Tag: racism

Greg Abbott Might Wanna Rethink Pardoning Super Racist Murderer Of Black Lives Matter Protester

Post By Politics , , , , , , , , , ,

Newly unsealed court records from the murder trial of convicted murderer Daniel Perry, who was found guilty of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in July 2020, might put a slight crimp in Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s plans to pardon Perry for the murder, for which Perry was convicted a week ago, by a unanimous Texas jury. The 76-page trove of evidence taken from Perry’s phone by investigators shows that Perry fantasized often about killing people, regularly posted racist memes, and, in the weeks leading up to the crime, posted again and again about how protesters deserved to be killed.

Just to review, Perry, an Uber driver and sergeant in the Army, was found guilty of murdering Garrett Foster, 28, at a July 25, 2020, Black Lives Matter protest in Austin. Perry ran a red light and drove into a crowd of protesters, after which several of them approached his car, including Foster, who was carrying an AR-15 on a shoulder strap, with the barrel pointed down. Perry claimed Foster had raised the barrel of the rifle toward him, so he had to shoot Foster in self defense, but multiple witnesses — including, oh, Perry while he was being questioned by police — testified that was not the case.

During the trial, prosecutors presented some evidence from Perry’s phone to suggest he’d been fantasizing about killing protesters, including a May 31 Facebook messenger message telling a friend he “might have to kill a few people on my way to work; they are rioting outside my apartment complex.”

The day after the guilty verdict, Abbott tweeted that he was “working as swiftly as Texas law allows regarding the pardon of Sgt. Perry,” saying in a message that Texas’s “stand your ground” law is a defense that “cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.” That apparently means that as soon as a killer says they were standing their ground, nobody can ever question it. Especially not if the victim was a Black Lives Matter protester carrying a patriotic AR-15 turned to the dark side by Antifa.

The document unsealed this week includes far more information from Perry’s phone than was used in his trial, and presents a very unflattering digital self-portrait of Perry — although we should note the extracted information was compiled by prosecutors in the murder case, so if Perry posted a lot of messages about being kind to abandoned ducklings and school crossing guards, it wasn’t included. Here’s the whole thing, if you want to get some insights into at least part of a convicted murderer’s violent racist mind.

The document includes some searches Perry conducted on topics like George Floyd’s killing, protests around the country (especially those that involved rioting), and searches for protests in various cities around Texas, as well as searches for “boogaloll movement,” “degrees of murder charges,” “good chats to meet young girls,” and the disturbingly specific inquiry “does the federal government have the ballistics of every firearm sold legally.”

The 76-page list also includes itemized lists of memes, generally undated, as well as Facebook comments, text conversations, and other digital detritus that turned out not to be very ephemeral at all. Big surprise: A lot of them are about shooting or running over protesters, and other Rambo fantasies. We’ll give you a content warning right now: Some of this stuff is incredibly racist.

A few funny memes Perry had on the phone, all of them with the note that the date and location aren’t known:

  • The meme has a photo on top and a photo on the bottom. The top photo is a police man with the text “YOU CAN’T JUST RUN OVER PEOPLE”. The bottom photo shows a freight truck with the text “IT’S OK. I’M ESSENTIAL.”
  • A media file that shows a white box with the text “IT’S OKAY TO BE WHITE.”
  • A man dressed in black with a black ski mask on holding a tire iron over his head. The text says “IT’S A PROVEN FACT THAT CRIMINALS COMMIT LESS CRIME AFTER THEY’VE BEEN SHOT.”
  • Clint Eastwood aiming a firearm and the text says, “WHEN THERE ARE NO POLICE MOST CRIMES WILL CARRY THE DEATH PENALTY.”
  • [A meme saying] “If rioters come to your area, please remember, don’t be a litterbug. Pick up your brass.”
  • The text at the top says, ”Me: ‘white people can’t dance lol”, White People: ‘Okay but if I call you a cotton picking nigger then I’m the racist one right? Racism works both ways, pull your pants up if you don’t want cops killing you.”
  • A meme with a photo of a woman holding her child’s head under the bath water and the text reads, “WHEN YOUR DAUGHTERS FIRST CRUSH IS A LITTLE NEGRO BOY”

There’s also a 2019 text message in which Perry wrote, “To bad we can’t get paid for hunting Muslims in Europe.”

As the pandemic got rolling, in March 2020, Perry commented on a Facebook post, “It is now when you have to defend yourself it is almost like the apocalypse.”

The memes and messages are full of militia and anti-government themes, mostly around the theme of a tyrannical government coming to take your guns away, plus how Black people are allowed to get away with violence and looting, and several declarations on Facebook saying Perry initially sympathized with protests against police brutality, at least until the rioters turned him into a racist by behaving so badly.

There are LOTS of posts like this one, from June 1, where he whines, “It is official I am a racist because I do not agree with people acting like animals at the zoo. I was on the side of the protestors until the started with the looting and the violence.” If Perry actually posted anything in support of the protests, it’s not listed. Maybe it was with the duckies and records of his donations to orphans.

On May 29, Perry posted in a group text that “They are rioting in Dallas it is on the news,” to which a friend replies “Nobody fucking cares Perry.” Perry, undeterred, replied with a fantasy about how, were it not for his Army duty, he would “probably be spending a few nights on a roof protection farther’s [sic] business from looters.”

He also texted to another friend, “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

The next day, in an exchange with the same friend, Perry fantasized, “I am imagining standing on a roof top with a megaphone and a maga hat saying looters will be shot leave the area immediately and then count down to zero or when they start breaking down the front door just opening up like it is open season.”

His friend, a true Beavis to Perry’s Butt-Head, replied, “Plus heavy death metal in the background.”

In the May 31 Facebook Messenger conversation where he wrote about maybe having to kill some people on the way to work, his Beavis friend asked, “Can you legally do so?”

Perry replied, “If they attack me or try to pull me out my car then yes,” which of course is what he later claimed was exactly what he was defending himself against when he shot Garrett Foster in Austin.

After some back and forth with Beavis about how that might play out (“I will only shoot the ones in front and push the pedal to the metal”), Perry figured that he needed to stock up on ammunition, and Beavis joked, “Can you catch me a negro daddy”

Perry replied “That is what I am hoping” and Beavis messaged back “Yayy.”

There’s quite a bit more, none of it flattering to the convicted murderer whom Greg Abbot wants to pardon because he was merely standing his ground like any law-abiding American, the end.

[Houston Chronicle (paywalled) / Texas v Perry evidence filing / CNN]

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#Greg #Abbott #Wanna #Rethink #Pardoning #Super #Racist #Murderer #Black #Lives #Matter #Protester

‘The Chechen & the Cop’: Immigrant and policeman fight racism together

Post By World , , , ,

Young Achmed Mitaev is fed up with Austrian police being racist towards immigrants.

The 23-year-old wants to prove that the Chechen community he belongs to — often victims of some of the worst prejudices in Europe — can also play a constructive role in their societies.

His TikTok account, dubbed ‘The Chechen and the Cop’, encourages people to ask the police even the most bizarre questions — such as “What would happen if I tried to smuggle my cousin into Europe?” or “What should I do when I see a police handgun on the street?”

From cruelty in Chechnya to abuse in Austria

Mitaev and his family fled their native Chechnya more than a decade ago on a perilous journey lasting months, first ending up in Poland and then in Austria. 

Chechnya is a Russian republic that was forced to remain under Moscow’s control after the Soviet Union collapsed and a vicious war. It is subject to some of the harshest human rights abuses.

