Kunduz massacre goes unpunished

Justus Leicht

In February, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg dismissed the appeal of Abdul Hanan, a farmer from Kunduz, against the Federal Republic of Germany over a 2009 massacre in Afghanistan. Hanan, who also appeared on behalf of his village, had filed the complaint alleging inadequate judicial investigation of the deaths of his two sons, who were eight and twelve years old when they were killed.

The two children, Abdul Bayan and Nesarullah, and more than a hundred other people (the exact number has not yet been firmly established), most of them civilians, were killed on 4 September 2009 when two US warplanes bombed a crowd that had gathered around two stalled tankers on a sandbank of the Kunduz River. The order for the attack had been given by Col. Georg Klein of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces)|.

It was the largest massacre ordered by a German officer since the Second World War. But after eleven years, it finally remains unpunished.

September 4, 2009: Afghan police officers at the site of the massacre (AP Photo, file)

From the beginning, the Attorney General’s Office had refused to press charges against Klein and his air traffic control officer. Hanan had then tried to force an indictment through a so-called “proceedings to force criminal prosecution”. However, he had failed in all German courts with his motions, brought by the renowned human rights lawyer Wolfgang Kaleck from Berlin. The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court, the Federal Court of Justice and finally the Federal Constitutional Court had not even allowed them. This has now been rubber-stamped by the ECHR.

The non-profit human rights organisation European Centre for Constitutional Rights (ECCR), which supported Hanan, called the Strasbourg decision “disappointing, as the German military’s policy of secrecy and the de facto denial of procedural rights to those affected were not reprimanded”.

Plaintiff Abdul Hanan described the last twelve years as “an ordeal for my family and the families of the other victims”. He said they had never received an official apology from the German government. “All we wanted is for those responsible for the attack to be held accountable and for us to be properly compensated.”

The German government is not prepared to do that. To this day, it holds the stated view that the airstrike was “permissible under international law and thus justified under criminal law”. Although it has given small sums of money to the survivors and surviving dependents, it has expressly not linked this to the recognition of any legal obligation.

The ECHR dismissed Hanan’s complaint, although the court acknowledged that there had been a whole series of glaring deficiencies in the investigation of the case. The decision is final. Further appeals are no longer possible.

This has far-reaching significance for German militarism. The Bundeswehr is assured that it has nothing to fear from the prosecuting authorities and the judiciary when it causes large-scale collateral damage among civilians.

Eleven years ago, when it closed the investigation against Colonel Klein after only four weeks, the Attorney General had already determined that it was only impermissible to kill numerous civilians when dropping bombs if “the expected civilian damage is disproportionate to the expected concrete and immediate military success”.

In all the proceedings against Klein and his German comrades, it was repeatedly claimed that he had done everything possible at the time of the attack to get a picture of the situation and could not have known that it was mainly civilians who were near the tankers. This is demonstrably false.

The German military relied only on a single informant of dubious reliability who was not on the spot and even lied to allied NATO forces to push through the bombing. The subsequent investigations by the Bundeswehr, public prosecutors and the courts were aimed at giving Klein and his comrades a clean bill of health. All this has now been justified or brushed aside by the ECHR.

For example, after discussions with the Ministry of Defence, the state Attorney General’s Office in Dresden, which was initially responsible for the case, handed it over to the Federal Attorney General’s Office, which is under the authority of the Ministry of Justice, i.e., the federal government. The ECHR did not find this relevant, as there was no evidence that such instructions had been given, or that the Ministry of Defence had tried to influence the proceedings, it said.

The ECHR also rejected the applicants’ objection that the investigators in Afghanistan had not been independent of the suspects. The Strasbourg judges did note that “it would have been better in terms of independence if the initial assessment on the ground had not been carried out exclusively by members of the Kunduz Provincial Reconstruction Team who were under the command of Colonel K.”. However, it was the mens rea [subjective ideas, knowledge and will] of Colonel Klein that mattered anyway. “Realistically speaking”, the investigations had therefore not been influenced.

The ECHR, like the German Attorney General and the German Federal Constitutional Court, did not consider it necessary to question witnesses other than Klein himself and his comrades in the German command post, not even the Afghans affected by the airstrike or the American pilots who carried it out.

The court also saw no need to question military experts or to re-enact the situation in the command centre. After all, the ISAF investigation team—comrades or subordinates of Colonel Klein—consisted of “military experts from various countries”.

The Strasbourg judges were also not particularly bothered by the fact that it had not been determined how many victims there had been and how many of them were civilians. After all, the liability of Colonel Klein had depended on his subjective view.

The fact that the investigations were discontinued without even once hearing the complainant of the father of two persons killed by the air raid appeared “problematic at first sight” to the ECHR, because it could not be ruled out that Hanan had relevant information, in particular about the identity of the persons present at the bombing site. After all, the plaintiff could still have produced relevant information even after the investigation had been discontinued.

Three judges placed a dissenting opinion on record. According to them, the ECHR should have dismissed the complaint as inadmissible from the outset. This was in line with the official legal opinion of Germany, Britain, France, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Accordingly, the applicant had had no right to invoke the European Convention on Human Rights and the ECHR had no jurisdiction.

The majority of the judges took a different view: first, Germany had been obliged by international law to investigate the airstrike; second, the Afghan authorities had been legally barred from investigating (because of an agreement with the international troops in their country); and third, the German law enforcement authorities had also been called upon to investigate under national law.

Legal observers, who were otherwise critical of the ruling, praised it as a possible “milestone” in ECHR jurisprudence. It is nothing of the sort. Those politically and militarily responsible went scot-free. Colonel Georg Klein was promoted and still serves as a general in the Bundeswehr.

Georg Klein (AP Photo / Anja Niedringhaus, File)

The plaintiff and the other victims and survivors, on the other hand, leave empty-handed; they are awarded no compensation, and no one is held accountable for the death and destruction they suffered. In the end, it took little more than the military commander’s statement that he had acted in good faith to legally wash him clean of the blood of dozens of innocent men, women, and children.

The result was no different in the civil courts. In November last year, the Federal Constitutional Court did not accept a constitutional complaint by survivors of victims of the Kunduz massacre, who had been denied damages and compensation for pain and suffering by the lower courts. The constitutional court judges in Karlsruhe ruled coolly that “not every killing of a civilian in the context of armed conflict also constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law”. Colonel Klein had made a “valid prognosis decision” from his point of view at the time.

