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Canadian, Irish, French Government-Attempted Speech Regulations Appear Like Desperate Censorship Power Plays

BY JEFFEREY JAXEN | MARCH 12, 2024

Following in the footsteps of UKs highly controversial Online Safety Act, now law, Canadian and Irish government officials are proposing legislation that would push the boundaries to further stifle online debate.

During the COVID response, the American government chose to erect a massive, top-down censorship industrial complex pulling in key White House officials, CDC heads, and the Department of Homeland Security.

In the UK, it was all-out military psychological operations using the British Army unit’s 77th Brigade and Specialist Group Military Intelligence. Both countries turned their security apparatuses, once used against foreign enemy combatants, to target its own public domestically in an aggressive move to shape public thought and neutralize independent voices.

Now, humanity is at an inflection point. A non-stop blitzkrieg of contentious issues are affecting the lives of many. The failed COVID response taught us that open conversation and investigation is critical to unwind industry talking points, government propaganda, and scientific falsehoods.

Perhaps more important, the new public square, that is the digital age of social media, serves as a steam valve to debate valid concerns surrounding charged issues like climate change and the net zero push, open migration, vaccine safety, reckless government monetary policy, election meddling, the surgical and pharmaceutical fast track of gender-affirming care for minors, intelligence agency run ‘disclosure,’ and so much more.

Meanwhile, power centers are desperate to take all the above issues and funnel vocal detractors from the dominant narrative into one category – hate.

Over the years, governments have gleefully began attaching the ‘hate’ label onto any person, topic, or explanation that runs counter to the single, myopic version of events, ideas, information, or even historical events they deem fact – despite valid evidence proving otherwise.

Socially, the ‘it’s all hateful except for our viewpoint’ worked for corporations, governments, and legacy media operations when they enjoyed narrative control.

Those days are fleeting now and major cracks have formed upon once-settled topics. Now we see the grip tightening from the legislative angle to create more bureaucracy and new powers to punish.

Canada’s Bill C-63 enacts what’s called the Online Harms Act, amends the Criminal Code, and the Canadian Human Rights Act among other things. It also attempts to define and legislate a human emotion stating:

“hatred means the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike”

Meanwhile, C-63 states that an “Offense motivated by hatred… under this Act or any other Act of Parliament”…carries with a penalty of “imprisonment for life.”

Other goodies written into the bill are the creation of an extrajudicial government tribunal to rule on complaints of threats, intimidation or discrimination from people who can remain anonymous. That’s right, no need to face your accuser says Canada.

If one is accused by the government’s newly-created, extrajudicial group to be “engaging or to have engaged in the discriminatory practice,” they can be ordered, as the bill states, “to pay compensation of not more than $20,000 to any victim identified” and “to pay a penalty of not more than $50,000 to the Receiver General.”

No room for abuse here. What could go wrong?

One would think this would be a one-off piece of speech-chilling legislation from a country that has lost its way under poor leadership. Yet Ireland is also attempting a similar move with mirrored legislative language.

Ireland’s Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences Bill is currently before the upper house of the Irish legislature. The Critic writes the law, if enacted, “…would usher in a dangerous new standard for state-driven censorship. The expression or possession of content or even ideas deemed “hateful” would be illegal under the law, with serious implications for everyday people…”

An opinion piece published in The Hill writes:

“As per the tentative legislation, people with “protected characteristics” which includes, inter alia, race, color, and nationality are afforded new legal protections against psychical and mentally inflicted harms, in which offenders are motivated by “hatred.””

It continues by stating:

“As such, Ireland’s police force, An Garda Síochána, will have the authority under the bill to raid the home of the possessor of such material, demand their password and seize their devices. Failure to comply could result in a year-long prison sentence.”

The reason for the sudden Orwellian about face given by Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar was that Ireland needed to “… modernise our laws against incitement to hatred and hatred in general.”

Despite the weak cover stories governments are using to capture speech and attempt to regain narrative control, a clear pattern is being seen – open debate is dangerous to the dwindling control of power centers.

The fun doesn’t stop there.

Article 18 of the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty also stipulates that all countries signed on to the power-centralizing agreement are mandated to “… combat false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation” and “inform policies on factors that hinder adherence to public health and social measures in a pandemic and trust in science and public health institutions.” 

Finally, a bill in the works in France appears to be a special gift for pharmaceutical companies. Article 4 of the bill specifically states:

Provocation, by means of repeated pressure or maneuvers, of any person suffering from a pathology to abandon or abstain from following medical treatment is punishable by one year of imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros. therapeutic or prophylactic, when this abandonment or abstention is presented as beneficial for the health of the person concerned whereas it is, in the state of medical knowledge, clearly likely to cause for them, taking into account the pathology of which they is affected, particularly serious consequences for their physical or psychological health. 

As written, it appears that any criticism of vaccine products, SSRIs, statins, opioids, drugs and procedures used to transition children, or just about any other product or medical practice that has debatable concerns and unsettled science surrounding it – if currently accepted in ‘medical knowledge’ – is a protected class not to be spoken ill about.

“When the provocation provided for in the first two paragraphs has been followed by effects, the penalties are increased to three years of imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros.” states the proposed French law.

The coincidental timing over the past few years of several pieces of legislation whose effect will be to essentially chill freedom of speech in the end equation must be taken seriously. The good news is that individuals at all levels of society are sounding the alarm to critically analyze and reject all attempts at overarching control over basic human rights – no matter how well packaged and intentioned they may initially seem.

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why C-19 Vaccines Don’t Prevent Infection

Paper by Morens, Taubenberger, and Fauci offers clear explanation

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | March 12, 2024

In the summer of 2022 I had the privilege of having dinner with Professor Robert Clancy—a leading Australian clinical immunologist and a pioneer in the field of mucosal immunology, with 260 publications on the subject.

He explained to me precisely why COVID-19 shots—designed to induce the production of antibodies against the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 in the blood—cannot prevent infection by or transmission of the virus. The trouble, he explained, is that SARS-CoV-2 replicates rapidly in the nasal mucosa and transmits to other people days before it makes it down into the gas exchange region of the lungs and encounters blood antibodies.

This, he further explained, had long been understood about respiratory viruses such as those that cause the common cold and influenza, and this same quality was quickly ascertained about SARS-CoV-2.

Thus, from the outset, it was clear that the COVID-19 vaccines would NOT prevent infection by or transmission of SARS-CoV-2. This reality completely nullified any rationale for vaccine mandates.

Professor Clancy’s explication of this reality has stuck with me ever since. I was reminded of it yesterday when I friend sent me a link to a paper titled Rethinking next-generation vaccines for coronaviruses, influenzaviruses, and other respiratory viruses, by Morens, Taubenberger, and Fauci. As the authors point out:

non-systemic respiratory viruses such as influenza viruses, SARS-CoV-2, and RSV tend to have significantly shorter incubation periods and rapid courses of viral replication. They replicate predominantly in local mucosal tissue, without causing viremia, and do not significantly encounter the systemic immune system or the full force of adaptive immune responses, which take at least 5–7 days to mature, usually well after the peak of viral replication and onward transmission to others. ….

Taking all of these factors into account, it is not surprising that none of the predominantly mucosal respiratory viruses have ever been effectively controlled by vaccines. This observation raises a question of fundamental importance: if natural mucosal respiratory virus infections do not elicit complete and long-term protective immunity against reinfection, how can we expect vaccines, especially systemically administered non-replicating vaccines, to do so? This is a major challenge for future vaccine development, and overcoming it is critical as we work to develop “next-generation” vaccines.

In other words, in November 2022, Dr. Fauci and his colleagues published a paper in which they demonstrated their clear understanding of what Professor Clancy told me at dinner three months earlier—namely, the COVID-19 vaccines cannot “effectively control” SARS-CoV-2. The initial, much publicized claim that they would prevent infection and transmission was a bald-faced lie.

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

UK’s National Health Service to stop prescribing puberty blockers to gender-confused children

LifeSiteNews | March 12, 2024

The British National Health Service (NHS) is formally ending the prescribing of puberty blockers to children with gender confusion, in a major policy shift representing a victory against transgender ideology.

The i Paper reports that the change follows the recommendation of a multi-year independent review led by consultant pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass. The underage use of puberty blockers will now be limited to clinical research trials. The change does not apply to Scotland, whose government says blockers will only be considered for minors “after close psychological and endocrine assessment,” per the report.

“We have always been clear that children’s safety and wellbeing is paramount, so we welcome this landmark decision by the NHS,” said Health Minister Maria Caufield. “Ending the routine prescription of puberty blockers will help ensure that care is based on evidence, expert clinical opinion and is in the best interests of the child.”

Reconsideration of NHS’s standards for chemically “transitioning” young people was bolstered by years of concern over the lax standards at the scandal-ridden Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), operated by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. In January, it was revealed that the facility had seen almost 400 children younger than six years old and more than 70 aged four or younger over the past decade.

The GIDS had long been a source of controversy, from its backing of a discredited study used to justify giving puberty blockers to 11-year-olds, to a case last August in which it approved a “sex-change” procedure for a 22-year-old suffering from over a dozen mental health disorders.

Cass’s report found that the GIDS had failed to consistently collect follow-up data on the long-term outcomes for children who received puberty blockers, “which means it is not possible to accurately track the outcomes and pathways that children and young people take through the service.”

Puberty blockers, which are used to chemically castrate sex offenders, have been shown to devastate bone density in children, putting them at risk of osteoporosis, fractures, and other injuries. Other side effects associated with the drugs include emotional disorders, pseudotumor cerebri, paralysis, renal impairment, sudden cardiac death, and stroke in men, as LifeSiteNews has reported. 

The Tavistock clinic is closing at the end of the month, and on Cass’s recommendation, NHS will be opening a pair of regional clinics in April, which it says will employ a more “holistic approach to care,” including neurodiversity, pediatrics, and mental health.

A significant body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them, or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.

Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.

Some physicians heavily involved in transitioning minors have been caught on video admitting to more old-fashioned motives for such procedures, as with an exposé last year about Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Clinic for Transgender Health in the United States, where Dr. Shayne Sebold Taylor said outright that “these surgeries make a lot of money.”

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Theft of Frozen Russian Assets May Lead to Financial Crisis in the West

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 13.03.2024

While US policymakers are seeking to grab Russia’s sovereign assets altogether, EU officials are planning to find legal ways to seize the profits generated by the assets. Russia has signaled it will retaliate against any form of theft.

An EU official told Reuters that Russian assets frozen in the EU could generate up to €20 billion in after-tax profits through 2027, adding that only part of these profits, as well as a tax on the gross amount, could be sent to the Kiev regime. It was noted the remaining funds, however, would have to stay in the West to create a buffer against Moscow’s retaliation measures.

Of the roughly $282 billion in Russian assets immobilized in Japan and the West, around $207 billion (€191 billion) are held at Euroclear, a clearinghouse based in Belgium.

The official anticipates Euroclear may face a flurry of legal claims from Moscow if Russian money is transferred to Ukraine. The claims are due to come from the Russian Central Bank, which can seize €33 billion in Euroclear funds held in the national securities depository in Moscow as a tit-for-tat move, according to the official.

Russia may also take legal action to seize Euroclear assets held in Hong Kong and Dubai.

Western banks that have lost investment funds in Russia could also sue the clearinghouse, potentially leading to Euroclear’s bankruptcy and triggering a domino effect, given Euroclear’s key role in global financial transactions. The EU official warned that, ultimately, the trail of counterclaims could lead to nothing short of an economic crisis.

Speaking to the Financial Times in mid-February, Lieve Mostrey, chief executive of Euroclear, warned that a G7 plan to use Russia’s frozen assets as a backstop to issue debt for Ukraine, or seize the immobilized assets altogether, could pose serious financial risks to Europe.

“When we come to a logic of seizing of assets (…) then you see the trust in the Euroclear system, the trust in the European capital markets, the trust in euro as a currency substantially affected,” she told FT.

Mostrey remarked that “the risk is a bit lower” if the West grabs profits generated by the frozen sovereign assets.

Russia has underscored it will take retaliatory measures in response to any manipulations with its financial resources illegally immobilized by the West, and that it would perceive any form of grab as “theft”. Euroclear is already facing between 50 and 100 lawsuits in Russian courts over the sanctioned assets.

Any actions with Russian frozen assets will trigger a symmetrical response, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Sputnik in late February, adding that a similar quantity of foreign assets have been frozen in Russia.

The Russian finance minister suggested last December that in the event of confiscation of Russian assets in Europe, Russia may tap foreign funds frozen in so-called Type “C” accounts, a special type of accounts for non-residents introduced by Russia in March 2022. One cannot withdraw money from these accounts as funds can only be used for a limited range of purposes, such as paying taxes or purchasing federal loan bonds.

According to some estimates, by mid-March 2023, up to 1 trillion rubles (€10 billion) could have been accumulated in type “C” accounts in the form of dividends and coupons paid to investors from unfriendly countries at Russia’s National Settlement Depository (NSD).

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov made it clear in early February that Russia is prepared for a decade-long legal battle over the potential seizure of its assets.

“If such decisions are made, they will be deeply illegal. They will have decades-long judicial consequences for those who make these decisions and for those who implement these decisions,” Peskov emphasized.

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Economics | , , | 2 Comments

Russia says no to Switzerland ‘peace conference’

RT | March 13, 2024

Moscow has no intention of participating in a proposed Swiss-hosted peace conference on the Ukraine conflict, even if it is officially invited, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has stated.

The official response follows recent media reports that China and Switzerland have been pushing to get Russia invited to the talks. Last month, Switzerland announced plans to organize a peace summit “by the summer.” No specific date has been named as of yet. The list of participants has also not been revealed. However, Ukraine has indicated that Russia can only be invited if it agrees in advance to a litany of preconditions.

“This forum will be dedicated to promoting the ultimatum ‘Zelensky peace formula,’ although its Swiss organizers pretend that they are looking for a common denominator in the peace initiatives of different countries,” Zakharova said, according to a press release issued on Wednesday on the ministry’s website.

She explained that Zelensky’s plan includes a number of unrealistic terms, including the withdrawal of Russian troops to Ukraine’s 1991 borders, holding Moscow accountable and paying reparations, as well as provisions on food, nuclear safety, energy, ecology, and humanitarian problems. Kiev’s basic demands remain the same, while legitimate Russian interests are being ignored, Zakharova said.

“So, the upcoming conference is a continuation of meetings in the Copenhagen format, which initially discredited themselves, and now have reached a dead end.”

Moscow is convinced that “Switzerland can hardly serve as a platform for various peacekeeping efforts, since this presupposes a neutral status, which Bern has lost,” the spokeswoman claimed.

“All this makes Russia’s participation in the aforementioned ‘peace conference’ pointless as it doesn’t matter whether it will be held in one, two or five stages – its ultimatum essence, promoted by Kiev and its masters, does not change from this,” Zakharova concluded.

Ukraine’s Western backers insist that a peace settlement can only be achieved on Kiev’s terms and have vowed to continue weapons deliveries for “as long as it takes.” Russia, meanwhile, has stressed that no amount of foreign aid will change the course of the conflict.

Peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev were held in the spring of 2022, but broke down with both sides accusing each other of making unrealistic demands.

Russian President Vladimir Putin subsequently said the Ukrainian delegation had initially agreed with some of Russia’s terms during the talks in Istanbul that March, but then abruptly reneged on the deal.

The Kremlin has repeatedly stressed that it remains open to meaningful discussions and has blamed the lack of a diplomatic breakthrough on the Ukrainian authorities.

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

On Israel and rape

By Robert Inlakesh | The Cradle | March 13, 2024

While Israel’s unsubstantiated claims of rape on 7 October have dominated western media headlines, credible documented cases of rape against Palestinians and Israeli-on-Israeli sexual assault have received far less attention.

Israel’s scourge of sexual violence and rape incidents did not originate five months ago – its roots go deeper and farther back than that, and there is a crucial context essential for understanding the country’s domestic environment of abuse.

Israel’s massive sexual violence problem

On 8 February, Haaretz brought to light a harrowing revelation: 116 separate files detailing instances of sexual assault and domestic violence against women and minors among Israelis ‘displaced’ from their illegal settlements due to the ongoing military conflicts with Gaza and Lebanon.

The cases surfaced during a special Knesset committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, where “committee chair MK Pnina Tamano-Shata [National Unity Party] chastised police representatives for failing to collect accurate data from each hotel regarding violence and sexual attacks.”

Although there were disputes over a lack of complete data, disturbing incidents were highlighted, including a case of pedophilia involving a 23-year-old establishing a “relationship with a 13-year-old girl, both living in the same hotel” and a rape committed after a man followed a woman to her room. It also noted that elevators were places of particular vulnerability for sexual assault and violence.

Cases of sexual assault were not confined to the approximately 200,000 ‘displaced’ settlers. There have also been credible claims by a female soldier that she was raped by a fellow serviceman during the ongoing brutal military assault on Gaza.

Sexual harassment and violence are nothing new among Israel’s armed forces. According to a Haaretz report, “a third of female conscripts in the military had suffered sexual harassment at least once in the previous year [2022].”

Haaretz noted that most victims avoid reporting what happened to them and that “70 percent of those young women who did report what happened to them stated that their report was not handled at all, or not handled sufficiently.”

In 2020, the Israeli army’s sexual violence crisis was recognized after only 31 indictments were filed out of 1,542 sexual assault complaints registered within the military establishment.

That’s a stunning indictment of the ‘world’s most moral army.’ And it isn’t just Israel’s war establishment afflicted with the rape bug.

Rape, normalized in Israel

In addition to being a regional hub for human trafficking and a haven for pedophiles, Israel consistently ranks the highest in West Asia for documented cases of rape and sexual assaults. 

In 2020, protests erupted across Israel after 30 men gang-raped an intoxicated 16-year-old girl, which prompted Ilana Weizman, of the Israeli women’s rights group HaStickeriot, to disclose that a shocking one in five Israeli women was raped during her lifetime, with 260 cases reported every day.

In March 2021, a series of gang rapes against minors, with the youngest victim being just 10-years-old, sparked widespread concern in Israel over the prevalence of sexual assault. APCCI said that the rate of violent sexual offenses in Israel was 10 percent higher than the average for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, labeling it as an “epidemic.” A Knesset report from the same year revealed that nearly half of the sexual abuse cases between 2019 and 2020 involved underage girls.

Back in 2016, activists from Jewish Community Watch warned that Israel was becoming a “safe haven for pedophiles,” noting that sexual offenders were using the Israeli Law of Return, which allows any Jew to claim citizenship and live in occupied Palestine. Years later, in 2020, CBS News released a report entitled ‘How Jewish American pedophiles hide from justice in Israel,’ which demonstrated how wanted individuals were walking free in Israel, leaving behind a spate of unresolved criminal cases.

To add insult to injury, Hebrew media reported that 92 percent of civil rape investigations were closed without charges in Israel.

According to the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI), despite the country’s ‘good laws’ on sexual assault, inadequate enforcement of these laws means that people use “legal tricks” to avoid retribution for assaults, with many assailants avoiding prosecution. In short, “people are not afraid to hurt. There is no fear or retribution.”

Occasionally, in high-profile cases of rape and sexual assault, the Israeli judicial system has been known to act, as evidenced by the conviction of former Israeli president Moshe Katsav in 2010 for raping an aide and sexually harassing two other women.

However, Katsav’s release after serving just five years of a seven-year sentence ignited a debate on the early release of sex offenders. In 2022, APCCI reported that 75 percent of sexual offenders in Israel are released before completing their full sentence.

Israel, weaponizing rape against Palestinians

From the time of Israel’s founding, rape has been extensively documented in its use as a weapon of war against Palestinians. In a 2022 documentary named after the Israeli massacre in the Palestinian village of Tantura, horrific admissions of rape committed by the Alexandroni Brigade were acknowledged for the first time on camera.

There are also various other reported cases of rape from that period: at least three rapes, one committed against a 14-year-old Palestinian girl, that occurred during the Safsaf massacre in October of 1948.

Because rape and other forms of sexual violence are often difficult to prove conclusively, it is essential to note that early Zionists also weaponized the threat of sexual violence, especially surrounding the massacre of Deir Yassin in 1948.

As documented by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in his book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” stories of explicit gendered atrocities were deliberately spread to encourage residents of other villages to flee. In a recent series of interviews conducted with two Nakba survivors, both revealed that they fled their villages specifically due to the rape atrocities in the village of Deir Yassin.

Today, that same attitude of sexualizing vulnerable Palestinians is apparent in the countless snuff films published widely on social media with the approval of the Israeli military, featuring male Israeli soldiers going through the underwear drawers of Palestinian women and even mockingly wearing their lingerie.

This, coupled with what a UN panel of experts recently said were “credible allegations” of sexual assault against Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers operating in Gaza, indicate a clear pattern of gendered violence taking place in the war.

At least two cases of rape, along with numerous cases of sexual humiliation and threats of rape, have also been recorded. Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, has noted that “We might not know for a long time what the actual number of victims are.”

Systematic sexual humiliation 

In 2002, during the Second Intifada, Israeli occupation soldiers took control of Palestinian TV networks in the West Bank city of Ramallah to broadcast pornography on several channels. Knowing that Palestinian society is a socially conservative one, it is clear that this was done with the intent of humiliation.

A prominent case of recent sexual humiliation in the West Bank occurred just last year near the city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) and was investigated in a joint Haaretz-B’Tselem report. On 10 July, between 25–30 Israeli soldiers burst into the Ajluni family’s home, forcing five Palestinian women to strip naked at gunpoint and threatening to unleash army attack dogs on them.

One woman named Amal was taken into a private room with her children and forced to take off her clothes. The report states: “the children also had to witness their mother being ordered to turn around while naked as she sobbed over the humiliation. About 10 minutes later she and the children were taken out of the room pale and trembling.”

While it is not possible to note every single case of sexual violence perpetrated against Palestinian women by Israeli forces, it is well documented that female prisoners have been subjected to some of the worst forms of it.

During the Second Intifada, there were countless allegations of sexual violence against women and girls in Israeli military detention, a trend which Israeli human rights group B’Tselem reports is again on the rise. The rights group said that the Palestinian female detainees recently released in the Hamas–Israel prisoner exchange were subjected to “threats of rape” and “were humiliatingly strip-searched several times” after their violent arrests.

The following is part of 47-year-old Lama al-Fakhouri’s testimony, recorded by B’Tselem after her release from detention:

An interrogator came in and asked me in English what I thought about what Hamas did. He swore at me and called me a ‘whore.’ He said there were 20 soldiers in the room and that they would rape me like Hamas–ISIS raped Jewish women in southern Israel. He kept swearing at me and threatening me and my family. Then, a female soldier came and took me to another room with more female soldiers, who told me: ‘Welcome to hell.’ They sat me in a chair and started laughing at me and calling me ‘whore’ again and again.

Speaking to the media following her release from Israeli detention late last year, Baraah Abo Ramouz said the following about the “devastating” conditions faced by female Palestinian prisoners:

They are being constantly beaten. They’re being sexually assaulted. They are being raped. I’m not exaggerating. The prisoners are being raped.

In 2022, the Shin Bet dropped a case of sexual assault against a Palestinian woman detained in 2015 over “lack of evidence.” This is despite the fact that a doctor and female soldiers had admitted to inappropriately touching the woman’s private parts, while the company commander in control admitted to giving the order. The victim’s filed appeal states:

In a situation in which there is no dispute that acts that constitute rape and sodomy were committed, [in which] there is sufficient evidence, and when no one is punished, it’s outrageous and unbearable.

According to former US State Department official Josh Paul, after he and his colleagues received credible evidence that Israeli forces had raped a 14-year-old Palestinian boy in Al-Moskibiyya detention center, Israel raided the offices of the human rights group that passed the information on to the State Department, later declaring it a terrorist organization.

False narratives fueling war crimes 

While the Israeli government pushes the story that Hamas implemented a pre-planned systematic rape campaign on 7 October, for which there has been no independent investigation or evidence produced, documented cases of sexual violence are undermined and ignored.

The mere fact that Israel’s notorious ZAKA rescue service relied upon heavily for testimonies of rape on 7 October, was founded by serial rapist Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, nicknamed the ‘Haredi Jeffrey Epstein,’ is telling.

The wholly unsubstantiated rape claims of the Israeli government – widely amplified and parroted by western media – are impossible to take seriously when a known propaganda outfit like ZAKA is the source.

The UN Office of the Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict recently released a report after its Special Representative Pramila Patten completed an eight-day trip requested by the Israeli government.

The report on sexual violence allegations was produced by a team of nine UN experts and had no investigative mandate. Yet statements from it made headlines in western media, suggesting that the UN had confirmed Israel’s narrative, although the report in no way substantiated it.

In the case of sexual violence allegations made about Kibbutz Be’eri, from where the majority of the allegations emerged, there was no evidence found. Two cases were debunked by the UN team as having been “unfounded.”

In one, widely cited as proof of rape, a woman was found separated from her family with her underwear pulled down. The UN team said that the “crime scene had been altered by a bomb squad, and the bodies moved.”

The UN report also noted that the interrogations of alleged participants in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by Israeli intelligence agencies were not considered as evidence, another major blow to Israel’s body of claims.

In Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where the report concluded “the recurring pattern of female victims found undressed, 18 bound, and shot – indicates that sexual violence, including potential sexualized torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, may have occurred,” it also notes that “verification of sexual violence against these victims was not possible at this point.”

Given that the UN team found that Israelis had altered other crime scenes, an independent investigation would be needed to confirm that the crime scenes weren’t equally compromised.

The human cost of Israel’s lies 

It should also be noted that the recent New York Times scandal – where its investigation into sexual violence on 7 October was directly discredited by the family members of a woman they tried to claim was raped – dealt a massive blow to the credibility of Israel’s narrative.

During Primila Patten’s press conference, in which she addressed the findings of her UN mission, she admitted that they had not interviewed any victims and did not find a systematic campaign of sexual violence, nor was the team able to attribute sexual violence to any specific Palestinian resistance group.

To make matters worse, a thread on X showed that the head of the Israeli National Center of Forensic Evidence, Chen Kugel, was responsible for sharing debunked atrocity propaganda himself, such as the beheaded babies lie.

Amidst the recurrent circulation of unverified claims lacking independent investigation, these graphic and unsubstantiated allegations fuel widespread sexual violence against vulnerable Palestinians.

Israel, grappling with its own internal sexual assault issues, has a troubling history of utilizing gender-based violence within its military jurisdiction. The disproportionate lack of attention towards the ongoing atrocities perpetrated by the occupation state illustrates a clear double standard perpetuated by western mainstream media.

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment

Israel killed more children in Gaza in 5 months than all global conflicts for last 4 years: UN rapporteur

MEMO | March 13, 2024

In just five months, Israel has killed more children in a strip of land the size of the US city of Philadelphia than all conflicts worldwide did in the past four years combined, said a UN special rapporteur today.

In a scathing report presented to the United Nations, Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, decried the ongoing crisis in Gaza, describing it as a systematic process tantamount to genocide.

Albanese’s report underscores the harrowing reality faced by Palestinian children under Israeli occupation, highlighting the devastating toll of the conflict.

“Destroying a population from its roots. Genocide is a process, not an act, and what is happening in Gaza is a tragedy foretold. See my report on the treatment of Palestinian children under Israeli occupation,” she wrote on X.

The report details the relentless assault on Gaza’s civilian population, particularly its children, who have borne the brunt of the violence. Albanese’s findings paint a disturbing picture of systematic targeting, indiscriminate bombings and the destruction of essential infrastructure, leaving countless families displaced and communities in ruins.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since October. Over 31,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and over 73,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

American-Israeli Professor: US & Allies Will Help Israel Ethnically Cleanse Palestine

By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 13.03.2024

There has been a growing public rift between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s plan to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, the last designated safe area in the region.

Despite the growing public rift, Israel has nothing to fear from Biden and the United States will ultimately assist Israel in ethnically cleansing Palestine in more ways than just supplying weapons, professor, activist and anthropologist Jeff Halper told Sputnik’s Fault Lines on Tuesday.

“[Israel] is a settler colonial movement. Therefore, in order to transform Palestine into Israel, an Arab country to a Jewish country, you have to displace the population and you have to take its land. This isn’t only happening in Gaza. This is certainly happening in the West Bank as well,” Halper explained. “By destroying Gaza… it makes it impossible for the Gazans to come back. Now, Israel would like Egypt to take them and put them in the Sanai [desert], [but] Egypt says no.”

Instead, the United States and other Western countries will take the Gazans into their country. “The United States will say ‘Alright, we’ll take 50,000,’ Canada will say – Canada already said this – ‘we’ll take 30,40,50,000.’ Each European country will take a few thousand or tens of thousands, Australia, New Zealand and so on. Israel could get rid of a million or more Palestinians, with the help – the complicity – of European and North American countries, under the guise of humanitarian aid for refugees… That’s what Israel is calling ‘voluntary transfer.’”

Earlier, Co-host Jamarl Thomas asked about Egypt’s intentions, noting that satellite imagery has shown that infrastructure is being built in the Sinai desert, presumably meant to house potential Palestinian refugees.

“They’re building a camp, but not as [part of] a plan,” Halper explained. “They built the camp because they’re afraid… that if in fact, Israel does invade Rafah in the south, there isn’t really a good plan of where those people go. The combination of military pressure plus starvation is simply going to drive a million Palestinians through the border… If there [is] a massive break out of Gaza in the direction of Egypt, then Egypt is prepared for that… It isn’t for any kind of voluntary plan, it’s for that possibility.”

Israel’s ultimate plan, Halper argues, is to greatly lower the number of Palestinians in the region and then create an apartheid for the remainder.

“[Israel will] lock them into small little islands with the help of Biden, we’ll call those Bantustans a state, and now we have a two-state solution. Israel is on 85% of the country, it controls everything [and] it’s a Jewish country, but there’s a Palestinian state on a few little islands that will be recognized by the international community and now we’re done with the Palestinians and we can move on,” Halper explained. “In other words, Israel thinks it can get away with apartheid in a way South Africa couldn’t, and there’s good reason to believe that might be true.”

Rather than push for a two-state solution that is looking increasingly less likely, Halper argued that Israel should be converted “into one democratic state of equal rights for all its citizens.”

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The CIA Admits Its Long-Time Presence in Ukraine

By Brad Pearce | The Libertarian Institute | March 13, 2024

On February 25, The New York Times published an article titled “The Spy War: How the CIA Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin.” This report was not the result of any leak, but was clearly authorized from the highest level: the CIA brought reporters in to tell the story. Though many spoke on the condition of anonymity to “discuss intelligence matters and sensitive diplomacy,” they do not even create the pretense that this is a story that the CIA doesn’t want the public to know. The clear purpose, stated almost explicitly near the end of the article, is to guilt the Republicans in Congress into supporting Ukraine aid, with the argument that we are “in too deep” and cannot abandon them like our erstwhile allies in Afghanistan. The impact of the article was muted and it was barely discussed outside of those critical of Ukraine aid, because neither the CIA nor the Times seem to have realized the implications of these admissions: it shows that the post-Maidan government of Ukraine pro-actively made itself the base of a hostile conspiracy against Russia.

The short summary of what The New York Times presents is that after the U.S.-backed “Maidan Revolution” in Ukraine in 2014, the newly appointed spymaster went to the intelligence headquarters to find that all of the files had been destroyed when the previous government left. He immediately called the CIA and MI6 to form an alliance to counter Russia. They created a specialized anti-Russia division, staffed exclusively by people born after the fall of the USSR (at that time, no older than 23) and began training them in spying on and sabotaging Russia. The Ukrainian intelligence agents were anti-Russia zealots who expressed a hatred of all Russian speakers, not simply opposition to Putin’s regime or Russian imperialism. The CIA were unable to control their proteges, who carried out violent missions against Russia and the allied “People’s Republics.” This is described as an American “beachhead” against Russia in Ukraine. Since the February 2022 invasion, the CIA has been involved in acts of war against Russia from a network of U.S.-funded bases across Ukraine.

We haven’t heard any of the normal pontificating about “operational security” and “sources and methods” since this was released. The CIA wants us to read this investigation, and the government isn’t pretending otherwise. Besides the transparent purpose—that it should guilt people into funding Ukraine—there are a few other theories as to why this was released. The first would be that it is a “limited hangout,” meaning they are admitting this much in the hopes people don’t look further into it. The next is that it is what some call “pre-bunking,” which is to say that they know a scandalous story is coming out and this is to get ahead of it. But it takes at least a few weeks to produce a story of this size, if not a couple of months, so it would be really risky to release this hoping it would come out before other information that they could not control the release of; the Times claims to have conducted over 200 interviews with only two authors. The other possibility is that it signifies a coming break up between the CIA and Ukrainian intelligence, which is possible, given that The New York Times published another article titled, “Mutual Frustrations Arise in US-Ukraine Alliance,” which described the relationship in terms clearly meant to invoke a troubled marriage. However, the most likely answer is the simplest: they are proud of what they have done, and think by telling the world it will encourage more funding.

By publishing this in The New York Times, the idea that the CIA was highly active in an anti-Russian conspiracy operating in Ukraine is another thing that has moved from the realm of “conspiracy theory” to “of course it’s true, and here’s why that’s a good thing.” But for all of this, there has been very little discourse about the story, and most of that has been from skeptics of arming Ukraine. It did not have the impact that they wanted, but it seems to have not had impact at all. The supporters of Ukraine throughout the media do not have anything to say about this specific Times article, despite that publication being the gate-keeper of respectable discourse and usually once it prints something it can be discussed everywhere. If this was a ploy to get more funding, it doesn’t seem to have worked.

What both the CIA and The New York Times failed to understand about their story is that it reinforces many of Russia’s key points. The most important of which is that we have constantly been told that Russia presents a threat to all of its neighbors and that Finland and Poland need to be afraid (though they certainly don’t act like it) and that if Russia isn’t stopped in Ukraine they will roll their tanks into Brussels. It doesn’t seem anyone actually believes this, but they say it. The Times exposed a different story, which shows that, as Russia has said, Ukraine was a unique situation for a variety of reasons. Per the Times, it is true that an anti-Russia spy conspiracy was centered in Ukraine, by people who hate all Russian speakers. It’s obvious to a reader that these are drastically irresponsible people driven by ethnic hatred-—towards the people who inhabit a region they want us to help them reconquer and rule. It is a different question if any of what we learn in this article “justifies” a large military invasion which has caused enormous human suffering on both sides, but the CIA has chosen to admit that post-Maidan Ukraine went to great efforts to pose a threat to Russia. This shows that there is no reason to believe Russia poses a threat to any neighbors who would choose to pursue a policy of peace and good relations. I suppose it is no surprise that they would admit everything we are meant to believe about the war is a lie, but expect us to support their war anyway.

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Latvia threatening Russian citizens for participating in voting

By Lucas Leiroz | March 13, 2024

The persecution of ethnic Russian civilians in the Baltics appears to be increasing. Now, Latvian authorities say that Russian citizens could be deported from the country if they vote in the Russian Federation’s upcoming presidential elections. The case clearly shows how the Baltic countries are in an advanced process of Russophobia and Nazi rehabilitation, reaching alarming levels of state violence against ordinary people.

On March 11, the head of the Latvian State Police, Armands Ruks, informed the local press that the country’s authorities will be monitoring Russian citizens who visit the Russian Federation’s embassy to vote in the presidential elections. According to him, some of these citizens could be selected for deportation, if the Latvian government deems it necessary.

Ruks stated that access routes to the Russian embassy will be controlled by the police, as well as that migration checkpoints will be inspecting Russian citizens who allegedly “fail to comply with residence rules”. According to Ruks, support for the special military operation in Ukraine (called an “unjustified invasion” in Latvia and throughout the West) is a violation of the rules to stay in Latvian territory for Russian citizens.

Previously, the Latvian Ministry of Justice had already reported that the mere act of voting in the presidential elections is a gesture of “support for the invasion”, which is why ethnic Russians on Latvian soil are actually being coerced into not participating in electoral process – otherwise, their visas will be canceled and they will be deported.

As is well known, a quarter of the Latvian population is ethnic Russian. More than 25 thousand Russian citizens live in the country and many of them are expected to vote to choose the Russian president in the coming days. However, the high levels of anti-Russian paranoia and racism in Latvia are making the country truly dangerous for these thousands of Russian citizens. With the threat of deportation, many Russians on Latvian soil will certainly be prevented from participating in the political life of their own country – having their citizenship rights violated by the Latvian government’s anti-Russian guidelines.

It must be remembered that this is not the first hostile policy towards Russian citizens adopted by the Latvian government. Since the beginning of the special military operation, ethnic Russians have been the target of segregation and persecution measures. Latvia simply began a process of eradicating the Russian language, forcing thousands of ethnic Russians to pass a Latvian language proficiency exam. Russians who fail or refuse to take the test have been deported.

In practice, thousands of elderly Russians who have lived in Latvia since Soviet times have been forced to suddenly learn a language they never spoke, if they do not want to lose their home. This type of policy is similar to apartheid and racial segregation regimes, but the Collective West does not seem interested in criticizing such an authoritarian aspect of the Latvian government, as the country is absolutely subservient to NATO.

This submission to the West has led the Baltic state to spend around 1% of its entire GDP on weapons for the Kiev regime. Like the other Baltic countries, in addition to Poland, Latvia is heavily involved in financing the war, being one of the countries most willing to escalate the conflict, given the high levels of anti-Russian sentiment among local elites.

In fact, the mistreatment of Russian citizens in Latvia appears increasingly close to a red line. Trying to prevent Russians from voting in presidential elections is absolutely intolerable, since, in practice, the Latvian government is simply forcing Russians to stop exercising their own political rights.

Obviously, the Latvian argument about “war support” is fallacious. There is no “support” expressed in the mere act of voting in an election. By voting, Russian citizens are simply choosing who should govern the country, which obviously does not make them co-participants in any military action. So, the Latvian government’s narrative has no validity: what is happening in the country is just a policy of real ethnic persecution, having nothing to do with any initiative to prevent “support” for Russian military actions.

Moscow has always made clear that protecting its citizens, even abroad, is a Russian priority. With Russian citizens having their rights violated in Latvia, relations between Russia and the Baltic countries will further deteriorate, potentially reaching a point of no return very soon. If Latvia continues to escalate its measures and reaches the point of launching direct violence and physical coercion against Russians, Moscow will certainly take very serious measures to prevent its citizens from being attacked.

To avoid this deterioration in diplomacy, international society must mobilize to condemn Latvia until it reverses its apartheid-like policies. However, unfortunately it is unlikely that Western countries will agree to participate in any such initiative, as they remain subservient to NATO.

Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

March 13, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia | , | 1 Comment