UK Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill deepens attack on fundamental civil liberties

Paul Bond

The Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill being introduced by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government is a draconian assault on civil liberties. The Bill passed its first reading in parliament on May 20.

Home Secretary Priti Patel introduced what ministers are describing as the biggest overhaul of terrorist sentencing and monitoring for decades. Given how far and how punitively this area has been legislated in the last 15 years, this is a serious warning.

The Bill seeks to indefinitely restrict the movements of terrorism suspects not convicted of any offense and lower the standard of proof required for monitoring suspects. It seeks to reintroduce controversial “control orders,” which were repealed in favour of allegedly less intrusive measures.

Boris Johnson and Priti Patel

Human rights organisations Liberty and Amnesty International have expressed concerns at the level of oversight available under present parliamentary pandemic restrictions. Amnesty warned that rushing the Bill through under these conditions “suggests the government could be trying to minimise scrutiny for significant legal changes.”

The Bill would see a drastic extension of sentencing for convicted offenders. Offenders sentenced to life—where a minimum “tariff” must be served before consideration for release by a Parole Board—might never be released if they are subject to an Extended Determinate Sentence (EDS).

Prisoners with an EDS face extended licence periods of up to 10 years after release. Paroled offenders would spend the rest of their life on licence, subject to recall to custody.

A new category, the serious terrorist sentence, would carry a minimum 14-year jail term followed by an extended period of 7-25 years on licence.

The Bill would increase from 10 to 14 years the maximum penalty for some offences, including membership of a proscribed organisation, supporting a proscribed organisation and attending a place used for terrorist training.

At present, judges are able to consider the possibility of a “terrorist connection” for specific offences, allowing them to increase custodial sentencing. The Bill would allow them to consider whether there is a “proven terrorist connection” for any crime carrying a sentence greater than two years, giving them the option to extend sentencing everywhere.

The Bill would introduce a Sentence for Offenders of Particular Concern (SOPC), aimed in part at youth offenders. Under the SOPC, offenders would spend two-thirds of their sentence in custody before being eligible to apply for parole. Release would be followed by a mandatory 12-month licence period.

The Bill seeks to extend licence supervision, with 12 months being the minimum period for all offenders. Paroled adult offenders would also have to take lie detector tests.

The extension of surveillance marks the Bill’s most draconian measures. At present, terrorism suspects not convicted of an offence can be monitored for up to two years by Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs).

TPIMs, often based on secret intelligence, are considered the strictest control measures available to the security services against suspects who are not being prosecuted or deported.

At present, TPIMs offer 14 restrictions, including residence requirements, exclusion zones, police reporting, limits on the use of financial services and electronic equipment, and a ban on holding travel documents. The Bill would allow more, including mandatory drug-testing and having to account for all electronic devices in a household rather than just the subject’s own.

TPIMs will no longer be restricted to two years but could be renewed indefinitely on review. Potentially, this could see suspects not prosecuted but subject to restrictions on travel and accommodation for the rest of their lives.

TPIMs are used against those who cannot be prosecuted, but breach of a TPIM is a criminal offence allowing for imprisonment.

The standard of proof required for imposing a TPIM will also be lowered. At present, the home secretary must base the decision on a “balance of probabilities.” The new legislation changes this to the less stringent “reasonable grounds” for suspecting someone is or has been involved in terrorist activity.

The Home Office has refused to comment on whether it believes the Bill will see an increased use of TPIMs.

The TPIM proposals have exposed the repressive content of the Bill. Critics warn that the proposals would mark a return to draconian control orders—a form of house arrest —in place previously. Introduced by Tony Blair’s Labour government in the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), control orders allowed suspects to be placed under close supervision with restrictions imposed on movement, association and use of specific facilities.

Control orders were to be signed off by the home secretary. In 2006, a High Court judge, Justice Jeremy Sullivan, declared that section 3 of the 2005 Act was incompatible with the right to fair proceedings under the European Convention on Human Rights (which outlaws indefinite detention without trial). He noted that it had been drafted in such a way as to prevent courts from overturning control orders.

In 2011, the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition replaced control orders with TPIMs, which it claimed were less intrusive and had greater concern for civil liberties. That the current Bill would effectively reverse even that gesture in favour of more repressive measures is a mark of the escalating threat to democratic rights posed by the Johnson government.

This Bill follows legislation enacted in February allowing for the indefinite detention of those charged with terrorist offences and prisoners suspected of radicalisation.

Patel has justified the Bill, like February’s Act, on the basis of recent terrorist attacks in London. She said these attacks had revealed “serious flaws in the way terrorist offenders are dealt with.”

Human rights bodies have noted that the Bill is solely concerned with incarceration. There is no consideration of the reasons people undertake terrorist activity. Liberty, which has described the Bill as “a threat to fundamental pillars of our justice system,” said, “The government’s counter-terror strategy is failing, yet instead of reviewing the errors it is rolling out a bill that threatens all of our civil liberties.

“Without an evidence-based approach the government is failing to address the root causes of these incidents and therefore failing to stop them.”

Earlier this year, it was reported that Islamic extremists had been able to meet up and network in prisons. Professor Ian Acheson, a former prison governor who conducted a government review of Islamic extremism in prisons, called for “more focus on how extra time for violent extremists in custody will be used to challenge and change their hateful ideologies. If this isn’t effectively addressed, the new measures will simply delay further attacks, and might even inspire them.”

