers.

Reports like that of the CBC, while valuable in exposing the dangerous state of the workplace in one of the most advanced economies in the world, have themselves become something of a safety valve for popular anger and concern over these issues. The reality is that this slaughter will continue as long as workers’ health and safety is subordinated to profit interests and the capitalist governments that serve them.

World’s richest one percent capture twice as much income growth as the bottom half

Niles Niemuth

The inaugural World Inequality Report published on Thursday by economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman, Facundo Alvaredo and Lucas Chancel documents the rise in global income and wealth inequality since 1980.

The report covers up to 2016, leaving out the last year, in which the stock market has soared on the expectation that the US will enact massive tax cuts, providing yet another windfall for the rich.

The report found that between 1980 and 2016 the world’s richest one percent captured twice the income growth as the bottom half of the world’s population, contributing to a significant rise in global inequality.

Top 1 percent vs. Bottom 50 percent national income shares in the US 1980–2016

The data shows that the world’s top 0.1 percent alone captured as much growth as the bottom half, and the top 0.001 percent, just 76,000 people worldwide, received 4 percent of global income growth. Meanwhile those in the 50th to 99th percentiles worldwide, which the report refers to as the “squeezed bottom 90 percent in the US and Western Europe,” encompassing the working class in the world’s advanced economies, experienced anemic growth rates.

The report is based on tax data and other financial information collected for the World Wealth and Income Database by more than 100 researchers in 70 countries. It shows that income inequality has either risen or remained stable in every country.

Additionally, the report found that concentration of wealth in the hands of the top one percent has risen sharply, particularly in the US, Russia and China. In the US, the wealth share monopolized by the top one percent rose from 22 percent in 1980 to 39 percent; in China it doubled from 15 percent to 30 percent; and in Russia it went from 22 percent to 43 percent.

In terms of income, the top ten percent captured 37 percent of national income in Europe, 41 percent in China, 47 percent in the United States-Canada, 54 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, 55 percent in Brazil and India, and 61 percent in the Middle East.

Top 1 percent wealth shares across the world, 1913–2015

Notably, Russia, when it was still part of the Soviet Union, had the lowest level of inequality in 1980, with the top ten percent accounting for 20 percent of income. There was a sharp spike in inequality following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990-91, with half of all national income going to the top ten percent in less than five years. Russia has now reached parity with the United States, returning to levels of inequality that prevailed a century ago under the rule of the tsar.

The report also shows that there has been a significant divergence in inequality levels between the United States and Europe since 1980, when the top one percent claimed 10 percent of income in both regions. As of 2016, the top one percent in Europe claimed 12 percent of income, while in the United States its share had doubled to 20 percent.

The top one percent and the bottom half of the American population have essentially flipped positions. While the bottom 50 percent received 20 percent of national income in 1980, that figure declined steadily to just 13 percent by 2016. Conversely, the top one percent steadily increased their claim on national income, from 10 percent to 20 percent in less than two generations.

Average annual income for the bottom half of the US population, adjusted for inflation, has remained at $16,500 for the last 40 years, while the top one percent have seen their average income triple from $430,000 to $1.3 million.

Top 10 percent income shares across the world, 1980–2016

The report’s authors note in an op-ed published in the Guardian that the United States is an outlier among the advanced economies, with a surge in income and wealth inequality over the last four decades that has developed into a “second Gilded Age.”

The authors attribute the dramatic difference between the US and Europe to a “perfect storm of radical policy changes” in the US. They argue that the growth of inequality in the US has been exacerbated by a number of factors, including a tax system that has become less progressive over time, a federal minimum wage that has not kept up with inflation, shrinking unions, deregulation of the finance industry and increasingly unequal access to higher education. They warn that the Republican tax cuts will “turbocharge” the further rise of inequality.

Despite its explosive content, the latest report on inequality was buried by the media, relegated to a small headline in the Business Day section of the New York Times and posted well down the Guardian’s front page in the world news section. The vast and ever-growing level of social inequality around the world is not what the ruling classes in the US, Europe and elsewhere want to talk about.

Social inequality in the United States is being ignored and covered up by the political system. The Democrats are entirely focused on issues of sex and the anti-Russia campaign, even as the Republicans are pushing to finalize tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy by the end of the year.

However, under the surface of official life, class conflict is growing. The World Inequality Report reveals that the contradictions of the capitalist system find expression in every country.

In concluding their report, the authors refer to policy decisions that could be adopted to reverse the growth of social inequality, promoting the illusion that a fair distribution of resources can be achieved under capitalism through various liberal reform measures and appeals to capitalist governments to enact progressive tax measures.

There is, however, no “reform” faction in the ruling class. The growth of inequality in the US has been carried out under both Democrats and Republicans, aided and abetted by the trade unions. In Europe, the ruling elite is moving rapidly to catch up to the United States through the implementation of labor “reform” measures, the destruction of social programs and the redistribution of wealth to the rich.

The response of the ruling class to growing social opposition is not reform, but repression. A movement against inequality requires the building of a socialist movement of the international working class on the basis of a socialist program to appropriate the wealth of the corporate and financial oligarchy, transform the banks and giant corporations into democratically controlled public utilities, and reorganize economic life on the basis of social need.

The end of net neutrality and the fight to defend the free internet

Andre Damon

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Thursday to overturn rules, known as net neutrality, that required internet service providers (ISPs) to treat all data on the internet the same and prohibited them from limiting or blocking users’ access to web sites and services.

The ruling heralds a new age in internet communications, where giant internet and technology monopolies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast regulate what information people have access to.

Since the emergence of broadband internet, the Federal Communications Commission had de facto operated under net neutrality principles, including a 2005 declaration that “consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice” and that “consumers are entitled to run applications and services of their choice.”

In 2015, the FCC formalized these rules, classifying broadband access as a “telecommunications service” and declaring that “A person engaged in the provision of broadband Internet access service… shall not block lawful content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices,” and that ISPs “shall not impair or degrade lawful Internet traffic on the basis of Internet content.”

Thursday’s ruling eliminates these so-called “bright-line” rules against censorship and sends a clear message to internet service providers that they are free to “block” and “degrade” the distribution of internet content at will.

It is difficult to overstate the momentous implications of the ruling. It allows a small cabal of home internet service providers and mobile data carriers to operate a blacklist of oppositional web sites and services, effectively blocking access to them for nearly all Americans.

In Thursday’s hearing, FCC officials light-mindedly downplayed such a scenario, declaring that the laws of the free market would not allow egregious blacklisting, and that customers could simply switch services if ISPs engaged in censorship. Their specious and self-interested arguments ignored the fact that, for most Americans, internet service is not a free market, with 50 million having only one broadband provider to choose from, and most of the rest having only two.

Just as ominously, the ending of net neutrality opens a new era of class discrimination. As the internet monopolies raise rates, they will introduce multiple tiers of service, with most users forced, through economic pressure, into service plans offering only highly restricted content. The free and open exchange of ideas, to the extent that it exists, will be the exclusive purview of the rich.

The ending of net neutrality is of a piece with the entire policy of the Trump administration, which has moved to immensely strengthen the power of the corporate and financial oligarchy through deregulation, tax cuts and other right-wing measures.

While some Democrats have postured as defenders of net neutrality, the Democratic Party has been at the forefront of the attack on freedom of expression on the internet. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who is leading the offensive against net neutrality, was first appointed to the FCC board by President Obama. The NSA and CIA, with the support of both Democrats and Republicans, have worked with the giant ISPs to monitor the communications and internet activity of individuals all over the world.

Moreover, the Democrats, together with the New York Times and Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post and the major broadcast TV networks, are spearheading a campaign against freedom of expression on the internet, under the pretense of fighting “fake news” and foreign “meddling.”

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have hired tens of thousands of censors to ban and block “offensive” and “fake” content, while Google, the world’s largest search engine, initiated changes to its search algorithm to block left-wing web sites, principally the World Socialist Web Site, from appearing in tens of thousands of key search results.