The lower court, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH), had gone even further and had fundamentally rejected public liability claims against German soldiers on armed missions abroad because of the possible impairment of Germany’s “ability to form an alliance and its scope for shaping foreign policy”. The Federal Constitutional Court, on the other hand, had expressly left open the question of whether public liability claims were possible in the case of military missions abroad. It did not have to decide on this because Colonel Klein had not acted unlawfully in the specific case.

Taken together, these rulings send a clear message that officers and soldiers need not fear punishment when they kill civilians, nor even facing charges in a criminal court. The judgements provide a blank cheque to German militarism, which is massively rearming and preparing to wage war all over the world again. Only a week after the ECHR ruling, the German government extended the Bundeswehr’s Afghanistan mandate until January next year and published plans to intervene militarily in the Indo-Pacific and other regions of the world, in addition to existing missions, such as in Mali.

In the Nuremberg Trials that followed the defeat of the Nazis in World War Two, the head of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (Hitler’s Army), Wilhelm Keitel, was convicted and executed as a war criminal, among other things, because he had given the following order in Yugoslavia: “It is ... not only justified, but it is the duty of the troops to use all means without restriction, even against women and children, so long as it ensures success.”

Today, according to the Attorney General, it is permissible to kill civilians if it is “proportionate to the expected immediate and concrete military success”. The ECHR has now given this its legal blessing.

US Supreme Court poised to finish off Voting Rights Act

Ed Hightower

In oral arguments held Tuesday, the right-wing majority of the US Supreme Court (six of the nine justices) displayed a level of contempt for the right to vote that has no modern parallel.

While the immediate legal questions at issue involve the interpretation of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the practical and political implications might be translated into everyday language as: does the US federal government still have the authority to prohibit racial discrimination in state election laws?

The US Supreme Court building in Washington DC (Wikimedia Commons)

The cases under review—Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee and Arizona Republican Party v. Democratic National Committee—concern two racially discriminatory voting regulations in the state of Arizona, one of which invalidates any ballots cast “out of precinct” and another which criminalizes “ballot harvesting,” a politically-charged title for the simple act of transporting another person’s ballot to the appropriate polling station on their behalf.

While the Supreme Court will not make a ruling in the cases until May or June, the overall tenor of the oral arguments—given the core democratic right at issue—warrant some examination.

The laws in question emerged as part of the deluge of voter suppression measures following the high court’s infamous 2013 Shelby County decision striking down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The proliferation of “voter fraud” initiatives has only swelled since Donald Trump’s electoral defeat in November 2020. To this day, the former president and architect of the January 6 coup attempt maintains that the election was stolen through massive voter fraud, a false and unsupported conspiracy theory.

In 2016 the Arizona legislature made it a felony to collect and deliver another person’s completed ballot, with very narrow exceptions, punishable by two years’ imprisonment and a $150,000 fine. The law served to disenfranchise the state’s American Indian population, only 18 percent of whom have access to regular mail services. Latino and African-American voters also make use of third-party ballot collectors more frequently than white voters, mainly because of greater poverty and social isolation.

Former Arizona state senator Don Shooter championed the measure. Shooter leads the fascistic Yuma County Tea Party. He made regular appeals during his tenure to anti-Latino racism, blaming demographic changes for improving election prospects for Democrats. He infamously appeared at one legislative meeting dressed as a Mexican mariachi performer, with a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of tequila in a holster. Shooter’s racist proclivities formed part of the lower courts’ records and are not in dispute.

Arizona’s out-of-precinct policy serves the same discriminatory and anti-democratic ends. In its ruling below the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit concluded that “Arizona election officials change voters’ assigned polling places with unusual frequency” and that polling precincts are sometimes “located so counterintuitively that voters easily make mistakes.”

Between 2012 and 2016 Maricopa County, home to more than 60 percent of Arizona’s population, cut the number of polling places by 70 percent, with a disproportionate reduction in minority communities. Native Americans, Hispanics and African Americans in Arizona are twice as likely as whites to vote outside of the precinct to which they had been assigned.

In sum, both of the policies before the court bear the unmistakable marks of racially motivated voter suppression.

Obama appointees Elena Kagan and Sonya Sotomayor posed some questions which had the general character of a warning that if Arizona’s voting restrictions should survive, little would remain of America’s tattered constitutional-democratic political framework.

The aging reactionary Clarence Thomas appeared unmoved by the ostensibly small number of disenfranchised voters, hinting that he might base his legal findings on a de minimis rationale—that the purported violation is too small to matter in the eyes of the law. (The legal notion comes the from Latin de minimis non curat lex which means “the law does not concern itself with trifles.”) In Thomas’ novel theory, thousands of suppressed votes are literally trifles.

Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett also nodded at a de minimis rationale for upholding the Arizona laws in question. She hinted in one question that the appropriate legal standard might be to assess the discriminatory impact of the state’s voting system as a whole rather than a particular measure. Such a legal standard—which would permit a dash of disenfranchisement here and there, now and then—would represent a departure from 40 years of legal precedent as well as an attack on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

It is noteworthy that while justices openly debated how much voter suppression was too much, they never considered the question of whether voter fraud—the supposed pretext for the Arizona laws—exists at all. According to numerous studies, in-person vote fraud of the kind alleged incessantly by Republican Party officials is effectively nonexistent (truly de minimis ).

For his part, Chief Justice John Roberts legitimized the “voter fraud” justification for banning third-party ballot collecting. More significantly he implied that evidence of discriminatory intent by a single state legislator might be insufficient in proving that a given election law had an illegal and racist motivation. Roberts even mentioned disgraced former Arizona state senator Don Shooter by name.

The most revealing words uttered at Tuesday’s oral arguments came from George W. Bush appointee Samuel Alito, who asked the following question to the attorney for the Democratic National Committee:

“What concerns me is that your position is going to make every voting rule vulnerable to attack under Section 2 [of the VRA] to the same extent that the out-of-precinct policy is—was found to—violate Section 2 by the Ninth Circuit, because people who are poor and less well educated on balance probably will find it more difficult to comply with just about every voting rule than do people who are more affluent and have had the benefit of more education .” (Italics added.)

One might rephrase the question: if the Supreme Court follows controlling precedent in applying the Voting Rights Act to these discriminatory laws in Arizona, how can the ruling class reduce the presence of working class voters in elections and from the political process as a whole?

