Macron government authorizes police documentation of political views of French population

Will Morrow

At the beginning of the month, the Macron government quietly released far-reaching changes to its police intelligence guidelines, to facilitate the mass documentation of the political views of the French population.

The changes were enacted via a series of executive decrees published on December 4. They were not accompanied by any press statement or public debate, and were initially revealed only due to an article by the French data and technology blog Next INpact. The decrees significantly enlarge the conditions in which police can create detailed personal files on individuals and the information that these files can contain.

A family watches French President Emmanuel Macron's televised speech, Monday April 13, 2020, in Lyon, central France. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

As of November, according to the interior ministry, these police files—which are separate from those maintained by the intelligence agencies—held the detailed personal information of more than 60,000 people across the country.

This is now to be further expanded. Previously, the guidelines referred to the collection and analysis of information about individual “persons.” This has been replaced to include both “physical” and “moral persons”—the latter being a definition in French law for a legal association—as well as “groupings.”

The term “grouping” is so vague that it would undoubtedly encompass large social media groups and protest movements, including the “yellow vest” protests against social inequality, which were organized on Facebook groups of up to 300,000 people. The decree states that data can be collected on “physical persons holding or having held direct and non-fortuitous relations with the [association] or grouping...”

The criteria for who is considered a “risk” has also been expanded. The previous version of the law referred to individuals who threatened “public security.” The new version refers to threats to “public security or the security of the state,” to “the integrity of the territory or to institutions of the Republic,” and to “the fundamental interests of the nation.” The latter is defined separately as including “the major industrial, economic and scientific interests of France” and its “foreign policy.”

The information that police are instructed to document has also been changed. Previously, the law referred to the documentation of the “political, philosophical, religious and trade union activities” of the individual in question. This has been changed to “political opinions, philosophical and religious convictions, or trade union membership.” Police are also to collect the social media activities of those who are targeted.

Significantly, as noted by the liberties defense association Quadrature Du Net, the decree also removed a clause which explicitly precluded the use of the police files for large-scale facial recognition.

The Macron government is building up a police state to suppress the mass opposition in the working class to social inequality, austerity, and the right-wing militarist policies of the political establishment. Last year, the Macron government approved similar changes to the strategic guidelines of the national intelligence and counterterrorism agency, stating that the role of the intelligence agencies is to counter “subversive movements” and “insurrectional violence” in the population.

In 2014, the “National Intelligence Strategy” listed five areas of focus: terrorism, espionage and economic interference, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, cyberattacks and organized crime. The new version included a new category, “Anticipation of crises and the risk of major ruptures.” Under the headline “Violent subversion,” it stated that “the growing strength of movements and networks of a subversive character constitutes a factor of crisis that is all the more preoccupying because they are aimed at weakening, and even destroying, the foundations of our democracy and the republican institutions through insurrectional violence.”

These changes underscore the fact that the vast expansion of police powers and evisceration of democratic rights of the population, introduced under the banner of the “War on Terror” over the past two decades, are directed against social opposition in the working class. Speaking last Thursday on France Info, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin declared that the new police documentation rules were required because “opinions and political activities connected to extremist parties, those who call precisely for separation, for revolution, must be known by the intelligence agencies.”

The Socialist Party has criticized the latest changes knowing that its vote would not be required to enforce them. Its spokesman Boris Vallaud called for the law’s withdrawal. But the Socialist Party has played a leading role in building up the police’s powers, enacting a two-year state of emergency beginning in 2015 under Francois Hollande and suspending democratic rights.

A raft of police-state laws are now being pushed forward by Macron. On November 24, the National Assembly passed Macron’s “global security” law, which criminalizes the filming of police officers, among other anti-democratic changes. The day before, police carried out a violent rampage against a peaceful refugee encampment in the center of Paris.

In the face of continuing mass protests, including a demonstration of hundreds of thousands on November 28, Macron has temporarily withdrawn the most controversial article of the law, but has pledged to “re-write” it. Moreover, other changes in the “global security” law, including codifying the use of drones to spy on every person who attends a protest, remain in place.

Pointing to the significance of these simultaneous changes, Quadrature de Net noted in its report, “If, via the global security law, all protesters can be filmed at a protest, and … a large portion of them can be identified via facial recognition technology, the [police filing systems] have already prepared for them a complete system for centralizing all the information concerning them, without this surveillance ever being authorized nor weighed by a judge.”

At the same time, the Macron government is moving to pass its “anti-Separatism” law, renamed to the “respect for the principles of the Republic,” which will provide the state with further powers to dissolve legal associations and organizations, including political parties, on the grounds that they are declared to be hostile to the Republic.

The anti-Separatism law is being brought forward in the context of an extreme-right anti-Muslim campaign throughout the media and the political establishment. In the wake of the terrorist killing of Paris school teacher Samuel Paty last month, Interior Minister Darmanin has announced the closure of over 75 mosques, the dissolution of dozens of Muslim associations, and denounced the presence of halal and other international foods in supermarket aisles. The anti-Muslim campaign is being used to promote and legitimize the neo-fascists, divide the working class along religious lines and justify attacks on the democratic rights of the population.

In France and internationally, bourgeois democracy is rotten and breaking apart. In the United States, Trump continues to defy the results of the presidential election and declare his determination to remain in office. In Germany, the fascistic Alternative for Germany has been elevated to the official opposition in parliament. The response of the ruling class to the growth of strikes and left-wing demonstrations in the working class internationally since 2018 is to turn toward dictatorship.

The ruling elite is preparing for an explosion of social opposition to its criminal response to the pandemic, which has needlessly permitted millions to die, to protect corporate profits that would otherwise be impacted by a prolonged economic lockdown. The response of the working class must be to develop its own struggle for political power, independent of all the capitalist parties, to establish workers’ governments and socialism.

South Korean Kia workers strike again as GM and union push vote on rejected contract

Ben McGrath

Despite the efforts of the trade unions to isolate and end their disputes, autoworkers at KIA and General Motors (GM) in South Korea are still resisting union-company agreements and demanding pay increases, improved conditions and job security.