People can be abrasive towards the Chechen community since they associate them with figures like Ramzan Kadyrov, the notorious leader of Chechnya and a loyal ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

In turn, Chechen soldiers have been deployed directly to the frontline in Ukraine by the Kremlin, though a small number are fighting on the other side too. 

“My mum, my dad and my siblings were on the road for three months fleeing from Russia, where the police is extremely cruel and unfair. So I definitely didn’t expect the police treatment I received in Austria,” he told Euronews.

He lives in Vienna’s 20th district, an eclectic multicultural neighbourhood located along the Danube Canal. 

Home to a high number of immigrant communities, police often patrol the area and stop people they deem suspicious — a practice long criticised as problematic throughout Europe and the US.

At 14, Mitaev became one of the youngest inmates in Austria after being arrested for resisting what he says was the third stop-and-search that day.

“The police are allowed to stop and check you over at any given point and without providing any reason for it. The Chechen community, in particular, gets stopped a lot,” he recalled. 

“I kept being stopped on my way to work or school, and once I was stopped by the same policeman three different times and I reacted to that.” 

Years later, the police invited him and some other people from the community to brainstorm ways in which law enforcement could be more approachable. They suggested the youngsters play football with the police or organise chess tournaments, which frustrated Mitaev.

“At one point I got sick of the conversation and told them, ‘you guys are here because of us and you have no idea what we want,’” he said.

Uwe Schaffer, the 59-year-old policeman who later became the protagonist of Mitaev’s TikTok videos, exchanged phone numbers with the young man and asked to meet up separately to discuss other options.

This is how the idea for the channel was born.

“The other policemen told Uwe that he was crazy, making videos with these Chechens. They told him they’re all criminals anyway. He didn’t listen to them and said he was committed to doing it no matter what.”

‘Police should not shy away from women with headscarves’

The format is relatively straightforward. Mitaev meets up with Schaffer somewhere in Vienna, like in a mall or in a public space. The young Chechen reads him a question from a user, and the police officer responds — often with brutal honesty.

For example, one of the questions involved the ban on face coverings in Vienna. While respect for religious communities is enshrined in the Austrian constitution, there is a ban on full-face coverings. Certain Muslim religious head coverings — such as the niqab — are therefore banned, explains Schaffer.

“But what about when someone covers up their mouth because they’re wearing a face mask? Like, for COVID?” Mitaev asks. Schaffer replies the police have a hard time distinguishing between the two, and that he would advise people to not wear headscarves instead of masks.

Austria is home to some voracious right-wing and hard-right parties, who base a large part of their rhetoric on spreading fear of immigrants — especially Muslims — among the majority Austrian population.

For Mitaev, the goal of his project is to tear down the walls between the police and those who fear them the most.

“For example, women who wear a headscarf or who do not speak perfect German don’t feel free to just ask the police about something, so they send me questions on my TikTok.”

‘Immigrants should be eternally grateful, and not commit crimes’

Kenan Dogan Güngör is the founder of “Think Difference”, an organisation focused on overcoming integration issues and consulting on questions of diversity. 

He says that while certain crimes “do indeed occur more frequently in certain migrant groups,” the lack of tolerance towards these groups also “triggers a higher level of outrage”.

Public outrage, he told Euronews, is “sparked not just by the crime, but also the person who committed it … the errors, grievances towards and even the criminality of unwanted and devalued groups and minorities are often perceived more strongly,” as a means of “confirming their reservations and prejudices”.

Majority communities in many European countries “expect humility and gratitude from migrants, refugees and perceived outsiders. Offences committed by these groups are seen as a particular violation of this expectation, and accordingly, the indignation is higher, more dramatised and instrumentalised by politics and the media.”

Mitaev says one of the basic problems these communities face is not understanding the rights they are entitled to. 

“My main aim is to make sure people know their rights in the country they live in. People need to know what can happen to them in certain situations.”

He jokes that some of his friends first accused him of being a police informant, before becoming fans of his videos.

“It should also tell people not to hate law enforcement officers in uniform, and that you should not distance yourself from them completely.”

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#Chechen #Cop #Immigrant #policeman #fight #racism

Forgive Them Lord They … Oh Wait. They Do. Tennessee House Lets Its Racist Freak Flag Fly.

Post By Politics , , , , , ,

The Republican supermajority that controls the Tennessee House of Representatives got most of what it wanted yesterday: It expelled two of the three Democrats it charged with the unspeakable crime of speaking out of order during a March 30 session, where the three had approached the “well” of the House to show support for hundreds of Nashville teens in the gallery (and thousands more outside) protesting for gun control. But they went to the podium without being recognized, breaking a very important rule and thereby dishonoring and disrupting the House.

Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) stripped the three of their committee assignments, but that wasn’t enough, so the Democrats — state Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones, and Justin Pearson — had resolutions of expulsion filed against them, which led to yesterday’s bumblefuck in the Tennessee House. We liveblogged the entire six and a half hours of it, and short of the Benghazi committee’s 11-hour interrogation of Hillary Clinton, we don’t think we’ve ever watched a more disgusting display of rightwing bile and bigotry.

Read More!

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Let’s Watch Tennessee House Beclown Itself By Expelling Three Democrats For ‘Insurrection’

It ended with the good old boys expelling the two young Black first-term representatives, Jones and Pearson, and a small surprise for Johnson: The final vote on her expulsion fell one vote short. Johnson, 60, is white, and has served since 2018, as well as an earlier single term from 2012 to 2014. A Republican might argue that she’s still in the House because she didn’t participate as actively in the “disgraceful” behavior, but as Johnson told reporters right after she left the chamber, “It might have to do with the color of our skin.” She got booed by a few people who heard that.

Calling A Lynching A Lynching

Once Rep. Jones, up first in Expulsionpalooza, was eventually allowed to speak, he began by noting that the outcome of the hearings had been decided in advance, and that several high ranking Republicans had said as much in the media. He said that this was going to be a lynching, not of him but of democracy in Tennessee. And wow was he right. He pointed out that, in the weekend between the protest last Thursday and Monday’s resolutions of expulsion, Speaker Sexton and other Republicans had been all over local media, claiming that the brief protest was an “insurrection”; he was especially annoyed that several suggested that the student protesters had been violent, or that they had stormed the Capitol, when they had all been admitted through the regular security process.

One Republican, Rep. Gino Bulso, was one of the Top Assholes of the day; he called the brief protest a “mutiny” and exclaimed that it was especially galling that Jones wouldn’t even admit that he had done wrong. He lectured Jones long and loud, after which Jones said he hadn’t actually heard Bulso ask a question, but that he did hear Bulso say, in effect, “what we have here is an uppity Negro.

Jones offered to apologize for breaking a House rule just as soon as Republicans apologize to the families of mass shooting victims, for passing laws that have flooded Tennessee with weapons of war. “I broke a rule,” he said, “but I did not break my oath.”

Democrats rose again and again to point out how ridiculous it was to expel members for simple rules violations; several noted times that fistfights had narrowly been averted (but threats of violence had not). Several, including Jones, recalled the case of former Rep. David Byrd (R), who was accused by three women of having sexually assaulted them in the 1980s, when they were minors and he was their high school basketball coach. Byrd was even secretly recorded apologizing to one victim, but his fellow Republicans voted against expulsion.

Republicans quickly voted to end debate, and then voted to expel Jones in less time than it took me to type this sentence. That said, I’m a terrible typist. A good typist might have banged out two sentences in the time it took to expel Jones.

Day of Betrayal

The expulsion hearing for Gloria Johnson began with her two attorneys presenting her defense; the first pointed out that it’s Holy Week, and that it was Maundy Thursday, the “Day of Betrayal” when Judas turned Jesus over to the Romans. He noted that the expulsion resolution for Rep. Johnson was flat out false, accusing her of shouting, pounding on the podium, and other actions that her two young colleagues had taken while she had simply accompanied them to the well. Any court in the state would throw those accusations out after a simple motion.

That said, he continued, protesting is the most patriotic thing a citizen can do. “America was born in protest,” he said, “and I am grateful it was!”

Bulso was Johnson’s designated questioner, and he badgered her over and over about particular moments in the protest, as if he were reconstructing a murder scene. Had she known the rules prohibit speaking at the well without permission? Didn’t she expect to face discipline? Eventually, she simply asked Bulso, “What is my crime, sir?” and, after one leading question, “I don’t think I’m going to agree with you at all.” When Bulso said that if she weren’t expelled, she would surely kill speak out of turn again, she replied, “You’re reading minds again, and I don’t like having my mind read.”

Johnson wisely spent much of her time replying perfunctorily to questions, then coming back to why the protest happened in the first place, and why she was proud to have stood with her colleagues: Democrats have been systematically silenced and ignored, and children’s lives are at stake. When her turn to present closing remarks came, she began by naming the children and adults killed at the Nashville school, as well as one of her own special ed students who died in a shooting in 2008. She closed by saying, “We want action. Our hearts demanded that we come up here to call for action.”

Then somehow, the vote came up one short of expelling her. It must help to be white and 60, and a lady at that, someone the old white Republicans can recognize as almost a colleague, even if she’s a crazy liberal. Not that the Rs would ever admit that. They were simply recognizing that, of the three Dems, she hadn’t chanted or megaphoned, that’s all. She was “the good one.”

Yeah, that must be it.

Be Careful Who You Persecute

The real star of the hearings was Rep. Justin Pearson, who was also the target of the most flagrantly racist, condescending questioning from Republicans. He had actually only been sworn in as a member of the House two weeks ago, shortly before the mass shooting that led to the protest that led to his expulsion. But my sweet Crom, he isn’t going to disappear. He began his testimony by singing, a capella, “Power to the People,” and ended his grilling an hour and a half later by preaching an Easter sermon.

He pointed out that, since rules are rules and must be obeyed, the actual House rules make clear that the proper penalty for what he, Jones, and Johnson did would be censure, not expulsion. He also reminded the House what led him and his colleagues to be in the well in the first place: “The move for justice can never die because the heart for justice can never be killed.”

Asked if he knew why he was standing before the House, Pearson said yes indeed he did: Because he’d spoken up for beautiful people murdered with an assault weapon.

Told that no, he’s there because he broke the rules of decorum, Pearson pushed back. No, he’s there to represent his constituents, to speak up for children who won’t grow up to speak. It was beautiful.

Pearson was mostly questioned by a real creep, Republican Rep. Andrew Farmer, who we kept expecting to slip up and call Pearson “Boy.” Get a load of this asshole, and enjoy Pearson’s brilliant reply:

He began with the quiet, “How many of you would want to be spoken to that way?” and built to an amazing crescendo. Like any good debater, Pearson took Farmer’s patronizing accusation that the protest was nothing more than an attention-seeking “temper tantrum” and turned it around on him. “Is elevating our voices for justice and change a temper tantrum?” He went on to invoke the children who will never have a temper tantrum again, and closed by pointing out that this country was founded by people who were dismissed as merely having a tantrum.

And he did it all extemporaneously, the way a lot of us might only fantasize we would reply to a bully — an hour afterwards.

Let’s wrap up this too-long review by watching and appreciating Pearson’s final statement, where he’s joined by members of the Black Caucus for an address that blends the Holy Week message of redemption with the ugly behavior of the Tennessee House, which is crucifying democracy. We imagine his references to Black Jesus must have particularly irked some Republican snowflakes. As a rhetoric guy, I just love Pearson’s linking Tennessee to the long dreadful Saturday before Easter: That’s where Tennessee is now, hopes crushed, the future unknowable, with only faith — and the strength of Black women — to hold onto while waiting for the Resurrection.

Rep. Pearson’s oratory wasn’t enough to move the Republicans who voted immediately to expel him. But then, they know not what they do, they never do. They created a political star who’s going to turn his two weeks (so far) in the Tennessee House into a nationally noticed career.

www.youtube.com

Now, I am not a believer, but I know when someone knows how to preach, and I will gladly join Rep. Pearson’s choir any day.

Also, we may well see both Jones and Pearson again much sooner than the next election day, since their county boards have the power to appoint their replacements. The Metropolitan Council of Davidson County seems likely to reappoint Jones, and Memphis’s Shelby County Board of Commissioners plans a meeting soon to choose a replacement; Pearson says he hopes to be reappointed, saying of the commissioners that “A lot of them, I know, are upset about the anti-democratic behavior of this white supremacist-led state legislature.” Reappointed or not, there will also be a special primary election for the seats within 55 to 60 days, followed by a special general election within 100 to 107 days.

We bet there’ll be some amazing campaign ads, as if they’re needed.

[CNN]

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#Forgive #Lord #Wait #Tennessee #House #Lets #Racist #Freak #Flag #Fly

Fascism’s History Offers Lessons about Today’s Attacks on Education

Post By Science And Technology , , ,

Public education has long been a battlefield in the U.S., from the Scopes trial to desegregation to climate change. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s recent demands for greater control over public education—and students’ bodies—in the guise of “parent’s rights” accelerates this conflict, rejecting the importance of learning as a public good in itself in favor of promoting conformity and uncritical thinking.

As a historian of fascism and Italian fascist education, I find the moves to exert more power over education disturbingly familiar. Even ignoring the obvious harm DeSantis’s campaign inflicts on Florida’s students—already detailed by numerous experts—the effort to constrict the information available to students mirrors fascist ambitions in important ways and threatens the very democratic foundations its proponents claim to champion.

History shows such efforts harm us all.

Last summer, Florida lawmakers enacted two laws limiting access to information in public education. The first, the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees, or Stop W.O.K.E. Act, prohibits teachers and teaching materials from promoting the idea that anyone is inherently oppressive or responsible for the actions of others who share “the same race, color, sex, or national origin.” The second, the now infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law, formally the Parental Rights in Education Act, bans “classroom instruction” in sexual orientation or gender identity before fourth grade.

Several other bills moving through the Florida House of Representatives and Senate are designed to further stifle critical thinking, debate and broader awareness of the society we live in—all under the banner “Freedom from Indoctrination.” Examples include banning “classroom instruction” (or recognition) of nonbinary gender identities and sexual orientations more widely; legally defining “sex” as binary and “immutable”; and removing all sexual health education from elementary and middle school curricula.

Critics including scholars and politicians have decried such measures not merely as symptoms of America’s “culture wars,” but as distinctly “fascist.” I am often frustrated by the ways “fascism” is applied uncritically as a substitute for “something I don’t like.” Nonetheless, highlighting the parallels between the ambitions of DeSantis and those of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini exposes the shared threat to democracy.

At the heart of fascist political strategy was the expansion of state control over public and private life under the facades of popular support and common good. Mussolini may have been legally appointed as Italy’s prime minister in 1922, but by 1927 all political parties had been banned or absorbed into his Fascist Party. At the Ministry of Education, Mussolini appointed nine ministers over 21 years. Only five had teaching experience but, more importantly, all but one (who quit after six months) were devoted party members who did little to question Mussolini’s directives.