Just a few weeks ago and a few hundred feet away from the US Supreme Court building, a fascistic mob attacked the Capitol with the intent to overturn the November 2020 presidential election. Tuesday’s ruminations in the Supreme Court—essentially on the issue of how much voter suppression is permissible—should serve as another warning that American democracy is on life support.

China suppresses workers’ attempts to demand wages

Lily Zhao

Wage arrears have been a serious and long-standing issue confronting millions of workers in China since the capitalist restoration in 1978. For the year 2020, according to the China Labour Bulletin, there were at least 660 collective protests by workers against wage arrears covering almost all provinces. From the Workers’ Calls-for-Help Map, which tracks individual workers’ attempts to appeal for help on social media, 207 cases related to wage arrears have been recorded since September 2020. These records are certainly an underestimation as many grievances are not reported on the local news or in social media.

The struggles of workers amid already heated social tensions are regarded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a serious threat. In January 2020, Prime Minister Li Keqiang hypocritically signed a regulation designed to make sure migrant workers receive their pay. In reality, the CCP regime has, in recent years, been deepening its attacks on the democratic rights of workers and using all means to prevent them from demanding their unpaid wages—through legislation, vilification and arrests.

Tech workers in China

In November 2019, in a case where construction workers sued for wage arrears, the Supreme People’s Court made a ruling that significantly increased the difficulties workers face when attempting to recover their wages. The ruling, in essence, only allowed workers to demand wages from an intermediate person or agent who subcontracted a work project, and denied the right of workers to demand wage arrears from the main contracting company.

Specifically, Mingfa, a real estate company in Huai’an, Jiangsu contracted to carry out a construction project in 2016 for another company called Fujian Sihai Construction. In fact, the project was carried out by an individual, Peng, who was affiliated with Sihai, but not employed by it. Peng did not engage his own construction team, but instead subcontracted the project to a group of construction workers.

However, the real estate company did not pay for the construction as indicated in the contract. So the leader of the group of construction workers sued Peng and Sihai Construction, demanding the 359,849.50 RMB ($US51,400) in arrears. The High People’s Court in Fujian Province (where Sihai Construction is based) ruled in favor of the construction workers and issued an order to enforce this payment.

In the enforcement order, the provincial High People’s Court established that neither Peng nor the construction company possessed any assets that could be used to pay back workers and implemented restrictions on large expenditures by Peng. As a result, despite the favorable ruling, construction workers did not receive their pay in the end.

The construction workers later appealed to the Supreme People’s Court, the top court in China, demanding that the real estate company, Mingfa, should also be held at least partially responsible for the payment of their unpaid wages. However, the Court ruled that the construction workers had only a labor service relation with Peng, who subcontracted the project to them, but this did not constitute a contractual relation with Peng. Therefore, the Court declared that, in a narrow legal sense, the “construction undertaker” was Peng, not the construction workers. Since only the “construction undertaker” has the right to demand payments from original contractor, Mingfa, the construction workers had no right to demand wages from Mingfa directly.

This ruling has far reaching implications for workers, shutting off the already very limited means for workers to demand unpaid wages. The employment of workers via subcontractors is very common in the construction industry. Wage arrears happen very frequently with 54 percent of the protests reported by the China Labour Bulletin in 2020 being in the construction sector. As one lawyer from Wuhan University commented, this ruling will “undoubtedly have disastrous consequences in practice.”

Workers who demand their pay are not only oppressed by the judicial system, but are also attacked and vilified by the state through the media.

In recent months, various articles have appeared denouncing protests by workers to demand their wages. For instance, when reporting on a protest by more than 20 construction workers demanding wages on January 20, several local media characterized the workers as “marching illegally” and accused the leading worker of “intentionally instigating other workers into protests.”

The police have also brutally intervened in many workers’ protests. Seven workers were detained for weeks after the aforementioned protest in Guangdong Province in January. Another worker in Jiangsu Province who threatened to jump off a crane tower unless he was paid was also detained by the local police for 10 days. The police have also issued statements that there would be “zero tolerance” against future attempts of migrant workers to demand wages through “malevolent means.”

Such statements are outrageous. Nothing is done about the real criminals—the employers who fail to pay the wages on which workers rely. Moreover, workers resort to protests because there are no “benevolent” avenues to be paid what they have earned.

The city of Tongxiao in Zhejiang Province has gone even further with a recent regulation published on February 7 that establishes a blacklist for employees who exhibit “abnormalities” in labor disputes. The criteria for “abnormalities” include: applying for arbitration at the same labor department more than five times in a year, filing more than 10 complaints at the same social security office within three years, and appealing to the same social security office to demand wages more than three times every year. The personal information of any blacklisted worker is be published on the city court’s official website and through social media. This information will also be circulated through the local employment markets.

This anti-working class regulation, despite claiming to “regulate local labor market through legal means,” clearly serves to intimidate and bully workers to prevent any opposition being voiced.

The source of the widespread practice of failing to pay wages is not merely the greed and criminality of individual company owners and construction project contractors. The suppression of workers’ protests over unpaid wages is carried out with the active involvement of the police, media, the judicial system—in short, the Stalinist CCP state apparatus that enriches itself through the oppression and exploitation of the working class.

13 killed in deadly SUV crash near US-Mexico border in southern California

Meenakshi Jagadeesan

Early Tuesday morning, a semi-truck towing two trailers slammed into a Ford Explorer SUV carrying more than two dozen people in the Imperial Valley region in Southern California just a few miles from the US-Mexico border.

Law enforcement officers work at the scene of a deadly crash in Holtville, Calif., on Tuesday, March 2, 2021. Authorities say a semi-truck crashed into an SUV carrying 25 people on a Southern California highway, killing at least 13 people. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

The crash, which is the deadliest in the border area in many decades, has so far claimed 13 lives and left many seriously injured. The carnage, captured on traffic cameras, shows passengers being ejected from the SUV on impact, and then several trying to get out of the wreckage looking dazed. Emergency responders at the scene reported finding several victims dead inside the vehicle.

The injured were taken to the El Centro Regional Medical Center (ECRMC), Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs and Pioneers Memorial Hospital in nearby Brawley. UC San Diego Health said it received three patients transferred from ECRMC via air ambulance. According to CHP reports, the passengers ranged from ages 20 to 55, and it has been reported that the driver of the SUV was a 28-year-old from Mexicali, Mexico.

In his initial statement reported by CNN, El Centro Regional Medical Center CEO Dr. Adolphe Edward highlighted the fact that this was a major accident and that “people were going through a difficult time,” and warned reporters against categorizing the victims as “undocumented.” According to the latest reports, US Border Patrol (USBP) has stated it suspects all the victims had been part of a group of 44 migrants smuggled from Mexico into the US through a hole in the border fence near Calexico.

On Wednesday morning, USBP also released a timeline detailing the events leading up to the crash. According to the official version, agents patrolling the Calexico were notified that a “red Suburban was on fire” near I-8 and Interstate Route 115 at 5:56 a.m.. Within 10 minutes, the agents claim they found a 10-foot hole in the border fence near Gordon’s Well exit/Schneider’s Bride area, and 19 people hiding in the bushes while trying to put out the vehicle fire.

Soon after, the agents received a call about a deadly crash. Border Patrol Search Trauma and Rescue Team (BORSTAR) agents were the first on the scene and reported that they found 12 victims dead on the spot.

The Ford Explorer SUV involved in the accident had all but the driver and front passenger seats removed, which meant none of the other passengers had access to seat belts. The vehicle, which is supposed to carry a maximum of 8 people, was carrying two dozen passengers.

This dangerous mode of transportation is not uncommon in the border areas, especially in the Imperial Valley, where agribusinesses have consistently exploited underpaid transborder farmworkers. Farms in the region have used vehicles like the one involved in the most recent deadly crash to transport migrant workers who have crossed legally into the United States.

Car crashes in the border area are not uncommon, and usually have been the result of vehicles trying to flee USBP. In what was the most recent deadly crash before Tuesday, seven people were killed when a car attempted to flee USBP vehicles giving chase in El Paso, Texas in June 2020. Prior to that, in 2019 a police chase in rural South Texas resulted in six deaths, and five people charged with migrant smuggling. In July 2012, in one of the worst border-related crashes of the last decade, a Ford pickup crammed with more than 20 undocumented adults and children struck two trees, killing 15 people, including an 8-year-old girl, in Texas.

At the time of publication, many questions raised by the most recent accident remain unanswered. The official report merely states that the SUV was hit after it apparently entered an intersection directly in front of a Peterbilt tractor trailer traveling north on Route 115 near El Centro. However, it is not quite clear whether the SUV was speeding or whether the driver ran a stop sign or for that matter what would account for it being directly in front of an oncoming vehicle. For now, USBP has claimed that none of its agents were in pursuit and the BORSTAR agents at the site had merely responded to the emergency call.

The response to such accidents from government officials and the media has taken the form of bemoaning the evils of human trafficking and a ramping up of militarized border policing. In his official statement after Tuesday’s tragedy, El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino connected the accident to the hole in the border wall, insisting, “Human smugglers have proven time and again they have little regard for human life. Those who may be contemplating crossing the border illegally should pause to think of the dangers that all too often end in tragedy; tragedies our Border Patrol Agents and first responders are unfortunately very familiar with.”

The Department of Homeland Security has also announced an investigation into the human trafficking operation that apparently brought the migrants into the country. This investigation, as others in the past, will whitewash the horrendous human costs of US immigration policy, which under the new Biden administration is not fundamentally different from what it was under Trump.

The El Centro sector employs 800 Border Patrol agents to cover 70 miles across the valley. It boasts of a new border barrier—a row of 30-foot-tall, slender steel slats with pointed edges—that Trump inspected with great fanfare. All of this is to impede the movement of workers in an area which is the agricultural heart of the region and also among the most economically depressed in California.

The unemployment rate for the valley is four times the state average, and its seasonal labor demands are met in large part through migrant labor from across the border. It is estimated that around 6000 farm workers cross the border legally during the annual harvest. However, the dire economic conditions on both sides of the border—exacerbated by the on-going pandemic—have meant that desperate workers have been forced into looking for any means possible to eke out a living and provide for their families.

Border Patrol agents, who are usually heavily armed in these areas, have reported that the number of unauthorized immigrants arrested in January 2021 was 78,323—well over double the figure from January 2020. These numbers, which had dipped to 17,066 in April 2020 in the early days of the pandemic, reveal the growing desperation of the working class in the border regions.

The Biden administration, which supporters claimed would initiate a new chapter in US immigration policy, has done nothing of that sort. Despite the anti-immigrant ravings of Donald Trump at the recent CPAC convention, US immigration policies have continued to develop along the same trajectory he had set, including the re-opening of detention centers for children. In this context, tragedies like what unfolded in the Imperial Valley this week will sadly continue to be a fixture.

Australia: Media-led hysteria in overdrive after attorney-general denies rape allegation

Oscar Grenfell

A campaign against the Liberal-National Coalition government, centering on various accusations of sexual misconduct, reached a new level of intensity yesterday, with Attorney-General Christian Porter compelled to identify himself as the subject of a historical rape allegation.

Porter’s press conference, at which he strenuously denied the accusation, has done nothing to dampen a media-led frenzy, which has acquired a hysterical character. The corporate press and official political discussion is now completely dominated by an allegation dating back more than three decades, that will never be tested in a court of law and that is impossible to verify.

Attorney-General Christian Porter speaking to the press (Source: ABC News Australia)

As is always the case, such media-driven campaigns serve political agendas that cannot be openly stated, and that are concealed behind a wall of confected moral outrage, salacious gossip and feverish speculation.

In the first instance, the function of the current hysteria is to drown out discussion of the immense social crisis triggered by the pandemic and the pro-business response to it, or any other political issue, from Australia’s frontline role in US-aggression against China, to an escalating, bipartisan assault on democratic norms.

Then there are the various conflicts within the political establishment and the ruling elite, which are clearly at play.

Longstanding factional divisions within the Coalition are at the centre of the crisis. Elements within the Coalition are leaking extensively to the media. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has positioned himself as the figurehead of the campaign over sexual misconduct, targeting current incumbent Scott Morrison, who displaced him in a party-room coup in 2018.

Labor, which has marched in lockstep with the government for the past year, and the Greens that long ago dropped a posture of opposition to the major parties, are seeking to differentiate from the government solely on the question of sexual misconduct.

They are trying to shore up their support among a privileged, upper-middle class constituency, that is obsessed with issues of identity, including gender and sexual relations, and largely indifferent to the class questions of social inequality, growing poverty and war, on which Labor and the Coalition have indistinguishable policies.

The sordid political agendas being pursued are intersecting with frustrations within the ruling class over the “paralysis” of the government, voiced by publications such as the Australian and the Australian Financial Review. Their chief complaint is that Morrison is not moving quickly enough on a wholesale restructuring of the economy and workplace relations, aimed at boosting the profits of the corporate elite at the expense of the working class.

The campaign began on February 15, when Liberal Party staffer Brittany Higgins told the media that she had been raped by a colleague in early 2019. At the time, Higgins had requested an end to a police investigation of the allegation, less than two weeks after she had filed a complaint, and then collaborated with the government to keep the story out of the press.

Almost two years after the fact, she suddenly aired the allegations through the media and connected them to vague assertions that she received insufficient support from her superiors. This was immediately presented by the media as proof of an endemic culture of sexual harassment and assault within the Coalition and parliament as a whole, which overnight became the decisive political issue of the day. Further anonymous allegations were rapidly forthcoming.

In this context, Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong and Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young reported last Friday that they had just received an anonymous letter detailing allegations of a 1988 rape by a senior cabinet minister. Turnbull, it rapidly emerged, had himself been sent the letter in late 2019.

Within days, Porter’s identity as the minister in question was leaked. His name trended on Twitter, while Turnbull, Labor and the Greens demanded that he step forward and respond to the allegations.

What is publicly confirmed of the accusations is limited. In February 2020, a woman filed a report at a Sydney police station alleging that she was raped by Porter in January 1988 when both of them were at a debating tournament held at the University of Sydney. In June 2020, before she had been formally interviewed, the woman withdrew her complaint. Several days later, she passed away, reportedly as a result of suicide.

On Tuesday, New South Wales police announced they were ending an investigation into the allegation, because the woman’s death meant there was insufficient admissible evidence to proceed.

At yesterday’s press conference, Porter categorically denied that he had committed any sexual offence. The attorney-general, now 50, noted that in January 1988, he was just 17 years old. Porter rejected calls that he stand down or resign, warning that if he were to do so, it would create a precedent for “trial by media,” with the mere airing of untested allegations enough to end the career of any public figure. This, he said, would be a threat to the rule of law and to democratic rights, including to the presumption of innocence.

Many in the media pack, which often refrains from any critical questioning of government ministers, were clearly furious with these statements. The details of the allegations were put to Porter repeatedly, while one reporter responded to talk of the presumption of innocence by declaring that it applied in court, but not “in the court of public opinion,” i.e., where careerist journalists and their billionaire employers are the arbiters.

There are growing calls from media outlets, including the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, Crikey and the Guardian, as well as commentators at the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation, for some sort of official inquiry into the allegations against Porter. This is also the line of Turnbull, Labor and the Greens.

Proponents of this course of action openly acknowledge that Porter could never be convicted of an offence based on the criminal burden of proof, i.e., guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Instead, they are calling for the allegations to be tested, outside of court, on the evidentiary standards of a civil case, in which adjudication is based on the balance of probabilities.

Given that many of those calling for such an investigation also insist that complaints of sexual assault by a female must always be believed at face value, and without critical examination, it is fairly obvious that they are angling for Porter to be officially labelled a rapist without a criminal trial or due process.

Some have gone even further. Representatives of the Australian Women Lawyers group, for instance, have called in the media for an examination of Porter’s personal conduct spanning decades. This would include not only the rape accusation, but such things as media allegations last year that he had engaged in consensual extra-marital relations with adult women.

Legal experts who have not lost their heads or been cowed into silence have warned of the dangerous precedent that would be established by such an operation. Firstly, individuals could be tainted as guilty of the most serious criminal offences, without any of the standard evidentiary requirements applying; secondly, the executive branch could call such non-binding hearings against anyone, thereby undermining the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers.

All of this underscores that there is nothing progressive in the current campaign, which, like the #MeToo movement, is based on a rejection of core democratic rights, above all the presumption of innocence.

Labor and the Greens are seeking to confine opposition to the Morrison government within an anti-democratic and essentially right-wing framework. Under conditions of mounting social and political opposition among workers and youth, they are insisting that the primary, and perhaps sole basis of opposition to a reactionary Coalition government, is upper-middle class identity politics.

Labor and the Greens are hostile to a broader fight against the government, because they support its policies. Labor has backed the government’s pro-business response to the pandemic, its massive tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporations, contained in last October’s federal budget, and its escalating provocations against China. Like the Coalition, they are, above all, fearful of and hostile to any struggle by workers against inequality, war and the corporate offensive against living standards.

The promotion of the anti-democratic nostrums of #MeToo is also providing the most openly right-wing sections of the political establishment with an opportunity to posture as defenders of civil liberties. This includes Porter himself, who as attorney-general has presided over the persecution of refugees, secret trials of whistle-blowers and other moves towards authoritarianism.

For the past fortnight, the Murdoch press has fueled the sexual misconduct frenzy, in line with its frustration over government “paralysis.” Murdoch outlets have previously spearheaded nasty #MeToo “exposures” of Geoffrey Rush and John Jarratt, which ended with the acclaimed actors winning defamation cases against the publications. They also trumpeted untested accusations against actor Craig McLaughlin, which were dismissed at a criminal trial that concluded last December.

Now, fearful that the allegations against Porter could bring down the government and result in protracted political instability, the Murdoch stable has recalled a commitment to due process and hostility to trial by media.

Workers and young people should steer clear of the current sexual misconduct campaign and reject the competing factions of the political establishment. Instead they must begin a political fight for their independent class interests and democratic and social rights against the entire parliamentary set-up and the capitalist system that it defends.

MEST Africa Entrepreneurial Training Programme 2021

Application Deadline: 29th April 2021

Eligible Countries: This program is open to anyone of any nationality or citizenship who meets all the application requirements and lives in Ghana or Nigeria.

To be taken at (country): The training will take place online.

About the Award: MEST offers a full scholarship to a 12-month graduate-level entrepreneurial training in business, communications and software development, including extensive hands-on project work, culminating in a final pitch and the chance to receive seed funding.

As COVID-19 has changed the way organizations operate around the world, causing travel restrictions and moving many workplaces to adopt digital solutions, the Training Program for 2022 will focus on entrepreneurs who live in Ghana and Nigeria.

This campaign falls in line with MEST’s plan to create a pan-African network which will pool the collective talents of entrepreneurs and techies alike. The campaign will also seek to increase the number of entrepreneurs by empowering young Africans while increasing investment eligibility throughout Africa.

Type: Entrepreneurship, Training

Eligibility: To be eligible for the programme, applicants need to meet the following requirements:

• A degree from a top university or Technical College or equivalent experience with at least two (2) years corporate and startup experience (preferred)
• Deep skills in either communications, business or software development (from the onset or acquired during the Pre-Learning stage)
• Young persons crazy about tech and entrepreneurship, and how to use technology to achieve business results
• Should be ready to commit to a full residential program for a whole year
• Disciplined, motivated self-starter who can work and deliver on assignments and projects – demonstrate this by completing the required Pre-Learning courses and MEST’s rigorous recruitment process
• An entrepreneurial spirit and strong desire to start a company
• Ability to communicate candidly and persuasively
• Ability to work well in teams, proven academic or professional excellence
• Demonstrated leadership abilities
• Confident and independent thinking
• Excellent people skills

Number of Awards: 60

Value of Training: The MEST Training Program is fully-sponsored and requires no financial payments to MEST. This is a full-time program that requires you to be available to attend all classes and sessions.

Duration of Training: 1 year

How to Apply: Anyone who would be willing to apply can do so below.

Visit Training Webpage for details

Thailand International Postgraduate Scholarship 2021

Application Deadline: 15th March 2021

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To Be Taken At (Country): Thailand

About the Award: Thailand International Postgraduate Programme (TIPP) was introduced in 2000 as a framework in providing postgraduate scholarships for developing partners. Believing that knowledge sharing is an important pillar of South-South Cooperation, TIPP offers opportunities for Thailand and its partners to exchange their experiences and best practices that would contribute to long-term and sustainable development for all. Aiming at sharing Thailand’s best practices and experience to the world, the AITC training courses and the TIPP scholarships focus on development topics of our expertise which can be categorized under five themes namely; Food Security, Climate Change, Public Health,  other topics related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and “Sufficiency Economy Philosophy” or SEP which Thailand is proud to introduce as the highlighted theme. SEP has been added with an aim to offer an insight into our home-grown development approach which is the key factor that keeps Thailand on a steady growth path towards sustainable development in many areas.

Fields of Study: Food Security, Climate Change, Public Health,  other topics related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and “Sufficiency Economy Philosophy” or SEP

Type: Training, Postgraduate (Masters, PhD)

Eligibility: 

• Candidates must be nominated by central government agencies in a country from the TIPP eligible countries/territories list.
• Candidates should be an officer or agent (preferably from government agencies) currently working in the area related to the course provided.
• Candidates must have bachelor degree and/or professional experience related field or related to graduate degree.
• Candidates must have a good command of English.
• It is recommended that candidates be less than 50 years of age.
• Candidates must have good physical and mental condition.
• TICA reserves the rights to revoke scholarship offered to participants who are pregnant during the period of study or violate rules and regulations.
• Other requirements apart from these will be under consideration by the University regulations.

English Language Requirements: Candidates must have a good command of English. Candidates whose English is not the first language/Bachelor’s degree was not taught in English/ who is from a country other than New Zealand, USA, the United kingdom, Australia, Canada has to pass and English Language proficiency test according to criteria announced by University regulations.

Selection Criteria: 

• In considering applications, particular attention shall be paid to the candidates’ background, their current position in the service of their Government, and practical use they expect to make of the knowledge and experience gained from training on the return to their Government positions.
• Selection of participants is also based on geographical distribution and gender balance, unless priority is set for particular country/ group of countries.

Number of Awards: Over 70 postgraduate scholarships. Each eligible countries/territory can nominate up to five (5) candidates per academic program.

Value of Award: Successful candidates will be offered an award which covers:

• Return economy class airfare
• Accommodation allowance
• Living allowance
• Book allowance
• Thesis allowance
• Settlement allowance
• Insurance
• Airport meeting service

How to Apply: The candidates must fill in the online application form

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

How museums are revitalizing in times of covid-19 crisis?

Fatma Faheem

The recent cataclysmic year 2020 has been a true test of our resilience, and certainly some of the most challenging of our lives and career. As many buildings temporarily closed its doors, like so many museum and cultural institutions around the world, which lead to concerned about the future, but it is also an overwhelming sense of solidarity, knowing that we are all in this together. I believe that art and culture play a crucial role in seeing us through these tough times. I am not alone in this belief but the entire museum and cultural community has jumped into action to keep bringing art into our lives.  Museums have launched social media campaigns, drawing on their collections for moments of inspiration, hope, and even a touch of relief through humor. Not only this, art fairs also have opened virtual showrooms, even artists have started digital community projects, musicians have live streaming concerts from their living rooms, our educators and instructors have brought art classes online and the list continues. So, this very incredible outpouring has proven that human creativity is perhaps the most resilient in times of crisis. Even as we face unprecedented challenges and fears in this century, the show must, and will, go on.

1. Challenges face by museums during pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought new kinds of challenges to museums and cultural institutions. The crisis has prompted hand-wringing and self-reflection among some museum professionals. Several questions museums faced such as, ‘How can museums remain relevant if people can’t visit them?’, ‘Can exhibitions which take years to plan and execute be transferred to the digital realm to keep museums open virtually?’, ‘How formerly touch-interactives can be made touchless?’, and ‘How free flow galleries can be converted into directional paths?’. This global pandemic crisis has raised a raft of questions for museums, especially if museums have to remain shut then ‘How best museums can evolve to reflect the current situation?’, and ‘What their role might be post Covid-19?’. There are also problems like ‘Who can a museum serve if their only instance is an online version?’. These are the crucial questions, and all of them fall within the remit of a museum’s role in a community. Therefore, the current crisis has forced museums to consider questions that have been emergent in this current situation and if museums can respond to them, might not only help museums to remain firm in front of any storm but also lead to emerge stronger and more resilient.

2. UNESCO report on museums around the world in Covid-19

UNESCO launched a new report on museums around the world in the face of Covid-19. It comprises an international survey targeting museums, culture professionals, and member states. It was found that no museum in the world has escaped uncertainty and questions of survival due to the pandemic’s closures and plunges in revenue. The study reveals that the number of museums is estimated at around 95,000 in 2020, which represents a 60% increase compared to 2012. They are, however, very unevenly distributed across the globe. Museums have been particularly affected by the pandemic, as 90% of them closed their doors during the crisis and, according to the International Council of Museums (ICOM), more than 10% may never reopen. Facing the crisis, museums acted quickly to develop their presence on the Internet. However, the digital divide is seen to be more evident than ever. It is recorded that only 5% of museums in Africa and the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) were able to propose online content.

3. Art and museums in times of crisis

There is never been a time in history when people stop to cogitate and contemplate upon the human condition in times of hardship, we have often seen incredible examples of creativity and expression. When the world becomes dark, chaotic, and scary, people turn to art, whether it is the work of artists like ‘Chagall’ in the years that followed ‘Nazi Oppression’, or the graphic novels of the ‘Art Spiegelman’ after ‘9/11 attack’. We know that grief and tragedy are recurring themes that demand contemplation. A pandemic is a very different scenario to a global war or a terrorist attack, but what the most remarkable about this present time in history is the ‘immediacy of connection’ and the ‘reach of art delivered online’. Consequently, this time of global crisis prompted us to view art in a completely new way. As we search for inspiration to lighten our days, the digital world opens up to us, offering moments of serendipity, curiosities, learning, and exchanges that we may not have discovered before. These new circumstances make us think of ‘Kairos’, the Ancient Greek concept of time that speaks of an opportune or hoodwink moment. Though we cannot physically attend cultural spaces, we can still seize this moment to find art that can heal us, and in doing so, we can become the curators of our own experience.

It is found that artists and museums alike have been using creative methods to explore the various consequences of the Covid-19 crisis in their work and exhibitions. One of the most well-documented examples of this has been the Victoria and Albert Museum’s ‘Pandemic Objects Exhibition’ in London. It was an online series, analyzing the unremarkable items that have taken on new meaning over the course of the pandemic. Such as items from ‘Toilet rolls’ to ‘Sourdough bread’, the collection succeeds in capturing the scale and the strangeness of the crisis so far. Similarly, the ‘Historical Museum of Urahoro’ in Japan invited their people to contribute objects that represent their experience of the pandemic. They design a small digital exhibition which included ‘Takeaway menus’, ‘Remote learning instructions’, Face masks, ‘Printouts of festival cancellation emails’, and even ‘Remote instructions for attending a funeral’. The final result of this online exhibition was a powerful and emotional commentary on the global impact of the Coronavirus.

4. Museums adapting to new scenario

As Covid-19 loosens its grip over nations, museums and art galleries are gradually and cautiously awakening to a new reality. It becomes indispensable to understand how these places, which are custodians of relics of our past, present, and maybe future, need to adapt to the new scenario and still be relevant. Generally, a visit to a museum is found to be educational, inspiring, calming, or encouraging. Museums bring people together, expand our horizons, teach us about the world, and provide moments of peaceful reflection. But at a time when our nation is facing a pandemic and community needs have abruptly changed, museums have quickly adapted to continue serving their communities, even their physical locations were closed down. Museums curators have been required to ‘retool’, ‘rebrand’ and ‘rethink’ their roles. The things which might have been physical has become digital during this time of crisis.  Museums of all kinds have started offering free online learning resources, access to their digital collections, virtual tours, and online exhibits. They are continuously striving for all invaluable opportunities to educate and connect people across the world.

5. The pandemic act as a creative catalyst for museums: A positive outlook

Covid-19 acts as the catalyst for transformation across many aspects of society. Whether it is the adoption of technology for remote work, the embracing of online shopping, or the evolution of virtual classrooms, we have found a way to function and connect at a time when face-to-face interaction must be kept to a minimum rate. So, therefore, one can say, as much as the pandemic has brought society to a standstill, it has also accelerated some of the trends particularly in the digital space such as ‘Cashless transactions’, ‘Video calling’,  Work from home’ and many more. And this has been found more evident in the museum and cultural sectors. In 2020, museums had to find new ways to stay relevant and maintain a role in the public consciousness at a time of global crisis. Digitization has been evident within many institutions over recent years but Covid-19 has certainly forced all of them for a gradual approach to this process without any impediment. During this time of crisis, museums have been acknowledging the monumental impact of Covid-19 through collecting the creative work that has been made during this tough time. According to the international associations and committees of museums, the progress of five years is seen to be condensed into twelve months, which is both a sign of the challenges that have presented themselves and a credit to those institutions that have shown a willingness to pivot quickly.

6. The Future of Museums: Post- Covid-19

Traditionally, museums have served their communities not only by providing access to culturally significant artifacts but also by engaging in scholarly activities.  In recent decades, museums have shifted away from research and instead began serving the public through education and entertainment which is also known as ‘Edutainment’. This shift in ‘visitor-oriented’ has provided some museums with additional revenue stemming from admissions, special events, and venue rentals. However, the recent Covid-19 pandemic has devastated these sources of revenue. ‘Stay-at-home’ orders and mandatory closures have left many museums to make difficult decisions. As museums overcome the short-term financial impact of Covid-19, they will face the challenges of operating in a post-pandemic future. This new environment may herald innovative economic models and change the way we think about museum design. The present situation also leads to the new idea of moving our arts and exhibitions outdoors. A group of museum developers, designers, and researchers gathered over the internet during lockdown to imagine a new way of thinking about the museum exhibition and created an ingenious concept known as “Free the Museum”.

The museums governing authorities like UNESCO, ICOM, can provide urgent support to the museums by providing appropriate policies, mobilizing cooperation to enable the museums to survive economically. All the stakeholders such as the government, employees, museum authorities, policymakers have to ensure working in a holistic approach so that the museums can survive in the pandemic situation as well as in the post-Covid-19. The role of museums in education, communication, research, heritage preservation, financial, and social is enormous. Thus, it is the responsibility of all of us to support the museums so that they can face the Covid-19 challenges.

German court imposes lengthy sentence on Islamist preacher accused of supporting ISIS terrorist group

Peter Schwarz

The Zelle Regional High Court sentenced the Iraqi Ahmad Abdulaziz Abdullah A., known as Abu Walaa, to 10-and-a-half years in prison for being a member of a foreign terrorist organisation, an accomplice to the preparation of a seditious crime and the financing of terrorism.

The court deemed it proven that the preacher of the now prohibited “German-speaking Islamic Circle of Hildesheim” was a leading member of the IS terrorist group in Germany, radicalised young people, encouraged them to carry out terrorist attacks and helped them to reach IS-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq.

Three co-accused were convicted of supporting a terrorist organisation and were sentenced to eight, six-and-a-half, and four years imprisonment, respectively, because they recruited men for IS from Hildesheim and the Ruhr Region.

Terrorist attack at Breitscheidplatz (Image: quapan/flickr/CC BY 2.0)

With its ruling, which can be appealed, the court came close to meeting the state prosecutor’s request that Abu Walaa be sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in prison. By contrast, the defence appealed for a much milder sentence or acquittal. They justified this by calling into question the credibility of the key witness upon which the charges were based.

Although the trial lasted three years and included 246 days of proceedings, it raised more questions than it answered.

The main witness, the intelligence agency informant code-named Murat Cem, whose alias was VP01, infiltrated the group around Abu Walaa over a period of years to spy on it on behalf of the state bureau of criminal police (LKA) in North Rhine-Westphalia. However, he did not receive authorisation from the state government to testify.

Although the presiding judge Frank Rosenow repeatedly sought to compel this in writing, neither the court nor the defence were able to question him. Instead, the witness bench was occupied by police officers who reported his testimony.

The fact that the informant was not permitted to testify to the court is significant above all because he was in close personal contact with Anis Amri, who crashed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin on December 19, 2016, killing 12 people. Cem probably knew Amri better than any of the Islamist’s ideological co-thinkers, noted Der Spiegel. The pair often spent days together.

Cem made the acquaintance of Amri while he was spying on Abu Walaa’s group. Amri was active in the group and personally knew all four men who have now been sentenced. He participated in Abu Walaa’s seminars and lived for a time in Dortmund with Boban S., who has now been sentenced to eight years in prison.

The informant Cem became one of Amri’s closest confidants. They discussed planned attacks and the purchasing of weapons. According to his own statements, Cem warned his superior in the LKA North Rhine-Westphalia repeatedly about the threat posed by Amri. He also chauffeured Amri to Berlin in February 2016, 10 months before he carried out his attack.

The background to the Breitscheidplatz terrorist attack remains murky to this day. It is known that the LKA from North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as other police and intelligence agencies, had Amri on their radar. They knew about his plans for a terrorist attack and allowed him to go ahead with them. The Abu Walaa trial could have provided answers about the background to the attack.

However, it was conducted in the same way as the major trials against right-wing extremist terrorists—the NSU trial in Munich, the Lübcke trial in Frankfurt, or, 40 years ago, the investigations into the Octoberfest attack in Munich. As soon as the role of the intelligence agencies and security forces came into focus, inquiries were shut down. The executive branch, the interior ministers, and the intelligence agencies determine what the judiciary can and cannot know. A mockery of the principle of the balance of power and the independence of the judiciary!

The prohibition of the main witness from testifying is all the more peculiar because he was not afraid of speaking in public. In March 2019, without the police’s knowledge, he contacted Der Spiegel to tell his story. A team from the news magazine repeatedly met with Cem, spoke to him for hundreds of hours, travelled with him to operation locations, evaluated tens of thousands of pages from files about his case, and spoke with investigators, colleagues, and relatives.

The result of this research was a lengthy front-page story in Der Spiegel and the 320-page book “Undercover: An informant tells all,” which detailed Cem’s 20-year career, including his relationship with Amri and Abu Walaa.

Cem portrayed his own role and motives to Der Spiegel in the rosiest colours, but the fluidity of the transition from informant to agent provocateur is well known. Early on, the suspicion arose that Cem strengthened Amri’s belief in his terrorist plans. During the trial, one of the defendants accused him of being a provocateur and inciter of the most serious crimes. Cem’s history certainly does not speak in his favour. He was hired by the police after having accumulated a criminal record of 12 offences, and he faced a lengthy prison sentence due to drug trafficking.

Cem testified to the parliamentary investigative committee in Germany’s federal parliament in December during a hearing on the Breitscheidplatz attack. He did not appear in person, but spoke behind the cover of an altered face and voice via video link. This would also have been possible in the Abu Walaa trial. The fact that North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Ministry refused to grant the authorisation for the now inactive informant is a clear indication that there is a desire to conceal something.

The second key witness upon which the court based its verdict was anything but credible. The former Islamist Anil O. appeared in court under the disguise of sunglasses and a blond wig and testified during 20 days of proceedings. But the defence considers the now 25-year-old to be a notorious liar.

Anil O. moved with his wife and child to a Syrian war zone in the summer of 2015, but turned against IS six months later and fled to Turkey. While there, he spoke with German reporters. He then offered himself to the German security authorities as a key witness against Abu Walaa, who he described as IS’ number one in Germany. They repaid him with a mild punishment of a two-year suspended sentence and his acceptance into a witness protection programme.

The court justified its belief in Anil O.’s credibility by stating that he detailed the complex proceedings almost without contradiction and that there were “striking overlaps” in his testimony and that of Cem. However, according to statements from the defence lawyer Thomas Koll, who represented Abu Walaa, O. “prior to making his statements, received comprehensive information about the files, including of course the statements of VP01.” He was therefore able to compare his testimony with the statements of Cem, who could not be questioned by the court.

Koll takes the view that the key witness merely supplied the information expected of him by the investigative authorities. Anil O.’s ability to do this is beyond doubt. Even the court described the ex-Islamist, who obtained top marks in his high school diploma and began a course in medicine before he was radicalised, as having an “above-average intelligence” and being “eloquent.”

The fact that Abu Walaa had ties to IS was confirmed by other witnesses during the trial. But it is questionable whether he was such a dominant figure as he is now being portrayed. There is much to suggest that his role is being exaggerated to divert attention from the role of state agencies in the Breitscheidplatz terrorist attack.

Already three years ago, the WSWS posed the question, “Was the terrorist attack on the Berlin Christmas market an ‘intelligence agency operation with deadly collateral damage’?” At the time, we based ourselves on reports from Die Welt and the Green Party politician Hans-Christian Ströbele, suggesting “the involvement also of international intelligence agencies,” including explicit reference to the US. “They likely saw Amri as a decoy who would lead them to those backing him, IS plotters of terrorist attacks in Libya,” wrote Die Welt.

There were also domestic political considerations that supported allowing the attack to take place. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s national domestic spy agency, followed Amri’s activities at the highest levels. Even at this stage, the suspicion was raised that Cem encouraged Amri’s plans for the attack. A potential accomplice of Amri’s, the Tunisian Bilel Ben Ammar, was rapidly deported shortly after the attack.

In an article on the deportation of Ben Ammar, we commented, “it is impossible to reject out of hand the suspicion that the state authorities allowed the Breitscheidplatz attack to take place in order to produce the necessary political climate for their militarist policy, the build-up of a police state and the intensification of deportations, and to create the conditions that made possible the rise of the AfD [Alternative for Germany].”

The prohibition on Cem testifying in the Abu Walaa trial has further strengthened this suspicion.