Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Ecuadorians reject all proposals in 2025 referendum

Al Mayadeen | November 17, 2025

Ecuadorian voters delivered a decisive blow to President Daniel Noboa on November 16, 2025, rejecting all four questions posed in a national referendum. With roughly 90% of the ballots counted, more than 60% of voters opposed lifting the constitutional ban on foreign military bases, and similar majorities rejected proposals to eliminate public funding for political parties, reduce the number of legislators, and convene a constituent assembly.

This outcome dealt a significant setback to Noboa’s administration, which had framed the referendum as a solution to Ecuador’s worsening security crisis. His plans to welcome US military installations in Manta and Salinas hinged on overturning the 2008 Constitution’s prohibition on foreign bases. However, the majority of Ecuadorians voted to preserve their constitutional protections and sovereignty.

The referendum included three constitutional reforms and one popular consultation:

  • Question A proposed removing the ban on foreign military installations, opening the door for a US return to coastal bases.
  • Question B aimed to eliminate state financing for political parties, a move critics said would undermine opposition groups.
  • Question C sought to halve the National Assembly.
  • Question D proposed establishing a constituent assembly to rewrite the Constitution.

The results were unequivocal: 60.56% opposed foreign bases,  58.04% voted against ending public party funding, 53.47% rejected the reduction of assembly members, and 61.61% rejected the constituent assembly.

Political fallout for Daniel Noboa

Noboa, who was re-elected in April 2025, positioned himself as a law-and-order leader aligned closely with Washington. He promoted the referendum as a means to address rampant violence and crime, exacerbated by gang activity and weakening public institutions. Yet the electorate’s verdict reflected broader dissatisfaction, not only with the proposals, but also with the government’s approach to governance.

The administration’s removal of diesel subsidies in September, which triggered a month-long national strike and left three dead, deeply damaged public trust. This unrest, paired with concerns over sovereignty and democratic erosion, fueled a grassroots rejection of Noboa’s agenda.

Grassroots mobilization

Opposition to the referendum coalesced into a broad front that included environmentalists, labor unions, indigenous movements, and former President Rafael Correa’s supporters. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) led the “No” campaign through a nationwide “minga,” or communal mobilization, emphasizing collective defense of Ecuador’s sovereignty and constitutional rights.

Despite the government’s well-funded media campaign and endorsements from international allies, the opposition leveraged community assemblies and grassroots activism to reach voters. The referendum thus became a referendum not just on policy, but on the legitimacy of foreign influence and elite-driven reform.

Implications for US military strategy in Latin America

Washington had quietly backed Noboa’s plan to reintroduce US forces to Ecuador. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem toured the proposed base sites days before the vote, a move seen by many as overreach. The US previously operated out of Manta until 2009, when Ecuador’s ban on foreign bases forced its departure.

The rejection halts plans for permanent US installations in Ecuador and complicates regional military operations, particularly counternarcotics missions in the eastern Pacific. Without Ecuadorian bases, the US must rely on more distant and costly alternatives in El Salvador, Puerto Rico, or at sea.

November 17, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

The Surgeon General’s Final Diagnosis: When the Doctor Who Silenced the Sick Prescribes “Love”

By Sayer Ji | November 11, 2025

Before Dr. Vivek Murthy prescribed “community” as America’s cure, he helped engineer the policies that tore it apart.

When outgoing Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released his January 2025 essay, “My Parting Prescription for America,” it was framed as a heartfelt reflection on the nation’s loneliness and disconnection. The document reads like a sermon on “love,” “service,” and “community” — invoking Christian compassion, Hindu dharma, and African Ubuntu to offer a kind of spiritual healing for America’s fractured soul.

But beneath the soft prose lies a striking irony: the very official who now urges the nation to “choose community” presided over one of the most divisive and dehumanizing public health regimes in U.S. history. His tenure was marked by systematic censorship, defamation of independent scientists and health advocates, and the suppression of truthful reporting about vaccine injuries and deaths — all documented in federal court filings and corroborated by congressional investigation.

The Surgeon General Who Prescribed Silence

In 2021, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy partnered with the now-disgraced Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and its soon-to-be-deported founder, Imran Ahmed, to launch a campaign labeling “health misinformation” as a public threat and urging social media companies to “take more aggressive action” against those who questioned the official COVID-19 narrative.

As detailed in Finn v. Global Engagement Center (3:25-cv-00543) (Doc. 83), Murthy’s office collaborated with entities like the CCDH, the White House, and Big Tech platforms to pressure for the removal or throttling of lawful speech — including posts about natural immunity, vaccine injury, and early treatment protocols.

This coordination, which the complaint describes as a “fusion of state and private power to suppress disfavored viewpoints,” forms part of a broader transnational censorship enterprise now under legal scrutiny.

Murthy’s rhetoric about “protecting public health” masked an unprecedented effort to erase public testimony from the vaccine-injured and to delegitimize independent medical experts whose research contradicted pharmaceutical and government messaging. Many of those targeted — including myself — were falsely branded as part of the “Disinformation Dozen,” a defamatory construct disseminated to newsrooms worldwide through UK-linked NGOs and U.S. federal agencies.

Covering the Wounds He Helped Inflict

In his “Parting Prescription,” Murthy writes that “community is the formula for fulfillment” and that the modern epidemic of loneliness demands “love, courage, and generosity.”

Yet his own tenure systematically dismantled trust and belonging, dividing families, churches, and workplaces through moralized public health edicts.
Lockdowns, school closures, and vaccine mandates — all publicly championed by Murthy — fractured communities, creating the very isolation he now laments.

The Surgeon General who now preaches about “connection” was among those who ordered Americans to sever their most human bonds: to distance from loved ones, to shun the unvaccinated, and to treat dissenters as diseased threats.

His later call to “build a new social contract” founded on service and civic programs like the “Youth Mental Health Corps”is telling. It repackages the same surveillance-based public health infrastructure — behavioral tracking, centralized intervention, social credit by another name — in the language of compassion.

Weaponizing Psychology: Pathologizing Dissent

Murthy’s tenure advanced a subtle but potent form of psychological warfare: pathologizing dissent as sickness.

When he declares that division and distrust are symptoms of a “spiritual crisis,” he erases the political and moral legitimacy of resistance. Those who refused the experimental injections, questioned corporate capture of science, or defended medical choice are reframed not as engaged citizens but as patients in need of behavioral correction.