Though DeSantis has not barred opposing political parties from the Florida legislature, he has taken advantage of the governor’s outsized, constitutionally-granted influence over the education system to exclude dissenting opinions. In Florida, as in more than a dozen other states, the governor appoints all members to the Board of Education. This system means neither academic nor professional qualifications are required of members. As evidence, Florida’s current Board of Education includes three lawyers, one doctor, two business executives and just one teacher (who was appointed in March).

Another similarity to fascism related to this preference for loyalty over training is the targeted sidelining of experts and outright rejection of contradictory viewpoints. As Mussolini solidified his power in the 1920s, he increasingly placed restrictions on school curricula (and public discourse) until the regime announced the development of national textbooks produced by a handful of party faithful. These texts prioritized content supporting fascist ideology and conforming to a pseudoscientific vision of the world, including Mussolini’s resurrection of ancient Rome’s glory; Italians’ racial superiority and right to invade sovereign kingdoms; women’s national obligation to be mothers of future soldiers; and, later, Jewish racial inferiority.

Similarly, DeSantis’s calls to censor content under the pretense of returning lessons to “the facts” ignore the findings of the people qualified to articulate those “facts” unless they support the desired narrative. This lack of expertise is doubly dangerous for our students and democracy. First, it means a small number of people rely on their personal priorities for a child’s education to determine school curricula for all students. The dependence on individual perspectives as much as knowledge grounded in research and expertise leads to an increasing conflation of faith with science, memory with history, and dogmatism with truth. Second, the unwillingness to provide students with subject-appropriate, expert-developed materials that introduce them to new ideas limits their ability to assess sources for reliability and accuracy. Moreover, confronting evidence-based material that challenges one’s own experience and presents different perspectives is essential to developing citizens able to harness information from varied sources to best solve society’s problems.

Like fascism’s promotion of an idealized and entirely fabricated Italian race, Florida’s curricular decisions aim to mold students in the image of a very small portion of our country’s population. I do not believe the DeSantis administration’s actions rise to the level of Italian fascism under Mussolini, but there are very real parallels that are extremely dangerous. DeSantis’s ongoing efforts to concentrate power and perspective to “protect” Floridians from uncomfortable or simply different ways of thinking has the potential to further erode the principles of open debate and collective responsibility that underpin democracy.

However, to focus solely on Florida and DeSantis is to ignore a larger problem within American public education. We must not stop at simply denouncing DeSantis’s efforts as “fascist”; to do so sidesteps their homegrown roots and minimizes their full danger. From the chronic underfunding of public school systems to the banning of challenging books to the oversimplification of our national past, Florida’s legislation represents only the latest in a long history of attempts to deplore knowledge, deride academic inquiry for its own sake, and discourage intellectual curiosity in our children and the American public. As a nation, we overemphasize public education’s role in training students to become “successful”—defined in economic terms—and neglect creating a society of informed citizens with critical thinking and reasoning skills.

Being part of a democratic republic—embracing our pluralistic society—requires diverse views and their educated assessment. To avoid difference, controversy and discomfort as Florida’s new laws require will stunt not only our children’s ability to evaluate and articulate arguments, but also to see our world as it is. In the end, that is the greatest danger, whether we call it fascist or not.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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#Fascisms #History #Offers #Lessons #Todays #Attacks #Education

Hawthorn racism review couple, ‘abandoned’ by the AFL and club, consider legal action

Post By World , , , , ,

A couple at the centre of the Hawthorn racism review is considering taking legal action against the club, which they say “purposefully abandoned” them and “cruelly” dishonoured its public pledge of support after the scandal broke.

The couple’s lawyer, Judy Courtin, released a statement on Tuesday, which quoted the couple as saying they were “left sitting in our pain, re-traumatised and feeling blamed and invalidated”.

“We feel that Hawthorn and the AFL have attempted to wipe their hands clean of us, and worse, to blame us for what happened to us,” the couple said in the statement.

“They have publicly stated that they are supporting us, but in private, we feel torment at every turn. Often, we are obtaining information via the media.

“We feel abandoned by the very club that was promising to understand and address our hurt and trauma.

“Once again, we feel as though our voices are being silenced or controlled in processes that are not independent or safe. We are fearful, scared, intimidated and all of the feelings from the past are, once again, so familiar.”

Stating that it lacked independence, the couple previously refused to participate in the AFL-commissioned investigation that flowed from Hawthorn’s Cultural Safety Review, the latter of which sought to understand historical incidents of racism at the club.

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AFL announces terms of reference for Hawks investigation

Dr Courtin said the couple would now consider civil litigation and said their lives had been “turned upside down” by the affair.

Former club coaches Alastair Clarkson and Chris Fagan have denied any wrongdoing in relation to allegations made to the authors of the Hawthorn report.

After the scandal broke, the AFL claimed its investigative panel would reach findings by Christmas last year, but its progress has been slow.

Clarkson and Fagan are yet to be interviewed and few of the families to make allegations of mistreatment have been willing to participate.

In October, Dr Courtin told ABC Sport the AFL review lacked credibility.

“An inquiry that is paid for and established by the AFL, and absent of any input from my clients, is not and cannot be independent,” Dr Courtin said, adding that her clients “continue to be treated with disdain”.

The AFL said its investigation is ongoing.

“The AFL is committed to providing support for all, including those who have shared their experiences and those who have chosen not to be part of the investigation,” a statement read.

“Where appropriate we have offered this support through the legal representatives of the parties represented. That support continues.”

‘Forced to beg, cap in hand’

Dr Courtin said the couple had been “forced to beg, cap in hand” for counselling support after their alleged ordeal had become public knowledge, and that it took “nine weeks of pointless argument for the HFC [Hawthorn Football Club] to finally agree to pay for some counselling for our distressed client, which has, again, further exacerbated their sense of betrayal and mistreatment”.

“It was suggested that one of our clients obtain a referral from his GP for 10 publicly funded counselling sessions at no cost to the HFC,” Dr Courtin said in the statement.

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No way does CNN tech journo believe his own BS about how ‘TikTok ban rhetoric’ is inherently racist

Post By Politics , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So, do you guys remember way back in the early days of the COVID pandemic when Democratic politicians tried to show us how tolerant and progressive and un-racist they are by encouraging people to pretend that the virus didn’t originate in China? Remember when the best way to show solidarity with the Asian American community was to hang out in large groups at Chinese restaurants? Remember how if you chose to bury your head in the sand, it meant that you were tolerant, and if you didn’t, it meant that you were racist?

Well, we’ve moved on somewhat from those days, but don’t for a second think that liberals won’t still find anti-Asian bigotry where it doesn’t exist in order to score political points. And that brings us to CNN tech reporter Brian Fung, who wants to make sure that we know that opposition to TikTok is ultimately rooted in racism against Asians, or at least has fanned the flames of racism against Asians:

Fung writes:

That rhetoric surged again this week as a hostile House committee grilled TikTok CEO Shou Chew for more than five hours on Thursday about the app’s ties to China through its parent company, ByteDance. After lawmakers repeatedly accused Chew, who is Singaporean, of working for the Chinese government and tried to associate him with the Chinese Communist Party, Vanessa Pappas, a top TikTok executive, condemned the hearing as “rooted in xenophobia.”

A top TikTok executive framed questioning of Shou Zi Chew as xenophobic? Oh, well, then it must be xenophobic. Because clearly a top TikTok executive would have no ulterior motives in accusing opponents of TikTok of racism.

More:

But even in discussing the Chinese government’s real, demonstrated risks to US security, the way that some Americans describe those dangers is counterproductive, needlessly provocative and historically inaccurate, said Rep. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat and a member of the House select committee. Even the name “Chinese Communist Party” can itself prime listeners to adopt a Cold War mentality — a framework whose analytical value is dubious, Kim argued.

“A lot of my colleagues, especially on the select committee, use rhetoric like, ‘This is a new Cold War,’” said Kim. “First of all, it’s not true: The Soviet Union was a very different competitor than China. And it’s framed in a very zero-sum way … It’s very much being talked about as if their entire way of life is incompatible with ours and cannot coexist with ours, and that heightens the tension.”

Referring to the Chinese Communist Party as the “Chinese Communist Party” is offensive? OK, yeah. These are not serious people we’re dealing with. So naturally these are the people CNN is focused on.

Oh yeah. Brian apparently doesn’t want to be bothered with responses to his stupid tweet and stupid article:

So.

We have to conclude that Brian doesn’t expect anyone to take him seriously as a journalist.

How can anyone actually believe that?

All of it. All of it is contrived narrative.

Stop making sense, Sean!

Sure sounds like it. Is it racist to point that out, CNN?

Is there anti-Asian bigotry in this country? Absolutely. Look no further than what’s happening to qualified, high-achieving Asian and Asian American students who are being rejected for admission by elite colleges in favor of lesser qualified applicants. Look no further than the uptick in violent attacks on Asians in places like New York and California. And weirdly, outlets like CNN don’t seem to be nearly as concerned about that (unless they can twist it against conservatives somehow, of course).

So spare us your outrage, Brian Fung. Spare us your outrage, CNN.

When you’re regurgitating CCP talking points, you’ve already lost.

***

Related:

WaPo tech journo asserts with zero evidence that there’s ‘zero evidence’ TikTok is a ChiCom spy tool

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#CNN #tech #journo #TikTok #ban #rhetoric #inherently #racist

‘They spit on us’: What’s really going on in the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis

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Officially, the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis is meant to serve as a reception centre to “welcome and orient” new arrivals to Tunisia. However, what is actually happening there has long remained opaque because NGOs and lawyers aren’t allowed access. The FRANCE 24 Observers decided to investigate the nightmarish conditions inside. Our source told us that about fifty migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, most of them Black Africans, are being arbitrarily detained in the squalid centre.

Léopold (not his real name) came from the Ivory Coast to Tunisia several years ago to attend university. When he graduated, he decided to stay and work in the country. He also got married and had a child. However, Léopold was not a legal resident of the country where he had made his home. And so, in 2021, he began sorting out his papers and regularising his situation.

However, before Léopold was able to finish the process, he was arrested alongside several other Ivorians when police raided the headquarters of the Association of active Ivoirians in Sfax (AIVAS) on August 21, 2021. He was placed in detention in Tunis.

‘There is a difference between what the judicial system decides and what the border police do’

A judge at the Ariana tribunal said that Léopold should be released on July 22, 2022. However, instead of being allowed to return home to his family, police brought him to the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis, where he has been arbitrarily detained ever since. He has received no legal or administrative support.

According to a judge, I was freed last summer. But there is a difference between what the judicial system decides and what the border police do.

From the moment I stepped into the migrant centre, I realised that the guards there were ready to harm us and it gave me a good indication of what to expect during my stay there. They spit on us, they called us “kahlouch” [Editor’s note: a derogatory term for Black people in North African Arabic] or “guirguira” [Editor’s note: a word that is supposed to imitate the sounds made by a monkey].

“Tunisia is our country, we’ll do what we want with you,” the guards told us.


This video was filmed from the back of a police car on February 27 by a person being taken, along with others, from Mornaguia Prison to the El Ouardia migrant centre. “We don’t know where they are taking us,” the man says. He was arrested along with others on February 13 during a campaign to arrest Black Africans.

Most of the people detained in the centre don’t want to go back to their countries of origin, but they are also being denied their freedom. I came to study in Tunis and then started working there. My family and my child are in Tunisia, I don’t plan on going back [to my home country].

Since February, police in Tunisia have been carrying out a campaign of violence and arrests of Black African migrants living in Tunisia. The campaign intensified in mid-February when Tunisian President Kais Saied called for the deportation of the “hoards of clandestine migrants” in the country.

>> Watch on The Observers: The growing xenophobic violence against sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia

‘Many of us were transferred to the centre from Mornaguia Prison because there is no room there’

Before the arrests began in February, there weren’t many of us in the centre. But since then, we’ve seen many people brought to El Ouardia even after a judge has ordered their release – like me. There are also migrants transferred to the centre after spending months in prison. 

 

There are about fifty men in the centre and four women.

 

“There are fifteen of us in this room,” says our Observer. The footage shows metal beds and mattresses on the ground. In another room (shown at right) ten people sleep on the floor. Screengrabs taken from videos sent by our Observer on March 9, 2023.

 

Many of us were transferred to the centre from Mornaguia Prison because there is no room there. One of the people who was detained there said that he spent six nights without a bunk, so, here, we take turns sleeping. 

There are so many of us in the dormitories. It’s chaotic. There are a lot of sick people who then spread their illnesses to others. A number of people ill with COVID were transferred here without ever being given a test.

 


In this video, a group of Black African migrants in Tunisia call for help from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in this video posted on February 26.

 

This video shows the men’s toilets in the El Ouardia migrant centre.
This video shows the men’s toilets in the El Ouardia migrant centre. Screengrab from a video sent by our Observer on March 9, 2023.

 

‘What happens in the centre rarely gets out’

Since I’ve been here, we’ve called on the authorities several times to give us papers. On February 27, those of us detained here in El Ouardia held a protest, calling on the UN High Commissioner to take an interest in our plight. 

Even though the centre is run by the National Guard [known as the gendarmerie], when we started protesting, they brought the border police in to shut down the protest. They handcuffed us, stripped us and beat us savagely. Some of the men here got terrible injuries including wounds and dislocated shoulders. 

But what happens in the centre rarely gets out.

 

@monsieurleministre25 ♬ son original – monsieurleministre

This man was transferred from Mornaguia Prison to the El Ouardia migrant centre. He protested the morning of February 27 along with other people detained at the centre, calling for restoration of their rights and freedom. “The police were deployed this morning to prevent us [from protesting]. They say that we aren’t in prison, but they are lying to us,” he said.

 

‘Officially, it’s a reception centre, though it functions like a detention centre’

The number of detainees fluctuates in the El Ouardia “Reception and Orientation Centre” – as it is officially known – according to Romdhane Ben Amor, the spokesperson for the Tunisian Forum of Economic and Social Rights.

There are migrant centres in each region in Tunisia. However, the El Ouardia centre is the only one run by the ministry of the interior, which means that it is the only one where migrants are being arbitrarily detained in this extreme way.

Ben Amor explained:

The Tunisian National Guard, and thus the ministry of the interior, transfers migrants to this centre from prisons and other detention centres before either deporting them or liberating them. According to the latest figures from the World Organisation Against Torture, one of the only NGOs that has managed to access this centre, 51 people are currently being detained there.

Between 2011 and 2013, the centre was open to humanitarian organisations. However, since 2013, only organisations that have an agreement with the Ministry of the Interior have been able to access it.

And, since July 25, 2021 [Editor’s note: the date when President Kais Saied suspended parliament], the centre has only been used for detaining migrants and operates at maximum capacity.

 


In this video, filmed on February 27, an Ivorian man shows the injuries inflicted on him by border police. “They stripped us to beat us, they beat us like dogs,” says the man.

 

The legal status of El Ouardia centre isn’t completely clear. Officially, it’s a reception centre, though it functions like a detention centre.  

‘It’s like they are in prison without any hope of getting out or getting a decision’

There’s also another aspect of how the El Ouardia centre operates that remains unclear. At El Ouardia, detention and liberation are administrative matters and not judicial. That means that a detainee can not appeal their case or ask for judicial support, like help from a lawyer. On the contrary, the decision to detain the person is taken by public servant. There is no guarantee that the person can contest the decision.

Unfortunately, the detention is arbitrary and the migrants who are detained have no information about when they might be released. As if they were in a prison, without any hope of getting out or judgment.

 


This video filmed in the El Ouardia migrant centre in March 2020 shows officials treating migrants roughly and grouping them together before deporting them to the border with Algeria.

 

When the people detained in the migrant centre try to insist that they have rights, they are met with violence, but that isn’t new. These police were transferred to El Ouardia in a punitive role. They aren’t used to working with migrant populations and use violence as a response to everything. 

The Tunis administrative tribunal declared in 2020 that the way that people were detained in the centre was illegal. And even though the Ministry of the Interior promised reforms under the Mechichi government, nothing has changed since.

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#spit #Whats #Ouardia #migrant #centre #Tunis

Sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia living in ‘climate of fear’ after surge in racist attacks

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Hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants fled Tunisia on repatriation flights Saturday after a surge in racist attacks in the North African country following a controversial speech from President President Kais Saied. As tensions reach boiling point, FRANCE 24 talked to Patrick*, a Congolese student who decided to stay despite fearing for his safety.

“Right now, we are afraid to go out for a walk like we used to,” says Patrick*, a Congolese 29-year-old who arrived in Tunisia six months ago to study international business. In the past few weeks, attitudes in Tunisia have hardened towards people like him from sub-Saharan Africa. 

Sub-Saharan migrants living in the North African country have long faced racial stigma, but in the wake of comments from Tunisian President Kais Saied on February 21 tensions have reached boiling point. In a hardline speech targeting illegal immigration the president called for “urgent measures” against “hordes of illegal immigrants” coming from sub-Saharan Africa who he blamed for bringing “violence, crimes and unacceptable deeds” to Tunisia. 

Echoing the great replacement theory popular among some right-wing groups in Europe and the US, he said illegal immigration was the result of a “criminal plan … to change the demographic composition of Tunisia”. 

“The undeclared goal of the successive waves of illegal immigration is to consider Tunisia a purely African country that has no affiliation to the Arab and Islamic nations,” he added. 

Saied’s speech was condemned by the African Union, NGOs and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The latter criticised his remarks as “xenophobic, offensive and humiliating for the community of sub-Saharan migrants”.  

But, since the speech, attacks on people from sub-Saharan Africa living in Tunisia have multiplied. “I entered Tunisia legally, with my passport, to come and study,” Patrick says. “But because some people enter Tunisia illegally, people make sweeping statements that all Black people have come to take over their country.” 

According to official figures cited by the Tunisian rights group FTDES, there are around 21,000 sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia, a country of about 12 million inhabitants. 

Partick has stopped leaving the house to avoid being targeted. “We are afraid. For the last two weeks I’ve been staying inside. I haven’t been attacked, but I’ve got friends who have been. Since the Tunisian president made his speech, there are Tunisians who are attacking Black people,” he says. 

He lives with another student who has also avoided leaving the house. The pair “make an effort” to go outside sometimes and buy food. “We stay close to home to buy bread and juice. [We only go] into small shops. That’s it.” 

‘Arbitrary attacks’ 

“There is a climate of fear. Things are very tense right now,” says Saadia Mosbah, president of M’nemty, an association working to fight against racial discrimination in Tunisia. 

In the Tunisian city of Sfax four sub-Saharan Africans were attacked with knives during the night of February 25. On the same night in the capital Tunis, four Ivorian students were attacked as they left their halls of residence, RFI reported. 

“People from sub-Saharan Africa are victim to arbitrary attacks,” Mosbah says, “They are being stigmatised due to the colour of their skin and, consequently, even some black Tunisians are being attacked, as happened to one of the victims in Sfax.”   

Aside from the president’s speech, Mosbah says the Tunisian Nationalist Party (le parti nationaliste tunisien), founded in 2018, has been stoking anti-migrant tensions for months through its speeches and door-to-door campaigns. 

“Militias [from the party] are patrolling the streets in Greater Tunis, Sfax and Médenine ordering landlords to turn sub-Saharan Africans out into the street. They are threatening shopkeepers with closure, legal action, fines and even prison unless they stop selling sub-Saharan Africans milk, rice and semolina,” Mosbah and psychiatrist and writer Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve wrote in an open letter published on March 3 in French daily Le Monde.  

Black African migrants have been “thrown out of housing without their belongings”, says Mosbah. “There are places where houses have even been burned down and pillaged. The people we are now seeing waiting in front of their embassies don’t have a penny to their name ­– their money has been stolen.” 

‘We are afraid’ 

In an increasingly dangerous environment, sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia have been flocking to their embassies in recent days, asking for emergency repatriation. Many are unregistered migrants and have lost their work and their accommodation overnight. 

The Ivory Coast embassy in Tunis flew home 50 nationals on March 1 – including entire families with children and babies – who had spent days camping outside the official building on mattresses and under tarps.  

On the same day around 50 Guinean migrants landed in Conakry after having fled Tunisia on the first repatriation flight after Saied’s speech. Events in Tunisia were “a senseless outpouring of hate”, one told AFP after their plane had landed. 

>> Hundreds of West African migrants flee Tunisia after President Saied’s controversial crackdown

The growing numbers of sub-Saharan Africans fleeing the country is a source of anxiety for Patrick. “We are afraid. Our sub-Saharan brothers are returning home and now, those of us who are still here, are scared that reprisals are going to fall on us if we stay.” The business student believes the international community should step in to “give a sense of security to sub-Saharans who have stayed in Tunisia”. 

But he does not want to leave, for the moment. “I came here with an objective: to study. I paid for my plane ticket to come here and I paid my school fees. I could return to my country for my safety, but I would be losing out.” 

Even so, he says: “I feel in danger. We are trying to stay optimistic. We hope that things will get better. But we are still afraid.” 

* name has been changed  

This article has been translated from the original in French. 

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#SubSaharan #migrants #Tunisia #living #climate #fear #surge #racist #attacks

Mob attacks two Tunis shelters for LGBTQ people from sub-Saharan Africa

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A mob of men wielding sticks and knives attacked a shelter for LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa on February 23. Police called to the site arrested at least eight people from sub-Saharan Africa, even though they have refugee status and are therefore legal residents in Tunisia. This is the latest violence to occur in a climate of growing hostility towards Black Africans, spurred by a campaign of repression by the authorities and xenophobic comments made by the Tunisian president.

A group of men attacked a shelter for LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa in Ariana, a northern suburb of Tunis during the night of Thursday, February 23. For residents at the shelter, it was a night of pure terror. Many were beaten while others sustained knife wounds. About thirty people, including at least six people in possession of refugee cards from the United Nations, were arrested that night.

This wasn’t the first attack of its kind. A few days earlier, on Monday, February 20, another mob attacked another shelter for LGBTQ refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, this one located in Bab el Khadhra, in the centre of Tunis. 

The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to two refugees who were there during the attack in Ariana on February 23.

‘The son of the landlord threatened to evict us. The next day, he returned with an armed mob’

Chiraz (not her real name) is a transgender refugee from a sub-Saharan Africa country. We are not using her real name to protect her safety. She was at the shelter in Ariana on February 23 when the mob attacked. 

On the evening of February 23, the son of the landlord came, wanting to evict everyone living in the shelter. The night before, he had stood in front of the building and threatened us.