Workers at Kia Motors launched a partial three day strike on December 9. Workers on both the day and night shifts struck for four hours each at the three Kia plants, located in Gwangmyeong, Hwaseong, and Gwangju.

This is the third industrial action by Kia workers this year, with previous strikes taking place November 25 to 27 and December 1, 2, and 4. Kia and its branch of the Korean Metal Workers Union (KMWU) have held 15 rounds of talks this year.

The Kia workers have demanded a 120,000-won ($US108) monthly wage increase, 30 percent of the company’s operating profit as bonuses, and an extension of the retirement age from 60 to 65.

Kia and the union have reportedly reached agreements on salaries and bonuses, as well as production of electric and hydrogen vehicles in existing Kia plants, rather than at subcontractors like Hyundai Mobis, which are both part of the larger Hyundai Group. However, the two sides have argued over the union’s request for an additional 30 minutes of overtime, which the company has rejected as too costly.

The tentative package is similar to that forced on Hyundai workers in September. Kia intends to freeze wages and instead offer “performance-based” bonuses totaling as much as 150 percent of monthly salaries. Management could find numerous “faults” with workers in order to avoid paying such bonuses. Kia would also offer 1.2 million won per worker as part of a COVID-19 package and 200,000 won in gift certificates.

General Motors Korea and its KMWU branch have agreed to a second tentative contract following workers’ rejection of the first on December 1. Workers were to vote on the new contract on Monday. Partial and sporadic strikes at the auto manufacturer began on October 30.

Workers of GM Korea stage a rally against the U.S. carmaker's plan to close the plant near the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Initially, GM Korea offered workers four million won in bonuses for 2020 rather than ending a 2018 wage freeze imposed by the company and the union. With little changed in the new contract, the company and union hope to wear workers down until they ultimately accept company demands. The company said it would drop a lawsuit against the union for damages as a result of strikes and would pay the four million won bonuses by early next year. Workers would also be offered a higher discount rate when purchasing GM cars.

Workers initially demanded a 120,000-won pay increase, 22 million won in bonuses, and guarantees that operations will continue at GM Korea’s No. 2 Bupyeong plant beyond 2022, when production of current models is expected to end. The company promised to maintain production of the Trax SUV and the Malibu sedan at this plant for as long as possible, a pledge that is as empty as it is noncommittal.

GM Korea has three plants in South Korea—two in Bupyeong and one in Changwon—following the closure of a fourth plant at Gunsan in May 2018, which was pushed through with the aid of the KMWU. At that time, GM signed an agreement to maintain production in South Korea until 2028. The company had no intention of honouring this agreement, which included a $750 million government bailout, as it now threatens workers with further plant closures in order to force them to accept an extension of wage freezes. The company has indicated that it is looking to move production to another country, potentially China.

Both GM Korea and Kia clearly feel they are negotiating from positions of power given the complicity of the KMWU, which in September agreed to force through a wage freeze on Hyundai workers for only the third time in the union’s history. As the union has consistently done in the past, it has isolated the negotiations and strikes at the three major auto companies, as well as at smaller auto manufacturers like Ssangyong Motors and Renault Samsung. The unions also restrict industrial action to partial strikes in order to reduce the impact on the companies.

The assault on autoworkers is part of a broader attack on the working class. The government of President Moon Jae-in and his ruling Democratic Party of Korea are seeking to push through revisions to the labour union laws that would bar workers from occupying factories during strikes. The amendments would also extend collective bargaining agreements from two to three years. The bill would ostensibly protect the rights of workers who are fired or unemployed by allowing them to join unions.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), which includes the KMWU, has come out in opposition to the revisions, staging rallies to allow workers to let off steam and to give the appearance that it is fighting for workers. Despite growing working class anger as companies have slashed jobs and wages, the KCTU only held its first large-scale rally and strike this year on November 25. It held just two rallies last year and did not stage a demonstration against the Moon Jae-in government, which the KCTU helped elect in May 2017, until November 2018.

The KCTU is demanding the passage of the “Jeon Tae-il Act,” which includes three reforms: allowing workers at companies with less than five employees to join unions, allowing workers in the gig economy to do the same, and holding companies accountable for industrial accidents.

The KCTU’s posturing is entirely fraudulent. It has no problem with laws that would bring an influx of dues-paying members, and it has no intention of waging a genuine struggle against the anti-working class content of the government’s bill. Furthermore, by promoting the Jeon Tae-il Act, the KCTU is attempting to convince workers that by applying enough pressure to the government, Moon and the Democrats will act in the interests of the working class.

In contrast, while the conservative Park Geun-hye was in office from 2013 to 2017, the KCTU regularly held demonstrations demanding her resignation, effectively declaring support for the Democrats and promoting illusions that they would be friendlier to workers’ interests.

Workers however are experiencing the reality that both sections of the South Korean bourgeoisie are defenders of capitalism. Workers instead must turn to their class brothers and sisters throughout the country and internationally to wage a unified struggle against the capitalist profit system.

The struggles of South Korean autoworkers are part of the broader discontent, anger and unrest among their fellow workers internationally over job losses, deteriorating conditions and the health threats posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sweden’s “herd immunity” policy produces disaster

Bryan Dyne

The “herd immunity” policy pursued by the Swedish government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has produced a catastrophe. With Sweden’s hospitals overflowing and the bodies piling up in morgues, its neighbors Norway and Denmark have offered to step in with emergency aid.

Patient in an Intensive Care Unit (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

The region of Stockholm, Sweden’s largest city, warned that its intensive care units were at 99 percent capacity, rendering the region’s medical system unable to cope with new serious cases of COVID-19. Sweden is experiencing the textbook definition of a mass-casualty event, with its hospitals totally overwhelmed and unable to deal with an influx of new cases, raising the danger of a massive increase in deaths.

Sweden’s response to the pandemic, which involved allowing schools and businesses to stay open while most of the world enacted lockdowns in March, was hailed as a model by all sections of the US and European political establishment. But now the country’s policy stands exposed as a recipe for death on a massive scale.

More than 7,500 people have died of COVID-19 in Sweden, a country of just 10 million people. Though Sweden has just two-thirds the combined population of its neighbors Norway and Denmark, it has four times as many deaths. Adjusted for population, Sweden’s death rate is nearly five times higher than that of Denmark and nearly 10 times higher than Norway. There are now on average more than 5,000 cases a day reported in the country as a whole, including 1,500 in Stockholm alone.

This disaster is the result of the deliberate policy of allowing the pandemic to spread freely, dubbed “herd immunity” by its proponents, which was pioneered in Sweden and then implemented throughout much of the world.

While the Swedish government has denied that it was deliberately allowing the pandemic to spread, the country’s chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, admitted in private emails that an explicit goal of his policy of keeping schools open was to ensure that a broader section of the population becomes infected. He suggested in March that it would be a good thing if the virus swept “like a storm over Sweden and infect basically everyone in one or two months.”

Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people (Source: Our World in Data)

This “Swedish model” was advocated by all three of the leading US newspapers—the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post —as well as much of the international press and presented a model of how to “balance” the preservation of human life against the needs of the economy.

The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demanded in late April that everyone must “adapt to the coronavirus—by design—the way Sweden is attempting to do.” Stockholm’s goal is “herd immunity through exposure,” he continued.

The Washington Post published an editorial in May suggesting that Sweden made “the right call” by not locking down during its first wave and that it is an “example worth emulating.”

Germany’s Der Spiegel news magazine granted a lengthy interview to Johann Carlson, general director of Sweden’s Public Health Agency, to claim that “closing schools is excessive.” The following weeks saw an editorial in Britain’s Financial Times, “Sweden chooses a third way on coronavirus,” and an article in the US policy journal Foreign Affairs, “Sweden’s coronavirus strategy will soon be the world’s.”

Given the enormous, and almost uniformly positive, coverage of the “Swedish Model” in the US and international press, this policy was no doubt worked out in collaboration with the United States and other countries.

In other words, Sweden became a test case for the implementation of policies that would soon be rolled out around the world. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people around the world have needlessly lost their lives.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made clear in March that his government would let families “lose loved ones before their time” as a solution to the coronavirus pandemic. He was joined by US President Donald Trump, who led the campaign, implemented by Democratic and Republican governors throughout the country, to end partial lockdowns and open schools and workplaces.

Such methods are now the norm internationally. In Brazil (6.8 million cases, 181,000 deaths), fascistic president Jair Bolsonaro has dismissed the coronavirus as the “little flu.” In India (9.8 million cases, 143,000 deaths), the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expecting that half of the country’s population of 1.3 billion will be infected by this coming February. In Mexico (1.2 million cases, 113,00 deaths), President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) rarely wears masks in public and constantly minimizes the danger of the pandemic.

In the United States (16.6 million cases, 306,000 deaths), President-elect Joseph Biden has made clear that schools and businesses will stay open under his administration, no matter how bad the pandemic may become.

The end result has been a year of mass death. There are now more than 72.5 million reported coronavirus cases worldwide and at least 1.61 million deaths. The figures, moreover, are a known underestimate, with “excess death” figures showing death tolls in some regions that are 50 percent higher than official reports.

As the World Socialist Web Site wrote last week:

The normalization of death arises from the decision, rooted in class interests, to treat “economic health” and “human life” as comparable phenomena, with the former prioritized over the latter. Once the legitimacy of the comparison and prioritization is accepted—as it is by the political establishment, the oligarchs and the media—mass death is viewed as unavoidable.

It is from this awful calculus that the slogan emerges, “The cure can’t be worse than the disease.”

Such are the calculations of the ruling elite. In the eyes of the billions of people around the world that have had to face the horror of the coronavirus pandemic, however, the ideas of “herd immunity” are totally discredited.

America’s media establishment claimed that Sweden’s model presented an “alternative” to measures meant to contain the disease, because these measures were deemed unacceptable by the ruling class.

The Socialist Equality Party advances the following demands:

• The immediate shutdown of all production at nonessential workplaces and schools. While public health experts have warned, correctly, that traveling during the pandemic poses massive risks, the fact is that factories and schools are just as dangerous as airports. And yet the outbreaks at workplaces and schools are systematically covered up and ignored.
  
  
• The provision of a monthly income to all families to guarantee a decent standard of living until a return to work is possible. The provision of relief to small businesses, at an amount sufficient to maintain the economic viability of the enterprise and the wages and salaries of its employees until its operations can be resumed.
  
  
• The allocation of trillions of dollars to accelerate the production and distribution of vaccines free of charge and to expand the public health infrastructure, including for testing and contact tracing.

The only social force capable of such an effort is the international working class. Workers in Sweden must unite with their class allies in India, Brazil, Mexico, the United States and in every country to stop the senseless and preventable sacrifice of millions of lives and replace the current reactionary and murderous capitalist order and replacing it with socialism.

As farmers intensify protests in north India, working-class anger erupts in Karnataka in the south

Keith Jones

Working-class anger is exploding in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, even as hundreds of thousands of farmers from north India camped on the outskirts of the national capital, Delhi, threaten to intensify their agitation against the central government’s pro-agribusiness “reform” laws.

Both are resisting the attempts of India’s capitalist ruling elite, spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his far-right, Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to exploit the socioeconomic catastrophe triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic to intensify the exploitation of India’s workers and toilers.

Women activists shout slogans during a protest organized by pro-Karnataka groups in Bengaluru, India, Saturday, Dec. 5, 2020 (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

In the name of “reviving” the economy, which contracted by more than 15 percent in the half-year from April through September, the Modi government has accelerated its privatization drive and pushed through farm and labour law “reforms” long demanded by big business. It has rewritten the labour code to criminalize most worker job action and to promote “labour market flexibility.” Employers now have even more latitude to use contract workers and “hire and fire” workers at will.

Early Saturday morning, workers at a Wistron-owned cellphone and IT manufacturing facility in Narasapura, Karnataka vandalized management offices and overturned the cars of senior executives after the Taiwan-based transnational refused to pay them back wages of three months or more. The violence erupted at the conclusion of a protest involving 2,000 workers who had just come off the night shift. The workers attempted to reason with Wistron managers, but became enraged when they arrogantly dismissed their complaints

At the company’s behest, police have arrested at least 132 workers.

