Male child sexual abuse: A feminist agenda for research and action

Jayaraj KP

Though child sexual abuse has been recognised and widely discussed as a social problem for more than last three decades, little is known about male child sexual abuse in India. Based on the feminist perspective and rights of girl children, the initial researches addressed the question of childhood sexual memories of female adults or experiences of girl children. As a result a debate on female child sexual abuse was initiated within the framework of violence against women. The emphasis on female children was continued in the discussion in India, albeit some of the researches and survey reports on child sexual abuse identified male children as victims.

Prevalence of sexual abuse among boys

In contrast with the global trends, most of the studies in the country revealed vulnerability of boys to sexual abuse either similar or higher percentage comparing with the abusive experiences of girls. One of the pioneering surveys conducted by Patel and Andrews (2001) among school students in Goa found that 33 percent of boys experienced various forms of sexual abuse and rural boys (10.3 percent) were more likely to have experienced coercive sexual intercourse than urban boys (2.5 percent). The national study of Government of India (2007) covering 2211 children from 13 states noticed one or more forms of sexual abuse among 52.94 percent of boys as against 47.06 percent of girls. The recent systematic review in 2018 ascertained high prevalence of child sexual abuse among boys in India. The review estimated that 10-55% of the boys in school and college samples have experienced one or other forms of CSA. However underreporting keeps the magnitude of the issue under wraps as elsewhere.

The cases reported to legal systems also reflect the hidden nature of the problem. As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Crimes in India report, 2018, out of the total 39827 cases reported under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, 1025 cases were filed as sexual violence against male children (NCRB, 2019).

Myths and reality  

Available literature grappled with the question of male child sexual abuse in the country and unsettles many myths on survivors and perpetrators. Most of the studies observed multiple forms of abusive experiences of male children between the ages of four and eighteen and thus highlighted the vulnerability of younger as well as elder male children. The survivors experienced penetrative and or non-penetrative forms of abuses from known and un-known perpetrators. But as against the myth that strangers are the predators, most of the studies in the country found known people including neighbours, teachers, relatives and elder friends as the persons sexually abusing boys.

Many people believe that majority who sexually abuse boys are homosexuals. But the available information finds involvement of (older)friends and women along with men as abusers from the same localities. This apparently challenges the popular understanding about the perpetrators and hence highlights the abusive behaviour of the predators irrespective of their sexual orientation, age and gender. The identification of locals in the abusive practice disentangles the purported nexus between sex tourism and foreign paedophilia in sexual abuse against boys.

Myths extend to the effects or impact of sexual abuse on boys as well. It is presumed that sexual abuse is less harmful to boys than girls. But similar to the case of girls, many boys suffer noticeable effects or impact such as emotional and psychological issues along with health complications including STIs. A recent qualitative study by KP and Panicker in Delhi (2019) explored the painful experiences of boys and resultant fear, anger, rage and shame among them due to the instances. One of the participants in the study said. “(I) was told that I will be killed. I got scared…even I cried, it was really painful”. The research further unraveled that as a result of such abusive episodes, some of the boys were found to be absent in schools, dropped out, lost interest in studies & ran away from home thereby ending on the streets without adult supervision. The study findings therefore overtly dismiss the myth and point out that sexual abuse can be equally damaging for both boys and girls.

A feminist agenda for research and action

Empirical evidences in India found that no child disclosed the abusive experience with anyone as the boys got scared and felt guilt, fear and shame after the incidents(s). A section of boys didn’t dare to disclose as they felt that nobody would believe them, if they share the instances. Some of the boys worried about their family honour, while others considered the experiences as a question to their masculinity. Response of one of the participants in the Delhi study summarises it; “I was very angry and was going to hit him with a stone. I was very angry and felt that I was not a man”. The dominant discourse of denial and disbelief on sexual abuse and the notions of masculinities play a vital role in lack of disclosure and keeping the episodes under wraps.

Parents or caregivers are also reluctant to acknowledge sexual abuse of boys as a problem to be addressed. Subramaniyan et al. (2017) found that parents and family members were not sensitive to the mental health problems of sexually abused boys. Even the families who sought professional support also did not express their willingness to continue the treatment. In short the role of gendered social norms and masculinities shaped by patriarchy is evident in the findings for lack of disclosure and barriers for not seeking various services including psychiatric help for boys.

It is true that feminist scholarship and interventions in the country have significantly contributed in building a body of knowledge on sexual abuse of girls, strategies for addressing the underlying factors and developing various supportive services for the girl/women survivors. But male child sexual abuse as an area for research and action has not merited adequate feminist concern yet. The available surveys and reports produced by developmental agencies indeed identified sexual abuse of boys as a social problem. But the literature was observed limited in exploring the problem rather than offering a nuanced understanding about the issue within a conceptual framework of gender and masculinities. In this context, it can be summarised that male child sexual abuse needs to be recognised as an agenda for feminist researches and actions which in turn would be helpful in breaking the silence around sexual abuse against boys in India.

Scottish National Party’s fourth election win threatens UK breakup

Steve James

Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party (SNP) won this year’s elections to the Scottish parliament by a huge margin. The party polled 47.7 percent of the vote in individual constituencies, against the Conservatives with 21.9 percent and Labour with 21.6 percent. In the regional lists, the SNP won 40.3 percent against 23.5 percent for the Conservatives and 17.9 percent for Labour. The Greens polled only 1.3 percent in the constituencies but 8.1 percent on the lists.

Under the proportional representation system, these figures translate to 64 seats for the SNP, 31 for the Conservatives, 22 for Labour, eight for the Greens and four for the Liberal Democrats. With the formal or informal assistance of the Greens, the SNP will therefore be able to form a pro-independence majority in the 129-seat parliament.

First Minister and Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon outside Bute House in Edinburgh after the SNP's victory in the Scottish Parliament election. (credit: @NicolaSturgeon)

Sturgeon immediately announced her intention to introduce a bill for a second referendum on Scottish independence. Asked by the BBC’s Andrew Marr if another vote could be held as soon as next spring, Sturgeon replied that it would be consistent with a “timescale of within the first half of the parliamentary term.” Scottish parliamentary sessions last four years.

Sturgeon sought to head off arguments over the legality of a future referendum ending up in the UK Supreme Court. She told Marr, “The UK government knows that if we ever get into a situation where this is being determined in the courts then actually what the UK government is arguing is that there is no democratic route for Scotland to have independence.”

In response, Conservative UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has repeatedly said he will not authorise another referendum, invited Sturgeon, Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford (Labour) and whoever emerges to replace Arlene Foster as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and first minister in Northern Ireland to a “Team UK” summit. The meeting will “chart a way out of the acute phase of the pandemic” and “discuss our shared challenges and how we can work together in the coming months and years to overcome them.” But numerous commentators have suggested that, in the face of a pro-independence Holyrood, Johnson’s blanket opposition to a new poll cannot be sustained.

The SNP victory is by no means clearly indicative of an electoral majority for independence. Repeated opinion polls, and this is consistent with the SNP’s share of the vote, oscillate somewhere around, or just under, 50 percent. In 2014, independence was rejected by 55 percent to 45 percent. Even today, if the “don’t knows” are included, nowhere near half the population supports separatism.

But the result nevertheless points to a sharp polarisation on the constitutional question.

Despite the catastrophic global pandemic, deep social tensions, a global outburst of militarism and extraordinary financial instability, the election was dominated by whether tiny Scotland should be “independent”. As a result, both nationalist and unionist camps benefited from tactical voting.

George Galloway's British nationalist “Alliance for Unity” project, urging tactical anti-SNP voting and rival parties standing down where necessary, polled very poorly. But the tactic of supporting the best placed pro-union candidate, Labour or Conservative, gained traction in denying some target seats to the SNP.

Former First Minister Alex Salmond called for a constituency vote for the SNP and a regional vote for his recently formed Alba Party, claiming this as a route to a “supermajority” in support of secession while asserting his role as a power-broker in and around the SNP.

Salmond’s new party pitched itself as the most hardline advocate of independence. Alba’s first electoral promotions were reminiscent of the ludicrous Mel Gibson film Braveheart, while its actual manifesto was indistinguishable from the SNP save for its call for independence negotiations to commence the moment a “supermajority” government took power.

This effort to establish a role as the most aggressive saltire-waving ginger group for the SNP failed to win a single seat. Instead, the Greens, who work closely with the SNP, benefitted from tactical pro-independence voting.

These results point to the fact that support for the SNP still depends to a large degree on its self-portrayal as a left alternative to both the Tories and the Labour Party. Despite being in power since 2007 and having supervised nearly a decade and a half of austerity measures, the SNP still benefits from the rightward lurch of Johnson's Tory government in Westminster and of its shadow, the Labour Party, under Sir Keir Starmer.

The new Labour leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, was unable to halt the party's ongoing collapse—leaving Sturgeon free to propose independence as a route towards a more just and egalitarian society.

Sturgeon has fronted the Scottish government's response to COVID-19. Despite following near identical policies to Johnson, she benefitted throughout from the anger generated by the Tories’ open espousal of “herd immunity”, even as she too prepares a full reopening of the economy.

The SNP can also still rely on a somewhat higher level of public spending in Scotland, in comparison with the rest of the UK. The manifesto proposed, for example, a national social care service, marginally increased health service spending, and a slightly larger pay rise for health workers.

In power, the new SNP administration will quickly drop such promises and demand further austerity. Devastating cuts are already being imposed across local government. SNP-run Glasgow City Council is currently rolling out plans to close local libraries, sports facilities and community centres across the city's most impoverished areas. The SNP’s default response is to deflect criticism of its policies by claiming that the solution to all social questions lies in more power for the Scottish parliament in Holyrood, Edinburgh.

The SNP is aided crucially by pseudo-left groups who, simultaneously with the Labour Party’s rightward shift, have assisted the SNP in giving the anti-working class, pro-NATO, pro-European Union Scottish independence project a false “left” veneer.

During the 2021 election the pseudo-left groups such as the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) offered their support to the SNP, Alba, and the Greens, calling for votes for the pro-independence parties. Former SSP leader Tommy Sheridan even dumped the remnants of his own vanity project, Solidarity, to join Salmond’s Alba.

The Socialist Party Scotland (SPS) stood its own pro-independence candidates under the Scottish Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (STUSC), calling for “indyref2 and an independent socialist Scotland”. An SPS election commentary, however, offered advice to Alba to “develop a bigger electoral base in the future by basing themselves on an increasing layer of the independence movement who are critical of the SNP leadership.”

Socialist Worker quoted long standing member Keir McKechnie, stating, “We need to force Westminster to cave in and exert maximum pressure on the SNP and the Greens to set the date for indyref2 now, not later.”

The jumble of parties, think tanks, campaign and pressure groups that constitute the Scottish pseudo-left represent a grasping petty-bourgeois layer, seeking positions in the apparatus of an emergent Scottish capitalist state, within the trade unions, and in various cultural institutions and NGOs oriented to any future state apparatus or occupied presently in demanding more funding for Scotland from Westminster.

German law enforcement and judiciary maintain “sole perpetrator” narrative in far-right terrorist threats

Gregor Link

Lawyers, cultural workers, investigative journalists, representatives of faith communities and leading politicians have been threatened in Germany for almost three years by a group calling itself “NSU 2.0.” The perpetrators—whose moniker is a reference to the fascist terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU) responsible for the murder of nine immigrants and a police officer—have repeatedly made use of confidential information retrieved from police databases.

On Tuesday night, special forces of the Hesse state police arrested a 53-year-old right-wing extremist in Berlin, seizing a ready-to-use firearm and several data storage devices. The investigating Hesse State Criminal Police Office and Interior Minister Peter Beuth (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) have since presented the man as being the sole author of all the threatening messages.

The recipients of the anonymous threats of murder and violence include Seda Başay-Yıldız and Mehmet Daimagüler (lawyers acting for the NSU victims), journalists Hengameh Yaghoobifarah and Deniz Yücel and cabaret artist İdil Baydar. They also include around 30 federal and state parliamentarians from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens, the Left Party and the CDU, as well as Aiman Mazyek, chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, and Josef Schuster, chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

A demonstration in Berlin following the terrorist attack in Halle, 2019. The placard reads: Enough of the 'lone perpetrator' thesis. Where are the accomplices, arsonists, networks? (Photo WSWS)

The Hesse state Interior Ministry reports that at least 133 threatening messages have now been sent to 32 people and 60 institutions originating from “NSU 2.0.” The messages contain private, personal data on a total of 20 of the victims, many of whom had previously been the subject of searches in police databases. Death threats were also addressed to state Interior Minister Beuth and Hesse state Premier Volker Bouffier (CDU).

The man arrested, Alexander Horst M., is a single, longterm unemployed man with a criminal record. He is said to have posed as a criminal police officer in the early 1990s so as to request information from the police. According to the investigators, the man also obtained the private information of “NSU 2.0” victims in the same way—including the first name of a two-year-old child and several nonpublic residential addresses.

What role this man actually played is currently still unclear. However, there is no doubt that his arrest provides the politically responsible authorities in the Interior Ministry the opportunity to once again cover up the wide extent of terrorist networks inside the German state apparatus and to exonerate the police of any suspicion of wrongdoing.

Beuth himself expressed this openly on Tuesday, telling the press, “According to everything we know today, a Hesse police officer was never responsible for the series of NSU 2.0 threatening emails.” Should the man be confirmed as the perpetrator, “the entire Hesse police force can breathe a sigh of relief,” he said. The “suspicion” about an internal perpetrator, which “has weighed heavily on the Hesse police for a long time,” was now lifted, the interior minister’s message stated.

In the previous months, the investigating authorities had developed the narrative of a “technically skilled lone perpetrator,” who had succeeded in concealing his identity for years “via the darknet.” In July last year, Beuth had declared that a “uniform language style” in the threatening messages could “not be established.” Now, allegedly, in close cooperation with the Federal Criminal Police Office, it is precisely this style that is said to have led directly to the suspected perpetrator in Berlin via blog entries on a neo-Nazi website.

That this version of events is completely implausible and leaves “many questions unanswered” is noted in numerous reports and commentaries in the bourgeois press. Rather, in their totality, the information and investigative findings available so far paint a picture of a criminal network of armed neo-Nazis and right-wing extremist police officers, which is shielded and minimised by the law enforcement agencies and leading politicians.

In the course of nationwide investigations into the “NSU 2.0” case alone, thousands of illegal data searches have been discovered at German police authorities, as well as criminally relevant Nazi propaganda and calls for violence in countless police chat groups.

Journalist and author Aiko Kempen (“Auf dem Rechten Weg? Rassisten und Neonazis in der deutschen Polizei”—“On the right-wing path? Racists and Neo-Nazis in the German Police”) speaks of a total of “well over a thousand cases” in which “the criminal offence of using the symbols of unconstitutional organisations is involved,” including swastikas, SS runes and Hitler salutes. In addition, there were “hundreds of cases of alleged incitement of racial hatred.”

As the “Tagesschau” news programme recently reported, however, the court cases against right-wing extremist police officers are usually dropped, despite comprehensive evidence being available. The reason is that the officers allegedly do not “publicly” call for violence against immigrants and glorify the Nazi regime but keep it to themselves.

If a case is not dropped, it is instead systematically separated from the overall issue. For example, senior public prosecutor Michael Loer explained on Wednesday that there are currently “no further links” between the radical right-wing police groups in Hesse and the authors of the “NSU 2.0” threatening messages. The associated court proceedings were therefore being conducted “completely independently” of each other.

However, especially in the original case of Frankfurt lawyer Başay-Yıldız—who remains at the centre of right-wing attacks—the facts suggest that the investigations are systematically aimed at covering up the role of right-wing extremist police officers.

Başay-Yıldız had received a fax in August 2018 threatening to “slaughter” her then two-year-old daughter. The daughter’s name, which the sender used in his message, had been retrieved from a Frankfurt police computer less than an hour before the fax was received.

The account used for the computer query was quickly identified, as was its owner. However, the police officer was initially investigated only superficially because she stated at the time that she had written down her access information “on a piece of paper,” which was easily accessible. Later, she was identified as a member of a chat group in which police officers gave open expression to their hatred of immigrants, Jews and people with disabilities.

In the case of one member of the group, investigators came across a “Nazi museum” that the police officer had set up in his barn. The subsequent trial for inciting racial hatred and illegal possession of weapons, which could have also brought to light further details about the policewoman in question, was completely separated from the investigation into the “NSU 2.0.”

In the case of cabaret artist İdil Baydar as well, the investigators were able to quickly trace which police officer had logged on at the time her data was retrieved. However, the lead prosecutor’s office did not question him until six months after taking over the case, citing the coronavirus crisis as the reason for the delay.

A second Hesse police officer, who was considered a suspect in connection with the computer query about Başay-Yıldız, was transferred from Frankfurt to Berlin in the spring of 2019 without his new employers being informed of the investigation against him.

Left Party politician Anne Helm (parliamentary group leader in the Berlin state legislature) had pointed out that the man shared information about ongoing investigations in a chat group that also included members of Berlin’s Neukölln neo-Nazi scene. According to Helm, members of the scene had, in turn, learned of private details about her through clandestine spying, which was included in a threatening letter addressed to her. The police officer was only suspended six months after his transfer.

In Bavaria, in the summer of 2020, investigators finally arrested the former police officer and neo-right-wing actor Hermann S. and his wife. Although 12 letters “with insulting, inciting and threatening content” could be attributed to the couple, both were released a few days later. The investigators described the well-connected man, who had been found with several weapons, as a “copycat.”

The fairy tale of the “lone perpetrator,” which is always propagated by the German authorities in connection with fascist terrorism, flies in the face of a sober consideration of the facts and is correspondingly hated among workers and young people as well as the victims of state and right-wing violence.

Although there are extensive nationwide links and the addressees of the threatening messages live in eight different federal states, the Hesse authorities have still been allowed to investigate themselves for almost three years now. Yet Hesse is one of the federal states in which the symbiosis between the state apparatus and right-wing extremists is particularly well documented.

Currently, for example, another officer at the Frankfurt police headquarters is being investigated for allegedly misappropriating firearms from the evidence room on a large scale and selling them to individuals and companies. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, this involves “a three-digit number of pistols, revolvers, long guns and ammunition” whose whereabouts are “currently completely unclear.” The detective superintendent responsible for the weapons had also pursued “unauthorised secondary employment” for a right-wing extremist mercenary company, including in Iraq.

Probably the best-known example of the involvement of the Hesse authorities with right-wing extremist murderers is the case of Andreas Temme, an agent of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as the secret service is called, whose own right-wing extremist convictions have long been known. Temme was at the scene of the NSU murder of Halit Yozgat in 2006 but claims to have been unaware of the killing of the young internet café owner taking place. The secret service then transferred Temme to the Kassel district office of CDU politician Walter Lübcke. In his role as a secret service agent, Temme was in contact, “on official business,” with Stephan Ernst, who has since been convicted of Lübcke’s murder.

On the day of the court verdict against Ernst, pupils of the Walter Lübcke School in Wolfhagen held a vigil at the Higher Regional Court and demanded tougher prosecution of right-wing extremist violence. The next day, the school received a bomb threat signed “NSU 2.0.”

Netanyahu’s provocations in East Jerusalem threaten war with Palestinians

Jean Shaoul

Palestinian demonstrators were met once again on Sunday night by Israeli police clad in riot gear and on horseback in a neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem where Zionist settlers are seeking to evict Palestinian families from their homes.

Sunday’s protests follow days of clashes incited by heavy-handed Israeli repression. Demonstrators also took to the streets of the northern port city of Haifa, where 18 were arrested, as well as Nazareth and Ramallah. There were also clashes with riot police outside the gates of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where an attack on a Palestinian by Israeli civilians sparked a protest.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that 14 people had been treated for injuries suffered at the hands of the Israeli security forces, bringing the total number treated for injuries over the past three days to 560.

Israeli police officers detain a Palestinian demonstrator during a protest against the planned evictions of Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem, Saturday, May 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have readied the police and Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in preparation for further clashes with the Palestinians on Monday, when a provocative march by far-right Israeli nationalists is to take place in Jerusalem.

Tensions have been mounting in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank since the start of the month-long Ramadan fast on April 12. The authorities installed barricades around the plaza outside the Damascus Gate, a traditional gathering place during Ramadan for worshippers after prayers in the al-Aqsa mosque, leading to multiple clashes with police and hundreds of injured Palestinians.

In addition, the authorities had disconnected the mosque’s loudspeakers so that the call to prayer would not disrupt Israel’s Memorial Day ceremony for fallen soldiers at the Western Wall, and restricted the number of West Bank Palestinians attending Ramadan services at the compound to just 10,000, subject to vaccination.

There have been nightly confrontations with the police in Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighbourhood north of the Old City. Palestinian Israelis have been gathering to protest the likely eviction of Palestinian families, in a long-running legal case, to make way for settler homes and the increasing encirclement of the Old City by Jews. The fascistic and racist legislator Itamar Ben-Gvir, cultivated by Netanyahu in a bid to bolster his support base, sought to fan the flames by setting up his own “office” in the neighbourhood. The Supreme Court hearing on the case, set for today, has been postponed for 30 days at the Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s request.

The planned eviction is part of the government’s broader process of judaicising the city, making it impossible for the Palestinians to ever set up their own mini-state with some part of East Jerusalem as its capital.

Israel’s actions in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank include home demolitions, settlement expansion and displacement of Palestinians, in flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention and international laws prohibiting an occupying power from destroying property or transferring its own civilians to occupied territories. It is de facto ethnic cleansing.

Last Thursday night, hundreds of far-right Jewish Israelis marched through Jerusalem’s streets chanting “death to Arabs” and confronted Palestinians, leading to the wounding of more than 100 Palestinians, with 21 needing hospitalisation, and around 50 arrests.

On Friday night, riot police stormed Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa compound, known as al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims and Temple Mount to Jews, entering the mosque and trampling on prayer rugs with their boots, after they claimed Palestinians threw rocks and fireworks at officers.

More than 200 Palestinians were injured, with 88 taken to hospital, as thousands of Palestinians faced off with several hundred Israeli police in full riot gear, using rubber bullets and stun grenades inside the mosque and in the plaza. According to the Palestine Red Crescent, one of those injured lost an eye, two suffered serious head wounds and two had their jaws fractured.

Hundreds of worshippers went on to Sheikh Jarrah to show their solidarity, where they were met by police using water cannon mounted on armoured vehicles.

Israel’s public security minister, Amir Ohana, said the police had his “complete backing to use all means, force and the necessary power to restore law and order.” Netanyahu said in a meeting with security officials, “Israel is acting responsibly to ensure respect for law and order in Jerusalem while allowing freedom of worship.”

On Saturday night, as an estimated 90,000 worshippers gathered to mark Laylat al-Qadr, or Night of Power, the holiest night of Ramadan, clashes erupted with Israeli police outside the Old City. According to the Palestine Red Crescent, at least 120 people were injured, including a one-year-old child, with 14 taken to hospital. Police again sought to limit the numbers coming to worship at al-Aqsa by setting up roadblocks and halting public transport from other parts of the country, forcing Palestinians to walk along highways. Others ferried stranded worshippers into the city.

There were angry protests by Palestinian Israelis in towns throughout the country, including Jaffa and Nazareth, against the threatened Sheikh Jarrah evictions and Friday night’s raids on al-Aqsa, marking an unprecedented involvement of Israel’s Palestinian citizens in anti-government protests from which they have traditionally stood apart.

Tensions are also mounting in the occupied West Bank, where there are almost daily reports of the killing and wounding of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, as well as unprecedented levels of settler violence against Palestinians and their property. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently postponed Palestinian elections—the first since 2006—amid plummeting support for his Fatah faction, once the leading faction in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, citing Israel’s (longstanding) refusal to guarantee it would allow Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote.

The al-Aqsa clashes have brought condemnation from Egypt and Jordan, whose population is largely of Palestinian descent, fearing that any instability in the Palestinian territories could spill over into their own unstable countries.

Turkey, as well as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, two of the countries that signed normalisation accords with Israel last year, issued statements criticising Israel.

The US State Department responded by urging “both sides to exercise decisive leadership” to quell the violence, in effect gave its backing to Israel. Secretary of State spokesperson Ned Price said, “We call on Israeli and Palestinian officials to act decisively to deescalate tensions and bring a halt to the violence.”

Netanyahu’s order to the IDF to expand its forces in the West Bank by four battalions, assist the police in security and deploy Iron Dome batteries in the south, takes place as Israel’s settler groups and far-right forces began marking Jerusalem Day, starting last night and ending today. The day marks the anniversary of East Jerusalem’s capture from Jordan in the 1967 Arab Israeli war and its illegal annexation to Israel. The main event is today’s planned march through Arab neighbourhoods in the city, taunting the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s provocations are tantamount to a declaration of war against the Palestinians and could spark a broader war in the Middle East, where Israel—the strongest military power in the region—acts as Washington’s proxy force. It has stoked dissent within Israel as senior security officials warned that the flag march on Jerusalem Day could fan the flames in East Jerusalem and cause the violence to spread to Gaza and the West Bank. They have urged politicians to postpone the march, limit the number of participants and change the route, so as not to enter the al-Aqsa compound. A police spokesman told Israel’s Army Radio Sunday night that the provocative march would take place.

These moves come as President Reuven Rivlin has called on opposition leader Yair Lapid to form a government after Netanyahu proved incapable of cobbling together a coalition that would ensure his ability to evade his corruption trial, now entering its evidence sessions. The eruption of a new Palestinian uprising would preempt any possibility of Lapid’s potential right-wing partners such as Naphtali Bennett of Yamina or Mansour Abbas’ United Arab List joining his coalition, thereby precipitating a fifth election and/or a state of emergency that would ensure his continued premiership.

German government opposes lifting of patents on coronavirus vaccines

Peter Schwarz

Germany’s government is resisting with all means at its disposal the lifting of the patents on coronavirus vaccines.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organisation, has been advocating an end to the patents for some time in order to overcome the shortage of vaccines in developing countries. More than 100 member countries of the World Trade Organisation, led by South Africa and India, have launched such an initiative. Several non-government organisations, including Doctors Without Borders, are supporting the call.

When US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that his administration was considering suspending the patents, alarm bells began ringing in government buildings in Berlin. Chancellor Angela Merkel personally called Uğur Şahin, founder of the Mainz-based company Biontech, which brought the first approved coronavirus vaccine to market in conjunction with the US-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

Caption: Biontech-Pfizer vaccine (Picture: Marco Verch / CC-BY 2.0)

The federal government subsequently declared its firm opposition to lifting the patents. “The protection of intellectual property is the source of innovation and must remain so in the future,” stated a government spokeswoman. The factors limiting the manufacturing of vaccines are not the patents, but the lack of production capacity and high-quality standards, the statement continued.

The federal parliament opposed a motion by the Left Party calling for the abandonment of the patents by 498 votes to 117. The media was full of comments as to why patent protections must be retained.

“The pharmaceutical companies have invested considerably to manufacture effective vaccines quickly, even though they received state subsidies,” stated the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Their right to intellectual property should not be underestimated. The incentive to take risks and produce such achievements must be retained.”

The Süddeutsche Zeitung commented, “Property is a valuable motivation for innovation. The fact that the first vaccine against coronavirus came from Germany is thanks to the local economy, which is based on incentives for entrepreneurs. The pioneering spirit of some researchers and businessmen is based on a systemic principle: my idea, my project, my business, my colleagues, and yes, my profit.”

The Medication Manufacturers’ Research Association, which represents the interests of major pharmaceutical companies, warned that without patents, the original producers would have “no incentive to participate in the quickest possible worldwide distribution of vaccines.”

These arguments have no basis in reality. The mRNA technology on which the Biontech/Pfizer vaccine is based was developed at publicly funded universities. It was described for the first time in 1990 and used to vaccinate mice in 1994. Private firms only showed an interest in it when huge profits beckoned. And even then, they were generally supported and protected with public funds.

A vaccine against COVID-19 could have been produced much more quickly if the progress made during the SARS epidemic in 2002-3 had been intensively pursued. But after the SARS wave subsided and no more profit was possible from it, the pharmaceutical industry lost interest.

The reality is that the opposition to lifting the patents on coronavirus vaccines is about money, a huge amount of money. The business of coronavirus vaccines is extremely lucrative. Pfizer earned profits during the first quarter of 2021 of $3.5 billion from its vaccine. The company’s overall revenue rose by 45 percent compared to the same period a year earlier, reaching $14.6 billion. The company cashed in on profits amounting to one third of total revenue, $4.9 billion.

Biontech’s share price rose from €13 in October 2019 to €150 today. The start-up is now worth €34 billion. A similar process has occurred with other vaccine producers.

But the current surplus is only a fraction of the anticipated profits. The pharmaceutical companies, which generate $1.2 trillion around the globe annually, are banking on a massive boom. The mRNA technology, which was first applied for the coronavirus vaccine, could also be used to combat cancer and other illnesses. Alongside Biontech, other German firms are working in this area. Curevac, whose coronavirus vaccine is in its final tests, has been conducting research on the technology for 20 years. A bitter struggle for the global market has now erupted.

In a background article in its latest edition, news magazine Der Spiegel bluntly laid out what is at stake. “Is a multi-billion industry of the future emerging, in which the Germans are exceptionally in the lead?” asks the article. “Not just great hopes of containing the pandemic around the world rest on the German companies, but also ambitious industrial policy expectations in Berlin and Brussels. This has been for some time not just about COVID-19, but rather the mRNA technology as a whole. It’s about the question of how can Europe secure its advantage in a future technology that promises to fundamentally transform the pharmaceutical market?”

According to Der Spiegel, this is what makes “the US patent plans so extremely dangerous for the company. A tremendous amount of basic research conducted by Biontech, which is already being used for cancer treatment, is contained in the COVID-19 vaccine, would also be made public.” In the view of the European Union commission, there would be “only one beneficiary: Beijing.” Giving up the knowledge advantage on mRNA technology would above all benefit the Chinese pharmaceutical branch, noted Der Spiegel, citing an official from Brussels.

Biontech does not want to block its vaccine from reaching China, but merely to earn money through its sale to the Chinese market. Company head Şahin flew to Shanghai in April to personally negotiate supplies and the expansion of production facilities there. China is also working on mRNA vaccines, but those approved for use so far rely on the older vector technology and only have an effectiveness of 50 percent.

Biontech’s push into China is likely one of the reasons why the US government has shifted its stance to the patents on coronavirus vaccines. The EU is accusing Washington of perfidious double standards, since it has to date blocked the export of production materials and stored vaccine doses, thus majorly undermining the international supply of vaccines.

As in all other areas of the coronavirus pandemic, the health and lives of millions of people are being subordinated to the profit interests of big business. Although already 3.3 million people have officially died from COVID-19, infection rates continue to rise, and hardly anyone has been vaccinated in developing countries, the German government is vehemently opposed to lifting vaccine patent protections. The US government also has no intention of following up its announcement with actions, especially when its own geostrategic interests are at stake.

Lifting patent protections would significantly help to vaccinate the population in Africa, where only 2 percent has been vaccinated, and other impoverished regions. Supporters of abandoning the patents refer to the example of AIDS.

In the mid-1990s, new medications in the wealthy countries stopped the deaths of people infected with HIV. In poorer countries, millions of people continued to die because the medication remained unaffordable. This only changed in 2001, when the WTO allowed 50 poor countries to produce generic drugs. Treatment costs dropped by around 99 percent, helping to save millions of lives.

What is true of COVID-19 also applies to the treatment of cancer, from which 10 million people die annually. Instead of making all research results public so that scientists throughout the world can build on them and develop effective drugs, they are patented and kept under lock and key so profits can be made.

Sana Clinics in Germany announce mass redundancies despite pandemic

Markus Salzmann

Germany’s third largest hospital group, Sana-Kliniken (Sana Clinics), has announced in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic the layoff of over 1,000 employees by the end of the year. With the exception of the cleaning sector, all business spheres of the subsidiary DGS Pro-Service company are to be closed down. Affected by the layoffs are ward assistants, those who transport to and from clinics, porters and employees in the clinics’ security service.

Sana DGS Proservice is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sana Immobilien Service and thus a part of the Sana Clinics company. In total, more than a third of DGS employees working at all 53 sites of the group will be made redundant. A majority of employees work part-time. The company has justified the dismissals with “new requirements that demand a significantly higher level of professional leadership, process support and process monitoring.”

The company’s justification is utter nonsense. In reality, massive savings are to be made at the cost of patients and workers in order to increase profits for its shareholders. It is still unclear if and how dismissed workers will be compensated, but it is clear that the redundancies will increase pressure on those retaining their jobs resulting in poorer quality of care.

Caption: Sana Clinic in Hof, Bavaria (Image: Ἀστερίσκος / CC BY-SA 4.0)

The DGS was founded in 2007 to outsource nonmedical and nursing departments. As in all large hospital companies, the subsidiary companies serve primarily to depress wages. From 2007 to 2019, the company was able to continuously increase its annual turnover to €2.84 billion in 2019, with an operating profit of €105 million.

Sana Clinics was founded in 1976 by a number of private health insurance companies. At that time, the share of private groups in the hospital sector was still very small. This changed following a series of aggressive takeovers when the company bought up municipal and nonprofit hospitals experiencing financial problems. Today, Sana is the third largest private hospital operator in the country, after the Helios Group and Asklepios Clinics.

Most recently, the group took over the Niederlausitz Clinic in Brandenburg. The district council decided on the sale despite strong criticism and protests from workers. Here, again, the clinic had slipped into debt in recent years, which is now being used to justify its privatisation. This trend has led to a doubling of the number of privately run clinics during the past 30 years. The result is low pay and an increasing burden of work for workers.