This young man, who our Observers say is the son of their landlord, throws a stone at the person filming from the balcony. The young man shouts an obscene insult, telling the person to “go home”, an added insult to a refugee community. “I will f*ck you in the a**hole. Not tonight, but what until I catch you tomorrow, dirty f**,” he adds.

I don’t live in this shelter but we decided to gather together in one apartment for safety after the attack on another shelter for LGBTQ people from sub-Saharan Africa on February 20. 

There were about 35 or 36 of us in the apartment that night, all of us Black people from sub-Saharan Africa. The son of the landlord, who often says racist and homophobic things to us refugees, came the night of February 23 along with several other Tunisian men. They tried to open the door with a copy of our keys but then ended up breaking it down.

They grabbed my hair, hard enough to pull out some of my locks and they stabbed several people. Other people were beaten, punched in the face.

These photos show where Chiraz’s hair was pulled out. She also sustained injuries to her foot and leg. Her injuries were caused by Tunisian men who attacked the shelter on the night of February 23. © Photos sent by our Observer

‘Instead of arresting the men who attacked us, the police took us away’

The police came later but instead of arresting the men who were attacking us, they brought us to the Borj Louzir police station [Ariana, a suburb of Tunis, NDLR]!

At the police station, we showed them our refugee cards from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. However, the police told us they thought our papers had been forged.


This video, filmed the night of February 23, shows a mob of Tunisian men gathered in front of a building where refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa were living. You can also see two police cars as well as uniformed agents.

In order to get through the situation, I told the police that I was an artist from sub-Saharan Africa and claimed that my current appearance was an “artistic” look I was cultivating. I had to lie about my gender because I was worried about a transphobic attack from the police. Finally, they let seven of the eight of us who had refugee cards go. 

However, the people who didn’t have refugee cards remain in detention. 

A friend of mine who is transgender is still in detention, even though she has refugee status. According to my information, she’s been transferred to the El Ouardia migrant detention centre [Editor’s note: Formally, this Tunis establishment is known as a reception and orientation centre for migrants, however rampant human rights abuses there have been reported by both the media and NGOs].

I haven’t had any news from her since.

We are living in fear that we’ll be arrested or beaten in the street and, so, I don’t go out any more. As a Black trans woman, it is really hard for me to get housing in Tunisia. You come across landlords who want sexual favors or sometimes people will evict us when they realise that we are trans. Even with assistance from the HCR, it can take time to find housing. 

“Chiraz” was given a place in a shelter run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on February 28. The Tunisian office of the HCR also paid for the medical care of those injured in the attack. 

“Brian” (not real name) is another LGBTQ refugee from sub-Saharan Africa. He was injured during the attack on February 20 and is now homeless.

 

‘The police ripped up our refugee cards and called us ‘f**s’’

The day after the attack, I was at the police station all day. We were mistreated— they insulted us and made us sit on the floor. Officers ripped up the refugee cards belonging to some of the people who had been arrested. Luckily, I didn’t end up in prison, unlike some of my friends.  

Considering the situation right now, it’s already dangerous enough to just be walking on the street as a Black person. But now, when they see our refugee cards, then they know that we are homosexual or trans and they insult us, call us names.

Today, most of the people who were living in these shelters are on the street. About 15 of them are packed into an apartment that is still under construction. We are afraid and we don’t go out anymore.

We have been reaching out to our respective consulates and embassies for help but they told us that they can’t help us because we have refugee status from the UNHCR.

‘An Algerian LGBTQ refugee in Tunisia won’t feel targeted, but Black people are often the targets of attacks’

Alexandre Marcel is the president of the IDAHO committee (International Day Against Homophobia), an NGO that fights against homophobia in French-speaking Africa. The organisation is trying to provide legal help to the victims of this wave of repression in Tunisia.

When there are arrests of this type, IDAHO tries to figure out if it is linked to someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Many people have been arrested even though they are refugees. And sometimes the police confiscate their papers and their passports and rip them up.

The [xenophobic] statements made by the president have made things completely different and dangerous. It’s gotten so bad that some taxi drivers will take a Black man directly to the police station if he gets into his vehicle.  We’ve reached that point. 

A LGBTQ refugee from Algeria who is living in Tunisia won’t feel targeted, but Black people are often the targets of attacks and threats. The shelters where these people stay are discrete and not official. However, when the police stumble across them, they tend to blow it all up— destroying people’s homes and personal belongings.

This refugee sustained injuries to his face and hands during the attack on a shelter in Bab el Khadhra on February 20.
This refugee sustained injuries to his face and hands during the attack on a shelter in Bab el Khadhra on February 20. © Photos sent to us by our Observer

The HCR needs to open corridors for these people to travel to the west. These people have already experienced persecution at the hands of the state or the public. But the procedures to get to Europe or North America are difficult. You have to provide a lot of proof [of persecution] and that takes time.

The UNHCR should really enable people to apply for asylum in other countries from where they are being persecuted. Because, right now, if you want to request asylum, you actually have to get to the country where you want to be yourself and apply once there.


This post in French by Amal Bintnadia roughly translates as: “In front of IOM Tunisia – المنظمة الدولية للهجرة بتونس, hundreds of migrants, women and children, among them people with injuries, who were attacked, who saw their homes looted… they are asking to be repatriated and have been waiting weeks for authorisation from the IOM.”

‘We are calling on people to share any useful information with us’

Our team contacted several organisations dedicated to LGBTQ rights in Tunisia, but none of them had information about the fate of the undocumented LGBTQ people arrested on February 23.

Many migrants don’t know anything about their rights. Moreover, people within the LGBTQ sub-Saharan community are even more scared. As a result, the Tunisian NGO Damj, which is dedicated to fighting for minority rights, has been asking the public for help identifying people who need legal and social assistance. Najia Mansour, who runs the branch in Tunis and its environs, explains:

Even the president of Damj, who is Black, was attacked in the street. 

We’ve set up three emergency phone lines depending on the region of the country where people are located – one in Tunis, for people in the north, one in Sfax, for people in the south, and one in Kef, in the centre of the country. We are calling on people to share any information they might have about migrants in difficulty.

Often, we need to wait for a victim to be released from custody in order to provide them with legal support. For the time being, it is an imperfect system, but working – we will wait for the person to be released and then file an administrative complaint over the mistreatment and torture they may have experienced at the hands of the authorities. 

The FRANCE 24 Observers team tried to contact the police in Soukra and Borj Louzir, but they told us to contact the Interior Ministry. 

We tried several times to contact the Interior Ministry, but with no success. We will publish their response if they do get back to us.

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#Mob #attacks #Tunis #shelters #LGBTQ #people #subSaharan #Africa

Xenophobia grows amidst raids and repeated attacks on sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia

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Issued on:

Tunisian law enforcement has launched a wave of repression against the country’s sub-Saharan African population, carrying out random identity checks and sometimes violently arresting them, leaving their children abandoned and offering no access to any kind of legal support. Xenophobic and racist sentiments have also been circulating widely on Tunisian social media, a toxic climate that recent statements by the Tunisian president only exacerbated.

Tunisian police in a number of cities carried out a campaign against the migrant community, arresting and detaining around 300 people from sub-Saharan Africa, including women and children, between February 14 and 16. 

Police in a western suburb of Tunis arrested the staff working at a daycare run by an Ivorian couple… as well as a number of parents who had come to pick up their children on February 16. The adults were brought to the police station, apparently so that authorities could check their papers, according to the Tunis-based media outlet Radio Libre Francophone.

Some of the parents who were arrested managed to get their small children to friends or family. Other children were taken into the care of staff with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. However, many of the children were taken from their parents and placed into a foster centre in a Tunis suburb.





Fuel was added to the fire when Tunisian president Kaïs Saïed said that sub-Saharan migrants were “a source of crime and delinquency” during a meeting with the National Security Council on February 21. 

‘It’s really, really difficult to get a residency permit for Tunisia’

Melvin (not his real name) works with an association in Tunis. He says that it is difficult and costly to get a residency permit in Tunisia. 

No one wants to stay in the country illegally but it is very, very hard to get a residency permit in Tunisia [Editor’s note: because of complex administrative procedures, about 60% of interns and students from sub-Saharan Africa don’t have a valid residency permit].

I know a lot of students who don’t have residency permits, even if they go to expensive private universities that cost more than 3,000 euros a year.

When you arrive in Tunisia, you are allowed to stay in the country for three months. After that, you have to pay 80 dinars [about 24 euros] for each month that you stay beyond that. So many sub-Saharan migrants live in poverty. So how can they pay these fees, not to mention other expenses?

Most of the community expected [the president to make] calming statements but what was said was shocking. We were expecting him to announce mass regularisation for the migrant community, so they could go home [Editor’s note: undocumented migrants who want to leave Tunisia cannot do so without paying fines for overstaying their visas].

And so many migrants accumulate these penalties because they can’t get their residency permit. And so they prefer to try their luck crossing the Mediterranean. 

@birdmansacko ♬ son original – Birdman Sacko

This is a video of a Guinean migrant filmed at the port in Sfax, a city in Eastern Tunisia. The person filming says that he and his friend hope to arrive safe and sound in Italy or in France.

Police arrested about thirty people from sub-Saharan Africa in the northeastern peninsula of Cap Bon on February 20 as part of what the government has claimed is a national security campaign to verify the papers of people from this migrant community, according to radio Mosaïque FM. This wave of repression continued when, on the morning of February 22, 35 people suspected of irregular immigration status were arrested and detained in Kasserine.

Even though Tunisia is often considered as just a transitory stop on the migration route from Africa to Europe, about 21,466 people from sub-Saharan live there, according to the Tunisian National Institute of Statistics. However, many other groups, including NGOs who work with migrants, believe the number is actually much higher. 

‘We don’t have any news about the mothers. Did they go before a judge? Why were they arrested?’

Daoud (not his real name) is originally from sub-Saharan Africa, though we are keeping his name and his country of origin anonymous to protect his identity. He has been living in Sfax, the economic capital of Tunisia, for several years but has friends living in Tunis.

He was terrified when he heard that two of his female friends, who are related and both have small children, went out to get groceries on February 14 and never came back. Afraid, Daoud called another friend living in the same Tunis neighbourhood, only to get no response. 

Considering the sickening situation in Tunis and especially in the neighborhood where they were living, I wanted to make sure they were safe. I contacted dozens of people who might know where [my three friends] were. Finally, I talked to someone on the morning of February 15 who said that they had all been detained. The two women were taken to Raoued and detained there. Same for my friend, who was arrested in a café. 

The two women are both mothers with tiny children. When the mothers were arrested, their daughters, aged just one and two years old, were left at home alone, locked in the apartment where they were all living. It is inhumane to leave children like that.

A family from the Ivory Coast, including two mothers (wearing red), were arrested on February 14 and detained in Raoued, a Tunis suburb. Photo sent by our Observer, “Daoud”

When Daoud realized that the babies were home alone, locked in the flat, he did everything he could to save them, even though he was miles away. Along with assistance from the landlord, a friend managed to break a window and get into the flat.  

We went to the police station to plead for the mothers to be released but the Ariana tribunal said that the two women needed to pay their debts because both of them had irregular status. Finally, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees took over care of the baby girls. 

Right now, we still have no news of the mothers. Did they go before a judge? Why were they arrested?

There have been other cases where parents have had to get a lawyer in order to regain custody of children placed in detention. We’ve also heard of other children being placed in a foster centre without access to their parents. 

A number of Tunisian organisations published a joint statement, denouncing the campaign of abusive arrests as well as comments made by officials that they considered “dangerous and inciting hate towards migrants from sub-Saharan Africa”, as well as the random identity checks and lack of access to legal support. The associations also called on the authorities to release all of the people who had been arrested and put an end to these “systematic arbitrary arrests”. 

In this toxic climate perpetuated by the authorities, many members of the Tunisian public have felt emboldened to intimidate or even assault people from sub-Saharan Africa.  

This woman from sub-Saharan Africa was attacked and left with a bleeding injury to the head on February 14 in a neighbourhood in the town of Sfax. Associations of Ivorians in Tunisia said that she was attacked by the young men you see in this video.
This woman from sub-Saharan Africa was attacked and left with a bleeding injury to the head on February 14 in a neighbourhood in the town of Sfax. Associations of Ivorians in Tunisia said that she was attacked by the young men you see in this video. Screengrab/ Maghreb Ivoire TV

‘When police see someone is from sub-Saharan Africa, then that is enough for them to be arrested in the street or on public transport or even at work’

Daoud continued:

In the neighborhoods where people from sub-Saharan Africa live, there are often groups of young Tunisians who gather outside of the buildings where migrants live. I advised a young woman I know to move for her safety. 

When police see someone is from sub-Saharan Africa, then that is enough for them to be arrested in the street or on public transport or even at work.

In fact, it is almost impossible for people to even leave Tunis without having their papers checked. 

‘I’ve noticed a palpable fear of Black people in Tunisia’

Moreover, the Tunisian Nationalist Party (Parti nationaliste tunisien), which has been in existence since 2018 has been carrying out a campaign to “raise awareness” about what they call the “sub-Saharan invasion” into certain neighbourhoods in Tunis and Sfax. 

These Facebook posts call on Tunisians to refrain from renting to people from sub-Saharan Africa or hiring them. In the comments section, there are lots of xenophobic and racist comments as well as comments from sympathisers to the cause who say they want to help apply this locally.
These Facebook posts call on Tunisians to refrain from renting to people from sub-Saharan Africa or hiring them. In the comments section, there are lots of xenophobic and racist comments as well as comments from sympathisers to the cause who say they want to help apply this locally. Observers

The party also draws from the “great replacement theory“, championed by the extreme right in both Europe and the United States. 

A petition launched by the Tunisian Nationalist Party has collected nearly a thousand signatures. The petition demands the expulsion of undocumented migrants, the repeal of a law related to the fight against racial discrimination, as well as a requirement for all sub-Saharans to have a visa to enter Tunisia.
A petition launched by the Tunisian Nationalist Party has collected nearly a thousand signatures. The petition demands the expulsion of undocumented migrants, the repeal of a law related to the fight against racial discrimination, as well as a requirement for all sub-Saharans to have a visa to enter Tunisia. Tunisian Nationalist Party

Daoud continued: 

This party’s campaign to “raise awareness” has contributed to the hatred towards people from sub-Saharan Africa. Members of the party go to cafés, metro stations or to “louages” [Editor’s note: shared taxis for inter-urban transport] to “raise awareness”, essentially spreading hate about people from sub-Saharan Africa. I understand the country is experiencing a difficult economic period but it isn’t the presence of sub-Saharans in Tunisia that has caused that. 

They have a racist ideology. This is dangerous because political figures like the president indirectly encourage violence, which could lead to actual acts. I’ve noticed a palpable fear of Black people in Tunisia. Even at work, my colleagues refuse to drink the same water as me.

The FRANCE 24 Observers team attempted to reach the spokesperson for the ministry of the interior for a comment but did not get a response. We will update this page if we do. 

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