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Today is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, an annual observation supported by and dedicated to those that participate in the sex trade. Its also nearly the end of 2019the first full calendar year since Congress passed the Internet censorship law SESTA/FOSTA. EFF fought the bill in Congress, concerned that its vague, ambiguous language and stiff criminal and civil penalties would drive constitutionally protected content off the Internet. And we represent organizations and individuals that are challenging the law in federal court. Activists and organizers from within the sex working community made it clear from the beginning as well: though this bill was intended to curb violence that occurs in the sex trade, its result would be just the opposite because it deprived a community of many of the online tools they used to stay safe and to organize. 2019 has brought us the unfortunate statistics to prove that they were right.

In a recent study of sex workers completed by the grassroots sex worker advocacy organization Hacking//Hustling, in collaboration with Whose Corner Is It Anyway, 40% of participants reported experiencing increased violence after FOSTA became law. Additionally, an overwhelming 99% of participants said they do not feel safer because of FOSTA. The details of this study were recently reviewed at a conference hosted by Harvards Berkman Klein Law Center, and the full results will soon be available. But these grim statistics arent an outlier: last year the San Francisco Police Department reported that human trafficking and street-based sex work offenses had spiked 170% since FOSTAs passage.

These numbers affirm what those who participate in the sex industry warned would happen. FOSTA has ensnared a wide array of platforms and online marketplaces whose operators, fearing that comments, posts, or ads that are sexual in nature will result in new liability, have censored users speech or shut down entirely. The absence of these sites have prevented sex workers from organizing and utilizing tools that have kept them safe. Taking away client-screening capabilities, bad date lists, and other intra-community safety tips leads to putting more workers on the street, which leads to increased violence and trafficking. The consequences of this censorship are most devastating for trans women of color, who are disproportionately affected by this violence. In NYC, the unfair targeting of trans women by local ordinances are so prevalent, loitering laws are colloquially known as "Walking While Trans" laws.

After SESTA/FOSTAs passage, plaintiffs Woodhull Freedom Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Alex Andrews, the Internet Archive, and Eric Koszyk filed suit to invalidate the law. EFF is part of the legal team representing the plaintiffs, who are asking a court to declare the law unconstitutional and prevent it from being enforced. On this International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, it's clear that the first step to actually ending such violence is to repeal SESTA/FOSTA, and to listen more closely to the communities affected by such laws. Destigmatization and full decriminalization is the battle cry of many sex work advocacy groups;but under FOSTA, this advocacy may be illegal. Its time for us to start taking these risks, and the real-world implications of FOSTA's censorship, seriously.

Excerpt from:
On International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, We Must Look Closely at the Results of FOSTA - EFF

Facebook has blocked independent journalist and Filmmaker Ford Fischer of News2Share from posting links for 60 hours after he attempted to share a Reclaim The Net article about YouTube censorship. Fischer wasnt given any warning and was automatically and instantly blocked as soon as he attempted to share the link.

The article that Fischer attempted to share, 2019 was a low point for YouTube and demoralizing for creators, documents YouTube censorship, leaks that have exposed YouTube bias, and the controversial policies YouTube has introduced in 2019. Fischer's News2Share channel being demonetized on YouTube after it introduced its controversial hate speech rules is one of the stories featured in the article.

Fischer added that this is the first time Facebook has ever suspended any feature for him.

Facebook hasnt explained why the link was automatically blocked or why attempting to share it is punished with a 60 hour suspension. However, the company has increasingly restricted what users are allowed to share on the platform in 2019.

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Facebook bans journalist Ford Fischer from posting links as he attempted to share YouTube censorship article - Reclaim The Net

Iraqis have been protesting since early October against the dysfunctional and corrupt political system installed by the United States after the 2003 occupation. Unlike previous waves of protests that began in 2011, this protest was spontaneous and not organized by any party.

The most common and passionate slogan throughout these protests has been, We want a homeland. It reflected the anger and alienation Iraqis felt toward a political class beholden to external influence (Iran and the United States) and oblivious to its peoples demands.

The regimes brutal suppression and killing of peaceful protesters fueled Iraqis anger, widening and intensifying the protests and strikes across Iraq. It also radicalized the tone and demands of protesters who have been calling for an overhaul of the entire system, rather than cosmetic change. The resignation of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi on Nov. 29 did nothing to quiet the protesters. And the regimes violence continues unabated.

More than 500 protesters have been killed. I try to find out their names and catch a glimpse of their faces. I cant keep up. Death seizes them in a flash and delivers their bodies to the darkness of the grave. But it also illuminates their names, faces and life stories, making them ever more familiar to those of us who are viscerally connected to Iraq, whether we live there or in a distant country.

I did know Safa al-Sarray, a 26-year-old aspiring poet and amateur artist, very well. He wrote to me nine years ago on social media about one of my novels. We kept corresponding. I loved his wit and sense of humor, and his insightful posts about life and politics in Iraq.

Safa was a precocious, passionate young man and a voracious reader, particularly of poetry. He grew up in a large working-class family in Baghdad. His father had died when he was quite young. He worked hard three days a week as a construction worker and porter while studying at the University of Technology in Baghdad to make ends meet and to support his family.

In 2011, a wave of protests against the corruption and sectarianism of the Iraqi regime swept through the country. Safa, who was 18 at the time, joined his compatriots seeking change. He was at the forefront of every single wave of protests in the years that followed. Despite being harassed and detained several times, he would be back on the street for the next protest.

I worried about him and would check on him every time protests broke out to make sure he was safe. We are staying here in Tahrir, he would write, referring to Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, where the protesters have been gathering. He knew the dangers he faced. He once wrote to me wondering when he might meet the gratuitous death waiting for me in my homeland. He loved Iraq and would go to sleep at night thinking of what he could do to change it.

I met Safa for the first time in February at the Baghdad Book Fair. He came to my book signing and was as charming and charismatic in person. We met again for breakfast on my last day in Baghdad. Safa had an undergraduate degree in computer networking, but like hundreds of thousands of young Iraqis, he couldnt find employment in his field.

Over breakfast he told me that hed recently started working as an ardhahalchi, or a scribe, writing letters and filling out forms for citizens going before courts. He would set up his chair and table every morning outside a courthouse in Baghdad. Were there any interesting stories that you came across? I asked. It is just a traffic court, he said with a smile. The letters he had to write were quite prosaic, mostly about mundane accidents or transfer of ownership.

Safa was 26, but he was using a cane and grimaced with pain when he moved. He spoke of the pain killers he was taking and the costly physical therapy. During the protests in the summer of 2018 he had received messages on social media from regime thugs warning him to stay away. He ignored them at first. A few days later plainclothes security personnel detained him and tortured him to extract information on other protesters. He said that the memory of his mother, Thanwa, and her strength helped him withstand the pain and remain steadfast in moments of weakness.

He was very close to Thanwa, who died of cancer in 2017, and wrote about her suffering and resilience. He called himself Thanwas Son. Shifting the emphasis away from the patrilineal to the matrilineal was an act of poetic resistance against social norms.

Safa was fiercely independent and critical of the intellectual elite and the media personalities who had betrayed the protesters, hijacked previous protests and made back-room deals with political parties.

He was an aspiring poet, an artist. He donated the money from his art to an orphanage. His heart was a garden for all. I have been thinking of some verses he wrote: Peoples sadness is my sadness/Their feasts are mine/Let the wellspring of my life flow onto their deserts/These flowers in my soul are gardens of people.

When the Iraqi uprising began in October, Safa was at the forefront once again. He recited poetry and urged protesters to remain peaceful but never give up.

On Oct. 28 I messaged Safa: I heard you were injured. Let me know youre O.K. There was no response. A tear-gas canister fired intentionally and directly at the crowds by the riot police had pierced his head while he was protesting peacefully in Tahrir Square. He was taken to the hospital. He died a few hours later. I cried when I saw the footage of his coffin circling the square, surrounded by fellow protesters bidding farewell to a hero.

Some years ago, I wrote a poem about those who die for freedom and justice. I never thought that I was writing it prematurely for my friend.

Martyrs do not go to paradiseThey leaf through the heavenly bookeach in their own wayas a birda staror a cloudThey appear to us every dayand cryfor uswe, who are stillin this hell they tried to extinguishwith their blood.

A few weeks ago, I saw a photograph of a white dove perched on the coffin of one of those murdered by the regime near Tahrir Square. Was that you, Safa?

I will visit your grave when I go to Iraq, but I know that you are not only there. Your face is on so many walls, banners, T-shirts, and your spirit is everywhere. Your brothers and sisters, Thanwas children, are still fighting for the new Iraq you dreamed of and loved.

Sinan Antoon (@sinanantoon) is the author, most recently, of the novel The Book of Collateral Damage.

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I Will Visit Your Grave When I Go to Iraq - The New York Times

For our series World of Worship, we sent correspondents around the globe to show us how different people celebrate their faith and honor religious traditions. In our first report, we head to the Middle East.

In recent years, Iraq has suffered terrible violence, often inflamed by religious differences. But in a country where worship can come at a heavy cost, CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata discovered an unlikely oasis hidden in the mountains: an ancient Christian monastery.

The Rabban Hormizd Monastery, one of the oldest of its kind in the world, was founded almost 1,400 years ago. Carved into and out of the very rock on which it rests, the temple overlooks the vast plains of northern Iraq.

Its namesake, Rabban Hormizd, traveled from Persia. He lived as a hermit for almost 30 years, living an austere life of isolation in the network of caves that push deep into the mountainside. Over time, more monks made the pilgrimage, settling in its labyrinth.

"Christians are an important part of the community here in Iraqi Kurdistan," said 21-year-old Miriam Salih, who traveled to the monastery with other Iraqi history students. "They've been here for thousands of years."Over the centuries, the monastery has been more than a house of worship. It's been a sanctuary, a safe place in a region that has had more than its fair share of upheaval. The Mongols, the Kurds, the Ottomans and the Turks all overran the territory at one point or another, yet it somehow survived.

But the biggest threat came in modern times. When ISIS rampaged throughout the region in 2014, the Islamic extremists targeted anything to do with Christianity. Churches that stood for centuries were ruined in a matter of seconds. When ISIS overran nearby Mosul, tens of thousands of terrified Christians fled, escaping to other Christian towns in the region. At one point, the terrorist group was just a 10-minute drive away from the Christian town of Alqosh that sits at the base of the mountain. They never made it any closer, but the threat is still felt today.

At the monastery, an armed bodyguard follows the priest everywhere. The head monk, Father Denha Toma, knows they have to plan for the worst. He was in Mosul when ISIS invaded five years ago. "What do you think ISIS would have done if they had reached this place?" D'Agata asked Toma.

"Wherever they saw a cross they smashed it," he said. "They erased any traces of Christianity. Even the Virgin Mary there used to be a statue of her. They chopped the head off and left the rest of the statue standing there. If they had reached here, they would have certainly destroyed this monastery."

Before the U.S.-led invasion, the insurgency and ISIS, there were around 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. There are now barely 250,000. In fact there are now more Chaldean Catholics, the most followed denomination among Iraqi Christians, in the United States than in Iraq.

The regional Archbishop recently described Christianity in Iraq as being "perilously close to extinction," which means one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in existence now remains on a cliff-edge.

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Rabban Hormizd Monastery in Iraq: Christian temple survives centuries of upheaval, but threat from ISIS is still felt - CBS News

A group of armed men wearing black uniforms stormed into my house in Baghdad and abducted me, Iraqi blogger Shojaa Fares al-Khafaji told me a few days after his early-morning kidnapping by an Iraqi militia in October. They took me to a remote location overlooking the Tigris River and questioned me about my work, my family, and even my car. They knew I have a blog and I am certain that was the main reason for my abduction.

Khafajis captors ultimately released him, but urged him to keep his mouth shut. He has chosen to live up to his first namewhich is Arabic for braveand continue writing his blog in the face of government repression. But his ordeal was not an unusual one for an Iraqi journalist, and most are not as determined to risk their lives to continue reporting.

Clean Brotherhood, Khafajis popular blog, reports chiefly on politics and corruption in Iraq. It has also covered the ongoing mass protests over unemployment, a lack of basic services, and government corruption that broke out in Baghdad in October and have spread to other southern Iraqi cities. He has published footage of security forces using tear gas against protesters and pictures of protesters who have suffered beatings.

The Iraqi authorities have been trying to avoid drawing publicity to the protests by creating a de facto media blackout. They have repeatedly shut down the internet, raided and banned broadcasters, and forcibly barred journalists from covering the demonstrations, leaving the world largely in the dark about the fate of millions of people. Iraqis have had enough of such treatment. Barely five years ago, armed men in black uniforms under the banner of the Islamic State took control of television and radio stations, rounded up journalists, and created a monopoly over information in the city of Mosul. The international community should push for a post-Islamic State Iraq in which information flows freely, empowering Iraqis to shape their countrys future.