This framing, echoed by the World Health Organization and the Surgeon General’s “advisories,” lays the groundwork for the next phase of informational control — one cloaked not in censorship, but in therapeutic paternalism.

The Great Inversion: Coercion as Care

At the heart of Murthy’s “Prescription” is a moral inversion: coercion recast as compassion.

Throughout the pandemic, his messaging repeatedly equated compliance with virtue and questioning with harm. His Office’s partnership with the CDC and White House COVID Response Team normalized the language of “protecting others” — a phrase that justified censorship, job loss, and social exclusion.

Now, Murthy’s final reflection dresses that same ideology in the soft robes of empathy. His triad of “relationships, service, and purpose”reads less like a personal wellness philosophy than a state catechism — urging citizens to find meaning through collective obedience to approved narratives.

The Spiritual Disguise of Technocratic Power

Murthy’s invocation of faith traditions — Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Ubuntu — is striking not for its inclusivity, but for its instrumental use of sacred language to legitimize centralized authority.

In merging spirituality with governance, Murthy mirrors a broader trend in global health policy: the conversion of care into control, where moral virtue is measured by conformity to bureaucratic “truth.”

The true crisis is not loneliness, but alienation from truth — a wound deepened by those who censored, shamed, and silenced the nation under the guise of saving it.

From Surgeon General to Social Engineer

Murthy closes his “Prescription” with a challenge:

“We are kin, not enemies… Good people with hearts full of love can change the world.”

But for the thousands of Americans censored, deplatformed, and defamed under his watch, and many more who were injured or killed by the experimental jabs he declared were necessary, those words ring as hollow as a pharmaceutical apology after the damage is done.

True love cannot coexist with coercion. True community cannot be built on lies.

The enduring legacy of Murthy’s public health tenure is not one of healing but of division, distrust, and epistemic violence — the destruction of the social immune system that protects a free people: open inquiry and dissent.

A Prescription Reversed

If Murthy’s farewell message was sincere, his repentance would begin with acknowledgment — of the vaccine-injured, of the silenced physicians, of the citizens whose livelihoods and voices were destroyed in the name of “safety.”
Until then, his “parting prescription” serves not as medicine, but as mirror — reflecting the psychological alchemy of a technocratic era that calls its injuries love.

Referendes

  1. Murthy’s My Parting Prescription for America (your uploaded PDF) — referenced for quotes and thematic contrast.
  2. Ji et al. v. Center for Countering Digital Hate et al. (Doc. 83 – Second Amended Complaint) — for legal and factual references regarding Murthy’s actions, coordination, and the broader censorship regime.
  3. Judicial and congressional context — including Missouri v. Biden and Kennedy v. Murthy, which form the legal frame for federal involvement in viewpoint suppression.

November 15, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

EU’s “Democracy Shield” Centralizes Control Over Online Speech

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | November 13, 2025

European authorities have finally unveiled the “European Democracy Shield,” we’ve been warning about for some time, a major initiative that consolidates and broadens existing programs of the European Commission to monitor and restrict digital information flows.

Though branded as a safeguard against “foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI)” and “disinformation,” the initiative effectively gives EU institutions unprecedented authority over the online public sphere.

At its core, the framework fuses a variety of mechanisms into a single structure, from AI-driven content detection and regulation of social media influencers to a state-endorsed web of “fact-checkers.”

The presentation speaks of defending democracy, yet the design reveals a machinery oriented toward centralized control of speech, identity, and data.

One of the more alarming integrations links the EU’s Digital Identity program with content filtering and labelling systems.

The Commission has announced plans to “explore possible further measures with the Code’s signatories,” including “detection and labelling of AI-generated and manipulated content circulating on social media services” and “voluntary user-verification tools.”

Officials describe the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet as a means for “secure identification and authentication.”

In real terms, tying verified identity to online activity risks normalizing surveillance and making anonymity in expression a thing of the past.

The Democracy Shield also includes the creation of a “European Centre for Democratic Resilience,” led by Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath.

Framed as a voluntary coordination hub, its mission is “building capacities to withstand foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) and disinformation,” involving EU institutions, Member States, and “neighboring countries and like-minded partners.”

The Centre’s “Stakeholder Platform” is to unite “trusted stakeholders such as civil society organisations, researchers and academia, fact-checkers and media providers.”

In practice, this structure ties policymaking, activism, and media oversight into one cooperative network, eroding the boundaries between government power and public discourse.

Financial incentives reinforce the system. A “European Network of Fact-Checkers” will be funded through EU channels, positioned as independent yet operating within the same institutional framework that sets the rules.

The network will coordinate “fact-checking” in every EU language, maintain a central database of verdicts, and introduce “a protection scheme for fact-checkers in the EU against threats and harassment.”

Such an arrangement destroys the line between independent verification and state-aligned narrative enforcement.

The Commission will also fund a “common research support framework,” giving select researchers privileged access to non-public platform data via the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Political Advertising Regulation.

Officially, this aims to aid academic research, but it could also allow state-linked analysts to map, classify, and suppress online viewpoints deemed undesirable.

Plans extend further into media law. The European Commission intends to revisit the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) to ensure “viewers – particularly younger ones – are adequately protected when they consume audiovisual content online.”

While framed around youth protection, such language opens the door to broad filtering and regulation of online media.

Another initiative seeks to enlist digital personalities through a “voluntary network of influencers to raise awareness about relevant EU rules, including the DSA.” Brussels will “consider the role of influencers” during its upcoming AVMSD review.

Though presented as transparent outreach, the move effectively turns social media figures into de facto promoters of official EU messaging, reshaping public conversation under the guise of awareness.

The Shield also introduces a “Digital Services Act incidents and crisis protocol” between the EU and signatories of the Code of Practice on Disinformation to “facilitate coordination among relevant authorities and ensure swift reactions to large-scale and potentially transnational information operations.”

This could enable coordinated suppression of narratives across borders. Large platforms exceeding 45 million EU users face compliance audits, with penalties reaching 6% of global revenue or even platform bans, making voluntary cooperation more symbolic than real.

A further layer comes with the forthcoming “Blueprint for countering FIMI and disinformation,” offering governments standardized guidance to “anticipate, detect and respond” to perceived information threats. Such protocols risk transforming free expression into a regulated domain managed under preemptive suspicion.

Existing structures are being fortified, too. The European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), already central to “disinformation” monitoring, will receive expanded authority for election and crisis surveillance. This effectively deepens the fusion of state oversight and online communication control.

Funding through the “Media Resilience Programme” will channel EU resources to preferred outlets, while regulators examine ways to “strengthen the prominence of media services of general interest.”

This includes “impact investments in the news media sector” and efforts to build transnational platforms promoting mainstream narratives. Though described as supporting “independent and local journalism,” the model risks reinforcing state-aligned voices while sidelining dissenting ones.

Education and culture are not exempt. The Commission plans “Guidelines for teachers and educators on tackling disinformation and promoting digital literacy through education and training,” along with new “media literacy” programs and an “independent network for media literacy.”

While such initiatives appear benign, they often operate on the assumption that government-approved information is inherently trustworthy, conditioning future generations to equate official consensus with truth.

Viewed as a whole, the European Democracy Shield represents a major institutional step toward centralized narrative management in the European Union.

Under the language of “protection,” Brussels is constructing a comprehensive apparatus for monitoring and shaping the flow of information.

For a continent that once defined itself through open debate and free thought, this growing web of bureaucratic control signals a troubling shift.

Efforts framed as defense against disinformation now risk becoming tools for suppressing dissent, a paradox that may leave European democracy less free in the name of making it “safe.”

November 14, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | 1 Comment

Trump’s and the Pentagon’s Illegal Killings in the Caribbean

By Jacob G. Hornberger | The Future of Freedom Foundation | November 13, 2025

In federal criminal cases, U.S. District Judges issue the following types of instruction to jurors:

“The indictment is not evidence of any kind. It is simply the formal method of accusing a person of a crime. It has no bearing on the defendant’s guilt or innocence, and you must not consider it in your deliberations except as an accusation. You must not assume the defendant is guilty just because he or she has been indicted. The defendant begins this trial with a clean slate.The burden is entirely on the government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

In other words, an indictment carries absolutely no evidentiary weight whatsoever. It is simply an accusation. It is not proof. It is not evidence. The jury is prohibited from considering it when deciding guilt or innocence.

This principle applies to any person accused of violating federal criminal statutes.

President Trump and the Pentagon have now attacked and killed more than 70 people on the high seas in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean near South America. They justify these killings by claiming that the victims are engaged in a violations of U.S. federal drug laws.

But the fact is that Trump’s and the Pentagon’s claims are nothing more than  informal accusations. In fact, their informal accusations don’t even amount to a formal accusation set forth in a grand-jury indictment. That’s because a grand jury cannot issue an indictment unless it sees evidence that establishes that there is “probable cause” that the accused committed the crime. With Trump’s and the Pentagon’s informal accusation, no such burden of proof is required.

Therefore, if a jury is prohibited from using an indictment to convict a person who the feds are accusing of having violated U.S. drug laws, it stands to reason that U.S. officials are prohibited from killing people based simply on their informal accusation that the person has violated the law.

In fact, with the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, our American ancestors expressly prohibited the federal government from depriving any person of life without due process of law. It has been long established that due process in a criminal case means, at a minimum, two things: (1) being formally notified of the specific charges that the defendant is accused of violating; that’s what a grand-jury indictment is for; and (2) a trial where the government is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt with relevant and competent evidence that the person actually did commit the crime. The accused, if he elects, can have a jury, not the judge, decide whether or not he is guilty.

There have always been some Americans who hate these provisions. They prefer how things are done in nations run by totalitarian regimes, where the government wields the omnipotent power to kill or punish anyone it suspects of having committed a crime — without having to go through the difficulty and expense of formally accusing people and according them a trial.

Nonetheless, like it or not, that is our system of government, and it remains so unless and until the Constitution is amended to end it.

What about the fact that it is the military that is carrying out these killings? No matter the exalted position that the national-security establishment has come to play in America’s federal governmental system, it doesn’t alter the constitutional principles at all. All it means is that the military is operating in the role of a policeman who is enforcing a federal criminal statute.

For example, suppose that Trump’s military troops that are occupying various U.S. cities begin enforcing federal drug laws by arresting people and then turning them over to the DEA for incarceration and prosecution. The military would simply be operating in a police capacity, not in a war situation.

It’s no different with those killings in the Caribbean. The military, which, by the way, is legally prohibited from enforcing drug laws inside the United States, is simply operating in a police capacity when it is enforcing U.S. drug laws on the high seas. It is essentially standing in the stead of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

What about Trump’s and the Pentagon’s claim that the U.S. is at war and, therefore, it’s okay for soldiers to kill the enemy in war. Clearly that claim is a ruse designed to justify their extra-judicial killings. The concept of war involves conflicts between nation-states, not enforcement of criminal statutes. There is no war between the United States and Venezuela, Columbia, Mexico, or any other Latin American country.

After all, if Trump’s and the Pentagon’s ruse was valid, it would entitle them to use the military to kill drug-war suspects here inside the United States under the claim that enemy drug forces have invaded and occupied the United States and are waging “war” against the United States. In fact, their ruse would enable them to use the military to kill anyone they wanted who they claimed had violated any federal criminal statute.

What about Trump’s and the Pentagon’s claim that the victims are also being accused of violating federal terrorism statutes and, therefore, that it is okay to summarily kill them? Again, it’s just another ruse to justify the extra-judicial killing of people who are accused of violating U.S. criminal laws. After all, terrorism itself is a federal criminal offense. That’s why there are criminal prosecutions for terrorism in federal district court. Trump and the Pentagon are bound by the same principles in federal criminal cases involving terrorism as they are with cases involving alleged federal drug offenses. They are required to secure federal criminal indictments and accord the people with trials, where they bear the burden of proving that the defendants really are guilty of terrorism (or drug offenses) before they can kill them or punish them.

One more point worth noting: The troops carrying out these killings are obviously loyally and blindly obeying orders to commit an illegal act. That’s because, as I have long pointed out, their loyalty is to their commander-in-chief, notwithstanding the oath they take to support and defend the Constitution.

Trump, the Pentagon, and the troops are clearly engaging in illegal conduct with their extra-judicial, unconstitutional drug-war killings. The problem is that given their omnipotent power within America’s federal governmental system, neither the Congress nor the Supreme Court or anyone else will — or can — do anything to stop them.

November 13, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | Leave a comment

AfD Leader Slams EU Plans to Create New Intelligence Unit as Move to Concentrate Power

Sputnik – 13.11.2025

The creation of a new intelligence unit led personally by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will not improve the security of EU citizens, but only strengthen Brussels’ control over the bloc, Alice Weidel, co-chair of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, said on Thursday.

Earlier this week, the Financial Times newspaper reported that the EU Commission would establish a new intelligence unit led by von der Leyen to enhance the use of data collected by national intelligence agencies due to security concerns and a potential reduction in US security support for Europe.

“Von der Leyen plans [to create] her own EU intelligence service. This will not improve the security of citizens, but will expand surveillance and the power of the Brussels bureaucracy. Another dangerous step towards an EU superstate. Not with the AfD!” Weidel wrote on X.

The unit plans to recruit officials from across the EU’s intelligence community to consolidate and share intelligence for joint purposes, the newspaper reported. However, the plan has not yet been officially communicated to all EU member states, and no specific deadlines have been set, according to the report.

The move faces opposition from senior officials in the EU’s diplomatic service, who manage the bloc’s Intelligence and Situation Centre (Intcen), the report said. They argue that the new unit could duplicate Intcen’s functions and threaten its future.

Harald Vilimsky, EU lawmaker from the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), has said that the plan to create a separate intelligence analysis unit within the Secretariat-General of the European Commission is the next step in von der Leyen’s plan to concentrate power in Brussels’ hands. Instead of strengthening democratic control, she wants to create a shadow structure that places national intelligence agencies under Brussels’ supervision without any mandate, transparency or legitimacy, he added.

November 13, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Universities in West are “occupied by Zionist/Jewish supremacist lobby groups,” repress speech against genocide

By Syed Zafar Mehdi | Press TV | November 11, 2025

Over the last two years, universities across the West have gone out of their way to repress speech against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and against Zionism, says a university lecturer who was forced to leave his university due to a Zionist witch-hunt.

In an interview with the Press TV website, Harry Pettit, the former Assistant Professor of Human Geography at Radboud University, the Netherlands, said any speech in support of the Palestinian resistance has been criminalized in Western academic circles.

Pettit, who holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is the author of The Labor of Hope: Meritocracy and Precarity in Egypt (2023), has been hounded at his university over his strong advocacy for Palestinian rights.

His social media posts, in which he unequivocally condemned the genocide in Gaza and the complicity of Western governments, sparked controversy as Zionist lobby groups in the Netherlands campaigned for his ouster from Radboud University.

In a statement on Monday, Pettit said the university had monitored his X account and he was pressured to retract his statements on Palestine.

He was even warned by the university administration and threatened with dismissal at the behest of influential Zionist lobby groups such as the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI), the Netherlands Committee for Israel and the Jewish People (NCAB), as well as media outlets like De Telegraaf and Education Minister Gouke Moes.

“Over the last two years, universities across the West have gone out of their way to repress speech against the genocide, against Zionism, and in support of the Palestinian resistance,” Pettit told the Press TV website only hours after announcing he was leaving the university.

“They have done this because they are occupied by Zionist/Jewish supremacist lobby groups that want to shut down any critique of ‘Israel’. We have no choice but to fight back against this.”

He said the pro-Israel lobby is powerful in the Netherlands, which is evidenced by the data.

“If you look at data, the Netherlands has by far the biggest economic relationship with Israel in the whole of Europe. Therefore, there is a big incentive to squash critique,” he noted.

“CIDI is the main lobby group and it acts in similar ways to other countries, targeting individuals who speak out and trying to destroy their livelihoods. It also has links to political parties, the media, and student groups like Standwithus, and together they apply pressure on universities.”

Pettit, however, was not alone in this fight. He received tremendous support from his colleagues and students, who defended his freedom of speech.

“I have received a lot of support from colleagues and students who have also been taking risks to speak out against the genocide and Zionism, and the students have been incredible at engaging in disruptive protest over the last two years that has forced the university to cut ties with Israeli universities,” he told the Press TV website.

Unfazed by the threats, he vowed to continue speaking for the Palestinian cause and against the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

“I have every intention of continuing to use my platform to advocate for Palestinian liberation. That is why I left Radboud to go to a more supportive environment that enables me to keep doing that,” he asserted.

Pettit had been vocal not only on his own social media handles but also had been giving media interviews to raise awareness about the plight of Palestinians.

In one of his interviews in October, he told Volkskrant that he wants to raise awareness in the Netherlands that Palestinians “as an oppressed people have the right to armed resistance.”

“Calling October 7th a legitimate resistance operation doesn’t mean I condone everything that happened that day. But Israel wants us to see Hamas as barbarians who hate Jews. That’s a racist frame that serves to legitimize the genocide. It also obscures decades of oppression,” he said at the time.

His defense of the Palestinian resistance and the historic Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on October 7, 2023, irked Zionist lobby groups that aggressively pushed for his ouster.

Amid the genocide in Gaza, students in many universities across Europe and the US have been suspended and even arrested at the behest of Zionist lobby groups.

November 11, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Whistleblower Biologist Says Pfizer Covered Up Her Exposure to Engineered Virus, Threatened Family

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 7, 2025

Molecular biologist Becky McClain began raising safety concerns in 2000, soon after she started working in Pfizer’s Biosafety Level 2 lab in Connecticut.

Three years later, after management failed to address the issues, McClain was exposed to a genetically modified lentivirus, engineered using gain-of-function technologies that made the virus more infectious and more pathogenic.

The exposure left her disabled, with symptoms including numbness, periodic paralysis, pain and other neurological problems. Doctors couldn’t diagnose or effectively treat her condition because Pfizer refused to disclose what she had been exposed to, citing “trade secrets.”

The incident launched McClain into a decade-long fight to understand her illness and obtain her exposure records so she could seek proper treatment. During her battle, she became a whistleblower, standing up to Pfizer’s threats against her and her family.

In her new book from Skyhorse Publishing, “Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower,” McClain recounts how she raised workplace safety concerns, suffered exposure to a dangerous virus, fought Pfizer for years in court, and resisted the company’s repeated attempts to silence her — ultimately winning a legal victory.

McClain refused to sign a gag order — even after Pfizer fired her, harassed her and threatened her — making her one of the few people who can share her story publicly.

In her book, McClain exposes corruption she says runs not just through Pfizer, but across the pharmaceutical industry and the agencies meant to hold it accountable — from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the federal courts.

Consumer safety advocate Ralph Nader wrote in his foreword to the book:

“No general description of this book can convey the horror and details of what Becky McClain and her husband, Mark, endured at the hands of Pfizer, enabled over the years by collusion with government officials. Pre-verdict and post-verdict, this company employed thuggish retaliatory tactics, blacklisting, threats, harassments, wrongful discharges, coverups, and demands for total gag orders.

“Those tactics were designed to keep her case from flaring into a national demand for Congressional regulation in the form of rigorous biolab inspections and mandatory safety/health standards with teeth. Against this objective, Pfizer and the bioengineering industry are succeeding.”

‘If you document biosafety issues and or speak out about them, you’re out’

In an interview with The Defender, McClain said she noticed safety issues as soon as she started working in the lab.

“We had no break room, no safe break room. We had unsafe offices. We had improper biocontainment protocols using infectious agents,” she said. “And although the lab was unsafe, management made it worse by instilling a culture of fear for anyone who dared to raise safety issues.”

McClain said most scientists at the lab shared her concerns, but managers made it clear: “If you document biosafety issues and or speak out about them, you’re out.”

Scientists at the lab worked on genomic-altering biotechnologies, creating viruses capable of entering cells and changing their genomes, she said.

After multiple safety incidents — including one that left several scientists sick — McClain walked in one morning to find “a mess” on her personal workbench. A supervisor and an untrained scientist had left a dangerous experiment there overnight, without McClain’s knowledge.

A month later, the untrained scientist asked McClain if she knew anything about lentiviruses, a family of viruses that includes HIV and FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus).

By then, McClain was experiencing numbness on one side of her face, which a neurologist suggested might be the start of multiple sclerosis.

McClain realized she had likely been exposed to a modified lentivirus and asked the scientist to find out more about its safety. He returned “a little bit nervous” and told her the virus he had used on her bench was safe, indicating it wasn’t infectious to humans.

That conversation marked the beginning of McClain’s fight to obtain her exposure records. Pfizer refused to provide them, telling her that “trade secrets supersede your right to that information.”

As her condition worsened, McClain went on medical leave — and the company terminated her.

McClain was shocked because she had assumed worker rights would protect her. She said:

“I couldn’t get directed medical care for my illness, which was a mystery illness because these genetically engineered virus technologies were designed to cause new emerging diseases for use in laboratory research studies.

“So when I visited doctors, no one knew what was happening. They were all fearful and unable to explain my illness.

“My husband and I feared I was going to die. It eventually became very, very, very, very severe. It began with numbness on the left side of my face, then extreme left jaw pain, inflammation of my trigeminal nerve, headaches, spinal pain, then periodic paralysis.”

‘There’s no free speech for scientists’

McClain turned to OSHA for help, submitting documentation she had gathered that exposed egregious safety violations in the lab. OSHA refused to help her access her exposure records and didn’t even conduct a safety inspection of the lab.

“OSHA is a captured agency now,” McClain said. “They oversee approximately 24 different whistleblower laws under one roof, making it easy for the industry to control OSHA. It’s easy to capture. Place a corporate head to oversee OSHA, and you gain control of all the whistleblower laws and investigations.”

After OSHA declined to provide substantive help, McClain’s next step was clear. “The only legal remedy to get my exposure records was to file a civil whistleblower claim,” she said.

During the process, McClain met countless other scientists in similar situations.

“There’s no free speech for scientists,” she said. She cited examples of scientists being censored and smeared as “anti-vaxxers” during the COVID-19 pandemic, when “they were merely raising legitimate safety concerns.”

A recent investigation by The Defender found that OSHA told healthcare employers not to report employees adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines — but to continue reporting injuries caused by all other vaccines.

Pfizer launched ‘backdoor retaliation’ by targeting McClain’s husband

Throughout her long legal battle, Pfizer tried relentlessly to compel her to sign a gag order. She refused, knowing that signing would cost her the leverage she needed to access information about her exposure.

The company launched what McClain called “backdoor retaliation” by targeting her husband, who worked at the FDA in Connecticut.

“Two months before the trial, my husband was called into his office and told that if he didn’t make me settle with Pfizer, he’d be out of a job,” McClain said.

The threat terrified the couple, as McClain was extremely sick and they relied entirely on his income. “I thought Pfizer couldn’t have that kind of reach … my husband works for the government. But they did,” she said.

Her husband refused to force her to sign a gag order. After facing false accusations despite a spotless 18-year record as a commissioned officer, he left the FDA.

McClain eventually won her free speech whistleblower lawsuit in a 2010 jury trial, even though later revelations showed that the judge had financial conflicts of interest. She received 10 years of back pay — but no compensation for her exposure, illness or suffering.

Pfizer faced no obligation to remediate its safety program.

Although McClain never gained full access to her exposure records, she did obtain additional details about the virus, which she explains in her book.

Today, she publicly advocates for industry reform. She told The Defender there are several key issues she thinks need to be addressed. She said:

“First, is that all gag orders related to lab injuries and public health and safety concerns should be illegal. The public has a right to know about the dangers in these laboratories, especially in our post-pandemic environment.

“Then, OSHA needs to be revamped. It’s a captured agency.”

McClain added that OSHA can’t effectively oversee biotechnology because the agency doesn’t fully understand the serious and unique safety risks. She said the safety problems run through biotechnology research in academia, government and the private sector — each with its own set of regulations — and that the private sector faces the fewest rules.

“The bottom line is that we need better free speech and whistleblower protections for scientists, physicians, and injured workers,” McClain said. “No one should go through 10 years of hell just to have a safe workplace or to protect the public by standing up for professional standards.”

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

November 8, 2025 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

The West discovers Zelensky is not really a good guy

In a fleeting glimpse of lucidity, the mainstream media has noticed a tiny fraction of the corruption and authoritarianism in Kiev

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | November 7, 2025

It’s that time of the great proxy war crusade against Russia again. Someone in the mainstream West has woken up to, if not the facts about the politics of Ukraine, then at least a quantum of disquiet.

The last major wave of the likes of the Financial Times, The Economist, and the Spectator suddenly noticing – all at the same time, as if on cue – that Ukraine has an authoritarianism and corruption problem (and then some) took place less than half a year ago.

Now it’s Politico – usually a steadfast party organ of Russophobia, Zionism-come-what-genocide-may, and servility to NATO – that feels vaguely troubled by the realities of the Kiev regime or, as the publication puts it, the “dark side” of Vladimir “I don’t like elections” Zelensky’s rule.

Not all of those realities, of course. That would be asking too much. Instead, Politico is homing in on one great scandal (out of countless ones) concerning one man and the anguish of a few “civil-society”-NGO types, both with good connections to the West. This time, the scandal concerns the obvious, shameless political prosecution of Vladimir Kudritsky, formerly a high-ranking and effective energy infrastructure executive and de facto civil servant.

Yet what about noticing the murder in Ukrainian detention of critical blogger – and US citizen – Gonzalo Lira? Or the vicious persecution of leftist war critic Bogdan Syrotiuk? Or the mean, indecent harassing of Christian clergy and believers for not saying their prayers in quite the right Ukrainian-nationalist-approved manner? Perish the thought!

In a similar spirit of extreme selectiveness, some Western outlets are now registering – a little and very slowly – the brutal realities of Ukrainian forced mobilization that feed the Western proxy war: Recently, a war – pardon, “defense” – editor of the ultra-gung-ho British tabloid The Sun has returned shell-shocked from NATO’s de facto eastern front, not because of the bloody and wasteful fighting but because the uncouth Ukrainians press-ganged his fixer.

In a similarly traumatic experience, Hollywood’s Angelina Jolie had her local driver snatched away at a Ukrainian military roadblock. Yet violent forced mobilization has been an everyday occurrence in Ukraine for years already. So much so that Ukrainians have chosen the term “busification” (from minibus, a popular vehicle for mobilization manhunts) as word of the year for 2025.

For quite a few of its victims, it ends up even worse than for those privileged enough to work for Western movie stars and British propagandists. Roman Sopin, for instance, who did not even resist, has just been beaten to death in a mobilization precinct in central Kiev, as an official medical assessment of his cause of death implies as clearly as anyone may dare under Zelensky’s regime.

But let’s get back to the few things Western media deign to notice occasionally: Already dismissed last year, Kudritsky is now facing the courts under transparently trumped-up charges. The reason is obvious to everyone. He has been too popular and far too vocal about corruption at the highest levels and the authoritarian power grabs of Zelensky’s presidential office in particular.

Kudritsky’s case – comparatively harmless, really – does raise many disturbing questions: why is it that the Zelensky regime has such a nasty record of abusing arbitrary financial sanctions and politically perverted legal processes, or lawfare? And haven’t we been told that this regime under its “Churchillian” leader is fighting for Western values of democracy and legality?

Are Zelensky, his sinister fixer-in-chief Andrey Yermak and their team preparing the ground for elections after a possible end of the war – that is, after losing it – by preemptively crippling domestic critics and rivals? Does this mean Zelensky, Ukraine’s most catastrophic leader since independence in 1991 (and that’s a high bar) is seriously considering not slinking away into exile but imposing himself even longer on his unfortunate country?

Or is all of this part of decimating whatever is left of Ukraine’s mangled society to continue the meatgrinder war for as long as the NATO-EU Europeans are willing to pay? If things go the way the bloodthirsty fantasists at The Economist want, then the West will shell out another cool $390 billion over the next four years. Apparently, they believe that waves of forced conscription in Ukraine will provide the human cannon fodder to go along with the Western funding.

Yet if Zelensky’s fresh authoritarian moves are really aiming at preparing for a postwar election next year, then that is a terrible sign, too. It would indicate not only that he is planning to damage Ukraine even further by his presence, but also that those postwar elections will be anything but fair and equal. In other words, in that scenario, Zelensky will try to stay around, and so will the authoritarian regime he has built.

To be fair to Zelensky, his authoritarianism has never been a response to the war, as his Western fans still believe, even when they are finally deigning to notice a little of his “dark side.” Zelensky was building an authoritarian regime – widely known and criticized in Ukraine back then already as “mono-vlada” – long before the escalation of February 2022.

Zelensky is not a benevolent leader who has been forced to adopt dictatorial habits by an emergency. In reality, if anything, he has exploited the emergency for all it was worth to indulge his lust for unlimited power and extreme corruption. So, trying to take his misrule into the postwar period is at least not inconsistent: it has never been tied to wartime.

But behind all of this, there is one great irony and one bigger question: The question is simple. If Politico really believes that going after Kudritsky with lawfare and frustrating the “civil-society”-NGO crowd is “the dark side” of Zelensky’s rule, what, if we may ask, is the bright side supposed to be?

Indeed, where is the better side of real-existing Zelensky-ism? Is it the humungous corruption? The Bakhmut-style military fiascos, the Kursk Kamikaze incursion, and now Pokrovsk? The fact that the media have been mercilessly streamlined? The raging nepotism that makes sure that the poor fight and the sons and daughters of Ukraine’s gangsterish “elite” go on holidays and party? The personality cult?

Or is it – and this brings us to the great irony – that Zelensky-Ukraine is allegedly in sync with “Western values”? And do you know what? It really is! But not the way that the propagandists of both Ukraine and the NATO-EU West want us to believe. What the Zelensky regime and its supporters in the EU really have in common is that neither care about either democracy or the rule of law.

Zelensky going after critics with individual financial sanctions to evade normal legal procedures and leave his victims not even a slim chance to defend themselves, for instance? That is exactly what Germany and the EU are now doing to the journalist Hüseyin Dogru, and not only to him. Zelensky using a perverted reading of the law to harass whoever does not submit or is a political danger to him? Bingo again. That as well is now EU practice, too. Ask, for instance, Marine Le Pen in France. Finally, widespread abuse of political office for self-enrichment and influence peddling? Bingo again: Less than a month ago, the Financial Times ran a detailed article on “scores” of EU parliament members who “earn income from second jobs in areas that overlap with their lawmaking,” raising “questions about disclosure of potential conflicts of interest.” How delicately put. And it sounds just like Ukraine’s Rada.

Here’s the real news: The “dark side” of Zelensky’s rule is all of Zelensky’s rule. And it is also what has become the new normal in an increasingly authoritarian and corrupt EU. Who has learned from whom? Kiev from NATO-EU Europe or vice versa? Either way, this is not a bug but a feature. And it must stop. Everywhere.

Tarik Cyril Amar, is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.

November 7, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

German court upholds ruling in favour of Ghassan Abu Sitta over ban from Berlin conference

MEMO | November 7, 2025

A German court has ruled that authorities in Berlin acted unlawfully when they barred British-Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta from participating in a conference on Palestine held in the German capital in April 2024.

The Berlin Administrative Court’s decision, reaffirmed this week, declared that the immigration authorities’ actions were illegal, upholding a lower court ruling issued in July. The Higher Administrative Court rejected an appeal by the Berlin state government, stating that it did not meet the legal criteria required for a retrial.

According to the court’s findings, immigration authorities had no legal grounds to prohibit Dr Abu Sitta from attending the conference, giving media interviews, or making public statements. The ruling emphasized that the restrictions imposed lacked adequate justification related to national security or the protection of public order.

Authorities had originally justified the ban by suggesting that Abu Sitta might express support for the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led Al-Aqsa Flood operation against Israel, or make statements perceived as threatening to the existence of the Israeli state. However, the court concluded that there was no evidence that his participation or remarks posed any danger to Germany’s democratic order.

Dr Abu Sitta, who has treated victims of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and other war zones, has become a prominent advocate for Palestinian medical and human rights. The latest ruling is seen as a significant legal victory for freedom of expression in Germany amid growing debates over restrictions on pro-Palestinian speech.

November 7, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Paramount blacklist pro-Palestine voices under new pro-Israel leadership

MEMO | November 6, 2025

A growing number of Hollywood actors and filmmakers who have voiced solidarity with Palestinians are reportedly being blacklisted by Paramount, following its takeover by pro-Israel billionaire David Ellison, according to Variety. The move has raised fears of a systematic campaign to suppress dissenting voices in the entertainment industry under the guise of combating anti-Semitism.

The blacklist follows Paramount’s $7.7 billion merger with Skydance Media, led by Ellison—the son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the largest donors to Israel’s occupation forces. The leadership overhaul has included the appointment of Bari Weiss, a self-described Zionist and vocal defender of Israel’s assault on Gaza, as editor-in-chief of CBS News, one of Paramount’s flagship assets.

Industry sources suggest that artists who have expressed solidarity with Palestinians or criticised Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and its apartheid regime in the occupied West Bank may now face reprisals. According to Variety, Paramount “maintains a list of talent it will not work with because they are deemed to be ‘overtly antisemitic’ as well as ‘xenophobic’ and ‘homophobic.’ Whether the boycott signatories are on that list is unclear.”

This labelling follows Paramount’s decision in September to publicly denounce a celebrity-signed letter calling for a boycott of Israeli cultural institutions involved in what signatories described as “genocide and apartheid.” Over 300 figures, including Oscar winners Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Rooney Mara, Tilda Swinton and Yorgos Lanthimos, had signed the statement, demanding accountability from Israel for its documented war crimes and structural violence against Palestinians.

Paramount’s swift condemnation of the letter—branding it anti-Semitic—has been interpreted as part of a broader ideological purge within the industry. It echoes earlier incidents such as the sacking of actress Melissa Barrera for condemning Israeli attacks on Gaza, and Susan Sarandon’s revelation that she was dropped by her agency and blacklisted after criticising Israel’s occupation.

The blacklist forms part of a growing pattern across the United States, where support for Palestinian rights is increasingly conflated with hate speech. University students have lost scholarships, faculty members have been suspended or dismissed, and entire student organisations have been deregistered for protesting visits by Israeli officials accused of supporting ethnic cleansing policies.

November 6, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Two New York Families Sue Schools for Denying Medical Vaccine Exemptions

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | November 4, 2025

Two New York families are suing their school districts in federal court, alleging that district officials unlawfully denied their children’s medical exemptions.

One case involves an 11-year-old, identified as “Sarah Doe,” in the Webster Central School District. According to the complaint filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, Sarah has a “documented history of life-threatening reactions to vaccines.”

The school district denied her medical exemption request for the Tdap vaccine.

The other case concerns a 17-year-old, identified as “Michael Doe,” in the Penfield Central School District. His complaint, also filed last month, and in the same federal court, states that he has a “documented personal history of severe vaccine-induced airway constriction, a strong family history of autoimmune disorders, and a life-threatening latex allergy.”

The school district denied his medical exemption request for the meningococcal vaccine.

The lawsuits ask the court to issue a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to allow Sarah and Michael to return to school and to recognize their medical exemptions as valid. The plaintiffs also seek compensation for damages, including lost educational opportunities and emotional distress.

Chad Davenport, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told The Defender that the New York school districts’ actions were “egregious” and “in direct contradiction” to a recent federal ruling in a related case, Doe v. Oceanside, involving a New York mother and her teenage daughter, also called “Sarah Doe.”

Davenport and attorney Sujata Gibson represented the teen and her mother, who successfully sued the Oceanside Union Free School District for refusing to grant the teen a medical vaccine exemption for the hepatitis B vaccine. Children’s Health Defense (CHD) funded the lawsuit.

In August, the judge issued a preliminary injunction allowing the teen to return to classes.

On Sept. 1, Davenport and Gibson sent a letter on CHD’s behalf to all New York state boards of education and superintendents, threatening legal action if school district officials continued to deny medical exemptions certified by students’ physicians.

“We sent it out and we tried to stop them from doing this, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough,” Davenport said.

New York’s ‘flawed’ medical exemption process puts kids at risk

The situations described in the two new lawsuits are “happening throughout New York state,” he said.

CHD General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg said the new lawsuits highlight “how flawed the medical exemption process is in New York state.” Gibson agreed.

Mack Rosenberg added:

“For too many, the existence of the medical exemption truly is illusory and the misinterpretation of grounds for a medical exemption is rampant, both at the state and district level.

“The flaws in the system are placing families who choose to have their children educated in schools — versus homeschooling, which is not an option for everyone — in the horrible position of potentially risking their child’s health to attend school, where doctors familiar with the children recommend that the children not receive vaccines.”

Davenport said he reached out to the New York schools, requesting homeschooling curriculum.

“They give us nothing — and again, this is not unique,” he said. “Every single time that they kick these children out into homeschooling, they give them nothing. … They basically say, ‘We’re done with you.’”

Doctors cited ‘clear and documented danger’ to Sarah’s health

The Oct. 22 lawsuit states that Webster Central School District denied 11-year-old Sarah’s Tdap vaccine medical exemption despite the warning from her treating physician that further vaccination was “absolutely contraindicated” because of a prior “life threatening, multi-organ failure after vaccinations.”

When the family tried to meet the school’s vaccine requirement, healthcare providers refused to vaccinate Sarah. The complaint states:

“When the family, acting under extreme duress from these threats, attempted to comply with the District’s demands, they were turned away by multiple medical providers who refused to administer the vaccine, citing the clear and documented danger to Sarah’s health.”

The district denied Sarah’s exemption because her condition was not listed on “a rigid, pre-approved list of contraindications” published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee.

The lawsuit also alleges that the district responded to Sarah’s exemption request with “coordinated campaign of intimidation and threats involving Child Protective Services (CPS).” The county health department warned Sarah’s mother that CPS could intervene if Sarah remained unvaccinated.