The Democrats’ nominal opposition to the moves to end net neutrality are in large part bound up with the interests of the giant internet companies like Google and Facebook, which are concerned they may have to pay ISPs for premium speeds. However, these companies have shown that they are perfectly willing to forge deals with the ISPs when it is in their interests.

In 2010, Google worked with Verizon on a deal to privilege its own content (including from Google-owned YouTube), which it can now do with the abolition of net neutrality. Such an arrangement would feed on Google’s own efforts to censor the internet through the manipulation of its search results.

In the new age of censorship, the economic interests of the major corporations and the political aims of social reaction increasingly become one and the same. The leading advocates of censorship have been the major newspapers and TV broadcasters, who have seen a massive decline in readers and viewers as users have sought alternatives to their banal state-sponsored propaganda. The media conglomerates see in internet censorship not only a means to claw back market share, but to regain control of the political narrative, which they have lost to internet publications.

The ending of net neutrality has provoked widespread opposition among workers and young people. This opposition, driven by fears of what is to come, will solidify into social protest once the reality of censorship makes itself felt.

In the struggles ahead, one thing must be made clear: Censorship is the inevitable outgrowth of the capitalist system, which sets as its goal not freedom, but domination. It is the corollary of unprecedented social inequality and the drive of the ruling class toward world war.

The fight to defend the free and open internet is the fight to abolish the domination of the corporate and financial oligarchy over society and politics. The telecommunications monopolies, along with the giant banks and corporations, must be turned into public utilities, run on the basis of social need, not private profit. Internet access is a basic social right, which must be freely available to all, without the interference of corporations or the state.

The social force capable of defending a free internet is the working class. The basic aim of internet censorship is to prevent or suppress the emergence of working class opposition to the policies of the oligarchy. Opposition to the imposition of corporate-state control must be connected to the fight against social inequality, poverty, unemployment and war.

Government of Hungary (Stipendium Hungaricum) Scholarship Program for International Students 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 16th February 2018 (23:59 Central European Time)

Eligible Countries: International. See list of countries below

To be taken at (country): Hungary

Field of Study: Applicants are encouraged to apply for study fields that are in the educational cooperation programmes between Hungary and the specific Sending Partner

About the Award: Thousands of students from all around the world apply for higher educational studies in Hungary each year. The number of Stipendium Hungaricum applicants is continuously increasing as well as the number of available scholarship places. In the academic year 2018/2019 approximately 4000 students can begin their studies in Hungary in the framework of the Stipendium Hungaricum Programme.

The programme is based on bilateral educational cooperation agreements signed between the Ministries responsible for education in the sending countries/territories and Hungary or between institutions. Currently more than 50 Sending Partners are engaged in the programme throughout 4 different continents.

Offered Since: 2013

Type: Stipendium Hungaricum scholarships are available for bachelor, master, one-tier master, doctoral and non-degree programmes (preparatory and specialisation courses).

In the Hungarian education system, one-tier master programmes cover both the bachelor and the master level of studies; therefore it is an undivided master programme that results in a master degree. These one-tier programmes are offered in specific study fields such as general medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, architecture, law, veterinary surgery, forestry engineering, etc.

Eligibility: Applications will not be considered in the following cases:

• Hungarian citizens (including those with dual citizenships)
• former Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship Holders, who are re-applying for studies in the same cycle of education (non-degree studies, bachelor, master, doctoral level) including both full time and partial study programmes

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: 

• Tuition-free education
  • exemption from the payment of tuition fee

• Monthly stipend
  • non-degree, bachelor, master and one-tier master level: monthly amount of HUF 40 460 (cca EUR 130) contribution to the living expenses in Hungary, for 12 months a year, until the completion of studies
  • doctoral level: according to the current Hungarian legislation, the monthly amount of scholarship is HUF 140 000 (cca EUR 450) for the first phase of education (4 semesters) and HUF 180 000 (cca EUR 580) for the second phase (4 semesters) – for 12 months a year, until completion of studies.

• Accommodation
  • dormitory place or a contribution of HUF 40 000 to accommodation costs for the whole duration of the scholarship period

• Medical insurance
  • health care services according to the relevant Hungarian legislation (Act No. 80 of 1997, national health insurance card) and supplementary medical insurance for up to HUF 65 000 (cca EUR 205) a year/person

Duration of Scholarship: Duration of candidate’s chosen program:

• Bachelor programmes: Fulltime: 2-4 years. Partial: 1 or 2 semesters
• Master programmes:  Fulltime: 1.5-2 years. Partial: 1 or 2 semesters
• One-tier master programmes: Fulltime: 5-6 years Partial: 1 or 2 semesters
• Doctoral programmes:  Fulltime: 2+2 years Partial: 1 or 2 semesters
• Non-degree programmes:
  • Preparatory course in Hungarian language: 1 year
  • Other preparatory and specialisation courses: up to 1 year

List of Eligible Countries: For full time programmes, students can apply from the following Sending Partners: Arab Republic of Egypt, Argentine Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Federal Republic of Nigeria, Georgia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Japan, Kingdom of Cambodia, Kingdom of Morocco, Kurdistan Regional Government/Iraq, Kyrgyz Republic, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanese Republic, Mongolia, Oriental Republic of Uruguay, Palestine, People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, People’s Republic of China (including the Hudec scholarships), Republic of Albania, Republic of Angola, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Belarus, Republic of Colombia, Republic of Ecuador, Republic of Ghana, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iraq, Republic of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Korea, Republic of Kosovo, Republic of Macedonia (FYROM is used at OSCE, UN, CoE, EU and NATO fora), Republic of Moldova, Republic of Namibia, Republic of Paraguay, Republic of Serbia, Republic of South Africa, Republic of the Philippines, Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Yemen, Russian Federation, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, State of Israel, Syrian Arab Republic, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Tunisian Republic, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Mexican States.

For partial study programmes, students can apply from the following Sending Partners: Georgia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Japan, Kingdom of Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanese Republic, Mongolia, People’s Republic of China (only Hudec applicants), Republic of Albania, Republic of Belarus, Republic of India, Republic of Korea, Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Republic of Turkey, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Russian Federation, Syrian Arab Republic, United Mexican States.

How to Apply: 

• New online application surface of Tempus Public Foundation: http://apply.stipendiumhungaricum.hu (The online application surface is expected to open next week.)
• Deadline for submitting the complete application package: 16th February 2018.
• Applications shall also be submitted to the responsible authority of the Sending Partner

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Hungary Government

Important Notes: Please note that the programme is implemented by direct cooperation with the responsible authorities of the Sending Partner. The application does not have any additional costs, therefore we suggest you to not to apply through any agencies.

eLearning Africa 13th International Conference on ICT for Development, Education & Skills 2018 – Kigali, Rwanda

Application Deadline: 30th January 2018

Eligible Countries: African countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Kigali, Rwanda

About the Award:  A unique event, Africa’s largest conference and exhibition on technology supported learning and skills development, eLearning Africa is a network of experts, professionals and investors, committed to the future of education in Africa.

The eLearning Africa 2018 Call for Papers is now open until January 30, 2018! If you would like to host a pre-conference event, be involved in one of multiple session formats, or share your expertise on a specific topic, please submit a proposal.

Type: Call for Papers

Eligibility: The conference is held in ENGLISH and FRENCH.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Duration of Program: 26 – 28 September, 2018.

How to Apply: Apply here

Read more about the eLearning Africa 2018 theme, Uniting Africa, and become involved in shaping the conference agenda by proposing a topic, talk or session here.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: The conference is being organised by ICWE GmbH and the Rwanda Convention Bureau under the patronage of the Rwandan Government. Kigali

Radboud University Masters Scholarships for International Students 2018/2019 – The Netherlands

Application Deadline: 1st March 2018

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: International (Non EEA)

To be taken at (country): The Netherlands

Fields of Study: Eligible English-taught Masters Degree Programme offered by the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Philosophy, Theology & Religious Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Medical Sciences, and Faculty of Law.

About the Award: The Radboud Scholarship Programme is very selective and is only intended for talented students who have obtained outstanding study results and are highly motivated to pursue a Master’s degree programme at Radboud University.

Type: Masters taught

Eligibility: A candidate will only be eligible to obtain a Radboud Scholarship if they:

1. hold a non-EU/EEA passport
2. are not eligible for the lower EEA tuition fee for other reasons
3. have (will obtain) a Bachelor’s degree achieved outside the Netherlands, have no degrees achieved in the Netherlands and did not receive any previous education in the Netherlands
4. have been fully admitted to the English-taught Master’s degree programme starting September 1, 2018 as stated in the formal letter of admission
5. are able to comply with the conditions for obtaining a visa for the Netherlands
6. are enrolled at Radboud University as a full-time student for the academic year and Master’s degree programme for which the scholarship will be awarded

Selection Criteria: From the eligible candidates the Radboud Scholarship holders will be selected based on the following criteria:

1. Talent: this means that you must have outstanding study results in your present field of study
2. You are expected to be a promising student in your desired field of study at Radboud University
3. Proven academic quality and good results of your prior education for example through grades, test scores, publications
4. Quality of the recommendations in the two reference letters
5. Motivation: based on your motivation letter for the Master’s progamme

Number of Awardees: 30

Value of Scholarship: The scholarship consists of a partial tuition waiver and pays for costs for visa and insurance. The tuition fee will be waived to the level of an EEA student. For example: a grant holder in 2018/2019 will pay a tuition fee of only €2,060, instead of €9,879 or €10,856. In addition the Radboud Scholarship also covers costs such as those for visa, residence permit, health insurance and liability insurance (Insurance Passport for Students (IPS)). This amounts to about €940. The Radboud Scholarship is not a full scholarship and does not include living costs.

Duration of Scholarship: 1 year. In the case of a two-year programme: to qualify for the grant during the second year, you need to have passed all courses in the first year.

How to Apply: You apply for a Radboud Scholarship by indicating during your application for admission that you wish to apply for a Radboud Scholarship. You will then be requested to upload three additional documents: two reference letters and a curriculum vitae.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Radboud University.

University of Tsukuba Program in Economic Policy (PEP) Scholarships for Developing Countries 2018/2019

Application Deadline: 23:59 28th February, 2018 (JST)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be taken at (country): Japan

About the Award: The objective of the Program in Economic Policy (PEP) is to provide, within the time frame of 18 months, training and the necessary skills for the conception, design, and implementation of development policies. Our focus is on International Development with a trans-disciplinary approach to the economic and social problems of developing countries and former socialist countries.

Type: Masters/PhD

Eligibility: To apply to PEP by JJ/WBGSP scholarship, applicant must:

• Be a national of a World Bank (WB) member country that is eligible to receive WB financing and not be a national of any country that is not eligible to receive the WB financing.
• Hold a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent and have completed 16 years of school education (up to undergraduate level). A strong background in economics and associated quantitative tools (linear algebra, calculus and basic statistics) is highly recommended.
• Not have received any scholarship funding to earn a Graduate degree or its equivalent from any sources funded by the government of Japan.
• Be employed in a paid and full-time position at the time of the Scholarship Application Deadline unless the applicant is from a country identified in the WB’s “Harmonized List of Fragile Situations.”
• Have, by the time of the Scholarship Application Deadline, at least three (3) years of recent full-time paid professional experience acquired in development-related work after a Bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. If the applicant is from a country identified in the WB’s “Harmonized List of Fragile Situations” at the time of the Scholarship Application Deadline, the recent professional experience does not have to be full-time or paid.
• Be under the age of forty-five (45) at the Scholarship Application Deadline.
• Not be an Executive Director, his/her alternate, staff of the World Bank Group (the World Bank, International Development Association, International Finance Corporation, Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, and International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes), or a close relative of the aforementioned.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: Students who have been given scholarship grants by the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) of the World Bank will enjoy the following benefits:

– Round trip air travel (economy class) between home country and Japan, plus a travel allowance of US$ 500 for each one-way trip
– Full tuition and fees
– A monthly living stipend
– National health insurance
– Other program expenses such as Japanese lessons, educational trips, internship, etc.

How to Apply: 

• Check if you meet all application requirements above.
• To complete application process efficiently and successfully, you must read the Application Instructions carefully before/during application process. FAQ may be of assistance to you.
• Go to our Online Application System to start application process.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Tsukuba

Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize for Early-Career Architects 2018

Application Deadline: 14th January 2018

Eligible Countries: International

To Be Taken At (Country): Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

About the Award: The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is pleased to announce the 2018 cycle of the Wheelwright Prize, an open international competition that awards $100,000 to a talented early-career architect to support travel-based research. The 2018 Wheelwright Prize is now accepting applications. This annual prize is dedicated to fostering new forms of architectural research informed by cross-cultural engagement.

The Wheelwright Prize is a $100,000 travel-based research grant that is awarded annually to early-career architects who have demonstrated exceptional design talent, produced work of scholarly and professional merit, and who show promise for continued creative work.

Throughout its history, Harvard GSD has had a strong global outlook, attracting deans, faculty, and students from all over the world. Moreover, a mainstay of the Harvard GSD curriculum is its traveling studio, which emphasizes the acceptance of ideas and practices with a diversity of origins. The Wheelwright Prize extends the school’s ethos, encouraging a broad-minded approach to architecture that seeks inspiration from unexpected quarters.

The Wheelwright Prize is intended to spur innovative research during the early stage of an architect’s professional career. Now open to applicants from all over the world—no affiliation to Harvard GSD required—the prize aims to foster new forms of research informed by cross-cultural engagement. “The idea is not just about travel—the act of going and seeing the world—but it is about binding the idea of geography to themes and issues that hold great potential relevance to contemporary practice,” says Harvard GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi.

Type: Fellowship, Contest

Eligibility: The Wheelwright Prize is open to emerging architects practicing anywhere in the world. The primary eligibility requirement is that applicants must have received a degree from a professionally accredited architecture program in the past 15 years. An affiliation to the GSD is not required. Applicants are asked to submit a portfolio, a research proposal, and a travel itinerary that takes them outside their country of residence. Finalists will be asked to travel to the GSD for finalist presentations on March 5, 2018.

• Applicant must have graduated from a professionally accredited architecture degree program in the past 15 years. (Graduates prior to 2003 are ineligible.) Holders of multiple degrees may apply, provided they received their professional degrees between 2003 and January 2018. Applicants need not be registered or licensed.
• Applicants may not have received the Arthur Wheelwright Traveling Fellowship previously.
• Winners of the Wheelwright Prize may not hold other fellowships concurrently.
• The Wheelwright Prize is available to individual entrants only; teams or firms will not be considered.
• Current Harvard GSD faculty, instructors, and staff are not eligible.
• Winners are expected to spend a minimum of 6 months (cumulative) outside of their countries of residence in order to conduct their proposed research.
• Proposed research itineraries must not include sites in the United States. Research and travel must commence within 12 months of receiving the Wheelwright Prize and must be completed within two years of receiving the prize.
• The Wheelwright Prize is intended for independent study and may not be applied to university tuition. However, the grant may be applied to fees for workshops and conferences.

Selection Criteria: Applicants will be judged on the quality of their design work, scholarly accomplishments, originality or persuasiveness of the research proposal, and evidence of ability to fulfill the proposed project. Applications are accepted online only, at wheelwrightprize.org. Finalists MUST be available to travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for finalist presentations on March 5, 2018, at the GSD. A winner will be named in Spring 2018.

Number of Awards: 1

Value of Award: The winner of the Wheelwright Prize will receive:

• $100,000 cash prize to support travel and research-related costs
• invitation to lecture at Harvard GSD
• possibility to publish research in a Harvard GSD publication

How to Apply: The application process is entirely online. No submissions will be accepted by mail. There is a $10 service fee to submit applications (charged by the online platform, not by Harvard GSD).

Applicants must submit the following Materials (in English) listed on the Program Webpage Link below

Apply here

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD)