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Germany is now notorious for weaponizing the charge of antisemitism in order to silence Palestine solidarity, labelling BDS the peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israeli violations, as inherently anti-Semitic.

In May last year, the German Bundestag passed a resolution condemning BDS as anti-Semitic, flatly conflating Israel with Jews, thus associating BDS with the Nazi boycott of Jews.

So now, there is a whole brouhaha about the distinguished professor Achille Mbembe, who is booked to speak at the Ruhrtriennale festival in North Rhine-Westphalia. Mbembe is booked to give the opening speech on the 14th of August, titled Reflections on planetary living. He has been supportive of BDS and has made comparisons between South African Apartheid and oppression of Palestinians. Mbembe is a Cameroon-born, South Africa-based historian who lectures around the world, holding an A1 rating from the South African National Research Foundation. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The attacks against Mbembe appear to have been initiated by Lorenz Deutsch, a local politician with the FDP (Liberal Party), through a letter forwarded and promoted by Dr. Felix Klein, the Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life and Against Anti-Semitism. Deutschs letter highlights quotes from Mbembes writing which are supposed to prove his anti-Semitism, and what local as well as Israeli press have concocted to be Holocaust trivialization and Holocaust relativization. Here are the critical Mbembe quotes:

Now, how do you reach from here to antisemitism, Holocaust relativization or Holocaust trivialization? Even in this clinical isolation, the quotations are quite logically formed, and the latter quote even makes a crucial point of distinguishing the Holocaust from South African Apartheid.

The key to charging Mbembe is in the infamous definition of anti-Semitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which has been weaponized internationally to chill critique of Israel. The vague and clumsy definition provides a list of 11 examples of antisemitic speech, seven of which are related to Israel. Among these examples are:

These two examples seem to fall close to the accusations against Mbembe, though they dont really fit them anyway. This definition is not meant to be a perfect fit anyhow the whole point of it is to open up for a general campaign of tarnishing against BDS and critique of Israel in general, as has been the case in the many places, like the US and UK, where in the latter, the definition served as a major asset in the campaign against Jeremy Corbyn.

The attacks against Mbembe appear to have multiple outlets from the local politicians and conservative Jewish leaders to the Jerusalem Post. German cultural festival director urged to be fired for BDS antisemitism, is the title of the latest in a series of articles by Benjamin Weinthal in the Jerusalem Post, a journalist for whom such witch-hunts appear to be a pet project.

Weinthals target is also the festival director, Stefanie Carp. He approvingly cites a German official saying she should be fired because she booked Mbembe. Notice also the pairing BDS antisemitism. This is a linguistic wholesale conflation which leaves absolutely no room for the possibility that BDS is actually a movement concerned with human rights. No, it is simply a sub-form of antisemitism, and thats beyond discussion.

Weinthal cites Uwe Becker, the commissioner of the Hessian federal state government for Jewish life and the fight against antisemitism in Germany, who makes the precise same conflation:

Once again, the director of the Ruhrtriennale Stefanie Carp sets an anti-Israel accent and stages the defamation of the Jewish state in the guise of freedom of art and expression Obviously Ms. Carp not only has a problem with Israel but also deliberately provides a large platform for Israel-related antisemitism. Once again, she is abusing the framework of a publicly funded festival for antisemitic enemy images toward Israel.

Never mind that Carp confirmed that Mbembe, in his Festival speech, will not deal with Israel and the Middle East conflict. His positions are apparently beyond the pale, and Carp has to be fired for even considering to have him speak, about anything.

Weinthal points to Mbembes cardinal sin: That in a forward to a book from 2015 called Apartheid Israel: The Politics of an Analogy, Mbembe wrote that the time has come for global isolation of Israel.

Its a real problem when these conflations of Israel and all Jews are made and you cant talk about Israeli Apartheid without it being taken as an inherent hatred of all Jews.

Even Jews are attacked for these things. Last year, the German Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Near East, received a peace prize from the city of Gttingen, which Israel-apologists sought to have cancelled, suggesting these are the wrong kind of Jews. In 2016, after an incitement campaign by the Israeli government and its local supporters, the bank account of the organization was closed. This was in fact the first time in the post-WW2 era, that an account held by a Jewish organization in Germany was closed. It was explicitly explained to them that this was for political reasons if they would rescind their support for BDS, they could reopen the account. Only after a massive protest campaign, were they allowed to reopen the account.

Germany, in this respect, is applying state-sponsored censorship on steroids. The Holocaust guilt, which is actively and admittedly promoted by Israeli diplomats, is serving as a central emotional core from which to enact this censorship, which is meant to protect Israel from critique and condemnation, by tarnishing anyone who ever spoke about its racism, as racist themselves.

H/t Christoph Glanz

Read the rest here:
German censorship campaign targets scholar over BDS and applies 'antisemitism' charge - Mondoweiss

Considering that the federal government has failed in almost every aspect to contain the public health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the side effect in territories like Puerto Rico can only be catastrophic.

While it is true that the island was one of the most proactive territories in taking steps to contain the spread of the virus establishing an investigation task force as early as February 29 once the first cases began to be reported, and thanks to the delay in the response from the Centers for Disease Control, no action could prevent the chaos.

With infrastructure still to be rebuilt after Hurricane Maria and the subsequent earthquakes in recent months, the risk of infection and spread of the virus in Puerto Rico is twice as high as in any other state.

The high rates of unemployment and poverty that plague the island, as well as its dependence on public resources for access to health care, have transformed the coronavirus pandemic on the island into an administrative disaster.

According to New York Times figures, and as of April 19, the total number of cases on the island was around 1,220, with 41 deaths, the result of a double count carried out by the territorys Health Department.

The death of a 29-year-old man, the youngest case on record, has sparked a wave of protests in San Juan after it was learned that his family sought help twice at emergency rooms to have the boy tested and treated without response.

The familys accusation coincided with a government announcement of the loss of several pounds of refrigerated food that had rotted after the responsible private company disconnected the refrigerated trailer full of food, that was supposed to be distributed to those in need amid a two-month lockdown to curb coronavirus cases, WHIO reported.

This is completely unacceptable, said Public Safety Director Pedro Janer.

He said that while the government will be reimbursed, the incident is under investigation after the company said it received instructions to disconnect the trailer from an employee of a local emergency management office.

Meanwhile, newly appointed Health Secretary Lorenzo Gonzlez acknowledged during Saturdays press conference that the islands COVID-19 related data is not entirely accurate because some positive cases might have been counted twice, and that the government is working to improve it.

Its imperfect data, but were going to use itbecause its the one we have, he said.

The lack of information is due, in part, to a lack of transparency on the part of the government.

According to The Independent, several local media have accused Puerto Rican authorities of trying to silence the press by banning journalists from attending government briefings on television, thus avoiding exposure of Vzquezs mismanagement.

Apparently, the governor has given direct instructions to prevent press criticism from being publicized due to situations such as the delay in the arrival of COVID-19 testing kits for which the government has allegedly allocated $19 million.

Telemundo Puerto Rico described the move to ban reporters from the briefings as something that not even President Trump would dare to do and said that it cannot in good conscience lend itself to broadcast propagandist programming.

At the same time, the government announced last week the closure of several police stations throughout the island, for fear of exposing officials to the virus.

According to the AP, more than 150 agents of the 11,000 that exist throughout the territory are in quarantine.

Neither police nor health care workers have had access to diagnostic tests, and mayors across the island are working around the clock to contain the crisis in the most populous territory in the United States.

In the central mountainous town of Cayey, Mayor Rolando Ortiz told NBC News that his municipality is not doing tests here because the government has them very limited.

Ive found out about cases here because the people have my phone number and they call me up when they know something, he said in Spanish. It has really been vital to just have direct contact with the people.

Paradoxically, it is precisely the direct contact that makes the crisis worse, and the worst is yet to come in Puerto Rico.

Read the original here:
Censorship, Chaos, and Misinformation: How Puerto Rico Is Battling the Coronavirus Pandemic - BELatina

In Brief

The Ethereum Name Service has released a new feature that allows users to set up a decentralized website within the ENS Manager, its web-based interface. The feature makes it easier than ever to upload and access censorship-resistant content using Ethereum.

ENS Manager now allows content uploadsvia integration with Temporal, an interplanetary file system (IPFS) enterprise platform similar to web server providers such as Amazon Web Services. Unlike centralized AWS servers however, Temporal hooks into IPFS which uses a decentralized protocol across many different data storage nodes. That means no singular authority can delete or block the data stored in the IPFS network. IPFS is also much more resistant to hacking and provides some efficiency improvementsover HTTP protocols.

ENS users formerly were only able to upload small amounts of content to their accountsuch as addresses for non-ETH cryptocurrenciesusing the ENS Manager. Before the integration, ENS users would need to manually upload files to IPFS, then take the resulting hash and add it to their ENS content records.

Now, after uploading website files via Temporal within ENS Manager, users simply save the IPFS hash address to their ENS account. After that, anyone can access the website by appending .link to the end of their ENS addressfor example ethhub.eth.link.

Any kind of website can benefit from the reliability and censorship-resistance of a decentralized website, ENS director of operations Brantly Millegan told Decrypt. As you can see on Almonit (almonit.eth.link), there are all kinds of decentralized websites: personal blogs, games, political websites, even the Bible.

The redundancy of the IPFS protocol also offers enhanced reliability compared to protocols such as HTTP by storing content redundantly, allowing other IPFS nodes to send the requested data if the primary node (chosen based on proximity to the request) is unavailable.

Integrations like the one between ENS and Temporal that streamline the user experience are essential to the widespread adoption of the decentralized, censorship-resistant web.

See original here:
ENS unveils easier way to build decentralized websites on Ethereum - Decrypt

Almost 60 years ago, Lady Chatterleys lover brought sex and lust into the courtroom and changed the way we thought about censoring literature.

What is it about literature and censorship? Some of the most influential books ever written have been censored because someone thought they were an affront to common decency, whatever that means. John Miltons Areopagitica (1644) was banned for political reasons; Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) was banned for being racially insensitive; JD Salingers The Catcher in the Rye (1951) apparently undermined morality. Melvilles Moby Dick (1851), Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath (1939), Baldwins Another Country (1962), Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Nabokovs Lolita (1955), all banned. As recently as 1987, Toni Morrisons Beloved (1987), Salman Rushdies The Satanic Verses (1988) and Dan Browns The Da Vinci Code (2003) were banned in some countries. In 2015 copies of Bret Easton Elliss American Psycho (1991) were confiscated from Australian bookshops because they werent shrink-wrapped.

So many books, so many bans.

One book had a massive impact on the public perception of censorship: Lady Chatterleys Lover, DH Lawrences most famous or perhaps infamous work, which was finally published in Britain in 1960, thirty-two years after hed finished it and thirty years after Lawrence himself died from tuberculosis at the age of 44.

Lady Chatterleys Lover was published in Italy back in 1928, but its sexual explicitness was quickly labelled unmitigated smut; the book was declared obscene and banned in Britain and the United States.

It wasnt Lawrences first brush with the censors. The Rainbow (1915), the novel that followed his remarkable 1913 work Sons and Lovers was also judged obscene and banned after publication. Copies of The Rainbow were unceremoniously seized and burned, the authorities outraged at Lawrences candour regarding sexual attraction and yearning. Such notoriety made it difficult for him to find a publisher for Women in Love, published in 1920, three years after hed written it. Next came Lady Chatterleys Lover.

The story revolves around Connie, the free-thinking wife of an aristocrat whose wartime injuries have left him paralysed from the waist down. She has a few flings, but when the new gamekeeper Oliver arrives on the estate, Connie is instantly aroused. Just the sight of him sensuous, muscular, masculine is enough. Oliver exudes the vitality her husband lacks. At first he rejects her advances, mindful of the social divide that separates them, but before long their encounters are pretty torrid, Lawrence describing fiery loins, helplessly desiring hands and orgasms. It was all a little too much for the establishment.

The novel is about sex and sexual desire, but its also about class and social divides and the very real search for intimacy. And importantly, its also about the aftermath of World War I, which left so many men crippled either physically, emotionally or both. As well, its said to reflect elements of Lawrences own situation with his wife Freida, a complicated relationship to say the least. Freida had affairs, claiming Lawrence was impotent; they fought, they made up. But were not going into that here.

For a week during late 1960, publishers Penguin Books had to fight at the Old Bailey for the right to publish Lawrences novel banned under the Obscene Publications Act as a cheap paperback, which would make it affordable for most people. The prosecution maintained the ban should stay, that its pornographic elements far outweighed any consideration of literary merit, and that the liberal use of certain Anglo-Saxon four-letter words was disgusting. They felt it was far too raunchy for the masses to read.

Naturally, the defence argued that the books literary qualities and the novelists status as an author of significance should take precedence over prudish notions of what constituted obscenity. The defence called some 35 witnesses, among them academics and writers (including noted authors EM Forster, Cecil Day-Lewis and Rebecca West) to attest to the literary and inherently moral value of the controversial book. An eminent bishop testified that Lawrences depictions of sex were the equivalent of an act of holy communion.

The prosecuting lawyer was a pillar of the priggish upper class, which was in many ways far more horrified by the notion of inter-class adultery than by the use of obscene language. Generally speaking, the legal profession at that time was overly concerned with public morality; lawyers felt they had a duty to protect the public from perceived filth. He read out many descriptions of lovemaking from the book clearly meant to shock listeners, but was informed by witnesses that such descriptions, including the use of the words fuck, shit, arse etc were entirely appropriate in the circumstances. His next question was met with absolute hilarity in the court:

Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters because girls can read as well as boys reading this book? Is it a book you would have lying around your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?

Not many people had servants in 1960; juries were made up of ordinary working people (this particular jury included a butcher, a labourer and a machinist), and how out of touch was this man who had seemingly only recently discovered that girls could read as well as boys? He misjudged that one; the jury took a mere three hours to determine that Lady Chatterleys Lover did not contravene the Obscene Publications Act.

The beginning of the 1960s saw conservative attitudes beginning to take a back seat. Young people were moving away from the staid and proper behaviour of their parents and grandparents. Outlooks were changing. Even attitudes towards the trial were liberal, some newspaper editorials suggesting the money spent on prosecuting a work of literature would have been better spent in the investigation of actual exploitative pornography.

But social change is slow and there were many who were thoroughly outraged by the decision. They lodged official complaints and there were incidents of book burning. Some worried their children would be corrupted by the book.

Reports say that three million copies of Lady Chatterleys Lover were sold in the few months following the trial, people keen to see what all the fuss was about and no doubt looking forward to some titillation. Over the years, Lawrences lurid descriptions of sex have lost some impact were almost bombarded with sex these days but as already touched upon, the novel isnt just about a blistering liaison. Lawrence examines the impact of industry in post-war England and has much to say on the apparent differences between the aristocracy and the working class. Its this, as much as his characterisations and explorations of what makes people tick that make him an author of renown.

Looking at the case now, its clear that Penguins victory had a lasting impact. For one thing, the governments jurisdiction over personal morality had weakened. Censorship was now being seen as an infringement of individual judgement and private ethics. Interestingly, in 1971 when the Australian-born editors of Oz magazine were tried and convicted under the Obscene Publications Act, their conviction was quickly overturned.

Lady Chatterleys Lover was in a way a victory for liberalism, the notion that a book could lead people to live a debauched lifestyle dismissed out of hand.

Can certain literature truly corrupt us? Or does it just make for expensive court cases?

Read more from the original source:
Lady Chatterley's censor: Almost 60 years ago, a court case looked to save us from ourselves - The Big Smoke Australia

The coronavirus pandemic may threaten press freedom and worsen the crises that reporters around the world are facing, according to this years World Press Freedom Index, which evaluates the landscape for journalists in 180 countries and territories.

The report, published on Tuesday by the media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders, said the United States and Brazil were becoming models of hostility toward the news media. It also singled out China, Iran and Iraq for censoring coverage of the coronavirus outbreak.

The pandemic has already redefined norms. New laws that some governments have passed with the ostensible goal of slowing the spread of the virus ones that broaden state surveillance, for instance have raised concerns about long-term negative effects on the news media and freedom of expression.

The pandemic has allowed governments to take advantage of the fact that politics are on hold, the public is stunned and protests are out of the question, in order to impose measures that would be impossible in normal times, Christophe Deloire, the secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement.

Press freedom in the United States continued to suffer under President Trumps administration, according to the report, which ranked the country 45th out of 180, up three spots from last year. A dangerous anti-press sentiment as well as the arrest, physical assault, public denigration and harassment of journalists had trickled down to the local level, the report said.

China ranked 177th, the same as last year. Last month, China said it was expelling American journalists working for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, weeks after the Trump administration limited to 100 the number of Chinese citizens who could work in the United States for five state-run Chinese news organizations that are widely considered propaganda outlets.

Reporters at foreign news outlets in China were among those who aggressively reported on the coronavirus outbreak, including in the early days when the Chinese government sought to play down its severity.

In Iraq, officials this month fined Reuters and temporarily suspended the news agencys license after it published a story that said the government was underreporting coronavirus cases.

The report also referenced oppressive policies in some countries in the Balkans and the European Union. In Hungary last month, lawmakers gave Prime Minister Viktor Orban the power to sidestep Parliament and suspend existing laws. The new legislation, which will further limit freedom of expression, may give Mr. Orbans government more leeway to persecute journalists, critics say.

Still, Europe continued to be the continent where the news media had the most freedom, with Norway ranking first for the fourth consecutive year and Finland and Denmark in second and third place. Sweden fell to fourth place because of an increase in the online harassment of reporters.

At the bottom of the index, there was little change. North Korea fell one spot, taking over last place from Turkmenistan. Eritrea, which ranked third to last, was the lowest-ranked country in Africa. Haiti fell 21 spots to 83rd, the steepest drop of any nation. Journalists there lack financial resources and institutional support, and have been victims of intimidation and physical violence, particularly while covering protests, the report said.

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Coronavirus Threatens Press Freedom Around the World, Report Says - The New York Times