One man who works in de-radicalising jailed terrorists told The Independent simply that the plans were “crazy.”

The police have broadly welcomed the Bill’s extension of their monitoring powers. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, the senior coordinator of UK counter-terrorism policing, said monitoring changes would “only work effectively if used alongside a whole society approach aiming to reduce that threat in the long term.”

Haydon wants the controversial Prevent programme to be bolstered. Another creation of the Blair government, Prevent was ostensibly aimed at countering the supposed threat of religious radicalisation, but centred on targeting the Muslim community and creating wider anti-Muslim sentiment.

Its remit was expanded in 2011 and it has become more nakedly a vehicle for political surveillance and suppression. In 2015, it became a statutory requirement for schools, local authorities, prisons and National Health Service staff to report any individual deemed vulnerable to radicalisation to the programme.

Prevent is widely opposed. Last year the government was forced to announce a review of Prevent, but appointed as its head Lord Carlile, a loyal supporter of both the programme and of the security services. He was removed after a legal challenge, but the post remains vacant.

The review was due to be completed by August, but the current Bill scraps that statutory deadline. Instead “the aim” is to review Prevent “by August 2021.”

The Bill faces no obstacles in going through. After backing the rushing through of February’s legislation under then party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour under his successor, Sir Keir Starmer, has welcomed the Bill.

Shadow Justice Secretary David Lammy said, “The horrific terrorist attacks on British soil in recent years demonstrate the need to update terrorism sentencing legislation.” He pledged that Labour “will work constructively with the Government on measures that reduce the chances of those who commit terrorist offences from re-offending.” Labour Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds MP declared, “As a responsible opposition, we will work with the Government to scrutinise this proposed piece of legislation to make it effective.”

Jonathan Hall QC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, said he was “uncomfortable with getting rid of protections for individual rights that don’t appear to have caused any real problems for the authorities to date.” These criticisms will not lead to him opposing anything. The position of “independent” reviewer of terrorism legislation is just window-dressing to give the appearance of oversight.

Hall was appointed to the position in May 2019 and has supported further attacks on civil liberties. In a speech to the conservative Henry Jackson Society think-tank in January, Hall said section 49 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 is too “difficult” for police and intelligence agencies to work with. Section 49 of RIPA allows police and others to legally order suspects to hand over their passwords for encrypted information. Hall spoke in favour of legislating a new offence of failing to hand over a password during a terrorism investigation.

COVID-19 fatalities in Europe’s care homes far higher than official counts

Stephen Alexander

Across Europe and internationally, the deaths and suffering wrought by government and corporate criminality in the face of the coronavirus pandemic has fallen most heavily on the elderly, sick and disabled.

Just as the belated and partial lockdown measures have begun to stem the tide of fatalities in care homes, the ruling elite in Europe is forging ahead with a recklessly premature easing of lockdown restrictions in line with the demands of big business. This takes place under conditions where none of the major causes of transmission in care homes—inadequate personal protective equipment for health and social care workers, no systematic testing regime, and profoundly under-resourced care services—have been resolved, leaving millions of residents and workers dangerously exposed to an ongoing wave of the pandemic and making a much larger second wave inevitable.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that up to 50 percent of all COVID-19 deaths to date have occurred among care home residents in Europe. As of June 30, cases in Europe rose above 2 million (2,004,226) and 173,280 deaths have been reported by authorities across the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDPC). This means that at least 80,000 care home residents have now died of the virus. Hundreds of care workers have also died and tens of thousands have been infected.

Albina Minelli, 92, sits on a wheelchair as talk from a safe distance with relatives, at the elderly nursing, in Alzano Lombardo, Italy. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Care home deaths are highest in countries where the virus has been allowed to run rampant through the population, with capitalist governments mirroring the fascistic, pseudo-scientific strategy of “herd immunity,” first espoused by the British Conservative government. Across Europe and internationally, corporate profits have been prioritised over the lives and health of the working class. Broad swathes of industry have been allowed to operate with only cosmetic safety measures in place, and mass public events, including sports fixtures and conferences, continued well into March.

The proportion of overall COVID-19 deaths involving care home residents ranges between 24 percent in Hungary to 82 percent in Canada, according to figures compiled by the International Long Term Care Policy Network (ILTCP) at the London School of Economics. In absolute terms, however, the worst care home fatalities have occurred in some of the wealthiest countries in Europe as well as the United States, the world’s deadliest pandemic hotspot, where care residents comprise 42 percent of nearly 100,000 COVID-19 fatalities.

Spain currently has the highest number of care deaths in Europe, at 16,678, approximately one-third of probable COVID-19 deaths across the country, according to the ILTCP. France’s count is close behind with 14,363 deaths as of May 18, 51 percent of the pandemic death toll. In the UK, the Office for National Statistics recorded 12,526 death among care home residents in England and Wales as of May 1, amounting to 38 percent of all coronavirus fatalities. The overall UK figure is much higher, with 1,623 COVID-19 deaths in Scottish care homes as of May 17, 46 percent of the total.

Several other states have recorded thousands of deaths among care home residents, including Belgium, where 4,646 residents have died (51 percent of the official COVID-19 death toll), Sweden, where 1,661 residents have died (48.9 percent), and Germany, where 3,029 deaths (37 percent) have occurred in residential care, homeless centres, refugee detention facilities and prisons. Residential care also accounts for a high proportion of COVID-19 fatalities in Ireland, comprising 62 percent of more than 1,500 COVID-19 fatalities; Norway (58 percent of 233 deaths); Portugal (40 percent of 1,125 deaths); and Austria (41 percent of 510 deaths).