The Iraqi governments heavy-handed security response to the protests has left more than 400 people dead and nearly 20,000 injured, spreading a widespread sense of fear of the armed forces among local reporters. This is especially true of local militia groups, which allege that journalists are instigating the violence. Two journalists have been reported killed so far. (Iraq has historically been one of the deadliest countries for journalists: Some 188 have been killed since 1994, according to data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists.) Security forces have briefly detained, beaten, and seized equipment from reporters to prevent them from covering the protests. Several journalists have left Baghdad for either Iraqi Kurdistan or abroad for fear of militias. Many journalists feel persecuted, said Jumana Mumtaz, a board member of the independent National Union of Journalists in Iraq. They have left Baghdad because they are afraid of the attacks on broadcasters and the assaults and arrests of colleagues. Even those who left Baghdad are afraid of speaking out. Without media or internet, nobody will know whats happening in Iraq.

Iraq relied heavily on Iran-backed militias to defeat the Islamic State. After they helped drive the group from Iraq in December 2017, the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization containing mostly Shiite militias, was integrated into the national armed forces and placed under the direct authority of the prime minister. Iraqi journalists at the time voiced their concern about the growing political and economic influence of the militias and the threat it posed to press freedom.

Militias belonging to the PMF have taken control of the trade in scrap metal from destroyed buildings and vehicles and its transport from Mosul to Iraqi Kurdistan or southern Iraq. They have also gained control over large state-owned construction and engineering companies and are suspected of imposing taxes on commerce and of involvement in oil smuggling in Mosul and Basra. But they have not only cornered parts of the economy. They have also successfully infiltrated Iraqi politics through the Fatah Alliance, which won 48 seats in the 2018 parliamentary election, becoming Iraqs second-largest bloc after Muqtada al-Sadrs Sairun bloc. The Fatah Alliance, which is headed by the leader of the Iran-backed Badr Organization, Hadi al-Amiri, includes the Badr Organization, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hezbollah, and Kataib al-Imam Ali. Militiamen from these organizations have run as candidates and won seats in the Iraqi Parliament in the 2018 election.

Iraqi journalists see militias as the main challenge to press freedom in the country. Fear of militias, and impunity for crimes against journalists in Iraq, can lead to self-censorship, all the more so in the wake of the slaying of Arkan Sharifi, a cameraman for a Kurdish broadcaster, who was stabbed to death by militiamen in 2017. Journalists in Basra faced death threats, beatings, and intimidation from local militiasforcing several of them to leave the countrymerely for covering 2018 protests against deteriorating living standards in the city, where popular anger at growing Iranian influence resulted in the torching of media outlets, militias headquarters, and the Iranian consulate.

Despite the governments crackdown on press freedom and the brutal crushing of the protests, protesters camped out in Baghdads Tahrir Square have created their own newspaper to circumvent the information blackout and the narrative spread by the state-owned media, which barely mentions the unrest, and to air the protesters demands, including the call for an end to foreign influence in Iraq.

The United States and the European Union have both condemned the governments repressive tactics and have publicly supported the protesters right to express their grievances. The special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, even visited Baghdads Tahrir Square to condemn the violence and call for a national dialogue.

While these statements and gestures are steps in the right direction, the international community should place Iraqi authorities under greater scrutiny to prevent further bloodshed and combat the assault on Iraqs democratic institutions, escalating sanctions and cuts in foreign and defense aid if state violence against protesters and media continues. The United States and other Western democracies invaded Iraq in 2003 with the stated goal of establishing democracy. They continue to provide billions of dollars in military and foreign aid to fight insurgent groups in an effort to stabilize the country, when in fact more determined and continuous support for democracy and its institutions, including free media and human rights, are necessary for a stable Iraq.

At a time when the balance of power in the post-Islamic State Middle East is rapidly changing, the survival of Iraqs fledgling democracy depends on the preservation of liberal institutions such as the free media. If it is to survive amid a complex regional and global power struggle for influence in the Middle Eastunderscored by several deep socioeconomic challengesthe international community must do its utmost to help Iraqi journalists maintain the free flow of information. This will enable an open, public, and honest debate about the challenges facing the country and, more importantly, how best to resolve them.

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Democracy in Iraq Depends on Press Freedom - Foreign Policy