The layoffs are not limited to the Sana Clinics. Throughout the health system, the pandemic is being used for drastic restructuring. While doctors, nurses and other hospital workers have been working at their limits for more than a year, often putting themselves in danger, hospital groups and politicians are using the crisis to implement mass dismissals, closures and privatisations.

Last year, 21 clinics across Germany were closed completely. In dozens of other hospitals, departments that were not profitable enough were closed. In the meantime, comprehensive obstetric care is no longer guaranteed in some regions. So far, 30 more clinics are due to be closed or are threatened with closure. Experts assume that there could be many more closures, with smaller hospitals in particular losing revenue due to the pandemic.

Recently, a veritable wave of layoffs has been observed in hospitals. The wiping out of 440 full-time positions at the Bremen hospital association “Gesundheit Nord” (Geno) is just one case. In the midst of the pandemic and with fully occupied wards, the Asklepios city clinic in Bad Tölz made redundant 15 ward assistants, who supported overworked nursing staff by assisting with the changing of beds or serving meals.

The ward assistants were either dismissed during their probationary period or their temporary contracts were not extended. Asklepios justified its action by arguing that the ward assistants would no longer be covered by the nursing budget due to a new Nursing Support Act. This argumentation is palpably false. Ward assistants continue to be financed via flat rate payments per case. In contrast to nursing staff, however, their financing has not been improved by the Nursing Support Act.

Hospital operator Helios has been able to staggeringly increase its revenues during the pandemic. Helios Germany’s sales rose by 11 percent to €1.64 billion in the last quarter of last year. For the financial year 2020, the company’s sales rose by 7 percent to €6.34 billion. One year before, this figure stood at €5.94 billion. Helios is promising its investors higher dividends, and the company expects a considerable increase in profits in 2021 despite the pandemic.

At the same time, the company already employs too few staff and is intent on making further cuts. The chairperson of the doctors union Marburger Bund, Susanne Johna, said, “In fact, we hear from our members in almost all regional associations that doctors’ posts are to be cut in the Helios Group. It seems that Helios is planning to cut about 10 percent of doctors’ posts in the company. And that means that the doctors who remain will have to work even more overtime.”

Andreas Botzlar, also from the Marburger Bund, told ÄrzteZeitung that “cost optimisers” are now thinning out the medical service in order to cut costs. “In Helios clinics, positions are no longer being refilled or in some cases are being actively cut. Or doctors are being encouraged to go part-time. This is happening at a time when the doctors there are already working to the hilt,” Botzlar said.

The plans for dismissals at Sana Clinics triggered the usual shouts of indignation from the trade unions. “Dismissing health workers is an outrage. To do so in the middle of the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, for example, is unacceptable,” said Sylvia Bühler, a member of the Verdi national executive. She demanded the withdrawal of the redundancy plans and declared that hospital policy must be oriented towards the “best possible care for sick people and not towards economic interests.”

Representatives of the Left Party have also joined in with radical sounding statements aimed at the media. “The coronavirus has shown that the job of hospitals is to save lives, not make profits,” said Julia Marmulla, spokeswoman for the Left Party faction in Düsseldorf, where the city is in the process of selling off its minority share in hospitals controlled by Sana.

While there is considerable anger about the brazen redundancy plans among the general public, the statements of the Verdi trade union and the Left Party are nothing but hot air aimed at concealing their own role.

At the end of April the supervisory board of Sana Clinics unanimously appointed Thomas Lemke as chairman of the board until 2026. This means that at a time when the redundancy plans had long since been drawn up and were well known, the works council and Verdi trade union representatives on the supervisory board also voted for Lemke—the driving force behind the plans.

This is the familiar game played by Verdi. As co-manager in management committees, the union is involved in all redundancies. The union then expresses indignation at the consequences of its own policy in order to channel workers’ anger into harmless channels.

Equally repugnant is the role of the Left Party. Wherever it is involved in government, it carries out privatisations and dismissals. For example, the elimination of 440 full-time positions at the Bremen Geno is taking place under the aegis of Bremen’s health senator Claudia Bernhard (Left), who is also the chair of Geno’s supervisory board.

US drive against China sharpens political tensions in the Philippines

John Malvar

Over the course of the last month, tensions have mounted sharply between the Philippines and China over the presence of Chinese vessels anchored in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. The tensions are finding open expression in Philippine politics, where the bourgeois opposition to President Rodrigo Duterte had gathered to form a coalition party, 1Sambayan, whose fundamental concern is to reorient Philippine foreign relations away from Beijing and back into the camp of Washington.

The heightened tensions first emerged over the announcement in late March, in the same week that 1Sambayan was founded, that Chinese vessels were anchored near Whitsun Reef, a feature of the South China Sea claimed by both countries. The Chinese government initially stated that the boats were fishing vessels sheltering in the boomerang shaped atoll from the brunt of a storm. While some vessels departed, others remained anchored in at Whitsun Reef for over a month.

Duterte sought to quietly deal with the tensions, stating that he intended to speak with the Chinese ambassador. The Biden administration, however, has been pushing sharply against China since it took office in January. The formation of 1Sambayan and the confrontation at Whitsun can only be understood in the context of the renewed US drive against China.

In this Feb. 6, 2020, file photo, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin Jr. gestures during a senate hearing in Manila, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

While Duterte sought to downplay the confrontation, the US Embassy in Manila immediately issued a statement denouncing China for using “maritime militia to intimidate, provoke and threaten other nations, which undermines peace and security in the region.”

It is, in fact, Washington that is chief culprit in deploying its military forces to intimidate and provoke. During the crisis in April, the US deployed multiple warships to the region and 65 surveillance aircraft. The South China Sea Strategic Probing Initiative (SCSPI), a think tank associated with Peking University, issued a report indicating that publicly available flight data revealed that US spy planes had been conducting record levels of flights over the South China Sea since January. The report referred to the US activity in the South China Sea as “unprecedented” intensity.

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, on March 29 issued a sharp statement, referring to the US deployment of naval forces to the disputed waters. “No one is more suitable than the US for the label of militarization and jeopardizing freedom of navigation,” it said.

Tensions sharpened further on April 27, when the Philippine Coast Guard reported that seven Chinese vessels were anchored near the Sabina shoal in the northeastern portion of the Spratly islands. After the Coast Guard confronted the ships, the Chinese vessels departed the area.

Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin issued a statement that revealed how far tensions had mounted. He declared that any attack on a Philippine vessel, “however small, as long as it is a government vessel, is an attack on the US, triggering the MDT [Mutual Defense Treaty] and that response is global.”

Locsin was referring to the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Philippines that states that an attack on either party was an attack on both. He was stating that if shots were fired in the South China Sea the result would be a global war. Far from urging caution, however, he went on, “We must have the courage to go where probably we cannot go back from.”

On May 3, Locsin escalated further, issuing a vulgar tweet, “China, my friend, how politely can I put it? Let me see... O... GET THE F..K OUT.” He went on to refer to China as “an ugly oaf.”

The public crudity of the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs expresses the level of tension that has been created over the disputed waters. It created the remarkable situation in which notoriously vulgar Duterte called for calmer and more reasonable language. “China remains our benefactor,” he stated. “Just because we have a conflict with China does not mean to say that we have to be rude and disrespectful. As a matter of fact, we have many things to thank China for—both its help in the past and its aid today.”

When Duterte spoke of aid from China, he had in mind in particular the Philippines’ reliance on China as the single largest source of vaccines for the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite repeated efforts, the Philippines has been unable to secure large quantities of vaccine from Washington, and the limited vaccination roll-out thus far has relied heavily on vaccines secured from China, many of them donated by the Chinese government.

Locsin belatedly issued a public apology, not to China, but to his counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, declaring “I just don’t want to lose my friendship with the most elegant mind in diplomacy with manners to match.”

The mounting tensions in the South China Sea, inflamed above all by the provocations of the Biden administration, have sharpened global tensions and brought in a number of imperialist powers.

The UK announced that it was sending its Carrier Strike Group, the largest armada it has deployed in years, to the South China Sea. UK Defence Secretary described the deployment as “flying the flag for Global Britain—protecting our influence, signaling our power”. The UK armada will be accompanied by a US Navy destroyer as it sails through the contested waters.

Japan, through its Self-Defense Forces (SDF), announced that it would be providing a $US1.1 million defence aid package to the Philippines, supplying the Philippine military with non-lethal aid, and Japanese troops would be providing Filipino forces with training. The deal marks the first time that the SDF is supplying military equipment as a form of official development assistance.

The question of Manila’s geopolitical alignment, as Washington sharpens its campaign against China, has become the central focus of the upcoming 2022 presidential elections in the Philippines.

Vice President Leni Robredo, head of the opposition Liberal Party, denounced the President as “pro-China” in her weekly radio address on Sunday. She stated that Duterte’s repeated assertions that confronting China’s boats in the South China Sea raised the danger of war was “throwing our sovereignty out the window.”

The elite political opposition to Duterte coalesced into an umbrella organization, known as 1Sambayan. The focus of the new grouping is the attempt to use the elections to reorient Philippine foreign policy away from Beijing and back into the camp of Washington.

Two of the leading organizers behind 1Sambayan highlight this agenda. Retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio and former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario were at the centre of Manila’s activities sharpening tensions in the South China Sea as part of the Aquino administration's integration in the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia.” Carpio and del Rosario were directly responsible for Manila’s submission of a legal claim to contested portions of the South China Sea before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea in The Hague.

The court’s ruling in Manila’s favour in mid-2016 did little to alter the state of affairs in the region, as Duterte took office a month before the ruling was handed down. Duterte sought to downplay tensions in the South China Sea as a means of securing improved trade and diplomatic relations with China. The bourgeois opposition to Duterte is seeking to reverse this state of affairs and use the 2016 ruling to press Manila’s claim and sharply exacerbate tensions in the region.

In a speech on May 5, Duterte returned to this topic, stating, “They filed a case, we won. That paper, in real life, between nations, that paper is nothing.” Carpio issued a public demand for Duterte to resign. Duterte challenged Carpio to a public debate. Carpio accepted, but then Duterte backed out.

Former Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Albert del Rosario, a leading convenor of 1Sambayan issued a statement in response to the discovery of the Chinese vessels at the Sabina shoal, “We Filipinos have a collective constitutional duty to protect our national sovereignty, territorial integrity, national interest and the right to self-determination.”

A critical element of support for the platform of 1Sambayan comes from the Stalinist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and various so-called national democratic organizations that follow its political line. Founder and ideological leader of the CPP, Jose Ma. Sison, published statements on Facebook referring to Duterte as “a traitor” for supposedly relinquishing Philippine sovereignty.

Bayan Muna, a leading national democratic organization, is a founding member of 1Sambayan, where it is joined to the bourgeois opposition and to the right-wing Magdalo party. Magdalo was founded by coup-plotting elements of the military officer corps.

The Philippines remains in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. The working population and poor are suffering under the worst conditions of mass hunger since the Japanese occupation. The CPP and its allied organizations are attempting to channel the mass opposition emerging throughout the country behind the electoral interests of 1Sambayan, a coalition founded on the interests of escalating tensions with China and rejoining the war-drive of US imperialism.