The true scale of the COVID-19 deaths and infections in social care is yet to emerge, as many countries do not have systems in place either to track or control the contagion. A recent report by the ECDPC explained:

“Under-ascertainment and under-reporting of COVID-19 cases in LTCFs (Long Term Care Facilities) has been a common feature of the COVID-19 surveillance in Europe… The majority of European countries did not have surveillance systems for LTCFs in place before the current pandemic—i.e. systems able to systematically and consistently monitor respiratory diseases and provide timely reporting at local or national level to inform interventions.”

The true death toll will perhaps never be counted as thousands of care residents have been buried or cremated without first being tested for the disease. Post-mortem testing is virtually non-existent and unsystematic in the countries where it is practiced. In Germany, where the federal government has been lauded by the corporate media for its handling of the pandemic, comprehensive testing is still not provided for care home residents or staff. The Robert Koch Institute, the country’s leading authority on infectious diseases, has stated that official figures are incomplete and “should be considered minimum values.” In Italy, which has had some of the worst single cases of mass care home deaths—190 of 1,000 residents at one large care home near Milan died of the virus—there are no official statistics for infections or deaths in residential care.

Up-to-date figures on excess mortality, which are currently only available in the UK, demonstrate that the impact of the pandemic in social care is far more acute than indicated by official statistics. In England and Wales, there were 25,591 excess deaths in care homes between April 10 and May 15—more than double the official figure—compared to a five-year average, amounting to 52 percent of all excess deaths during the pandemic.

Excess deaths beyond those already linked to coronavirus are thought to comprise undiagnosed COVID-19 fatalities and secondary victims, who have died due to neglect as already woefully underfunded services were overwhelmed and those in need of care were told to stay away. Horrific reports have emerged from the worst affected states of elderly people dying horrendously, isolated from their families, without adequate palliative treatment or even basic daily care. The virus was transmitted rapidly in care partly due to the widespread, genocidal policy of discharging patients from hospitals into care homes without first testing them for the virus, while criminally rationing hospital treatment for coronavirus at the expense of the elderly and disabled.

Last week it emerged that the Johnson government refused to sanction a plan by Public Health England to lock down care homes, which would have prevented many deaths. The 11-point plan which PHE considered would be “high impact” in tackling the spread of the virus was sent to Downing Street on April 28 but rejected. PHE called for a “a further lockdown of care homes” and included proposals that staff move in to care homes for four weeks. It requested the government “use NHS facilities and other temporary accommodation to quarantine and isolate residents.” At the time the government was opening temporary large-scale Nightingale hospitals at which many care home residents could have received urgent treatment.

The ILCPT has calculated that the proportion of care home residents to die of COVID-19 ranges from “0 in Hong Kong, 0.3% in Austria, 0.4% in Germany and 0.9% in Canada, to 2% in Sweden, 2.4% in France and 3.7% in Belgium.” “In the UK,” the report continues, “if only deaths in care homes registered as linked to COVID-19, the figure would be 2.8, whereas if excess deaths of care home residents is used, it would be 6.7%.”

The fact that these deaths were entirely preventable through the basic public health measures insisted upon by the WHO since January, including regular testing, proactive contact tracing and quarantine protocols, is proven by the handful of countries where they were instituted. Hong Kong has had no COVID-19 deaths among care home residents, despite being one of the most densely populated and internationally connected areas of the planet, situated in close proximity to the first epicentre of the pandemic in mainland China.

Protests internationally against police murder of George Floyd

Thomas Scripps

Thousands of people have protested internationally in a show of solidarity with US protests against the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American, died after a policeman pressed his knee on his throat for nine minutes.

Several demonstrations took place in Germany. In the Bavarian capital of Munich, 400 people gathered on Saturday evening, including a march on the city’s US Consulate.

Several protests took place in Berlin over the weekend. On Sunday, a protest march through the Kreuzberg district attracted around 1,500 mostly young people. They demonstrated under a banner “Justice for George Floyd” and carried signs with inscriptions including: “I can’t breathe,” “Justice for George Floyd” and “Being black is not a crime.” Shortly before, a “Memorial March against racist police violence in the USA” marched to the Brandenburg Gate.

Protesters in Trafalgar Square in London chanting George Floyd

The largest demonstration took place on Saturday in front of the US Embassy in Berlin. More than 2,000 people expressed their anger at the brutal police violence. Banners included, “Justice for George Floyd!” and “Against Racist Police Violence.”

Demonstrators not only protested Floyd's death, but also the conditions in Germany and the growth of far-right forces within the state. Neo-Nazi structures in the police force must be uncovered, said one of the speakers. One participant explained: the denazification that allegedly took place after World War II never really took place. We still have Nazis in various structural areas. Another referred directly to police violence in Germany: it is by no means an isolated incident. It happens almost daily in Germany, she explained, recalling the case of Oury Jalloh, who burned to death in a prison cell in 2005.

On Saturday, up to 5,000 people demonstrated in the Danish capital Copenhagen. Protesters began their protest at the US embassy in Østerbro and finished at Christianborg.

Last Thursday, demonstrators protested outside the US consulate in Milan, Italy. During the day, a mural was painted in the city reading “I Can’t Breathe” in reference to Floyd’s last words.

In Canada, thousands protested Saturday in Toronto’s Christie Pitts Park at the deaths of Floyd and Regis Korchinski-Paquet. Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old black woman died last Wednesday, after falling from her 24th-floor balcony when police officers were called to her home. Korchinski-Paquet’s family are seeking to establish the truth about how she died and dispute the police version of events.

Solidarity demonstrations were held in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, where hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians marched Saturday in protest against the killing by Israeli border police of Iyad Halak. Halak, a disabled Palestinian man who had autism was shot in Jerusalem’s Old City. Demonstrators held placards reading “Palestinian Lives Matter” and “Justice for Iyad, Justice for George.”

In London, thousands gathered in Trafalgar Square on Sunday afternoon, before marching past Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament. They crossed the River Thames to rally outside the US embassy at Nine Elms in the Battersea area. The protestors chanted “No justice, no peace,” “Black lives matter” and “Say my name, George Floyd.” They carried banners with the slogans “Justice for George Floyd,” “Racism has no place” and “I can’t breathe.”

People march from Parliament Square in central London on Sunday, May 31, 2020, to protest against the recent killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, USA, that has led to protests in many countries and across the US. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

One protester told Sophie Walsh, European correspondent for Australia’s “Nine News,” “expect more and bigger protests here, we’ve had enough.”

At 1pm, protesters dropped to their knees in memory of Floyd.

The demonstration stopped traffic on Lambeth Bridge and blocked the road to the US embassy. Many drivers sounded their horns in support as they passed, and onlookers applauded the march.

Showing a recognition of the fundamental and international class issues involved in Floyd’s death, some protestors made their way to Grenfell Tower in North Kensington in west London, where 72 people were killed in a horrific fire in 2017 caused by decades of deregulation, neglect and reckless profiteering.

The Metropolitan Police were deployed in large numbers to confront protesters. Walsh tweeted a video noting the police show of force as they cleared the Whitehall area. At the US Embassy, police lined up to prevent protesters going any further. They made several arrests.

Protesters brought placards demanding Justice for Belly. Rail worker Belly Mujinga died last month after being spat on by a man claiming to have coronavirus. Nothing has been done by the authorities, with the British Transport Police deciding not to prosecute the man.

Sunday’s protests in London followed a march of several hundred people in Peckham in the south of the capital, on Saturday. A number carried banners including one reading “Solidarity.”

Other protests in Britain took place on Sunday in Manchester and Cardiff. In Cardiff, hundreds of people gathered by the walls of the city’s castle. One banner read: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

In Manchester, protesters marched through some the city’s main thoroughfares including Market Street, St Ann’s Square and Peter Street. The march finished in St Peters Square, where protesters kneeled in tribute to Floyd. This was just yards from the site of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where yeomanry and regular cavalry attacked and killed protesting workers. Among their chants were “Justice for George Floyd” and “The UK is not innocent”—referencing deaths in police custody.

Proving this last point, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has refused to comment on US President Donald Trump’s fascistic response to the protests in America. Trump denounced the protestors as “THUGS” and threatened to send in the military to quash demonstrations. On Friday, he tweeted: “Any difficulty and we will assume control, but when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Protesters marching in London from Trafalgar Square down Whitehall

Speaking in an interview with Sky News Sunday morning, Raab said: “I’m not going to start commenting on the commentary or indeed the press statements that other world leaders make, or indeed the US president.”

The British state has its own brutal record of police violence. The London Metropolitan police alone used violence a staggering 41,477 times in a five-month period in 2018. In that period, police fired or aimed Tasers at suspects 2,663 times and trained real firearms on suspects 591 times in London—an average of nearly four times a day.

In the year 2017-2018, 283 people lost their lives following contact with UK police. Of these, 23 occurred in or following police custody, 57 were supposed suicides following custody and 29 related to road traffic incidents. There were four police shootings (three of which were related to terrorism) and 170 unspecified “other” deaths at the hands of the police.

As in the US, this violence falls disproportionately on the black population—particularly young black men—but is rooted fundamentally in the oppression of the entire working class by the capitalist state.

More protests are planned in the UK in the coming week—on June 3, 6 and 7 in London, June 6 in Manchester and June 4 in Birmingham. Similar events are being prepared across Europe.

The rallies are also extending into the Asia-Pacific.

Several hundred gathered in Tokyo, Japan on Saturday to express their support for the US demonstrations. The protesters also condemned a recent unprovoked assault on a 33-year-old worker of Kurdish origin by Tokyo police. Footage of the attack, showing the man being held to the ground by two officers while they brutalised him, went viral and provoked widespread anger.

Part of the protest in Tokyo, Credit: @Gregor_Wakounig (Twitter)

The demonstrators marched from Shibuya Square, a well-known rallying place, to Shibuya police station. They demanded that the authorities “Turn over the criminal policemen” involved in the attack on the Kurdish worker and chanted other slogans, including “Do not discriminate against foreigners!” Police, in large numbers, sought to break up the protest and arrested at least one activist.

In Australia, thousands of people have indicated on social media that they will attend protests over the coming days in the capital cities including Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. In addition to extending solidarity to the US demonstrations, they will be raising opposition to police killings in Australia, many of which have targeted Aboriginal people.

This morning, Prime Minister Scott Morrison expressed fears that the US protests are resonating among Australian workers and young people. “There's no need to import things happening in other countries here to Australia,” he said, adding that “Australia is not the United States.”

In New Zealand, rallies will be held in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, beginning this afternoon.

