ikkevold (Nonviolence)

Strategic Challenges for the Belarusian People and their friends

By J. Johansen

As the weekly protests continue and the visible impact on the regime leadership is minuscule. it might be time to reflect on how the opposition as well as their friends abroad might proceed.

From true friends one should not only expect to hear cheering and, in the end, it should always be up to the local people to choose the strategy for the struggle. My view is that it is more important to be honest than polite in our dialogs. As an outsider who has followed the situation and visited Belarus since the Soviet time, and in recent decades worked with parts of the opposition, I see reasons for hope, alongside a need to discuss new ideas for what can be done.

An impressive start

Through the last months of 2020, there has been an impressive mobilisation of people in the huge demonstrations. Despite the brutality of the police and security forces, the number of arrests, and the torture in prisons, we have seen tens of thousands of committed activists taking to the streets week after week. Even if accurate counting of the numbers is a difficult task, it seems probable that on some days there were some places where between 100 and 200 thousand people were out demanding  the removal of Lukashenko and a free election. The most recent studies of unarmed uprising around the world tell us that there seems to be a critical mass when 3.5% of the population dare to participate. For Belarus that would mean 340,000 people out in public with unified demands. Therefore, it is probably still necessary for further mobilisation.

The relatively high material living standards among Belarus’ urban middle class was made possible for years due to cheap oil from Russia, with profits spent on keeping those people satisfied. Many of those still feel loyalty to Lukashenko and fear what could happen when he is gone.

Vulnerable

The huge demonstrations in Minsk and some other cities have made the opposition visible to the rest of the world. But it has also made them more vulnerable to attacks, imprisonment and other forms of repression. When Solidarność in Poland started to organise against the Communist regime in 1980 they had experiences of being vulnerable out on the streets, so instead chose to occupy and lock themselves up in the factories to better defend the movement from attacks.

In Beijing in 1989, the workers and students all came together in Tiananmen Square. That made it possible for the Communist party to send soldiers and carry out the massacre of hundreds of people. Many of those who had been at the Square since the first days wanted to “declare victory” and then go back to their home cities all over China and continue the revolution there. But they were outnumbered by thousands of newcomers every week; the majority wanted to stay at “the center of the world’s attention”.

The experiences from Poland and China might inspire people in Belarus to consider some strategic shifts.

Possible with a new momentum?

Can the opposition in Belarus find a way to decentralise and mobilise more people? The examples of workers and students striking, clergymen from different denominations being targeted by the police, participation by pensioners and parts of the police forces expressing sympathy with the demonstrators, could all be important cracks in the ranks that could be utilised. Factories that went on strikes in October included oil company Belarusneft, fertiliser giant Belaruskali, automakers MAZ, MZKT and Belkommunmash, tractor manufacturer MTZ and appliance maker Atlant.  Lukashenko will be vulnerable if workers in Minsk, Borisov, Brest, Grodno, Mogilev, Novopolotsk and other cities again made their oppositional views visible. To mobilise these, and more, for new and longer industrial actions would have a huge impact on the situation.

To evaluate the organising, mobilisation, and decision-making with and within the striking workers networks are crucial to any new efforts of engaging these parts of the society again.

External support

Support from abroad has so far mainly been words and money. Depending on form and context, both these “tools of solidarity” can help as well as harm. Even if all of it is done with good intentions there is no guarantee that the long term impact will be positive.[1] There is a need for a painfully honest evaluation of external support to opposition movements in authoritarian states. Only that way can we learn how to do better in the years ahead.

In other conflict zones around the world we have seen acts of solidarity through different kinds of accompaniment. External activists are following local activists in order to document and report repression of different kinds. Just like most of us try to behave at our best when we have guests visiting, states also tend to act less oppressive when they know that what they do will be reported to media, movements and authorities abroad. Such activities have proven to be relatively effective and well received by the people they aim to protect. Could we see some form of such “unarmed bodyguards” in Belarus?

One element of external support is that too much dependence on outside support tends to erode the legitimacy of the movement, ‘you are  a pawn of foreign interests etc’. This is not a question of either – or, but how much support of what type is helpful in the long run?

Studying successful strategies shows the importance of recognising and drawing upon one’s own traditions of resistance that continue to resonate to some degree in popular memory. This is important source of legitimacy.

The USA, EU and others frequently suggest different forms of sanctions when they are asked to act against human rights violations. States and individuals face travel restrictions, seizure of assets, ban on trading, etc. Most of these types of actions have a tendency to harm people other than the intended targets. During the sanctions against Iraq it was the poorest who suffered most, while the leadership did not go to bed hungry or without the necessary medicines. Despite the hardest sanctions, Kim Jung-un lacks neither food nor cognac. It is not proven that sanctions against Belarus and/or Lukashenko will harm the elite in any substantial way.

Recent research on what is called “smart sanction” has so far not presented any convincing conclusions.

  Remove and replace

I am in no doubt that the present rulers of Belarus will be removed within some years. But I have worries about how they will be removed and what will replace them. The world has witnessed authoritarian leaderships being removed in many states; in the majority of these revolutionary processes unarmed strategies have been used by those who struggled for change.[2] The removal of the old regime has seldom been followed by the establishment of a decent, transparent, robust democratic welfare state with deep respect for Universal human rights.

It is obvious that the skills needed to build and run a state are very different from the skills needed to mobilise, prepare, organise and carry out a revolution. What we have seen in the majority of cases is that the new leadership is recruited among those who led the demonstrations. They all faced a number of serious challenges when they took over the government, parliament, and administration. What can be done to better prepare for the takeover?

Each step in the struggle needs to have focus on what they want to achieve; not just what they want to get rid of. To what degree can the strategies and tactics for a removal of the old at the same time be a tool for start building the new society? If the goal is a deep revolutionary reorganising of the state structure; with complete new norms, values and ideas the job ahead is very different from “replacing a corrupt and bad leadership”.

Neoliberals ready to fill the political vacuum

One urgent matter among many is to secure financial resources to cover imminent  salaries and other costs. Without being able to pay staff in the bureaucracy, educational institutions, police and military forces the celebration of “the victory” will soon turn into strong discontent and distrust with the new leadership.

Two of the main sources to secure these finances are the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Both these actors have again and again given loans under conditions that the new regime will privatise and deregulate the state, open up for international companies to exploit resources, while in general giving big businesses access to territories and markets with as little influence from politicians as possible. The results have been typical neoliberal states with a growing gap between the rich and the poor, limited income from taxes for the state, weak protection of the environment and climate, concentration of media power among a few companies, and other consequences of the Reagan/Thatcher ideology from the eighties onwards. In the former Soviet political sphere we have witnessed a decrease in life expectancy after neoliberal economic “shock-therapies” have been implemented.[3] Many elderly people are still talking warmly about “the good old days when they had a job, low prices for food, fuel and housing”.

There is a need for change in the WB/IMF policies. All representatives of the member states of both these financial institutions should be instructed to use their voting power to guarantee that loans are given with guidelines that will allow a strong welfare state to be established.

When the people of Belarus get rid of the horrible rule of Lukashenko they deserve a better future than copying the worst aspects of the EU, Australia and US. The increasing inequality, privatisation of essential services and erosion of welfare services etc. we have seen in “the West” is not the road to a decent democracy.

The need for a radical and strong opposition even after a victory

One important factor for a decent state to function is to have a wise, radical and strong opposition outside the power structure even after the takeover. We saw that in South Africa, when all the best ANC people secured positions in the new power structure, the corruption grew and has done a lot of damage. There will always be need for someone to keep an eye on those in power. After Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2004, we saw a similar development. In that case the corruption disappeared from the bottom of the system but grew on the top. And the state policy made the gap between poor and rich wider and deeper.

Who can offer alternatives to the neoliberal system?

Few of the nonviolent removals of authoritarian regimes and dictatorships have been well prepared for the takeover, while international institutions have had their plans ready to offer “help” of a financial, military, and political sort. Those international civil society supports which helped to remove the old system had little to offer at the time when the new state needed to be constructed on the ruins of the old.

There is a need for evaluation of what has been done in the past, new thinking about the future, as well as more substantial effort by those who want to act in true solidarity with the people of Belarus.

[1] See Johansen, Jørgen (2010) Analysing external support to nonviolent revolutions. In: Johansen, Jørgen, Jones, John Y (eds) Experiments with Peace: Celebrating Peace on Johan Galtung’s 80th Birthday. Oxford: Pambazuka, 103–114.

 for more discussion on this.

[2] See Chenoweth, Erica, Stephan, Maria J (2011) Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press.

[3] See article in The Lancet “Mass privatisation and the post-communist mortality crisis: a cross-national analysis” https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60005-2/fulltext accessed December 29 2020

Normalising the Exceptional as a serious security threat

By Jørgen Johansen

Jorgen Johansen argues that, like terrorism before it, the Covid-19 pandemic is being used by politicians across the world to normalise exceptional restictions on basic rights with politcial consequences that will long outlast the health emergency.

In his book State of Exception Giorgio Agamben examined the consequences of policies and regulations introduced in exceptional circumstances, which then become institutionalised as ’normal’, the state of exception becomes the rule. An illustration might be the USA’s Patriot Act of 2001, enacted after the 9/11 attack, which resulted in a massive expansion of government surveillance. Likewise, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp set up in 2002 as part of George W. Bush’s war on terror, where detainees have been held for indefinite periods without trial and subjected to torture.

Such exceptional measures were justified by the extraordinary context in which they were introduced – they were deemed necessary to save the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people around the world. But over time they have become ’normalised’, they have gained a certain level of acceptance as the state of emergency in which they were introduced has been prolonged. Moreover, such practices have been ’extended’ to apply to other perceived threats. So we have learned of the many secret prisons set up by the CIA as part of the war on terror at black sites around the globe, where prisoners were subjected to regimes of torture that were in contravention of all the norms and regulations of international law.  

We have seen how the definition of acts of terror has expanded over time, until today it includes ‘economic terrorism’ – actions by transnational or non-state actors to disrupt the economic and financial stability of a state, as defined at a round-table held at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy in 2005.  Such a broad definition, of course, helps legitimate the Israeli government’s attempts to undermine the global movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) by branding such action a form of terrorism. When a campaign urging us not to buy products from illegal settlements is defined as an act of terror we know we are in abnormal ‘normal times’.

Covid-19 and state surveillance

A similar ‘normalisation of the exceptional’ is now seen in the extreme means being used to track people infected by the virus leading to Covid-19. New tools developed by states and the surveillance industry have been approved and deemed necessary and legitimate by legislators, health professionals, scientific bodies and police forces around the world.  

A pandemic is by definition a global threat. As such it will dominate all sorts of media. As consumption of news from media without the traditional editorial responsibilities (so called ‘social media’) grows, and more serious outlets get a smaller audience, the information presented about the threats can often convey an unrealistic portrayal of the dangers involved. Conspiracy theories flow freely around the web and are regularly backed up by re-tweets from state leaders and other people in influential positions. The result is a fear that might be perceived as out-of-proportion compared with other causes of death. And, of course, when people are afraid they are likely to accept ever-more infringements on their civil liberties as necessary, in order to keep the threats within reasonable limits.

We see politicians all over the world supporting a number of proposals for new legislation that directly threaten open and democratic societies. What they have got approval to use in these times of political panic will certainly be used for very different purposes in the future.

Secret services and special police forces in many countries are employing huge programmes for mobile data tracking, apps to record personal contact with others, CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition, forms to be completed before you can go outside, and drones to enforce social isolation regimes.

Such methods have been adopted by authoritarian states and democracies alike and have opened lucrative new markets for companies that extract, sell, and analyse private data. Some even brag about it. In a Washington Post  op-ed (20 April 2020), Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook referred to an opt-in symptom survey being shown on Facebook that could help researchers at Carnegie Mellon University to forecast Covid-19 cases, based on location. If successful, the project would offer county-by-county insights and be eminently useful to public health officials and hospitals that need to prepare for potential surges in patients. Surely such extraordinary surveillance is justified if it helps control and manage the virus?

Exceptionalism and technology

But history is full of cases where extraordinary situations have opened the doors to the use of exceptional means, and they have a tendency to stick with our societies long into the future. New means of control easily become normalised, and get used in situations and circumstances far removed from those anticipated at the time of their introduction.

The problem with normalising the exceptional arises in particular when the technology and associated rules of use are applied to political surveillance. Then it becomes a threat to all sorts of social movements, political campaigns and nonviolent actions.

Looking back in history we can just imagine the consequences of these powerful surveillance tools in the hands of Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Stalin or the apartheid regime in South Africa. Who knows how the political map of the world will change over the next few decades? Throughout Europe and beyond there are neo-fascist, ultra-nationalist  political movements emerging – Jobbik in Hungary, National Revival of Poland, the Lega in Italy, Vox in Spain and similar parties marching in the streets in far too many countries around the world. Parliaments full of Alternative für Deutschland-type politicians seem certain to employ the surveillance systems developed to track and trace Covid-19 cases as a means of tackling their political opponents and critics.

Contact tracing might be helpful to map contagious diseases, but what about when it is used for mapping activist networks of today and the future? With right-wing populist politicians marching and entering so many parliaments in the world there is a difficult task ahead to prevent the same tools from being used to identify ‘troublemakers’ who do not share their views of how society should be organised. It is in theory impossible to un-invent a tool or prevent it from being used for a different purpose than originally intended.

Biopolitics and freedom

The seeds of an upsurge in the enduring conflict between ‘effective policing’ and the protection of civil rights, individual integrity, and political freedom are being laid by well-meaning liberal and democratic-minded politicians who uncritically endorse new legislation and associated technologies that can easily be misused.

We need to think seriously about how to make these tools less open to misuse. In this endeavour we should bear in mind the cautionary insight of the German sociologist Max Weber regarding the cultural consequences of secularization and the advance of scientific rationality. His concern was that as we freed ourselves from traditional world-views and associated mumbo-jumbo there was an accompanying impoverishment of our world – the loss of that sense of wonder at supernatural forces beyond our control, the loss of magic. In other words, as we advanced our capacity to control our environment, the iron cage of rationality becomes ever-more confining and restricting. Might we see a comparable process in play at the moment – as we take steps to free ourselves from the fear of the virus, we strengthen the iron cage of surveillance and elite-control?

We need to have an open discussion about how to make these tools less open to misuse. The systems may be hard to scale back after the pandemic, but some steps might be taken:

  • Emergency legislation must be in place only for a short period of time and then ended.
  • Data collected and stored should be made anonymous and later deleted completely.
  • Independent commissions should have full access to the process and ensure that the rules are followed as transparently as possible.

Without some serious actions taken to prevent exploitation of the hasty decisions taken in panic this spring, the first half of 2020 will be remembered in future history books not for a pandemic but for the rise of new surveillance mechanisms globally.

JJ is an independent peace researcher, bibliophile,  and trouble-maker living amongst the trees in Southern Sweden. He is the co-editor of Journal of Resistance Studies  and runs Irene Publishing. After 40 years of work in more than 100 countries he has settled and is inspired by  Cicero: “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”

PhD Craig Brown at the Litterature-house in Oslo

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Obituary; Gene Sharp has left us

Just a week after his 90th birthday Gene Sharp passed away.

The journal New Statesman once described Gene Sharp as the “Machiavelli of Nonviolence” and Thomas Weber labelled him “the Clausewitz of Nonviolent Action.” Who was this man and what is his contribution to our understanding of the possibilities to use nonviolent actions in large scale societal conflicts?

Gene Sharp completed his baccalaureate in 1949, just a few scant years after the close of World War II, and quickly turned his attention to the study of nonviolence. After serving nine months in prison for being a conscientious objector to the Korean War, Sharp secretaried for A.J. Muste. He next joined the editorial team of Peace News in London before accepting an invitation from Arne Næss to join him in Oslo with Johan Galtung and others to study the philosophy and practice of Mohandas Gandhi. Throughout this time, Sharp exchanged letters with Albert Einstein, deepening his understanding of and commitment to nonviolence.

While in Oslo, Sharp devoted much time to interviewing teachers who resisted the Quisling government during the Nazi occupation of Norway. Through these interviews, Sharp began to formulate the ideas that would come to constitute his major contribution to nonviolence theory. Moving away from a strictly philosophical, moral, or spiritual nonviolence in the vein of Gandhi, Sharp turned instead to a pragmatic nonviolence. The rest of his life would be spent delineating and analyzing the practical tools of effective nonviolent action.

After his years in Oslo, Sharp pursued his PhD at Oxford University. In 1968 he defended his thesis, The Politics of Nonviolent Action: A study in the control of political power. He continued to develop his thesis work and five years later Porter Sargent published his monumental The Politics of Nonviolent Action, from which “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action” is taken. This book from 1973 has been called “the bible for nonviolent activists” and is still in print nearly 50 years later. Through this and myriad other writings, Sharp contended against a normative approach to nonviolence, where the practice of nonviolence is formulated as a spiritual directive. Nonviolent action need have no moral impetus to be effective; nonviolent actions may be pursued on a purely practical basis on the ground that they are simply the most effective tools available to social and political movements. Indeed, much research by Sharp and others has shown that in the long term nonviolent revolutionary achievements are far more permanent than those fought with kalashnikovs and guerrilla warfare.

Taking this a step further, Sharp maintained that nonviolence could not only resist and overthrow dictatorships or occupations, but could effectively replace all militaries. By thoroughly training the civilian populace in nonviolent strategies and tactics, a nation could make itself ungovernable at will. If such a nation were to be invaded, it could never be subjugated. Those in powerful positions can punish but not force individuals to follow their orders without a certain level of cooperation. As history has shown, people practicing total noncooperation will only serve to drag down their oppressor. The burden of an inoperative state outweighs the benefits of its occupation.

This part of the heritage from Sharp is less known and accepted than his works on nonviolent actions by actors outside the state. Sharp worked hard to convince politicians around the world of his position. Despite some positive feedback from Sweden, Norway and the Baltic states, however, the discussions never moved from the fringe to the central political agenda in any country. The main argument against a national, civilian-based defense might be that such an “army” could also be used against its own state. Does the government trust its own people enough to enable their use of nonviolent actions on a massive scale? Many doubt that they could! We may hope, however, that these ideas came at the wrong time in history and that future discussions will give them the credit they deserve. The revitalization of research on nonviolent actions after the so-called “Arab Spring” might make such discussions possible.

Though he may not have convinced governments to adopt nonviolent training, it is clear that grassroots political and social movements have taken up Sharp’s writings with a passion. The last fifty years has seen the steady spread of Sharp’s fingerprint in movements around the world. When Gandhi and his movement liberated India from the British colonizers in 1947, their use of nonviolent actions was an exception among revolutionary groups. An important shift in strategy took place in the late seventies and early eighties, however. When the Shah was forced to leave Iran in 1979 and Solidarity organized the workers in Poland in 1980, we saw some exiting examples of movements that based their struggle on nonviolent strategies and tactics. To what degree these movements were familiar with the works of Gene Sharp we do not know. What is clear, however, is that revolutionary movements in the next four decades adopted a broad and ever-broadening range of nonviolent actions and strategies—those same strategies Sharp had been elucidating.

Later, when several of Sharp’s key works were translated into dozens of languages, his ideas indisputibly inspired thousands of suppressed people searching for ways to fight for their freedom, rights, and for democracy. The removal of president Marcos in the Philippines in 1986, the liberation of Eastern Europe and dismantling of the Soviet Union after 1989, the first Intifada in Palestine in 1990-91, the Colored Revolutions following the fall of Milosevic in Serbia in 2000, and the uprising in the MENA region from 2011 onwards all evidenced deep understanding of practical nonviolent revolution. Journalists, activists, academics, and politicians then found a new interest in these fascinating regime changes and their theoretical sources. For each and all of them the works of Gene Sharp now became obligatory—and enlightening—reading.

When Sharp began his study, peace research was a small, odd branch on the academic oak. A hardly visible twig on that branch focused on nonviolence. Seventy years later the field has expanded to be a significant part of several academic disciplines. It has also moved beyond the university campus, reaching suppressed people around the world and turning theoretical ideas into practical tools for social movements. Sharp’s lifelong research and voluminous writings have played a crucial role in this development.

When, at the age of 84, Sharp received the 2012 Right Livelihood Award, he humbly played-down his role as a source of inspiration for the twentieth century’s swell—and the twenty-first century’s tsunami—of unarmed revolutions and social movements. He did note, however, that for the first time in his entire life he found himself interviewed by journalists who at least understood what is was that he was talking about.

His contribution to the field of nonviolent actions will for ever be seen as the equivalent to the first humans landing on the moon. A majority of present researchers in the field of nonviolence have benefited enormously by building on the works and theories published by Gene. Many of us have now lost a friend and many more lost an importtant source of inspiration.

SYRIA, past, present, and future

Eyewitness to the liberation of Aleppo
Thoughts on Peace in Syria

Jan Øberg, director of TFF – Transnational Foundation

Litteraturhuset fredag 21 april 18:00 – 21:00
Jørgen Johansen fra FMK vil lede den etterfølgende debatt.

Jan Öberg and TFF have worked in several international conflict regions such as Yugoslavia, Georgie, Burundi, Iraq and now Iran and Syria.

Jan Öberg was one of the very few Westerners present on the ground when Aleppo was liberated in mid-December last year. He could speak freely with people who came out of the 4,5 years of occupation and has reported by analyses and photo stories of people and places.

Öberg will talk about examples of the conflicts underlying the violence and offer alternatives to the Western mainstream reporting which he argues is deceptive.

Finally, he will list a series of steps that must be taken as soon as possible to alleviate the suffering of the Syrian people in this the largest humanitarian crisis in a single country since 1945 and that can move the situation toward peace instead of continued war. Peace by peaceful means.

The lecture will be accompanied with a show of some of his unique photos from Aleppo.

Arrangør:
Folkereisning Mot Krig, Norsk seksjon av War Resisters’ International

Hva gjorde Nato og Norge i Libya? Og hva skjer der nå?

Åpent møte på Litteraturhuset (Nedjma-rommet) i Oslo 11. mai kl 19:00.

Aktivisten Asma Khalifa fra Libya forteller om livet under og etter krigen.  Asma er en aktivist som var engasjert i kvinne- og fredsarbeid før NATOs bombing av landet hennes og opplevde krigens konsekvenser på plass. Hun har etter at NATOs bombeangrep ble avsluttet opplevd hvordan situasjonen har forverret seg og fundamentalistiske grupper av mange slag nå fører flere borgerkriger mot hverandre.

Asma vil innlede med å snakke om krigen, situasjonen i dag og legge spesielt fokus på kvinners situasjon. Deretter vil hun svare på spørsmål fra salen. Hun snakker flytende engelsk og har sterke meninger om hva som skjedde og hva som bør gjøres.

Bruk denne muligheten til å møte en aktivist som stod i bomberegnet fra norske fly under krigen 2011.

Spre informasjon om møtet i dine nettverk og til venner og kjente.

​Arrangør: Folkereisning Mot Krig

 

Jailing Heathrow 13 poses ‘massive threat’ to peaceful protest rights

Letter from high-profile signatories including Caroline Lucas and John McDonnell warns prison sentences would be unjust and disproportionate

 

Jailing the 13 activists who last year chained themselves on Heathrow’s northern runway in protest at the airport’s expansion would represent a “massive threat” to the right to peaceful protest in the UK, according to John McDonnell and Caroline Lucas.

In a letter to the Guardian, the shadow chancellor and Green party MP, along with the vice-president of the National Union of Students and several prominent environmentalists, warn that prison sentences for the climate campaigners would be unjust and disproportionate.

“Sending peaceful demonstrators to jail would represent a massive threat to our right to protest in the UK. Prison is an utterly disproportionate punishment, and would mark yet another example of heavy-handed treatment leading to the suppression of political dissent in the UK today,” say the signatories, which include the heads of Greenpeace UK, Friends of the Earth Scotland and the New Economics Foundation.

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Thirteen members of the Plane Stupid group were found guilty in January of aggravated trespass and entering a security-restricted area of an aerodrome. The activists had hoped to win a “necessity defence”, arguing they were acting to prevent the greater harm caused by climate change.

But finding the so-called Heathrow 13 guilty, district judge Deborah Wright warned that the “astronomical costs” of their actions on 13 July 2015 meant they were almost certain to be jailed when sentenced on 24 February.

The judge told the 13 that although they were “principled people”, the seriousness of their actions meant it was “almost inevitable that you will all receive custodial sentences”.

Mike Schwarz, a lawyer from Bindmans representing nine of the 13, said that sentencing guidance recognised that civil disobedience had a “constitutional role” to play in a democracy, and that conditional discharge was usually the starting point for civil disobedience.

“There are very strong arguments to say they shouldn’t get custodial sentences,” he said, adding that it would be “exceptional” if they did.

Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, a barrister and criminal law specialist at Matrix Chambers, told the Guardian that the typical sentence for first time offenders in such cases was a discharge or at worst a fine. “It is extremely surprising that custody has been raised as a real possibility,” she said.

Dr Graeme Hayes, a reader in political sociology at Aston University who has followed 25 years of environmental protests, recently told the Independent that prison for such an action would be “unprecedented in modern times”. Three of the activists have been been previously convicted of aggravated trespass, while the other 10 have no previous convictions.

Danni Paffard, one of the protesters, said: “To us the court’s reaction seems eerily similar to the government’s – complete agreement with the urgent warnings of climate scientists, and complete failure to let those warnings influence their decisions.

“Winning the argument and then watching those in power continue to favour vested interests over the truth is what drives people to stop arguing and start taking action – there is no need or justification for direct action when democracy is working as intended, but it so rarely does.”

In their letter to the Guardian, the signatories said they shared the protesters’ concerns over aviation expansion’s impact on climate change.

“Their judgment noted the ‘astronomical costs’ incurred by a few delayed flights. We recognise that the costs of unchecked climate change and pollution will be far higher, and far graver. This is what our government and judicial system should be cracking down on, not peaceful protest.”

Carbon emissions from European aviation alone increased 80% between 1990 and 2014, and are forecast to grow a further 45% by 2035. Governments are negotiating at UN talks this year to set the first CO2 standards for planes.

 

Jailing Heathrow 13 poses ‘massive threat’ to peaceful protest rights | Environment | The Guardian.

Bosnia women protest at ban on headscarf

About 2,000 women in Bosnia have protested against a ban on wearing Islamic headscarves in courts and other legal institutions.

The ban includes all religious symbols but explicitly mentions the hijab.

The women marched for around an hour through the capital, Sarajevo.

Hijab-wearing was banned by the communist authorities while Bosnia was still part of the former Yugoslavia until 1992, when it declared independence.

The protest came in response to a decision by Bosnia’s high judicial council, which supervises the functioning of the judiciary, to ban «religious signs» in judicial institutions.

Some of the women held signs saying «The hijab is my right».

Protest organiser Samira Zunic Velagic said the ban was a «serious attack against Muslim honour, personality and identity» and said it was aimed at depriving Muslim women of their right to work.

The ban has also been condemned by Muslim political and religious leaders.

 

Muslims make up about 40% of Bosnia’s 3.8m population. The others are mostly Orthodox or Catholic Christians.


 

 

Bosnia women protest at ban on headscarf – BBC News.

Calls for Civil Disobedience in Australia Over Children’s Offshore Detention

 

A High Court decision upholding Australia’s offshore detention system for people seeking asylum has prompted calls for civil disobedience. Many people are particularly outraged that there are 80 children including 37 babies among 267 people currently facing deportation. Among them is a five year-old boy allegedly raped on Nauru.

A campaign focusing on the children, based on the theme of #LetThemStay, had commenced before the judgment.

First Dog on the Moon’s cartoon for the Guardian Australia captured the widespread revulsion:

Background

The current policy for ‘border protection’ is aimed at refugee arrivals who come by boat. It has two main arms:

1. Offshore detention on either Nauru or Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island, with the aim of resettlement in regional countries for those successful in their asylum claims. Essentially anywhere but Australia. Most remain in detention centres because of the lack of acceptable countries for relocation.

2. Turning back of refugee boats heading for Australia.

The stated goals include defeating people smuggling and ending deaths at sea.

The BBC canvassed the broader issues in a November 2015 article Australia asylum: Why is it controversial? Public opinion is divided:

Domestically, asylum is a hot political issue. Polls have shown that a significant number of Australians approve of taking a tougher stance

The Australian Human Rights Commission also has an online guide for anyone seeking detailed information.

 

 

 

Calls for Civil Disobedience in Australia Over Children’s Offshore Detention · Global Voices.

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