Workers at the Wistron facility are subject to a brutal work regime while producing goods, such as iPhones and biotech equipment, for some of the world’s largest and most profitable companies, including Apple, Microsoft and Lexar.

Moreover, the company, citing the long COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, has slashed the workers’ monthly pay by 25 percent or more.

According to The Hindu, Wistron’s Narasapura industrial park facility has around 15,000 employees, but only 1,400 of them are actually on the company payrolls. The rest are contract workers. Initially, the company operated three shifts of eight hours each, but currently it has only two 12-hour shifts.

“There is no one to hear our woes,” a worker told The Hindu. “In addition to nonpayment of salary, we are also facing wage cut issues. So much harassment at work. Even after working all the days in the month, most of us are seeing loss of pay because the attendance system is corrupt. They call us for OT (overtime), but at the end of work they say it (will be compensated with time off). When we apply for it, HR (Human Resources) never sanctions it.”

The Karnataka BJP state government has rushed to Wistron’s support. It has ordered police deployed to the recently opened plant and placed full blame for the “wanton violence” on the brutally exploited workers. Deputy Chief Minister Ashwath Narayan condemned the workers for taking the “law into their own hands,” adding that they should have raised any complaints in the “appropriate forums,” i.e., with the Labour Ministry.

This is a cynical farce. The Labour Department, like the government as a whole, is at the beck and call of the employers. This is exemplified by their actions during the month-long strike/lockout of 3,000 Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) workers at the company’s facilities in Bidadi, which lies, as does Narasapura, on the outskirts of Bengaluru (Bangalore), Karnataka’s largest city and capital.

The TKM autoworkers’ strike and Maruti Suzuki

The state government has denounced the strike as a threat to investment and repeatedly ordered the TKM workers to return to work on the company’s terms. These include a 25 percent increase in monthly output from 80,000 to 100,000 vehicles per month. Last week, Karnataka Chief Minister B. S. Yediyurappa and the state labour minister met with senior TKM executives to plot their next moves to break the workers’ resistance. According to news reports, they discussed the possible mass arrest of strike leaders and issuing an ultimatum to the workers to return to work or be fired.

The majority Toyota-owned TKM is adamant the plant be made “globally competitive” so as to ensure investors reap the full rewards of a planned joint venture with India’s largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki. Also a Japanese subsidiary, Maruti Suzuki plans to invest up to $1 billion in the Bidadi assembly plant, as part of a global restructuring of the auto industry at workers’ expense.

Toyota workers and Karnataka farmers stage joint procession in Bengaluru (Photo: WSWS)

Speaking to an online business conference late last month, Maruti Suzuki India Chairman R.C. Bhargava said that the sole focus of Indian government policy should be on making industry more competitive. He boasted that Maruti Suzuki has been able to boost output each year without hiring more workers.

In 2012, the Congress Party state government of Haryana, police, courts and Maruti Suzuki management launched a legal vendetta against workers at the company’s Manesar, Haryana assembly plant, who had spearheaded working-class resistance to precarious contract labour jobs and brutal working conditions in one of north India’s largest industrial belts. After a company-provoked altercation, during which a fire gutted part of the plant, police arrested hundreds of workers on frame-up charges, on the basis of lists of “suspects” supplied by management. The company then purged 2,400 permanent and contract workers and reopened a little more than a month later with phalanxes of police deployed in and outside the factory.

Thirteen workers, including the entire leadership of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union, which workers had formed in 2011 in a revolt against a pro-company union, were ultimately jailed for life after a kangaroo-court trial on trumped-up murder charges. They remain there to this day.

The Karnataka Employers’ Association has been pressing for the BJP government to violently suppress the TKM workers’ struggle, beginning with the “arrest of troublemakers.” In a Nov. 30 letter to the state government, it shrilly complained this “illegal agitation” is scaring off investors and threatens to spread and “totally vitiate … industrial relations in the entire area.”

The Karnataka transport strike

Big-business fears of an upsurge in class struggle are now being realized.

The day before the altercation at Wistron, tens of thousands of bus drivers and conductors employed by four Karnataka government-owned transport companies, including the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation, launched a strike to demand that they be classified as government employees. By changing their status, they hope to make it more difficult to gut their jobs and conditions through privatization, and to obtain the better pay and job security guarantees that workers directly employed by the state government enjoy. The workers are also demanding compensation for the families of the nearly 50 workers who have died of COVID-19 as a result of being forced to work amid the pandemic and without proper personal protective equipment.

The strike developed outside and in opposition to the unions, most importantly the Stalinist-led All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), long the dominant force among Karnataka transport workers.

The BJP state government is threatening to invoke the draconian Essential Services Maintenance Act to criminalize the strike, and to mobilize private bus operators to ply the routes shut down by the strike. But on the weekend, its efforts appear to have largely focussed on seeking to enlist the unions’ support in bringing the strike to an end.

The government has accused a farmers’ organization, the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), and its president Kodihalli Chandrashekar, hardly a radical, of “instigating” the transport workers’ strike. Workers and farmers organized under the banner of the KRRS mounted a joint protest in Bengaluru on Thursday.

The next day, the striking TKM workers also held a protest with farmers in the state capital.

The Nov. 26 all-India general strike and the farmers’ agitation

These actions follow on from the Nov. 26 one-day general strike in which tens of millions of workers across India walked off the job to protest the Modi government’s big-business socioeconomic policies, including it three pro-corporate farm “reform” laws, and to demand emergency relief for the hundreds of millions whom the government and India’s ruling elite have left to fend for themselves amid the pandemic and India’s worst ever economic contraction.

That same day, farmers launched their Dilli Chalo (Let’s go to Delhi) agitation. Through massive state repression—including the deployment of paramilitary forces, tear gas and water cannon attacks, and the placing of the entire state of Haryana under Section 144 orders, prohibiting all gatherings of more than four people—Modi and his BJP succeeded in preventing the famers from reaching Delhi as planned on Nov. 27. But defying the police gauntlet, tens of thousands of farmers, principally from the northwestern states of Punjab and Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, did make it to the borders of the Delhi National Capital Territory.

The number of farmers and farm family members amassed at Delhi’s border points has since swelled to more than 350,000. The BJP government having offered no more than cosmetic changes to the farm laws, the farmers are vowing to step up their protests beginning today.

These developments attest to the breadth of the popular opposition to the Modi government and to a growing sense of social solidarity. They also constitute a challenge to the entire ruling class, which brought the would-be Hindu “strongman” Modi and his far-right BJP to power six years ago, so as to intensify their drive to make India a cheap-labour haven for global capital and advance their great-power ambitions on the world stage, principally by integrating New Delhi even more fully into Washington’s strategic offensive against China.

The protest movement is also cutting across the BJP’s incessant campaign to whip up anti-Muslim communalism, so as to divide the working class. Not coincidentally, the same week working-class anger erupted in Karnataka, the BJP-dominated lower house of the state legislature passed a Hindu fundamentalist Prevention of Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill, which will be used to harass Muslims, Dalits and other minorities.

The Indian strikes and worker protests and the farmers’ agitation are part of a worldwide growth of class struggle—spanning from Greece, Italy, and France, to Chile, Nigeria, South Korea and the USA—fueled by the mercenary response of the world’s rival national capitalist elites to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have systematically prioritized profits over human life and are exploiting the social crisis produced by the pandemic to dramatically intensify the decades-long assault on worker rights, public services and jobs. Their aim is to make working people pay for the unlimited sums governments and central banks have funnelled into the markets to prop up the fortunes of the financial oligarchy and profits of big business.

Everywhere the central question is that of arming the incipient global upsurge of the working class with a socialist internationalist program: breaking the political hold of the pro-capitalist trade unions, the establishment “left” parties and their pseudo-left accomplices that have suppressed and sabotaged the struggles of the working class for decades; and forging an alternative revolutionary working-class leadership.

The BJP government has been pushed onto the back foot. But the political forces that claim to speak in the name of the Indian working class—most importantly the Stalinist parliamentary parties, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, and their respective trade union affiliates, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions and the AITUC—are doing everything they can to demobilize and politically smother the working class.

When the farmers called for a Bharat Bandh (all-India shutdown) last Tuesday, the Stalinist parties and the unions instructed workers to remain on the job. This goes hand in hand with their efforts to divert the mass opposition to Modi behind the right-wing opposition parties, first and foremost the Congress Party. That is the party that, till recently, was the preferred governing party of the Indian ruling class and that long spearheaded the implementation of pro-investor policies and its pursuit of a “global strategic partnership” with Washington.

What the Stalinists are above all determined to prevent is the working class intervening as an independent political force, using the crisis the farmer protests have provoked to fight for its own class demands and to advance a socialist program to rally India’s toilers behind it in a struggle against the Modi government and the entire Indian capitalist order. Such a program would defend not only the farmers, but all the rural masses—first and foremost, the impoverished agricultural workers and landless peasants—from the encroachments and privations of big business and animate the fight to fuse the struggles of Indian workers with their class brothers and sisters around the world.

International Experts Issue Important Warning on Non-Ionising Radiation

Bharat Dogra

In recent years a lot of  attention has been drawn to the high hazards of non-ionising radiation which have unfortunately been ignored for too long. Adding in a very significant way to these warnings last month an organization of prominent international experts  issued an important statement on serious and adverse health impacts of Non-Ionising Radiation (NIR). This statement has been issued by Physicians’ Health Initiative for Radiation and Environment (PHIRE). PHIRE is an independent association of medical doctors and associated specialists assembled for the purposes of improving education regarding health effects of non-ionising radiation.

This statement says– Medical experts and practitioners from around the world have united once again to make clear their concerns regarding the health effects of escalating non-ionising radiation (NIR) exposures. NIR is electromagnetic energy ranging from Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) waves right the way up to Ultraviolet (UV). In particular, they are concerned about radiofrequency (RF) emissions from existing mobile phone networks, Wi-Fi, and the rollout of 5G.

Further this statement adds–Whilst such emissions were historically presumed to be biologically inert, and are still purported to be safe by many to this day, there is now highly credible evidence to the contrary. The main risks associated with exposure to such (wireless) non-ionising radiation in the peer-reviewed scientific literature include: increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damage, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being in humans.

Summarizing the mounting evidence on high health impacts of NIR this statement asserts – Mounting human epidemiological evidence of increased cancer has now been corroborated by ‘clear evidence’ of carcinogenesis from animal studies. These include the two largest investigations ever undertaken globally, from the widely respected National Toxicology Program (USA), and Ramazzini Institute (Italy). What is more, law courts are now validating such links: with compensation for health damages from mobile phone radiation being won in a growing number of cases internationally. Some legal teams are so certain of negative health effects that civil suits for Wi-Fi and other wireless injury are now being brought on a ‘no win no fee’ basis, and insurance underwriters consider related risks to be ‘high’.

This statements draws attention to the fact that hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies have demonstrated adverse biological effects occurring in response to a range of NIR exposures below current safety guidelines; however, emissions continue to escalate. Medical evidence of harm has now reached the critical mass necessary to inspire the medical community to step out of their usual roles, stand up and speak out regarding their concerns.

The document has been signed by medical groups representing over 3,500 medical doctors so far, including experienced clinicians and widely published and respected scientists who are experts in this field. It declares current safety levels to be inadequate and highlights some of the disease processes linked with NIR exposure in peer-reviewed publications; it points out the vulnerabilities of children  and other hypersensitive groups, whose symptoms may include sleep problems, impaired concentration, headaches, and mood disturbance; it also highlights the contravention of Human Rights and Equalities Acts and requests urgent responses from governments and health authorities to halt further deployment of emitting technology and address current public health failures.

Professor Anthony B. Miller, MD. Professor Emeritus, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto (UofT) has said, “This statement has been supported by several senior medical experts – This is an important statement that should be read by all concerned with public health. Those responsible for exposing children to non-ionising radiation, especially in schools, should take immediate action to reduce exposure to non-ionising radiation of the children entrusted to their charge. There is sufficient evidence to now classify radiofrequency radiation as a human carcinogen. Action must be taken now to reduce human exposure to non-ionising radiation to as low as can be achievable, including a moratorium on the introduction of 5G.”

Dr. Damien Downing – President of The British Society for Ecological Medicine (BSEM) has said, “In my lifetime our exposure to radiofrequency radiation has increased by up to a billion  times. There is no excuse any more for pretending this is not harmful – to us and to all life on the planet. Radiofrequency radiation is the new tobacco. Anybody sincerely reading the science should be deeply, deeply concerned.”

Dr. Erica Mallery-Blythe – Founder of Physicians Health Initiative for Radiation and Environment (PHIRE) and author of the 2020 NIR Consensus Statement has  said, “The message from these doctors and scientists is a simple one: “Progress is not progress when the cost to be paid is our health and the health of our children … Let us stop, take a breath and use our human genius for true evolution that enhances our lives rather than sabotages them.”

The PHIRE statement as well as the opinion of several experts included in this statement is an important addition to the growing evidence on serious hazards of non-ionising radiation and there is compelling evidence about the seriousness of these hazards. It is important to draw more attention to these hazards and to the PHIRE statement which presents updated evidence on the seriousness of these hazards.

The Shadow Pandemic- Violence against women during COVID-19

Sushmita Das

One in three women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence. Most of this violence is perpetrated by either their intimate partner or a relative. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic outbreak and the subsequent lockdown, the violence against women, especially domestic violence, has increased significantly. This is known as the Shadow Pandemic.

With the reports of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic intensifying in recent days, there is a real threat of the intensification of the shadow pandemic.

Inlined with the global trend, India has also seen a spike in the number of reported domestic violence cases during the first period of lockdown enforcement due to COVID-19. According to a report by Saravana Ravichandran & Manisha Shah of the University of California, Los Angeles, India has seen a higher magnitude in domestic violence cases in districts that saw the strictest lockdown measures. It also states that in districts where a larger proportion of husbands saw domestic violence as justified, larger increases in domestic violence complaints have been observed. According to the National Commission for Women, complaints across various kinds of violence against women have seen a sharp rise during the lockdown, especially domestic violence and cybercrime.

Due to Covid-19 Pandemic, many people, especially working in the unorganized sector, have lost their jobs. The lockdown, combined with the unemployment, has increased the anxiety level of people. There were news reports of husbands beating up their wives for issues as trivial as not putting garlic in daal.

The violence is not limited to beating. There have been cases of homicides as well amidst the lockdown.

In Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh, Irshad (49) killed his wife Amina (45) after a heated argument.  A 45-year-old man in Telangana’s Meerpet allegedly strangled his 40-year-old wife to death for failing to give him food on time.

In India, domestic violence against women is seldomly discussed and rarely reported. On a normal day, men used to stay outside home for the most part of their day. But, due to the lockdown, women are bound to spend more time at home with their abusers and are also unable to seek any support. Also, the possibility of getting a job in this scenario is difficult, which furthers restrains unemployed women from taking any drastic step against their family or partner.

The United Nations has started working to tackle the shadow pandemic worldwide by taking out $25m from its emergency fund. 30% of this fund is proposed to be given to women-led local organizations that prevent violence and help survivors access medical and legal help, family planning, mental health services, and counselling.

Sheba George from Ahmedabad leads one such organization, SAHR WARU- A Women’s Action and Resource Unit. Sheba George says while SAHR WARU is working towards reducing inequalities between genders and empower women, an NGO or a set of NGOs cannot bring the entire change. She points out the need for Government and the Corporates to take necessary steps towards this. During this shadow pandemic, it would be very important for the Government to take note and enact proper steps towards the cause. There could be an argument that says that Governments are currently occupied in fighting the COVID wave and the health emergencies, but historically, even in the pre-pandemic era, the efforts in this area have been minimal. The Nirbhaya fund, launched in the wake of the 2012 gangrape, has only seen 36% usage since 2013.

The diminishing efforts Corporates in reducing inequality are also alarming. The CSR expenditure in reducing inequality has decreased almost three times (187 Cr. vs. 525 Cr.) in 2018-19 when compared to 2017-18. Only 10% of this spend comes from Public Service Undertaking (PSU)s, showing a picture of no focus towards reducing inequality, which in turn results in empowering women.

Victims of domestic violence need to understand that any kind of violence is totally unacceptable, and the perpetrator deserves to be punished by law. Often abusing, slapping and beating are deemed non-serious, and women usually bear these in silence. But ignoring such instances fuels the aggressive behaviour of the perpetrator and later leads to even more violence.

There are a number of helplines for domestic violence and free online counselling websites that victims can use for relief.

In the short term, the Government should use national television to raise awareness about the possible ways victims could seek help. There is also a need of more ways of reporting an abuse without detection. In Spain One smart innovation in Spain’s Canary Islands, since copied in a number of countries, is for victims to use the code “Mask-19” at local pharmacies to discreetly signal their plight, according to Financial Times. Government should also provide financial assistance, so that more women could escape their abuser.

One of the major factors in bringing change in the long term would be to stimulate young minds in understanding gender equality as a part of their curriculum. Gender equality in mainstream education would help change children’s patriarchal mindsets and help them understand the rights of women. Education in this regard through National television might also contribute to gender equality.

Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government uses deadly force against wages protests

Jean Shaoul

The security forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq fired on demonstrators protesting over unpaid wages, killing eight people, and injuring 65 more. One member of the security forces was also killed.

Families of some of the dead claimed their relatives were shot while walking through crowds of protestors.

Protesters in Saidsadiq, Sulaimaniya on December 9, 2020. (Credit: BKirkuk/Facebook)

The protests began on December 3 when thousands of public sector workers in Iraq’s semi-autonomous KRG, took to the streets of Sulaimani, the capital city of Sulaimaniya province, to demand their unpaid wages. Around 1.2 million workers have not been paid for much of this year as the KRG has run out of cash. Budget disputes with the federal government in Baghdad and Iraq’s economic crisis have been compounded by the fall in oil prices and the pandemic-related downturn. The protesters were met with water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas.

Since then, the anti-government protests have escalated, spreading to other towns in the Sulaimaniya province as well as to Halabja province, amid widespread anger over unpaid salaries, unemployment, poverty, a lack of basic services, electricity, water and fuel shortages, and government corruption. On Sunday, protesters in Said Sadiq torched the offices of the two main Kurdish political parties as well as the mayor’s office.

The KRG said it would not allow “unlicensed” protests and that it would initiate legal proceedings against those who damaged government property. It has restricted access to the internet and suspended for one week regional TV station NRT’s broadcasts, raiding its office in Sulaimani in an effort to prevent the protests escalating further. On Wednesday, the authorities in Sulaimaniya banned all vehicular movement for 24 hours.

These latest protests follow similar demonstrations over unpaid wages and pay cuts in November when the government used tear gas to disperse the demonstrations.

In August, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which controls the western areas of the KRG, deployed large numbers of security forces to suppress demonstrations in Erbil and Duhok provinces, resulting in numerous injuries, particularly in the city of Zakho.

Security forces also attacked and arrested journalists and shut down a major TV channel, while the broadcasters and newspapers associated with the two ruling parties—the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union Party (PUK)—barely covered the clashes. These two rival and corrupt mafia-like gangs that fought each other in the mid-1990s run the KRG as their personal fiefdoms with scant tolerance for dissent, criticism and the niceties of bourgeois democracy. Other powerful figures have their own private militias to maintain their own corrupt profiteering.

The KDP, which rules over the KRG’s 5.1 million population, has been led by the Barzani family ever since its creation seven decades ago, with Nechirvan Barzani holding the presidency and Masrour Barzani, the son of the previous president, holding the premiership. The Barzani clan has monopolized most commercial activities in the region, amassing a huge fortune.

In all, more than 280 people were arrested and subjected to abuse. Al-Jazeera cited the Rights and Freedoms Advocacy Committee, an NGO, as stating, “Among those arrested were “teachers, civil servants, journalists and human rights activists, some of whom have been subjected to physical and psychological torture, prolonged solitary confinement, and denied access to legal aid and visitations.”

It is part of a vicious crackdown on reporting. According to the Metro Center for Journalist Rights, based in the PUK-dominated Sulaymaniyah province, there have been 98 violations against media organisations and journalists in the KRG in the first six months of 2020. Only the media organisations linked to the two main parties have been spared. The KRG is also introducing legislation clamping down on digital media.

The latest Human Rights Watch report describes KRG rule as being “the same as other parts of Iraq for outspoken people” and states, “Kurdish authorities are continuing to use vaguely worded laws to intimidate and silence journalists, activists, and other dissenting voices.”

On Monday, KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani called for patience and blamed the crisis on the federal government, claiming that Baghdad had failed to transfer four monthly payments of $270 million to Erbil, the KRG’s capital. He called on Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi “to instruct the federal Finance Ministry to release the region’s funds.” On Wednesday, Barzani said, “The protests that started in Sulaimani and Halabja were peaceful. However, they were taken advantage of.”

Protestors attack offices of ruling PUK in Sulaimaniya province. (Social media)

Facing a catastrophic financial crisis with the collapse in oil demand and prices, the Iraqi government teeters on the brink of insolvency. The financial transfers to the KRG, whose relations with Baghdad deteriorated after its failed bid to create an independent Kurdish state in 2017, are bound up with the political deadlock in Iraq’s parliament that have prevented the agreement of the 2021 budget law. This is now unlikely to be approved before the new year. While al-Kadhimi had sought parliament’s approval to borrow $34 billion, parliament sanctioned just $10 billion, barely enough to cover the wage bill for Iraq’s 4 million public employees, who have seen their salaries delayed for nearly two months, until the end of the year.

This has further strained relations with the KRG, where three out of four workers are paid by the regional government.

The $270 million which the federal government in Baghdad pays to the KRG monthly is a reduction from an earlier agreement under which it paid $400 million. The cut was enacted after the KRG began to export its oil independently. New legislation requiring the KRG to remit to Baghdad the revenues from its direct oil sales to Turkey in return for its share of the federal budget prompted Kurdish legislators to storm out of parliament in anger.

In addition to the economic crisis, the KRG’s Peshmerga forces have clashed with Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) fighters, of whom some 5,000 fighters are stationed in the KRG, with the potential to ignite an all-out conflict. PKK forces recently sabotaged the KRG’s pipeline to Turkey, suspending oil exports, as part of its 35-year insurgency against Turkish rule. The conflict has led to the deaths of some 40,000 people, the destruction of 4,000 villages and the forcible displacement of up to one million people. These clashes take place in the wake of Turkey’s cross-border counter-PKK operations including airstrikes, which Baghdad views as an infringement on Iraq’s sovereignty.

US officials hypocritically expressed their concern over the crackdown on protesters during a meeting with KRG leaders in Erbil on Wednesday. Washington has had a long relationship with the Barzani clan’s Kurdish Democratic Party, having backed the KRG with military and financial aid and used the KRG’s Peshmerga as shock troops in fighting the Islamic State in Iraq.

The Pentagon has established a major base near Erbil and is reportedly setting up other semi-permanent bases near the Iranian border, making the KRG a center of US imperialist operations in the region. Washington is also anxious to prevent any further unrest in Iraq, which has been rocked by anti-government protests. Barzani has sent a delegation to Baghdad to discuss the crisis.

For its part, the Kurdish working class increasingly views the KRG’s ruling cliques as willing tools of Washington and its allies, whose support enables the KDP and PUK to quash public dissent and opposition to their plunder and exploitation.

Iraq has become a key political battleground in the Trump administration’s drive to establish unfettered US domination over the world’s principal oil-exporting region and its preparations for a military confrontation with Iran. This in turn is bound up with Washington’s build-up for “great power” confrontation with China—attempting to use military force to establish a chokehold over the energy resources upon which the Chinese economy depends.

These developments take place amid a new and even more dangerous phase of the US’s war preparations and provocations against Iran, including the dispatch of US B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf for second time in three weeks with the potential for mass casualties among the tens of thousands of US troops deployed in the region. This could provide President Donald Trump, who has refused to concede Joe Biden’s victory in the recent presidential elections, with a pretext for realizing his threats to impose martial law and upend the transfer of power.

Johnson and Macron governments step up collaboration in persecution of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers

Simon Whelan

The British and French governments are at loggerheads over Brexit and as yet cannot reach agreement on commerce, trade, imports and exports. But they can find ample mutual purpose to persecute and trample on the democratic rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

Rather than offer shelter to those fleeing the impact of decades of Western military aggression, the two governments have joined forces for the most odious and reactionary campaign to scapegoat them in the public eye.

A Border Force vessel brings a group of people thought to be migrants into the port city of Dover, England, from small boats, Saturday Aug. 8, 2020. The British government says it will strengthen border measures as calm summer weather has prompted a record number of people to attempt the risky sea crossing in small vessels, from northern France to England. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

A new deal between the Johnson government in London and Macron administration in Paris, was agreed on November 28 by British Home Secretary Priti Patel and her French counterpart, interior minister Gérald Darmanin.

Speaking following talks with Darmanin, Patel announced how the new package “effectively doubles the number of police on the French beaches, it invests in more technologies and surveillance—more radar technology that support the law enforcement effort—and on top of that we are now sharing in terms of toughening up our border security.”

This pledge to brutalise migrants comes only days after French security forces rampaged through the streets of Paris in what can only be described as a police riot, ruthlessly beating migrants and journalists.

Both governments, despite pleading poverty to their citizens over the response to the pandemic, managed to conjure up millions for a host of new state-of-the-art military surveillance technology, drones, radar equipment, cameras and optronic binoculars.

Officials revealed how the UK has provided France with a total of £192 million of funding since 2014 aimed primarily at preventing migrants crossing the Channel by tunnel, train, ferry and in dinghies. The majority was spent on infrastructure like border controls and security in and around Calais on the French coast.

During the weekend the deal was signed, French patrol boats intercepted 45 migrants, including a pregnant woman and children apparently suffering from hypothermia, struggling to make the crossing cross from France. There have been more than 8,000 crossings so far during 2020. In 2019 there were 1,844 crossings and 299 in 2018.

The additional measures to prevent asylum seekers crossing the English Channel came into force December 1. French police patrols will be doubled along stretches of coast with the shortest and easiest crossing distances to the UK. The manhunting of migrants and asylum seekers along this stretch will lead to more deaths by forcing desperate people to begin their journey from more remote sections of coastline and attempt even more dangerous methods and routes to reach the UK.

Four people attempting to make the crossing are known to have died last year and seven so far this year.

Patel claimed the agreement between the two European governments represented a significant advance in their “shared mission to make Channel crossings unviable”. She said the number of migrants making the crossing had grown exponentially and blamed trafficking gangs for “facilitating” dangerous journeys. Lying through her teeth, Patel continued, “We should not lose sight of the fact that illegal migration exists for one fundamental reason: that is because there are criminal gangs—people traffickers—facilitating this trade.”

The Home Secretary knows full well the tide of humanity forced to flee to Europe from the Middle East, North Africa and the Persian Gulf does so not because of human traffickers. These extremely vulnerable people are fleeing from the wars, fratricidal conflicts, and economic and ecological destruction created and exacerbated by the world’s imperialist powers, foremost in Europe by Britain and France.

The Tory government are doubling down on their policy of creating a “hostile environment” for immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The Home Office is seeking to criminalise migration by painting a lurid and inaccurate picture in the public eye of “criminal migrant gangs” crossing the Channel and “invading” the UK.

The Anglo-French deal was criticised by Amnesty International UK. Steve Valdez-Symonds, the organisation’s refugee and migrant rights programme director, declared, “Women, men and children make dangerous journeys across the Channel because there are no safe options provided for them—to either reunite with family in this country, or access an effective asylum system, to which they are entitled. The UK government must share responsibility for providing sanctuary with its nearest neighbour. This continued focus on simply shutting down routes to the UK is blinkered and reckless—it does nothing but increase the risks that people, who have already endured incredible hardship, are compelled to take.”

Last month, it was revealed that migrants are being jailed by the Johnson government for taking the tiller of the flimsy vessels used to cross the Channel. Those steering the craft are being charged with “facilitation”. People seeking asylum are being sent to prison for preventing their seaborne craft from drifting aimlessly in the dangerous conditions and busy shipping lanes of the Channel.

The immigration enforcement unit is analysing drone footage of the boats carrying migrants across the English Channel in order to single out for prosecution those who steer the vessel. Thus far eight migrants who steered vessels on the perilous journey have been jailed since August. The draconian sentences handed down range from 16 to over 30 months in prison. To heap insult upon injury, migrants serving these prison terms are eligible for deportation once their sentences are served because their sentence was for longer than 12 months—under the Labour Party’s 2007 Borders Act.

Gloating government press releases announcing the imprisonment of migrants for steering dinghies describe people frequently fleeing the devastation wrought by NATO forces as “people smugglers”. This legal outrage is in breach of the United Nations Refugee Agency definition of smugglers as facilitating journeys for “a financial or other material benefit”.

The Home Office is also engaged in an attempt to cover up any public knowledge of the horrendous conditions at a former army barracks where asylum seekers are held behind barbed wire.

Visitors to the Napier barracks near Folkestone, Kent must now sign the Official Secrets Act to prevent them from speaking about the numerous hunger strikes, suicide attempts, general malaise, unrest and regular medical emergencies among residents.

Volunteers who provide clothing, amenities, company and counselling to the 400 male asylum seekers held at Napier barracks are being issued with a confidentiality form by the private security firm on behalf of the Home Office. The Guardian, who saw firsthand the agreement, say it commits the signatory to treating as confidential any information about Napier “service users” i.e. the asylum seekers.

Such information is subject to the Official Secrets Act, designed to guard issues of national security, intelligence, defence, international relations and information which has been entrusted in confidence to another country. Breaking the Official Secrets Act threatens a jail term of up to two years in prison.

A spokesperson for the Home Office gave a dismissive response to press queries: “We have worked closely with our accommodation provider Clearsprings Ready Homes and stakeholders to ensure the Napier site is safe and secure.”

The Guardian reported that while the Home Office commissioned Clearsprings Ready Homes to run Napier, the company has subcontracted significant responsibilities for the day-to-day management of the detention centre to “a letting agent and property management firm called NACCS”. The detention of asylum seekers is therefore being run by a company of private landlords and property developers.