New COVID-19 infections worldwide hit record levels

Patrick Martin

June is the fifth month of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30.

Over the weekend, as the world entered the fifth month of the public health and economic disaster, new infections worldwide hit record levels, approximately 125,000 per day on May 29 and May 30, according to WorldoMeter.

Brazil passed a grim milestone, with 500,000 cases, second in the world to the United States, while approaching 30,000 deaths. Of the 125,000 new cases, Brazil accounted for the most, more than 30,000, and the US ranked second, at nearly 25,000. Other countries contributing to the surge were Russia, India, Peru, Chile and Mexico, with a combined total of more than 30,000. The same seven countries accounted for three quarters of the nearly 4,100 deaths recorded for May 30.

Officially, the first American death from COVID-19 came on February 28 in the Seattle, Washington area. In the 93 days that have passed since then, more than 106,000 people have died of coronavirus in the United States, while the number infected has skyrocketed from a handful to more than 1.8 million people. Even these figures are likely gross underestimates of the real impact of the pandemic.

The United States, the richest country in the world, with vast medical and scientific resources, has lost far more of its people to the coronavirus than any other nation because of the greed, callousness and sheer incompetence of its ruling elite. In the eyes of working people, both within the US and around the world, this is a political and social disgrace from which American capitalism will never recover.

June 1 marks two weeks since the auto industry and other major US employers fully resumed operations at factories, warehouses and offices. These facilities are likely to become new hotspots for the pandemic, following in the footsteps of meatpacking plants, which were never closed down and saw infection rates of well over 50 percent of the workers in some cases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects that between 10,000 and 30,000 more Americans will die from the coronavirus over the next three weeks, an estimate that does not take into account the likely acceleration of community spread because of the large-scale reopening of factories and workplaces, as well as stores, churches and other potential points of transmission of the virus.

There are already disturbing reports, both anecdotal and statistical, of an upsurge of the pandemic in those states that first began reopening, or which never imposed any sort of lockdown. According to the site covidexitstrategy.org, which uses fairly conservative estimates based on CDC guidelines, 22 states, mainly in the South and the Mountain West, show increasing levels of COVID-19.

The 14-day moving average for new coronavirus infections is up 60 percent in Alabama, 40 percent in Arkansas, 15 percent in Florida, 38 percent in South Carolina, 40 percent in North Carolina, 38 percent in Missouri and an astonishing 139 percent in West Virginia (more than doubling in two weeks from a previously low level).

Several of these states were the scenes of notorious violations of social distancing last month, including a pool party in Arkansas attended by dozens of people, and the Lake of the Ozarks resort in southern Missouri, where thousands gathered on the Memorial Day weekend. New COVID-19 cases have been reported in connection with both events.

The most rapid increase in a Midwest state was in Wisconsin. Again, this is associated with the collapse of social distancing after the state Supreme Court overruled lockdown orders issued by the governor, leading to widely publicized scenes of tightly packed crowds gathered in bars and restaurants. The court ruling was issued May 13. Just over two weeks later, COVID-19 cases in the state are up 47 percent.

According to one report, ICU beds are filling up in Minneapolis-St. Paul; Omaha, Nebraska and the state of Rhode Island, a signal of impending crisis. Leavitt Partners, led by former Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, projected that Hennepin and Ramsey counties, which include Minneapolis and St. Paul, respectively, will have a shortage of dozens of ICU beds in the next three weeks. Ramsey County could have a shortage of overall hospital beds as well. Minnesota saw its largest one-day rise in coronavirus-related ICU bed hospitalizations with 260 on Wednesday.

But that same day, as protests mounted in Minneapolis over the police murder of George Floyd, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed an executive order allowing salons and barbershops to reopen and bars and restaurants to begin outdoor dining. State Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said that the state would not hit its peak coronavirus infection level until late June or July.

The Washington Post reported Sunday: “Two to four weeks after many states began lifting restrictions on restaurants, bars and larger gatherings, cases are rising in areas that had previously dodged the worst of the virus’s impact. Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin all set record highs for new cases reported Friday… In many areas, large gatherings are cited as the center of major outbreaks.”

While some of the previously hardest-hit states have begun to see a decrease in their 14-day moving average, including New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Michigan, these are decreases from appalling highs. Even with the “improvement,” these states still account for half of total US deaths and at least a quarter of new deaths.

In California, where Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom has begun the systematic relaxation of the lockdown, hotspots have begun to flare outside of Los Angeles, which has been the center of infection so far. In Alameda County, which includes the city of Oakland, new cases jumped by 30 percent last week, with 107 new cases on Thursday, the most on a single day since the pandemic began.

In practice, every state governor, Democratic or Republican, is carrying out the same policy as the Trump administration and bourgeois governments throughout the world: forcing millions of workers back to work to resume the process of profit and wealth accumulation for the capitalist class, while deliberately encouraging the breakdown of social distancing in order to spread the infection as widely as possible.

The policy of “herd immunity” has no scientific or public health content whatsoever. It is a label that disguises a social policy whose deliberate purpose is to dispose of as much of the most vulnerable population as possible—the elderly, the sick, the immune-compromised, all those who do not produce surplus value and profit for the financial aristocracy.

As the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party have insisted, fighting the pandemic requires the independent mobilization of the working class, advancing a socialist program irreconcilably opposed to the economic interests of the capitalist class and the capitalist system as a whole. Millions of lives are at stake. They can be defended only through an open struggle to end the corporate-financial dictatorship over social policy and redeploy economic resources on the basis of social need.

Trump incites violent police rampage against protesters

Niles Niemuth

Across the United States, hundreds of thousands of working people and youth who have turned out in nearly 100 cities to protest the murder of George Floyd have themselves become the target of violent assaults by massively armed squads of police, backed by national guardsmen.

The nation-wide violence unleashed against protesters is a continuation and escalation of the murderous assault that cost the life of George Floyd. The police are acting with impunity, fully aware that their violent attacks on protesters are supported by the Trump administration.

It is hardly a coincidence that Floyd’s murder occurred in Minneapolis, where President Donald Trump delivered a fascistic tirade last October at a rally attended by hundreds of cops. He denounced “far left” and “socialist” politicians, including the city’s mayor.

Montage of police violence from across the US, weekend of May 30, 2020

Since protests began last week, Trump has repeatedly called for attacks on protesters. On Sunday, he retweeted a post that called for the use of “overwhelming force against the bad guys,” which followed his previous statement that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Trump has demanded that state governments deploy the National Guard and has threatened to unleash the military to “take over.”

With no factual basis, the Trump administration is now declaring that “far left” and anarchist groups are responsible for violence. Both Trump and Attorney General William Barr are threatening to declare Antifa—a politically-insignificant anarchist group that is, in all likelihood, heavily infiltrated and manipulated by police agents—a “domestic terrorist organization.” This constitutionally illegal threat is aimed at criminalizing all working class, left-wing and socialist opposition to the Trump administration.

The rampage by the police over the last several days is among the most violent attacks on democratic rights in the history of the United States. As of Sunday, National Guard soldiers and airmen have been activated to aid in the suppression of protests in 26 states. States of emergency have been declared and curfews implemented in cities and counties across the country, most of which are controlled by Democrats, resulting in the suspension of the right to free speech and assembly.

In the course of the weekend, police beat protesters with truncheons and fired teargas to disperse crowds. Rubber bullets, pepper balls, beanbags, tasers and other “non-lethal” munitions were fired at demonstrators. They also sprayed mace and pepper spray directly into the faces of protesters and journalists. The Associated Press reported that more than 4,100 people have been arrested since Thursday.

One video shot by residents in Minneapolis Saturday night shows police marching behind a National Guard Humvee screaming for people to go inside and yelling “Light ‘em up,” as they fire rubber bullets on a group of young people gathered outside their home. Members of the New York Police Department rammed their vehicles into a crowd of protesters in Brooklyn. An elderly white man walking with a cane was shoved to the ground by riot police in Salt Lake City as they rolled down the street in armored vehicles dispersing protesters.

In Sacramento, California a young black man who was bleeding profusely after being shot in the eye was carried to safety by a fellow white protester. A young couple was tased and pulled from their car by dozens of riot police in Atlanta after they slashed their tires and broke out the windows.

A police officer prepares to fire rubber bullets during a protest Saturday in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

A young woman in Dallas, Texas who was walking home from the store with groceries was shot in the head with a rubber bullet; photos show blood streaming down her face. A young child in Seattle was pepper-sprayed in the face, video posted on social media shows her screaming in pain. Those around her douse her face with milk to ease the pain. Police in Las Vegas charged protesters, attacking them apparently at random, arresting dozens, including two photojournalists.

Journalists across the country were clearly targeted for assault and arrest by the police, in direct violation of the First Amendment’s protection of a free press. MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi was shot in the leg with a rubber bullet while reporting live in Minneapolis. In Louisville, a local TV reporter and her cameraman were targeted and shot with pepper balls during protests Friday. A freelance photojournalist in Minneapolis was permanently blinded in her left eye after being shot by the police with a rubber bullet.

Lucas Jackson, a Reuters photographer who had been shot by a police rubber bullet Saturday and has covered previous protests in Ferguson and Baltimore, told the news organization that it was clear that journalists are being targeted. “Usually if you get hit by this stuff it’s because you are between the police and the protesters—you’re taking the risk by being in the middle. During this they are actually aiming at us,” Jackson said.

It is highly probable that operatives within the White House have been directly involved in instigating attacks on the media, which Trump has repeatedly denounced as the “enemy of the people.”

Trump’s deliberate incitement of police violence has been a common theme throughout his administration. In the absence of a mass fascist movement, Trump views the police as a potential power base for a quasi-dictatorial regime. His actions confirm the warning made by the Political Committee of the Socialist Equality Party following his October 2019 speech in Minneapolis:

Trump’s appearances before police, security personnel and military audiences, as well as his carefully staged mass rallies designed to attract politically disoriented and backward elements, are all part of a calculated effort to create a political constituency upon which he can base an authoritarian regime, operating outside all of the traditional legal boundaries of the US Constitution.

The Democratic Party and the corporate media are responding to Trump’s lies and provocations with their typical combination of spinelessness and complicity. They have accepted, without a shred of evidence, Trump’s narrative that the protests are the work of “outside agitators,” a claim made repeatedly at a press conference held by the Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Sunday morning.

Susan Rice, former National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama, denounced the protests as “right out of the Russian playbook,” claiming absurdly that foreign governments are responsible for stoking domestic dissent.

No Democratic official has denounced Trump’s fascistic incitements. Bernie Sanders, the former presidential candidate who is now enthusiastically supporting Joe Biden, sent an email to supporters Sunday evening that said nothing about the police rampage against protesters and did not even mention Trump.

There could be no greater and more dangerous political mistake than to entrust the fight against Trump, political violence, and for the defense of democratic rights to the Democratic Party.

What terrifies the Democrats above all is the development of a movement of the working class against the Trump administration and the financial oligarchy that both parties represent.

The multi-racial and multi-ethnic demonstrations that are sweeping the country are a protest not only against police violence, but intolerable economic and social conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic is discrediting capitalism. One hundred thousand people have already died as a result of the criminal negligence of the Trump regime and the ruling class. The homicidal back-to-work campaign, supported by Republicans and Democrats, and the massive social crisis facing tens of millions of people is politically radicalizing millions of working people within the United States and internationally.

The Trump administration recognizes and fears this radicalization, and is employing the old red-baiting bogeyman of left-wing violence as a pretext for police-state measures.

The entire working class must now come to the defense of all those protesting the murder of George Floyd and all other victims of police violence.

There is a growing mood of social militancy in the working class. Prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, there was a steady growth of strike activity. In recent weeks, workers have organized walkouts against unsafe conditions.

The Socialist Equality Party urges protesters, especially among the youth, to go directly to auto plants, factories, warehouses, distribution centers, building sites, i.e., anywhere there are large concentrations of workers and appeal directly for their support. Such appeals will not be ignored.

As the Socialist Equality Party explained in its October 2019 statement:

The fight against the Trump administration must be connected to the fight against social inequality, the destruction of social programs and infrastructure, the attack on jobs and wages, the terrible conditions facing an entire generation of young people, the vicious persecution of immigrant workers, the degradation of the environment, and the consequences of unending and expanding war, which threatens all of humanity. The opposition of workers and youth in the United States must be connected to the eruption of social struggles among workers throughout the world, who share the same interests and confront the same problems.

The working class—upon which the functioning of society depends—has the power to stop the assault on democratic rights, create a massive political movement to drive Trump from power, break the back of the corporate-financial oligarchy, and begin the restructuring of economic life on a socialist basis.

The China Factor in Pakistan’s Media Landscape

Nowmay Opalinski


Chinese inroads into Pakistan’s mainstream media, and state-level bilateral cooperation on telecommunications infrastructure and surveillance is growing. These developments are taking place against a backdrop of Pakistani state’s growing attempts to censor online content domestically. How does this set of circumstances favour China? Where does China’s big picture media strategy fit into this?

Pakistani Censorship with Chinese Characteristics?Since 2012, the government of Pakistan has been attempting to implement a national firewall to tighten control over content shared online. The introduction of the Pakistan Electronic Crime Act in 2016 was supposed to regulate harmful content like terrorist propaganda. However, it has also been used to censor opposition leaders and critics of the government.

In January 2020, Pakistan adopted a new set of regulations framed under the Citizen Protection (Against-Online Harm) Rules, which entails plans for the Ministry of Information Technology and Communication to appoint a national coordinator in charge of online content regulation. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists denounced this move, and have argued its unconstitutionality. Reporters Without Borders and legal experts highlighted that the vague definitions of harmful contents leaves room for arbitrary removal of content. Application of Article 6(s) also enables potential deactivation of user data encryption as it enforces social media companies to deliver extensive information, including “subscriber information, traffic data, content data and any other information or data.”

This new regulation includes an obligation for all social media companies to open offices in Pakistan, where strict supervision of their ability to remove or block content will be enforced. It empowers the national coordinator to ask online platforms to surrender all information, private or public. These measures could lead to international social media platforms to re-evaluate their operations in Pakistan, as the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) highlighted in their statement to Prime Minister Imran Khan.

However, these new measures could also play in favour of Chinese social media platforms as an alternative in the country. Chinese content censorship on its online platforms is uniformly applicable, irrespective of whether an application is being used domestically or abroad. They could thus easily adapt to Pakistan’s new regulations, and Beijing could even work with Islamabad to define the extent of internet censorship in Pakistan.

While such a cooperation has not yet taken place, China’s growing footprint in Pakistan’s telecommunication infrastructure could enable its occurrence. For example, the new cross-border fiber-optic cable which goes from Xinjiang to Rawalpindi via Khunjerab will involve the routing of internet traffic through China’s regulated network. This could facilitate the exportation of the Chinese firewall system to Pakistan through a direct linkage. China has already exported social media surveillance tools to several countries. It is also showcasing its model of internet control in UN-mandated working groups on international cyber-norms by challenging “Internet freedoms and its multi-stakeholder governance.”

Alignment with China’s Big Picture Media StrategyIn December 2019, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Pakistan’s then special assistant to the prime minister on information, urged Pakistan’s local media to play an active role in promoting the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and to counter “negative propaganda.” Her statement came a month after US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Alice Wells, criticised China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and CPEC.

Since then, China and Pakistan have continued to reiterate the need for closer media cooperation. This is already taking shape, with the China’s state-run Xinhua news agency signing an MoU with local Pakistani media, which includes provision of free content in both English and Urdu to their Pakistani counterparts. While provision of content might be perceived as a good opportunity for the country’s shrinking media industry, it could also be a step towards standardisation of mainstream media information to promote BRI projects in Pakistan.

