Al Jazeera’s Tele-documentary, the Bandit Brothers and Bangladesh’s Dossier of Abuse

M Adil Khan

On February 1, 2021 the Qatar based TV outlet, Al Jazeera aired a tele documentary, “All the Prime Minister’s Men.” The tele documentary that included several sting operations involving convicted fugitive brothers of the Bangladesh Army Chief, General Aziz Ahmed depicted multiple layers of abuse and corruption – money laundering, extortion, bribery, extra judicial killing, disappearances, and arbitrary arrests of opponents etc. – in Bangladesh(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6v_levbUN4).

In the documentary the fugitive bandit brothers further claimed that corruption and human rights abuse in Bangladesh are not just rampant, but these occur under the patronage of the highest level of the government including their brother, the Army Chief.

The bandit brothers also revealed how their brother, the Army Chief, has politicised, and criminalized the Bangladesh Army, an institution that till him used to be a much respected and revered institution in the country.

Reaction to the tele documentary has been swift and varied. Many, especially those who have been complaining about abuses in Bangladesh for quite some time welcomed the documentary especially by the expatriates who live outside the country and thus outside the reach of the government who reacted more exuberantly than those who are inside the country.

On the other hand, the ruling party loyalists- home and abroad – have responded hysterically. They have condemned and strongly rejected the claims made in the documentary saying that these claims are outright falsehood. Some have even gone so far as to brand Al Jazeera as a terrorist organization, alleging that the “Doha-based news network is guilty of inciting violence,” thus implying that the documentary is politically biased and dangerous and thus have little or no credibility.

As could be expected Bangladesh government’s reaction has been quick and acrimonious. It claimed that the documentary is “concocted” and a “conspiracy” against the Bangladesh state and that it is work of the Bangladesh Jamaat Islami Party – an Islamic party, a one-time ally of the ruling party, now a foe. Government also claimed and without evidence that the Jamaat has funded the documentary.

In the meantime, international human rights organizations have expressed their deep concern at the revelations of corruption and about made in the documentary. Furthermore, as the documentary has shown Bangladesh Army’s involvement in corruption that has large contingents in the UN Peace Keeping Missions, Rights groups have asked the UN to investigate, more particularly,  Army’s claim that they deploy Israeli made listening equipment which the documentary has shown that they bought.  UN has issued statement expressing its concern and rejecting Bangladesh army’s claim that they ever authorize use of spy equipment in any of their missions. UN has now asked Bangladesh government to investigate and clarify these claims (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiBagmytsAM&fbclid=IwAR20fayHqGwj_xJsd_eKKO1YWv-poBKu9DHrUekO29W49K4syFdUK-QmX5w).

In the context of these contrary views and responses, what do we make of the claims of corruption and abuse made in the documentary by the General’s bandit brothers especially that, by their own admission, they are also “Prime Minister’s Men?”

Only an independent probe into these claims would clarify the situation. However, for the time being, let us leave these claims aside and look at the scenario of abuse and malfeasance in Bangladesh from other sources.

Bangladesh’s Dossier of Abuse

Indeed, if we examine the claims of the bandit brothers as examples and not as isolated incidents and draw a picture of abuse based on reports of other credible sources, international and national agencies, scenario that emerges is quite overwhelming. The Dossier of Abuse in Bangladesh is long, deep and troubling.

All records show that in Bangladesh especially since the coming of the Awami League government in 2009, human rights abuses and corruption have reached epic proportions and are endemic, worsening by the day. Thus, what the bandit brothers have reported are mere tip of the iceberg – the claims of abuse and corruption made in the documentary by the bandit brothers neither are “concocted” nor are “conspiracies” hatched by some Islamist Terrorists but are small samples of a deep-rooted and widely spread problem that has infected the entire body politic such that these are making Bangladesh look more like a mafia state.

Indeed, Al Jazeera’s documentary has simply given, in a rather limited but a dynamic way, Bangladesh’s Dossier of Abuse (below), a visual expression!

 

Issue	Status	Trend	Source
State of Governance	Ranked as Hybrid Regime (This category stands below Fully Democratic and between Flawed democracy and Authoritarian regimes)	Recent years have seen Bangladesh regress towards authoritarian rule…The ruling Awami League (AL) government has faced little opposition in the Bangladeshi parliament and has consolidated its power with violent repression. Political opponents have “disappeared” and leaders of parties outside the ruling coalition jailed. In early 2018, for example, opposition leader and former prime minister Khaleda Zia was sentenced to seven years imprisonment on corruption charges that some claim was politically motivated. Peaceful protests by students demanding better road safety rules and equitable access to government jobs have been violently repressed, and there have been attacks on journalists and photographers covering events.	Source: EIU; The Conversation
Press Freedom	Bangladesh Ranks 151 out of 180 (Among bottom pile of countries with limited or no freedom of press)	Bangladeshi journalists have been among the leading collateral victims of the tougher methods adopted by the ruling Awami League and its leader, Sheikh Hasina, the country’s prime minister since 2009.                Ruling Party dominated Parliament has enacted several draconian laws that consistently stifle press freedom and punish those that dare challenge the regime. In the first 9 months of the current tenure of the government 800 journalists and civil society members have been arrested by using these laws	Source: Reporters without Borders; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; UN Committee on Torture
Repression of political opponents	Widespread	Bangladesh Government consistently cracks down to suppress those that disagree or are critical of the ruling Awami League. These include members and supporters of the political opposition, journalists, prominent members of civil society, as well as students, and even school children. Thousands of opposition supporters, including senior leaders, faced trumped-up cases. Newspapers reported that even names of individuals who are dead or critically ill in the hospital were included in these arbitrary actions.	Source: Human Rights Watch; UN Committee on Torture
Corruption	146 out of 180/Worsened by 1 percentage point since 2018	According to all major ranking institutions, Bangladesh routinely finds itself among the most corrupt countries in the world. Corruption is pervasive at all levels of society. Corruption prevention measures such as The Code of Criminal Procedure, the Prevention of Corruption Act, the Penal Code, and the Money Laundering Prevention Act etc. that are expected to criminalize attempted corruption, extortion, active and passive bribery, bribery of foreign public officials, money laundering and using public resources or confidential state information for private gain are inadequately enforced. Facilitation payments and gifts are illegal, but common in practice.	Transparency International; Bangladesh Corruption Commission; Local media

Therefore, what the government needs to do is address the messages of abuse conveyed by the documentary and other agencies and rectify the wrong, not seek death of the messenger.

Should the government fail to act, onus is on the people to rise and restore the honour and dignity of the country especially that of the army.

Greek government passes bill allowing police onto campuses for first time since 1982

Robert Stevens

Greece’s right-wing New Democracy (ND) government passed its authoritarian Education Bill in the face of large scale protests Thursday evening.

The Bill establishes a special campus police force for the surveillance of universities. The university police force is empowered to “guard” campuses and will be able to arrest those deemed troublemakers by the authorities. The university police will be answerable to the Hellenic Police force rather than the education institutions they are patrolling. The law established a "disciplinary council" able to suspend or expel students.

Students and teachers take part in a rally against education reforms in Athens, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2021. Thousands of protesters in Greece have held demonstrations in the Greek capital and the second largest city of Thessaloniki against proposed education reforms, defying a weeklong public ban on protests imposed as part of measures to tackle the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

The Bill overturns the law, put in place in 1982, barring police from entering university campuses. Police were only allowed entry to campus grounds if given permission by university administrators. The law, which existed nowhere else in Europe, guaranteed students protection from arrest or state brutality.

The Education Bill also limits the length of time students can stay enrolled before getting a degree. More than 77,000 students were admitted to Greece’s public universities last year, with tuition fees charged for undergraduate studies. Many students will be forced to abandon their courses.

The government won the vote in the 300-seat parliament by a majority of 166 deputies in favour and 132 against. It was passed with the support of the 10 deputies of the far-right Greek Solution party, who have come to prominence following the outlawing of the fascist Golden Dawn.

The main opposition party, Syriza (Coalition of the Radical Left) voted against, as did the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), Movement for Change (KINAL) and MeRA25 (The European Realistic Disobedience Front).

The 1982 Law was put in place in response to the brutal murder by the US-backed military junta of at least 23 students and civilians, including a five-year-old boy, during the uprising at the Polytechnic University in Athens—now called the National Technical University of Athens, on November 17, 1973. Students were calling for the downfall of the military junta, led by George Papadopoulos, which had taken power in 1967. On that day, the third day of protests, students launched a strike under the slogan of “Bread, Education, Freedom.” The junta crushed the protest, with tanks and soldiers crashing through the university’s gates to carry out the slaughter.

Tens of thousands of students and education workers have been protesting the Education Bill throughout the country for weeks. The protests came to a crescendo during the last week with demonstrations of thousands in Athens, the second city Thessaloniki and other towns and cities.

Students and education staff put forward demands including withdrawal of the bill, no University Police, reopening of the faculties in the spring semester; no study limits or removal of students from university; no disciplinary law; no to the higher access restrictions of public universities, no to the equalization of private college degrees with universities, public, free education for all, and hands off the Student Associations.

The protests were met with massive police violence. On Wednesday police in Athens and Thessaloniki, included the motorcycled MAT squad, attacked students with teargas and truncheons. Reports and photos show police attacking protesters while they are on the ground. As a march of students near the Propylaea neared its end, police continued their attacks leaving protesters with serious injuries. Speaking to education news website alfavita.gr, former Athens Polytechnic Dean Nikos Markatos said, "We saw police riding their motorcycles towards protesters. They were beating a kid on the head with a fire extinguisher. My son is at the Red Cross Hospital with a broken shoulder and will be wearing a brace for three weeks. A total of four kids were taken to the Red Cross Hospital following the police violence."

Press Project reported that Markatos “also made a chilling accusation”, stating that “a police officer broke the jaw and took out the teeth of a student who is currently in the operating theatre.”

Riot police threw journalist Yiannis Liakos to the ground. “The rest of the journalists were at the receiving end of police hostility while at the same time police officers were attempting to prevent photo journalists from taking pictures of those arrested in order to prevent them from recording the violent scenes even against people who were lying on the ground.”

In Athens, police made 52 arrests Wednesday—with 24 charged on Thursday morning. Dozens of students organised a solidarity rally outside courts to support the detainees. A selection of videos uploaded to social media can be viewed at the Press Project web site here .

During the police rampage, a MeRA25 parliamentary deputy and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Sofia Sakorafa, suffered an assault outside the General Police Directorate of Attica. Sakorafa was part of a delegation of MeRA25 deputies and hundreds of others protesting the mass arrests of those being held inside.

Introducing the Bill, ND Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis slandered students as he portrayed universities as dens of criminality and violence. “Nowhere in the world do we see images... of historical buildings being vandalised, equipment being looted," he said. Mitsotakis claimed that on campus teachers were beaten, women raped and drugs trafficked.

While in power, SYRIZA carried out even harsher austerity than the ND and social democratic governments before it. SYRIZA enforced this through state violence and was instrumental in establishing Greece as the EU’s border force to keep out desperate immigrants and asylum seekers fleeing war zones.

Speaking in parliament, SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras, while voting against the Education Bill, gave succour to Mitsotakis’ claims that the universities were hives of criminality. He argued that the government already had enough repressive forces of the state to clamp down on campuses, so why did they need more? “If the government believe that universities are indeed centres of criminality and lawlessness then all it needs to do is send as many police officers as are needed and as many times as it is necessary to rid them from lawlessness.

He asked, “Why haven’t [the police] solved the problem? And why will this be solved by the creation of police units within universities?”

Fofi Gennimata, the leader of the Movement for Change, which includes the remnants of the social democratic PASOK which was wiped out electorally for imposing austerity, called instead for universities to be guarded by private companies.

The measures allowing the return of police to campuses are part of a raft of dictatorial measures enacted by the ND government that came to power in 2019.

Using the pandemic as a pretext, Chief of the Hellenic Police Michalis Karamalakis mounted a huge police operation consisting of 5,000 cops and armoured vehicles and banned all public gatherings of four or more people between November 15 and November 18 last year. This is the period when many commemorate the crushing of the students protests by the junta.

Last month, the government introduced a draconian bill stipulating that journalists will be limited to standing in a “specific spot” during demonstrations. The measure is opposed by every journalist association.

Last July, ND passed, with the support of Movement for Change and Greek Solution, a draconian law was passed restricting the right to protest. Protest organisers must now give advance notice of any planned public assembly “to the relevant local police or port authority.” The police or authorities are given the power to impose restrictions and even refuse permission for protests outright on public safety grounds, or if “there is a serious threat to disturb the socio-economic life of a particular area.”

From 2008, Greece was used as a test case for enforcing savage austerity throughout Europe, at the behest of the European Union, International Monetary Fund and the world’s financial institutions. Greece is again at the forefront as the ruling class moves to intensify its attacks on the living stands of the working class, to be imposed by dictatorial means.

New Democracy has pushed through anti-strike measures, including a requirement for the introduction of electronic voting by organisations calling a strike. This was carried out after Labour Minister Yiannis Vroutsis announced a new labour law bill last October based on a “flexible eight-hour workday”. This seeks to give employers the power to increase the working day from eight hours to 10 hours without paying overtime.

German government registers record military budget and gears up for war

Johannes Stern

Germany will again set a record level of defence spending this year. According to information from the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the German government has told NATO it will spend €53.03 billion in 2021. Actual military expenditure is thus far higher than the official defence budget of €46.93 billion passed in December.

The massive escalation of military spending in recent years—in 2014, the defence budget amounted to €32.4 billion—is just the beginning. A position paper published on 9 February by the Defence Ministry, titled “Thoughts on the Bundeswehr [Armed Forces] of the Future,” shows what the ruling class is preparing behind the backs of the population: the biggest German arms offensive since Hitler’s build-up of the Wehrmacht in the 1930s.

The paper comes directly from the pens of Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) and the senior-most member of the military brass, Inspector General Eberhard Zorn. In several respects it is reminiscent of the megalomaniac plans of German imperialism in the first half of the 20th century—threatening other powers, above all Russia and China. At its centre is the demand that Germany, given its geographical location and economic strength, must not only lead Europe but also play a central role worldwide, and that it must acquire the appropriate armed forces to do so.

Kramp-Karrenbauer and Zorn (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

Under the heading, “Time for new thinking,” it says, “Now, in spring 2021, is the ideal moment to deepen the debate on our security and to push forward with decisions. In Germany, a new Bundestag [federal parliament] will be elected in September and in some places discussions on defence issues have already begun... Our focus is therefore on the tasks we must tackle today to safeguard Germany’s security tomorrow; on the role Germany must assume in Europe and beyond—and on the armed forces it needs for both.”

Preparing for war

In the section, “What this means for Germany,” Kramp-Karrenbauer and Zorn bluntly state that the planned rearmament is in preparation for full-scale wars. Germany, they say, has a “special duty towards Europe’s security because of its geographical position in the centre of Europe and its economic strength” and must “make a contribution to security and peace that is commensurate with its situation and capabilities—including in the military sphere.”

The defence minister and Germany’s top general then write: “Germany bears responsibility for securing its own territory—national defence—as well as for the equally important task of defending the alliance. For both, credible military deterrence, and defence capability in all dimensions—land, air, sea, space and cyber—are fundamental. ... The mission of national and alliance defence requires our soldiers to be ready and able to stand up in combat as well.”

It continues in this tone. To live up to its “dual responsibility,” Germany must “have a broad mix of military capabilities.” A “broad military profile” is “not a luxury, but a strategic necessity. Without a Bundeswehr [Armed Forces] that can be deployed in a variety of ways, there can be no Europe capable of action.”

The section on “Roles” deals specifically with Germany’s role in future conflicts and potentially wars of total annihilation. “Due to its central location,” Berlin, as a “first responder,” “must be on the spot faster than anyone else in the event of crises, especially at the external borders of NATO and the EU.” This applies “to the Baltic as well as to the Balkans, to the Mediterranean as well as to the North and Baltic Seas.”

Further barely concealed threats of war against nuclear-armed Russia follow. As a “‘hub’ in the Alliance,” Germany’s role “in the centre of Europe is crucial for the mobility of allied forces.” The Bundeswehr must, therefore “provide infrastructure and logistics and make its contribution to coordination and protection so that operations can be carried out smoothly throughout the Alliance area.”

In addition, there is “the role as a troop provider in international crisis management also beyond the territory of the Alliance,” i.e., in neo-colonial wars of conquest in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. “Especially for this task ... specialised ‘high-value capabilities’ are often needed, such as reconnaissance, air-refueling and transport, electronic warfare or special forces.”

Militarisation at home

Kramp-Karrenbauer and Zorn name the deployment of the army at home as another task of the Bundeswehr. “Homeland security in peace as well as in crisis” includes “a strong reserve that is available in the event of a disaster to support the authorities in Germany, as well as an important force multiplier for the other roles mentioned.”

The WSWS has already described the planned “voluntary military service in homeland security” in an earlier article as “an invitation to neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists” to “receive military training from the state in return for payment.” The reactionary plans that the ruling class is pursuing with this are clear. In the Kaiserreich (Imperial Empire), the Weimar Republic and under the Nazis, military and fascist militias were used to crush social protests and revolutionary uprisings at home.

As on the eve of the First and Second World Wars, the policy of war abroad is accompanied by the extensive militarisation of society at home. Zorn and Kramp-Karrenbauer announce that they will “promote strategic capability and strategic culture in our country.” Among other things, they plan “the further development of the Federal Security Council into a National Security Council,” the creation of a “Federal Security Advisory Council,” the establishment of a “Security Week in the German Bundestag” and “a Federal Armed Forces Planning Act placing the financing of the armed forces on a solid, multi-year foundation, as in other countries, without restricting the financial sovereignty of the Bundestag.”

In several places, the paper calls for a massive increase in defence spending. At the same time, funds from other departments are to be tapped to finance the far-reaching rearmament and war plans. For example, Kramp-Karrenbauer and Zorn “point out with particular emphasis that defence is a task for the entire state which cannot be reflected in the defence budget alone—the federal government is jointly responsible for the financing of “major political projects.” The state’s “core task of security” must be “broadly supported.”

Immediate armament plans

When it comes to the militarisation drive, it cannot move quickly enough for the ruling class. “We now feel that in addition to capabilities and equipment, structures and command organisation must also be rapidly adapted to the situation,” the paper says. “Concerning national and alliance defence,” the “recent support provided by the Bundeswehr in the coronavirus pandemic clearly shows the weaknesses concerning territorial structures and command processes.”

In the very immediate term, it is a matter of “further modernising the capabilities of the armed forces for all roles in our country and across the board, adapting them to technological change, filling the gaps in equipment and facilities, creating leaner, more functional, more resilient structures as well as shorter and thus faster processes in the military command structure, in the procurement and utilisation organisation and in the Ministry of Defence.”

In the coming weeks and months, numerous major projects worth billions are to be launched, and recruitment for the essentially fascist “homeland security” begun.

By the end of March, “a comprehensive evaluation of the issue of ground-based air defence will be available,” by the end of the first quarter, along with “the procurement proposal for the Eurodrone;” and in the second quarter, “the decision on the procurement of a heavy transport helicopter.” Also, in April, “the outlines for a modern and up-to-date homeland security” will be presented; and in May, “key points for the Bundeswehr of the future,” i.e., “concrete proposals for the further development of the armed forces concerning their capabilities, structures and operational readiness.”

Other “issues not yet ready for decision” would be “prepared in such a way that they can be decided at the beginning of the new legislative period.” Among other things, the Bundeswehr plans to press ahead with numerous major projects, including new tanks, warships, and the FCAS European combat aircraft system, whose implementation alone will consume several hundred billion euros.

The Ministry of Defence and the Bundeswehr leadership can only push ahead so aggressively because they are supported by all the parties in the Bundestag, from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the Left Party. Above all, the supposedly “left” opposition parties have made it clear time and again that they fully support the war course of the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats in the grand coalition. For example, in their new party programme, the Greens plead for massive rearmament of European imperialism under German leadership, and in a recent paper, the Left Party also calls for the building of a European army and for the Bundeswehr to be armed to the teeth.

German federal and state leaders opens the floodgates for a third wave of COVID-19

Marianne Arens

The February 3 meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the premiers of Germany’s 16 states has opened the floodgates for a third wave of COVID-19. In a few days, many schools and day-care centres in Germany will reopen. This is occurring despite the fact that new, highly contagious virus variants are spreading and neither teachers nor childcare workers have been vaccinated.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel [Credit: Stephanie Lecocq/Pool via AP]

Officially, government politicians claim they have decided to extend the current (half-hearted) lockdown until March 7. Until then, certain restrictions will remain in place, and retailers, museums, massage and sports studios will reopen in March only if the seven-day incidence does not exceed 35 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants. Hairdressers, however, will be allowed to reopen as early as March 1, according to the “resolution” of the video conference held between the heads of Germany’s federal and state governments February 10.

Politicians are well aware of the dangers currently posed by the virus variants. “It is the period between now and mid-March during which (...) the mutated viruses can gain the upper hand over the previous virus. This period is existential,” said Merkel (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) at a press conference on Tuesday evening.

This requires “considerable additional efforts to reduce infection figures,” the official resolution states. Nevertheless, the same document claims: “In order to guarantee education and the future of our children and young people, the opening up of child care and the education sector are a priority. This area is therefore to be the first to be gradually reopened” [emphasis in original].

Following the meeting last week, Germany’s heads of states have been racing to open up day-care centres and schools. This comes in the face of daily infection figures averaging 8,500 last week and the fact that teachers and care workers remain unvaccinated and are likely to remain so for some time. Also relevant are the developments in Britain and Belgium, where the virus variant B.1.1.7 and the variant B.1.351 discovered in South Africa have spread rapidly in schools.

Scientists have warned of the same scenario for Germany. The leading virologist Melanie Brinkmann, who advocates a “zero-COVID” strategy, gave an interview to the Spiegel magazine and concluded: “However, if we wait another four weeks [before imposing really strict measures], it will soon be like London here, with an incidence rate in the thousands and everybody shocked. The later you start heading towards zero, the more deaths we will have, and the greater the damage to the economy, society and health. And then it takes even longer.” Brinkmann spoke of “180,000 people in Germany under 60 who would not live to see next spring. Children would also die.”

Her colleague, Helmholtz virologist Michael Meyer-Herrmann, has also warned of a devastating third wave if politicians do not tighten measures significantly. “Unfortunately, we now have two to three pandemics,” Meyer-Herrmann said.

Nevertheless, nearly every German state government has declared its intention to reopen schools and day-care centres as early as February 22. The Ministry of Education in North Rhine-Westphalia instructed all school headmasters in a “School-Mail” to allow all senior students to attend in-person classes on that date. “In principle, it is possible for the pupils in final year classes to resume attendance, even at full class size,” the mail reads. Primary and special schools are also to resume in-person teaching.

The Saxon state government has taken an even more aggressive approach, although Saxony has the highest current infection rate in Germany. Saxony plans to reopen its schools and day-care centres as early as February 15. “We have the expectation and hope that in the districts still above 100 (incidence rate), we will get below 100 in the next two weeks,” was the implausible explanation given for the reopening by the state Minister of Education, Christian Piwarz (CDU).

While compulsory attendance will be suspended and parents will not be forced to send their children to school, the decision means that schoolchildren from twenty or more households will sit together again in classes in the German state situated on the Polish-Czech-German axis, where the British virus variant is raging and spreading very rapidly.

Germany’s intensive care units have been strained to their limits for months. Dr. Gernot Marx, president of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine (DIVI), has warned that the situation in ICUs remains serious despite a decrease in patients with severe COVID-19. “We still don’t have a breakthrough therapy. In that respect, preventing SarsCoV2 infection through the lockdown, in combination with vaccination, is the only medically correct thing to do.”

The COVID-19 epidemic was declared a pandemic exactly one year ago. Since then, 63,000 coronavirus patients have died in Germany, and more than 2.3 million people have contracted the virus.

Many people go to work fearing for their health. The Handelsblatt business daily reported Wednesday that more than one in three workers (35 per cent) feared catching the disease at work or on their way to work in January. Data was collected from more than 34,000 workers by the portal Lohnspiegel.de from April 2020.

The biggest concerns during this period were raised—not surprisingly!—by workers in the education sector and social and medical health services where over half those polled feared becoming infected. Salespersons and geriatric nurses followed closely behind with almost 50 per cent. A third of production and manufacturing workers also constantly fear infection at work.

Germany’s political establishment has resolved to ignore science and reason and once again capitulate to the country’s business, finance and industry interests. Every business association has been demanding rapid relaxations of lockdown measures at the expense of the working class for the past year. “The retail sector is running on empty,” was how the Bavarian premier Markus Söder (Christian Social Union, CSU) tried to justify the latest decisions.

Even these concessions are not enough for many lobbyists. “Many people expected more than a fresh haircut,” argued Christian Lindner, the leader of the neo-liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), considered the lobby of the “better-off,” in the Bundestag [German parliament]. Lindner called for the rapid opening up of all businesses. The Federal Association of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (BVMW) also criticised the latest German government resolutions as a “peak of disappointment for small and medium-sized businesses.”

What many workers think about the latest resolutions is evident from posts in social media. In the Facebook group “Schule ohne Ansteckungsgefahr” (School without the risk of infection), for example, Verena S. wrote: “So, for many children and teachers it will soon be a case of opening windows and praying things go well despite new mutations ... The hidden spread of the virus by asymptomatic children is what led to such high numbers and the lockdown in the first place. Now we add at least 3 more dangerous variants as variables to this equation …

“But we also have to remove airing classrooms from the equation,” she went on. “Or do they want to open windows for 5 minutes every 20 minutes with temperatures currently at between zero and minus 10 degrees [Celsius]? Apart from the fact that children and teachers freeze their butts off and can hardly learn as a result, cold air also means dry air, which in turn leads to dry mucous membranes that are supposed to be much more susceptible to viruses. I can already guess how this will turn out.”

Harald, a teacher in North Rhine-Westphalia, wrote to the WSWS: “The hypocrisy particularly widespread now, i.e., that pupils cut off and suffering from the lockdown need ‘normal’ in-person lessons, is ridiculous and incomprehensible. Prior to the various, far too inconsistent lockdowns, hardly anyone from the media or ruling politicians paid serious and regular attention to the low effectiveness of in-person teaching, the miserable IT infrastructure for schools and most families, or the emotional burden for pupils in completely overcrowded classrooms. What then, objectively, was so good about this kind of ‘normality’?”

Harald explains what is needed instead: “Care for the ‘socially disconnected’ is necessary now, that’s clear, and it can certainly be financed and organised: Look at the corporate profits, expropriate the banks and multinationals, put them under the control of workers in industry, administration and schools etc., form action committees and workers’ councils to this end, network worldwide in the process ... implement the lockdown consistently until your factories and schools are safe!”

Amid deadly pandemic, Canada deported record number of refugees in 2020

Hugo Maltais

Canada deported 12,222 refugees in 2020—the highest number of deportations since at least 2015, even though deportations were suspended for several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The figure was contained in a Reuters news agency report dated January 22.

Protest against the reactionary Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement (Photo credit: David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights)

On March 17, 2020, among the limited preventive measures taken at the beginning of the pandemic, Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberal government suspended the deportation of migrants who were in Canada without status under Canadian immigration law.

The lifting of this suspension was announced on November 30, 2020, by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), a police organization under the Department of Public Safety, whose responsibilities include deportations.

The resumption of deportations was not due to an improvement in the pandemic situation in Canada. On the contrary, on the day of the announcement, Canada had 7,681 new cases of COVID-19, which was the highest tally since the beginning of the pandemic.

The government justified the resumption of deportations in the midst of the pandemic by citing the return of airline operations, the emergence of “vaccination options” and public health policies that have “contributed to a high degree of safety for those being deported by air.”

These explanations are nothing but bogus pretexts, without any foundation in the reality of the pandemic. They contradict the position of the government itself, which has closed its border with the United States for nonessential travel and has just reached an agreement with the airlines to discontinue flights to some holiday destinations.

As for “vaccination options,” none had been approved as of November 30, and to this day the Canadian vaccination campaign is characterized by improvisation, lack of resources and a shortage of doses.

Public health experts continue to warn that travel of any kind poses an increased and undesirable risk of transmission, made all the more serious by the emergence of new highly transmissible and likely more lethal variants of the virus.

Under these circumstances, deportations pose a deadly risk to the deportee and a risk of contagion to the country to which they are returned.

As explained by the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers (CARL) in a letter strongly criticizing the November 30 decision, before their being deported, a person must make a multitude of trips in the community, including several trips to CBSA premises, to the bank to close accounts, to the doctor and to the pharmacy to get the treatment and medication they will need during the trip, etc. Each of the activities necessitated by deportation represents a risk of catching and transmitting the coronavirus in Canada before departure or, subsequently, in his or her country of origin.

CARL lawyers noted that deportations by the United States have caused outbreaks of COVID-19 in several countries, including India, Haiti, Guatemala and El Salvador.

In addition, many of the deported refugees have been sent to countries where the coronavirus is raging, posing an increased risk for the deportee of contracting the deadly disease. Canada has imposed a moratorium on deportations to countries where the political system is said to be unstable, such as Syria or Iraq, but makes no exception for countries particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

For example, migrants have been deported from Canada to Mexico, a country that is facing a real health catastrophe due to the homicidal policies of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) and is now the third most bereaved country in the world with more than 171,000 deaths officially attributed to COVID-19.

Deportations also pose a significant risk of outbreaks in Canada as CBSA agents escort migrants on these air trips, which often involve transfers in several different airports and having to spend hours in a confined space with scores, even hundreds, of people.

The reality is that the Canadian government has unnecessarily deported thousands of people, ignoring the health crisis and the most basic public health measures, thus increasing the risk of new outbreaks of the deadly virus in Canada and around the world.

This development is part of the right-wing turn of the entire Canadian political establishment, including increased promotion of hostility to refugees and immigrants.

In the same week that the CBSA declared the resumption of deportations, the Trudeau government announced that there would be no expansion of the regularization program for “guardian angels”—those refugees and asylum-seekers who have answered the call of provincial governments, particularly the Quebec government, to take over for exhausted and overburdened health care workers.

During the spring and summer, as the pandemic raged unchecked, refugee rights groups drew attention to the courageous role of these migrants. After an initial period of reluctance, the ruling class seized upon this issue to save face and camouflage the disastrous consequences of its own deadly back-to-work and back-to-school policies.

In August, following a popular campaign to have their immigration status regularized, Ottawa and Quebec City reached a deal on the issue. Announced with great fanfare as a humanitarian gesture under the slogan “guardian angels will not be deported,” the deal is in fact little more than window dressing.

The program is limited, with numerous conditions, and only applies to asylum seekers who have directly provided care to patients, such as orderlies, nurses and nursing aides. This leaves out those who have done equally important work in hospitals and health centers, as janitors, cooks or security guards.

In total, just 1,000 migrants throughout Canada–a dozen times less than the number deported in 2020—are covered by the program and will be granted residency status.

In the face of strong popular criticism of the limited nature of the “Guardian Angel” program, Ottawa and Quebec have pretended to continue discussions to expand its scope. This political theater lasted until late November when the Trudeau government announced that the program would not be expanded and that it would come into effect in early December, at the same time as the resumption of deportations. The media reported that it was the Quebec government that categorically refused to include additional workers in the program.

The Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ, Coalition for the Future of Quebec) government led by François Legault, a multimillionaire and former CEO, was elected in 2018 on the basis of a chauvinist agenda combining Quebec nationalism with virulent attacks on immigrants, who were targeted as a threat to “Quebec values.” Since then, Legault has made anti-immigrant agitation a priority, including passing legislation to reduce the annual number of new immigrants to Quebec.

While Trudeau and the federal Liberal government posture as progressive and pro-refugee, his government collaborated closely with the Trump administration in its anti-immigrant witch hunt; and more generally the Canadian state and ruing class rely on their USMCA (revised NAFTA) partners to keep migrants fleeing repression and poverty from reaching Canada.

Last March, in violation of international law, the Trudeau government seized on the pandemic to close the legal loophole in the reactionary Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement that allowed those who crossed into Canada “irregularly” to make a claim for refugee status.

Nationalism and xenophobia are being promoted by the ruling elites around the world to make immigrants and refugees scapegoats for their reactionary policies and divide the working class.

In Canada, under a humanitarian-democratic mask, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau is pursuing a militaristic policy that includes a 70 percent increase in the budget for the military, participating in the US imperialist wars in the Middle East and elsewhere, and integrating Canada ever more fully into Washington’s military-strategic offensives against China and Russia.

Workers must reject the nationalist poison of the ruling elite and defend refugees and migrant workers—including the right of workers of all origins to work, live, and have access to health care and social services in the country of their choice, without fear of persecution or deportation.

This will be realized only as part of a broader working class mobilization, based on an international socialist perspective, against social inequality, the repressive policies of the capitalist state and imperialist war.

British Gas workers continue rolling strikes against “fire and rehire”

Barry Mason

Engineers employed for British Gas began their latest four-day strike on February 12. Prior to that the engineers have held 16 days of strike action.

The members of the GMB trade union are opposing the imposition of inferior contracts through a “fire and rehire” scheme. Further four-day blocks of strike action are planned for February 19 and 26. The union says it will continue strike action through to mid-April.

A British Gas van

According to the GMB, to date the strikes have led to a backlog of 210,000 home visits for repairs and a quarter of a million planned annual service visits have been cancelled. According to a survey conducted by polling company, Survation, 74 percent of British Gas customers support the workers’ action.

The inferior contracts would mean an effective 20 percent pay cut. The company announced restructuring plans in June last year, including shedding 5,000 jobs.

Following negotiations, three of the other unions recognised by British Gas—Unison, Unite and Prospect—reached agreements to accept the inferior terms. This includes 7,000 front-line office workers, most of whom are represented by Unison.

The GMB has done everything it can to try and reach a rotten agreement with the company. It held a consultative ballot in August after British Gas revealed its plans, returning a 90 percent vote in favour but delayed calling a strike ballot for months. This gave space for the other unions to negotiate their sellouts.

Only in November did the GMB ballot its members for strike action. The vote announced in December produced an 86 percent majority for strike action by gas and electrical engineers, and 89 percent by other British Gas GMB members.

Centrica, British Gas’s parent company, announced it was prepared to issue section 188 notices to its employees. This enables an employer who has failed to negotiate changes to fire and then reinstate its employees on different terms and conditions.

In fighting this threat, British Gas employees are combatting a national assault by big business on the working class. “Fire and rehire” ultimatums are becoming the chosen method by which companies push through long-planned attacks on workers’ jobs and conditions, often using the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext.

The unions’ only concern is that such methods undermine their role as a labour police force, able to impose changes on behalf of the employers while enjoying a comfortable working relationship with the company. At a UK parliament business select committee discussing the dispute on February 2, GMB national officer Justin Bowden accused the company of “poisoning the well”.

Rather than appeal to solidarity from other sections of workers within British Gas or workers in other industries facing similar fire and re-hire threats, the GMB has directed its appeals to Centrica shareholders. It sent a letter signed by 4,850 GMB members and supporters, with a press release dated February 11 noting how it urged “high-profile investors, including Schroders, Standard Life Aberdeen and Blackrock to protect their investment and help secure a negotiated end to the industrial dispute.” The shareholders targeted own about 85 percent of Centrica.

The letter signed by GMB national secretary, Justin Bowden, states that “we wanted to convey to you—directly—the levels of anger felt by British Gas engineering workers at the 15 percent cuts in hourly pay and the loss of family time, which the Centrica management are attempting to impose under threat of firing thousands of workers if they do not comply.”

The union stressed, “We believe that we have a joint interest in persuading Centrica’s senior management from changing its current course, before more damage is done to the company (and, consequently, the value of your investment).”

The letter noted that the company had lost its competitive edge and was shedding customers, stating, “Centrica’s single greatest challenge is the long-term erosion of its customer base. More than three million customers have been lost over the last decade, and according to the July 2020 interim financial update, the company lost 296,000 home energy and services customers in the first six months of last year alone… GMB members did not seek this conflict, but with every day that passes the long-term structural threats to Centrica’s customer base will grow.”

Noting that some celebrities and social media influencers had spoken out against “fire and re-hire” tactics, the letter urged, “We want a sustainable future for Centrica—we fear that it is at risk of becoming a pariah company in UK public life instead.”

The letter reiterated GMB’s willingness to assist the company bring in the attacks on workers conditions stating, “We recognise that change is needed… Unilaterally tearing up collective agreements, and threatening to fire thousands of skilled and hard-to-replace workers… is not an approach that will secure an agreement… GMB stands ready to continue talks, but we are clear that ‘fire and rehire’ must be taken off the table.”

The letter concluded, “We would welcome dialogue with Centrica’s shareholders as part of the ongoing attempt to resolve this dispute and build a sustainable, long-term future for the company.”

UK companies are increasingly turning to “fire and rehire” ultimatums to push through long planned attacks, for which the COVID-19 pandemic has acted as an accelerator. Research by the Trades Union Congress highlighted this process. A report published in January by the TUC showed nearly one in 10 workers have had to re-apply for their jobs on inferior terms and conditions since March last year. Nearly a quarter of workers had experienced a cut in pay or hours since March.

A recent edition of the homeless charity magazine Big Issue spoke to striking gas engineers. Bill Hawthorne from Fife in Scotland told the magazine he could lose between £8,000 and £15,000 a year under the new contract. “I think that there is a domino effect for other companies too. British Airways started this threat of hire and refire and now British Gas is flexing their muscles? We see British Gas as a company that’s very family-orientated with a flexible workforce, but the new terms and conditions aren’t going to give us that.”

Dan, an engineer with 18 years with the company, said, “It’s kind of like a fight for everyone. Because if it happens here, it’s gonna happen everywhere in society, and if we win there is a chance that British Gas will probably try again in a couple of years. It’s just a nasty way of doing business.”

British Gas recently announced further job cuts on top of the 5,000 redundancies axed last year. The jobs targeted will be administration grades at British Gas’s centres in Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester and Manchester.

The big six energy companies are under increasing pressure to cut costs as they continue to lose market share to new smaller energy companies. According to an energylivenews website report of February 4, the share of the electricity market of the big six fell from 82.7 percent in October 2015 to 71.8 percent in October 2020. For the share of the gas market the corresponding figures were 55.8 percent to 43.8 percent over the same period.

As the GMB’s letter to shareholders attests, its objective is ultimately to force a company-drafted agreement on its members. Workers can only fight for their own interests by establishing rank-and-file strike committees to take the struggle out of the hands of the union bureaucrats.

California study highlights dangers of COVID-19 pandemic to the working class

Bryan Dyne

A recent study published by preprint server medRxiv, entitled “Excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic among Californians 18–65 years of age, by occupational sector and occupation: March through October 2020,” provides further evidence that closing non-essential businesses with full compensation and providing protection for essential workers are necessary to reduce the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Workers at an apple orchard in Yakima, Washington, June 16, 2020 (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

The paper is an initial effort to determine the dangers of working in different workplaces, those considered both “essential” and “non-essential.” The authors, who include Dr. Yea-Hung Chen and his team at the University of California, San Francisco, noted that “Despite the inherent risks that essential workers face, no study to date has examined differences in excess mortality across occupation,” a gap this research seeks to correct.

As the title suggests, the authors focused their research on deaths among working-age Californians during the initial lockdown and the first phase of reopening last fall. Overall, they found that essential workers, whom they defined as those in the “food/agriculture, transportation/logistics, facilities, and manufacturing sectors,” experienced a 22 percent higher mortality rate than they did in the four years before the pandemic.

This excess mortality increased to more than 40 percent during the first two months of California’s reopening.

The authors also did a detailed analysis of the risks associated with nine different types of work. “Relative to pre-pandemic time,” they wrote, “mortality increased during the pandemic by 39% among food/agriculture workers, 28% among transportation/logistics workers, 27% among facilities workers, and 23% among manufacturing workers.” Unemployed workers also had a 23 percent increase in their mortality, which includes the hundreds of thousands thrown out of work during the pandemic in California, and millions nationally.

Further into the study, the authors take a more granular look at the dangers posed to workers, observing the increased risk of dying among different occupations. They define a “risk ratio,” which is the number of observed deaths in a given type of job divided by the expected deaths. This value is then interpreted as the increased risk of dying during the pandemic from one’s job.

The most at-risk job was line cook, which had a calculated risk ratio of 1.60. This was followed by “packaging and filling machine operators and tenders (RR=1.59), miscellaneous agricultural workers (RR=1.55), bakers (RR=1.50), and construction laborers (RR=1.49).” Nurses had a risk ratio of 1.34, truck drivers were at 1.32, and other “production workers” stood at 1.46.

The research also listed how many deaths occurred during the pandemic among these occupations. Among the most lethal jobs were hand laborers (2,550 deaths), truck drivers (1,962 deaths) and construction laborers (1,587 deaths). At least 1,360 line cooks and head cooks lost their lives during this time, as did 562 customer service representatives and 378 house cleaners. Even jobs one might consider less dangerous because workers are often outside, such as grounds maintenance workers, suffered 712 deaths, 40 percent more than average.

These data are invaluable for understanding the extent and breadth of the pandemic, as well as providing a scientific appraisal for what workplaces are truly “safe” to open. That line cooks are the most directly threatened, for example, suggests that even take-out dining, much less in-person dining, should be restricted to protect the lives of those workers.

It should be noted that these data do not include a great deal of information on teachers, which is because during the time analyzed by this study (March–October 2020), schools in California were all remote. Even then, 183 teacher assistants died, of which at least 40 deaths were directly attributable to COVID-19.

The paper also cut through the racial narrative being pushed by institutions like the Atlantic and its COVID Racial Data Tracker, which claim that “people of color” are affected more than whites by the pandemic. In fact, the real disparities are by class, with workers dying far more often than those in the upper 10 percent of income earners, much less the top 1 percent or more.

What racial disparities do exist, the research notes, are caused “because certain occupations require in-person work,” such as agricultural labor, and that those jobs are largely held by California’s Hispanic population, many of whom are immigrants. The data further shows that “Though non-occupational risk factors may be relevant, it is clear that eliminating COVID-19 will require addressing occupational risks.”

Many of these occupational risks can be eliminated through the closure of schools and non-essential businesses, as recommended by those such as US President Joe Biden’s former advisor, Dr. Michael Osterholm. This would minimize both the exposure of those workers, including the aforementioned line cooks and manufacturing workers, to the virus, as well as greatly reduce the paths of transmission and mutation.

At the same time, the study notes that “In-person essential workers are unique in that they are not protected by shelter-in-place policies.” This includes those in the food and agricultural sector, where “excess mortality rose sharply…during [California’s] first shelter-in-place period, from late March through May; these increases were not seen among those working in non-essential sectors.” It then stresses the need for “complementary policies” for “those who cannot work from home.”

For all workers, the authors list the bare minimum requirements for safe work, including “free personal protective equipment, clearly defined and strongly enforced safety protocols, easily accessible testing, generous sick policies, and appropriate responses to workplace safety violations.”

They explain that “vaccination programs prioritizing workers in sectors such as food/agriculture are likely to have disproportionately large benefits for reducing COVID-19 mortality.”

The paper ends with the following point, one that directly contradicts the openly pursued policy of herd immunity by the ruling elite: “If indeed these workers are essential, we must be swift and decisive in enacting measures that will treat their lives as such.”

But such actions must be taken by the workers themselves. As the recent struggle by Chicago teachers against in-person learning demonstrates, the entire political apparatus—the Democrats, the unions, the media—is arrayed against them in an effort to fully reopen factories and workplaces, no matter the death toll. There is no section of the existing social system that genuinely listens to the very clear science, that schools and nonessential business must be closed during the pandemic to preserve human lives. It is only the working class, through an understanding of the science involved and the formation of rank-and-file safety committees in their workplaces and neighborhoods, that can carry out such lifesaving action.

Mass protests against the military coup in Myanmar continue to grow

Peter Symonds

Protests against the February 1 military coup in Myanmar have continued with some of the largest taking place yesterday—a national holiday known as Union Day, which marks the country’s formal independence from British colonial rule in 1947. Along with students, professionals and civil servants, there are earlier reports of sections of workers, including railway workers, garment workers and copper miners, taking action against the junta.

School teachers flash three-fingered salutes of defiance during a protest against the recent military coup in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, Feb. 12, 2021 [AP Photo]

The military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD), which overwhelmingly won the national election held last November, notwithstanding the military’s allegations of widespread irregularities. Military commander-in-chief, senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has been installed as the country’s leader, a state of emergency declared and top NLD figures detained.

According to Reuters, hundreds of thousands took part in demonstrations on Friday in cities and towns throughout Myanmar. As well as the country’s biggest city of Yangon, demonstrations took place in the capital, Naypyitaw, which is an artificial creation of the military, the coastal town of Dawei, and Myitkyina, the state capital of Kachin in the north.

The Guardian cited witnesses who reported that hundreds of separate marches, each with about 2,000 participants, took place in Yangon, converging on focal points such as Hledan, the Sule Pagoda and the Russian and Chinese embassies. It reported “rallies in many other towns and cities including a boat protest at the tourist hotspot of Inle Lake in Shan state, and a march through the famous ancient temples of Bagan.”

Student unions from 18 universities across the country have targeted China, calling on President Xi Jinping not to recognise the new military regime. They said support for the military, which has had longstanding ties with Beijing, would do “serious damage” to China’s reputation. Anti-coup protesters have gathered daily outside the Chinese embassy in Yangon, with thousands taking part yesterday.

Amid threats that the regime could again cut access to the internet, nearly 2,000 social media users shared a notice threatening to destroy a segment of the China-Myanmar twin oil-and-gas pipeline in retaliation. The Irrawaddy reported that the pipeline was under heavy police guard in Thaungtha Township in the city of Mandalay on Friday morning.

The Irrawaddy said copper miners at mines run by Chinese companies in collaboration with the military had ceased work as a part of a civil disobedience movement against the coup. By Monday, more than 2,000 miners from the Kyisintaung copper mines in Monwya District went on strike. The Letpadaung Taung copper mine, estimated to be the biggest in Southeast Asia, also stopped operations after thousands of workers had joined the disobedience movement by February 8.

The military certainly has ties with China. But Suu Kyi and the NLD, which formed government in 2016, also turned toward Beijing amid growing international opposition to Suu Kyi’s defence of the military’s atrocities against the Muslim Rohingya minority. Now the NLD and its supporters are appealing to Washington and the West for support and sanctions on the military in a bid to force it to make concessions.

Like every other country within the region, Myanmar is caught up in the aggressive US confrontation with China that began under Obama and accelerated under Trump. The military, facing a growing economic and social crisis at home, sought to mend ties with Washington by releasing Suu Kyi from house arrest in 2010 and holding limited elections. Obama visited the country in 2012.

On Wednesday, President Biden, who was vice-president under Obama, announced sanctions on the military regime, blocking access to $1 billion in funds kept in the US, and he has threatened further penalties against military leaders and their families. Like other “human rights” campaigns, US opposition to the coup is not about defending democracy, but advancing US economic and geo-strategic aims.

China is attempting to strengthen relations with Myanmar, which until 2010 was one of Beijing’s few close supporters, as well as being a source of raw materials and host to strategic pipeline and transit routes between the Indian Ocean and southern China. Beijing has refused to condemn the coup and, along with Russia, is opposing any significant action by the UN Security Council against the military regime.

Other sections of workers have taken action against the junta. According to the New York Times, a stoppage of rail employees earlier in the week closed the Myanmar Railway, which under COVID-19 restrictions was being used by just a few thousand people near Yangon. There was no indication when it would reopen.

Reuters yesterday spoke to Moe Sandar Myint, an organiser with the Federation of Garment Workers Myanmar, who pointed to the active involvement of garment workers in the protests and strikes. She noted that the COVID-19 pandemic had been used as an excuse to suppress the demands of workers, who had “flooded the streets” to join the civil disobedience movement. “Workers are ready for this fight. We know that the situation will only deteriorate under military dictatorship, so we will fight as one, united, until the end,” she said.

The junta is increasingly resorting to repression, with arrests taking part on a daily basis. According to the UN human rights office, more than 350 people have been arrested since the February 1 coup.

A list published by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners includes more than 100 NLD leaders and senior members, student protesters and student union leaders, along with civil servants, doctors and teachers who joined the civil disobedience movement. On Wednesday and Thursday nights, 23 chairs of township and district election sub-commissions were arrested. Several police have been arrested for posting anti-coup messages on Facebook, and in one case making an anti-coup speech at a demonstration.

Yesterday, the military announced the release of more than 23,000 prisoners under an amnesty to mark Union Day. The move, however, was part of ritual amnesties designed to boost the image of the regime. In April, the NLD government amnestied nearly 25,000 prisoners.

Police are using more violent methods to try to break up demonstrations. Three people were wounded yesterday when police fired rubber bullets into a demonstration of tens of thousands in the southeastern city of Mawlamyine. “Three got shot—one woman in the womb, one man on his cheek and one man on his arm,” Myanmar Red Cross official Kyaw Myint, who witnessed the clash, told Reuters.

The UN rights investigator for Myanmar Thomas Andrews told a special session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva that there were “growing reports, photographic evidence” that security forces have used live ammunition against protesters. On Tuesday, a 19-year-old woman, Mya Thwate Thwate Khing, was shot in the head and critically injured during a protest in Naypyitaw. She was not expected to survive.