WW4 Report

'Repressive petro-state' UAE to host climate summit

Amnesty International on Sept. 13 joined with over 200 civil society organizations to call upon participating governments of the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to address the human rights record and climate policies of the United Arab Emirates. The COP, the annual summit of governments from around the world to discuss climate policy, is to be held in the UAE in December—convened by Sultan al-Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

Podcast: Orwell and the crisis in Burma

In Episode 191 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg revisits George Orwell's first novel, Burmese Days (1935), to see if it offers any insight into the current crisis in Burma. The novel is actually problematic in its portrayal of the Burmese, but Orwell's anti-colonialist views are better articulated in his little-known 1929 essay "How a Nation is Exploited: The British Empire in Burma." Ironically, the factors he identified as necessitating "despotic" rule by the British in Burma still mandate dictatorial methods by the regime today—such as the imperative to pacify "frontier areas" where indigenous peoples wage pro-autonomy insurgencies. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

UN: poverty, oppression at root of Ecuador crisis

UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty & Human Rights Olivier De Schutter issued a report Sept. 8, citing impoverishment and exploitation as the "root cause" of the fast-mounting violence and instability in Ecuador. Following a 12-day visit to the country, De Schutter warned against a purely militarized response to the crisis that ignores social and economic factors. The report states:

Iraq: security forces fired on Kirkuk protesters

Iraqi security forces appear to have opened fire on demonstrators without prior warning in Kirkuk on Sept. 2, killing at least four people and injuring 16, Human Rights Watch has found. The violence comes amid months of increasing tensions between Kirkuk's Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen populations. An inquiry into the incident opened by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani should be independent and impartial in its investigation of allegations of excessive use of deadly force by Iraqi security forces, HRW urged. "Time and again, the Iraqi government has responded to protests with lethal force and arrests of journalists," said HRW Iraq researcher Sarah Sanbar. "The government needs to take concrete steps that result in accountability for these actions."

Chilean state launches search for 'disappeared'

The families of the men, women and children killed or disappeared during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet will finally have the official support of the state in their search for their missing kin. As Chile prepared to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the military coup on Sept. 11, President Gabriel Boric presented the country's first National Search Plan, aimed at finding and identifying the remains of those who are still missing. So far only 307 sets of remains have been found and identified out of 1,469 officially listed as having been "disappeared" or murdered by the dictatorship. The plan, announced on Aug. 30, the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, includes an ongoing budget to explore sites where the victims may have been buried, and the use of new software to centralize and digitalize the information dispersed across the justice system, human rights organizations, and national archives. The move represents a significant if belated step forward in a country where, until now, it has been left to the victims' relatives and civil society groups to seek truth and justice. (The New Humanitarian)

Ukrainian anti-fascist sentenced to prison in Russia

An appeals court in Moscow on Aug. 22 upheld the 13-year sentence imposed on Ukrainian human rights defender Maksym Butkevych, in what Amnesty International called "a grave miscarriage of justice." Butkevych had been convicted in a "sham trial" by a de facto court in the Russian-occupied "Luhansk People's Republic" in Ukraine, which Moscow has unilaterally declared annexed territory. A platoon leader in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Butkevych was taken captive in March and charged with war crimes. Amnesty dismisses the case as "a reprisal by Russia for his civic activism and his prominent human rights work." Before the invasion, Butkevych led a Ukrainian NGO helping refugees find asylum in the country, and had long been a frontline opponent of the militant right in both Ukraine and Russia.

Solidarity with imprisoned anti-fascists in Russia

In Episode 190 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the cases of Azat Miftakhov, Darya Polyudova, Aleksandra Skochilenko, Yelena MilashinaLarysa Schchyrakova, Maksym Butkevych and other Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian anti-fascist activists imprisoned by the dictatorships of Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko. These courageous women and men recognize these twin allied regimes as now actually having crossed the line into fascism—despite the paradoxical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism of their propaganda. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Russian anti-fascist released from prison, promptly re-arrested

Russian anti-fascist activist Azat Miftakhov was arrested by FSB agents Sept. 4, immediately upon his release from a prison colony in Omutninsk. Azat had been in detention since February 2019, convicted in connection with the breaking of a window at a Moscow protest outside an office of the ruling United Russia party. At that time of that arrest Miftakhov was a mathematics graduate student at Moscow State University. Miftakhov endured torture, threats, and other mistreatment at the hands of authorities while imprisoned. After a trial marked by widespread judicial abuses and the use of "secret witnesses," in January 2021 he was convicted of "hooliganism" and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released on parole two days after an International Day for the Liberation of Azat Miftakhov was held in cities around the world. But just as he exited the prison colony to meet his family, he was taken into custody again—this time on charges of "publicly justifying terrorism."

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