There is a broader strategy at play here. China is now exporting news production through institutions such as the Belt and Road News Network. It has developed ‘flooding’ strategies, which involve publishing large volumes of online content through various state-sponsored channels. In a recent interview, state-run Pakistan Television Corporation officials reported that a “Rapid Response Initiative System” will be implemented to coordinate the efforts of China Economic Net (a Beijing-based online news organisation) and Pakistan China Institute (an Islamabad based pro-Beijing think-tank) to systematically counter negative views against CPEC. Subsidised trips for Pakistani journalists with training sessions in China are also being organised on a frequent basis. Beijing wishes to promote a new model of journalism across the world, and is holding international conferences such as the Belt and Road Journalists Forum and the China-Pakistan Media Forum to get the word out. Beyond content-related issues, China’s investment in the media sector mainly favours state-owned outlets over independent and/or private entities. In the midst of the Pakistani media’s financial crisis, China’s growing support will eventually strengthen state-run media over struggling independent outlets, thereby serving both governments’ interests.

Looking AheadAs China and Pakistan bolster their media cooperation, Beijing’s model of controlled internet might become a workable option for Islamabad. Already, over the past two years, criticism of CPEC has considerably diminished in the Pakistani media landscape. A combination of recent censorship measures with Chinese support in the field of surveillance technologies, could ultimately result in a sharp decrease in Pakistani citizens’ internet freedoms.

An India-Japan- Korea Emergency Communications Network for Current and Future Pandemics

Siddharth Anil Nair

An Emergency Communications Network (ECN) is a dedicated system to support unhindered communication and coordination between actors in an emergency. ECNs come into play during any form of environmental, military, or health emergency. These networks operate between departments within a country; or, in some cases, multilaterally between countries.

This article will look at the benefits of establishing an ECN between India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (RoK) for not only the current pandemic but also for forthcoming disasters. India shares a variety of synergies with Japan and Korea in the fields of humanitarian aid/disaster relief (HA/DR), healthcare/pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology. Tokyo and Seoul have showcased excellent domestic mitigation strategies in response to the pandemic. As such, a trilateral ECN will act as an early warning system and provide best practices if and when a situation calls for coordinated regional pandemic mitigation efforts.

Why RoK?

RoK has become a shining example of what a state should, and could do in the event of a global health crisis. Its immediate border closures, up-to-date communications, and coordinated mitigation strategies with neighbouring countries highlight some of the benefits that could be extended to a state-level ECN with India and Japan.

Seoul’s tracing, monitoring, and testing efforts have also showcased its prowess in biotechnology, medical manufacturing, and overall governance. This testing and manufacturing expertise is of particular interest to New Delhi given its own gaps in capacity. The inability to scale-up production of indigenous kits has required India to place an order of 500,000 RT-PCR kits from Seoul, to be delivered within May-June. Another Korean firm with existing factories in India has been given the go-ahead to manufacture antibody testing kits as well. These are examples of the existing bilateral linkages within the India-South Korea Special Strategic Partnership.

Why Japan?

While Japan has faced substantial criticism for its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, with mask shortages, inefficient lockdowns, and poor financial support to households, its first-wave mitigation effort has been reported as a net positive; with effective tracing, testing, and treatment. Japan’s biotech industry is also prepared to produce accurate testing kits and vaccines. Takara Bio already claims to be on track to produce a vaccine this year.

Finally, and most importantly, are Japan’s relationships with RoK and India. Tokyo is already working with Seoul in bilateral and multilateral groupings to address the pandemic. New Delhi and Tokyo have a history of joint experience in HA/DR, infrastructure development, economic aid, and military missions, and the “Special Strategic and Global Partnership’s” value addition in a “post-COVID world” was referenced by Prime Minister Modi as recently as April 2020, after his phone call with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. There is therefore a theoretical template already in existence for the implementation of a trilateral ECN.

India, Japan, RoK: Existing Synergies

India’s Act East Policy (AEP), based on the three pillars of political-security, economic and socio-cultural cooperation, highlights the need to develop coherent long-term strategies to protect these interests, and subsequent linkages. As such, the concept of an ECN falls right within the normative ambit of economic and human security. The RoK’s New Southern Policy and Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Policy share many principles of regional security with the AEP. An ECN will be a complimentary structure to existing HA/DR efforts, i.e. regional communication, infrastructure development, and technical cooperation, dedicated to protection from future pandemics.

Recent strategic agreements and joint-declarations between the three countries have made note of the cooperative space in robotic, bio-tech, healthcare, and pharmaceutical research, which could be optimally operationalised through a joint India-RoK-Japan ECN. Such an ECN can provide those involved with a reliable early warning system, updated healthcare and medical expertise, joint laboratories for testing kits, and vaccine development. It will also act as an impetus for further infrastructure development, and help establish regional pandemic supply-chain networks (PSCN) for medical equipment and personal protective equipment (PPE) in the event of future global health disasters.

Challenges to Implementation

The benefits notwithstanding, there are two immediate impediments to implementing a trilateral ECN between India, RoK, and Japan. One is domestic structural inadequacies across the three countries in setting up a whole new network to monitor and coordinate during a pandemic. This can be offset by developing or strengthening subsystems in existing HA/DR networks. Two, China’s presence in existing platforms such as the ASEAN Plus Three Summit and the Chinese state’s ability to deliver expertise and equipment (as it has in recent months) may have an impact on potential partnerships with India, who is struggling to develop these capacities for its own domestic requirements. However, India’s exports of drugs such as Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), and its expansion of PPE manufacturing can ensure greater contribution to the partnership in the future.

Cooperation is the need of the hour—for states to come together to develop joint responses to such health crises. Effective mitigation is a direct result of effective regional mechanisms, which could be found in an India-Japan-RoK ECN.