In addition to the Webster Central School District, the lawsuit names Dr. Margaret Callahan, the district’s designated school physician, and Chris Callahan, principal of Spry Middle School, as defendants.

School’s medical director showed ‘clear bias’ in case involving 17-year-old

The Oct. 24 lawsuit states that Dr. Robert Tuite, the medical director who reviewed the exemption request, said the district should need it because the request was issued by a psychiatrist, whom Tuite deemed was the “wrong” type of doctor.

However, Davenport said the judge who ruled in Doe v. Oceanside made it clear that medical exemptions don’t have to be written by a specific type of doctor.

The judge “went through the district’s demands for letters from specialists, including hematologists, immunologists” and explicitly said letters from specialists are not required, Davenport said.

“The statute is very clear: it is any physician. You do not need to have somebody with a certain specialty to certify that a vaccination may be detrimental to the health of your child,” he added.

The lawsuit also says Tuite had “profound” conflicts of interest that affected his review of Michael’s exemption request. The complaint names Tuite as a defendant, along with Penfield Central School District, Penfield High School Principal LeAnna L. Watt and Superintendent Tasha Potter.

Tuite, the district’s medical director who also runs a private practice, previously served as Michael’s doctor until a “contentious disagreement” arose between Tuite and Michael’s mother.

After “an argument over the COVID shot and whether or not her child should receive it,” Tuite kicked Michael’s mother out of his practice, Davenport said. “That’s clear bias.”

Davenport continued:

“Not only that, but then [Tuite] actually got on the phone with the doctor who wrote the medical exemption … [and] admitted that the reason why he’s rejecting it is because last time he accepted a medical exemption, he got his wrist slapped by New York State.”

New York schools fined for approving medical exemptions, case alleges

Tuite told the psychiatrist that the district faces “substantial fines” from the state’s health department for accepting any medical exemption that the state later deems invalid.

Davenport said Tuite isn’t the first person to claim that the New York State Department of Health will fine a district for allowing medical exemptions. According to Davenport, medical directors and school officials involved in lawsuits he files often make similar claims.

Davenport said they know that he will sue them for fees and damages, but they tell him that approving a medical exemption request and allowing the student into school would cost the district $2,000 per day.

“That is what they are being threatened with,” he said. “I don’t know how that message is being conveyed from the Department of Health to the schools and the school officials, but it is.”

Davenport hopes the new cases reinforce the precedent set by Doe v. Oceanside.

He also hopes the cases will send a message that New York school districts can no longer deny medical exemptions without facing judicial challenges.

Davenport said districts have generally assumed they would be “insulated” from meaningful judicial review, since families whose exemptions are denied must appeal to the state commissioner, and the commission historically sides with the school district.

“Not one final decision has ever resulted in the New York State Education Department overturning a school’s decision to deny a vaccine waiver. Not one,” Davenport said.

Now, however, families are taking their cases to federal court after the state commission fails to provide meaningful judicial review.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

November 5, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Erasing evidence: Over 700 videos of Israeli crimes wiped off YouTube

Al Mayadeen | November 5, 2025

The Intercept on Wednesday revealed that YouTube has permanently removed the official channels of three major Palestinian human rights organizations, namely Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), erasing hundreds of videos that documented Israeli war crimes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The deletions, which took place in early October, wiped years of footage that included investigative reports on the killing of Palestinian civilians, “Israel’s” destruction of homes, and the murder of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. YouTube confirmed to The Intercept that the decision followed a review prompted by US State Department sanctions against the three groups.

“Google is committed to compliance with applicable sanctions and trade compliance laws,” YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle said, noting that the platform enforces restrictions against any entities sanctioned under US law.

YouTube bows to pressure

The Trump administration imposed the sanctions in September, targeting the organizations for their collaboration with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its investigations into Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Security Minister Yoav Gallant, who were charged with war crimes in Gaza.

Human rights advocates denounced YouTube’s move as politically motivated censorship. “I’m pretty shocked that YouTube is showing such a little backbone,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now. “It’s really hard to imagine any serious argument that sharing information from these Palestinian human rights organizations would somehow violate sanctions. Succumbing to this arbitrary designation of these Palestinian organizations, to now censor them, is disappointing and pretty surprising.”

Katherine Gallagher, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused YouTube of advancing Washington’s efforts to suppress accountability. “It is outrageous that YouTube is furthering the Trump administration’s agenda to remove evidence of human rights violations and war crimes from public view,” she said. “Congress did not intend to allow the president to cut off the flow of information to the American public and the world, instead, information, including documents and videos, are specifically exempted under the statute that the president cited as his authority for issuing the ICC sanctions.”

YouTube silences Palestinian rights

The affected groups condemned the decision as a violation of free expression and an attempt to obstruct justice. Al Mezan said its channel was terminated abruptly on October 7, without warning. “Terminating the channel deprives us from reaching what we aspire to convey our message to, and fulfill our mission,” a spokesperson said, stressing that the move limits their ability to communicate with global audiences.

Al-Haq’s channel was deleted a few days earlier, on October 3, with YouTube claiming that its content “violates our guidelines.” The organization responded that “YouTube’s removal of a human rights organisation’s platform, carried out without prior warning, represents a serious failure of principle and an alarming setback for human rights and freedom of expression.” It warned that US sanctions are “being used to cripple accountability work on Palestine and silence Palestinian voices and victims.”

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, described by the United Nations as Gaza’s oldest human rights organization, said the deletion “protects perpetrators from accountability.” Its representative, Basel al-Sourani, noted that “YouTube said that we were not following their policy on Community Guidelines, when all our work was basically presenting factual and evidence-based reporting on the crimes committed against the Palestinian people, especially since the start of the ongoing genocide on 7 October.” He added, “By doing this, YouTube is being complicit in silencing the voices of Palestinian victims.”

Digital Censorship

The Intercept estimated that the deletions collectively erased more than 700 videos, ranging from field investigations to personal testimonies and short documentaries. Some of the content remains accessible on other platforms or through archived versions, but much of it has been lost. The organizations said they are now seeking alternatives outside the US to ensure their work remains available to the public.

The takedowns come amid broader efforts by the Trump administration and “Israel” to undermine the ICC and limit exposure of Israeli actions in Gaza. “They are basically allowing the Trump administration to dictate what information they share with the global audience,” Whitson warned. “It’s not going to end with Palestine.”

November 5, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »