Facebook bans Dutch anarchist, welcomes nazis

This 9 February 2016 video says about itself:

Zuckerberg slammed after Facebook censors posts

Many are furious with CEO Mark Zuckerberg after Facebook censored an iconic photograph from the Vietnam War.

On 11 September 2020, Dutch anarchist Peter Storm reported on his blog that Facebook corporation had banned his Facebook account forever.

Why did Facebook censor me? Peter Storm wanted to know. He got the vague reply that he had supposedly violated ‘Facebook guidelines’. WHICH guidelines?

Facebook did not reply. But Peter very strongly suspects that it is because he is an anarchist and an anti-fascist. He mentions other anarchists banned by Facebook. Like CrimethInc and Its Going Down and many others.

Many Facebook bans of anti-fascist, otherwise leftist or simply artistic or scientific accounts preceded billionaire Facebook boss Zuckerberg‘s banning of Peter Storm now.

Facebook welcomes neo-nazis, and censors leftists and famous painters.

Facebook censors Thai critics of the absolute monarchy in their country.

Facebook censors the Dutch photography museum.

Facebook censors information on war crimes whistleblowers.

Facebook censors a leftist artist for being against Donald Trump.

Facebook censors posts against Trump’s attempted far-right coup in Venezuela.

Facebook has the extreme right censor the left.

Facebook censors the leftist United States Young Turks site.

The same United States neo-nazis who had murdered Heather Heyer in Charlottesville planned to march in Washington. Anti-fascists announced a counter-demonstration on Facebook. Facebook then banned the anti-fascists and opponents of Trump’s xenophobia for being supposedly (don’t laugh) ‘Russian propaganda‘.

Facebook censorship helped corporate Democrat politicians against leftist candidate Bernie Sanders in the primary elections in the USA.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Whom does Facebook NOT censor? Denialists of Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust. The Nederlandse Volksunie, an Adolf Hitler worshipping violent neonazi criminal gang, has been welcome on Facebook for years and still is today.

BARR: KNIVES OUT FOR ‘ANARCHIST’ DEM CITIES With just weeks to go before the 2020 presidential election, the Justice Department is once again attacking elected Democratic officials, this time by designating New York City, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon, as “anarchist jurisdictions” and suggesting their federal funding may be in question. The Justice Department, responding to a memo from Trump that attacked all three cities, said the cities have “permitted violence and destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures to counteract criminal activities.” [HuffPost]

New York Times echoes Trump’s attacks on “violent anarchists”. Times editorial board member Farah Stockman attacks supposed anarchist: here.

Poet Benjamin Zephaniah on Windrush scandal, anarchism and more

This British TV video says about itself:

Benjamin Zephaniah on Windrush, anarchism and his time in North Korea

2 May 2018

Poet, writer and activist Benjamin Zephaniah talks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy about the Windrush scandal, how the political system should be torn down and why he spends so much time in China.

The Tories’ ‘hostile environment’ sees at least 1,000 skilled migrants wrongly facing deportation: here.

Government makes major U-turn over handing NHS patient information to immigration officials https://t.co/iX9N1XrTOS

— The Independent (@Independent) May 9, 2018

British police forces ‘handing crime victims to Home Office as immigration suspects’: here.

63 wrongful deportations being investigated, Home Office admits. Windrush scandal grows as activist Zita Holbourne says the number could be far higher: here.

Related articles

• Building a Better World – One without Nuclear Weapons
• Another Bush, Another Preemptive War? Jeb Supports U.S. Military Strikes Against North Korea
• Korean survivors of Japanese sex slavery sue government
• China and the U.S. are Approaching Dangerous Seas

Greek news update again

This video from Greece is called Thessaloniki Gay Pride Parade 2014.

From Greece, there is not only news about Golden Dawn nazis.

A report by parodiederutopie of the Thessaloniki Pride held in the city on June 20 – 21 2014:

Taking into account the increased vote in favour of the Golden Dawn Nazis as well as the overall extreme-right shift in Greece, the mere election of a progressive mayor in Thessaloniki could not guarantee a successful Pride. Fortunately, this was not the case and thousands  of LGBT people crowded the streets of the city, offering a spirited reply to mainstream society and its fascist, racist and homophobic majority.

The internationalist solidarity between gay and transgender people across the Balkans, the radical content of the speeches offered as well as the most anticipated parade of the sexual and gender diversities suppressed in Greece by phobic attitudes, fascist attacks, governmental policies and the police brutality, offered a major political event for public expression and human rights demonstration. Among the several events organized prior or during the Thessaloniki Pride, we should especially mention the pink triangular memorial wreath offered in front of the Jewish Holocaust Memorial.

Thessaloniki’s bishop condemns homosexuality as ‘perversion of human existence’: here.

Arrests of anarchists near Greek Prime Ninister’s house: here.

28/6/2014: In prisons all over Greece, detainees are intensifying their protests against the introduction of a new bill by the Ministry of Justice, which proposes the creation of high security prisons. Since last Monday, more than four thousand prisoners have gone on hunger strike and the number is rising by the day, in what is the largest mass hunger strike to day. ‘Hunger strike is the ultimate tool to express opposition, but it also manifests accurately our desperation’ the detainees said to ‘Sunday Ethnos’, who also expressed their determination to see their cause to the end, while some of them, mainly immigrants, went to the extreme of sewing their lips: here.

Related articles

• Vandals Desecrate Jewish Cemetery in Thessaloniki
• Police Conducting ‘Purges and Arrests’ of LGBT People in Greece
• Thessaloniki Jews to mark 70th anniversary of Nazi deportations
• Thessaloniki remembers lost Jewish community
• Jewish cemetery desecrated in Thessaloniki, Greece
• Strong showing for Golden Dawn in Greek local elections
• Greek Jews anxious over neo-Nazis’ electoral gains
• Mayor, Diplomats Join Gay Pride March in Greece

Anarchist bookshop arson, by nazis?

This video from Britain says about itself:

London’s oldest anarchist bookshop and publisher Freedom Press was firebombed early on Friday Febuary 1 2013. Andy speaks about how the shop will bounce back shortly after the incident. The shop was previously targeted by Combat 18 in an arson attack in 1993.

By Alexander Pouget in England:

Freedom from the flames

Sunday 10 February 2013

Angel Alley, a dark, smelly offshoot from London’s Whitechapel High Street overhung by a gaudy KFC sign, is the sort of place people pass by without noticing during the day and avoid at night.

The little cut-through to a small industrial area in the heart of Tower Hamlets is a favourite haunt of tour guides looking for a spot where they can chill their audience – a place where Jack The Ripper once stalked and anarchists still plot the destruction of capitalist society in their tottering, blackened fortress of Freedom Press.

Freedom itself is a clapped-out four-storey pile preserved, in the main, as a corner of east London eccentricity that most locals are only vaguely aware of but which is central to organised anarchism in the city.

The bookshop on the ground floor keeps bills paid while the rest of the building is opened as offices to groups such as the Advisory Service For Squatters, Corporate Watch and the Solidarity Federation or for talks, meetings and exhibitions on a huge variety of topics. Intentionally independent of other tendencies in the anarchist milieu, it provides a near-unique resource for libertarian socialist thinkers and activists.

On Friday February 1, someone tried to burn Freedom down.

Lifting up a shutter, they broke a window and poured a flammable liquid through before setting it on fire.

Although there were no injuries, more than 200 books were totally destroyed and hundreds more may have to be thrown out if their charred covers and ash-stained sides can’t find buyers.

Electrics were melted, the ceiling wrecked, the windows all but destroyed, shelving went up in smoke and firefighters arrived only minutes before the offices above would have caught fire, all but guaranteeing the destruction of the rest of the building. The Press archive, kept so historians could have an easily accessible resource, was singed and soaked and barely survived.

Freedom, which had run out of insurance only a week before, has been left with a bill that could potentially run into the tens of thousands of pounds.

Theories abound as to who did it, with many blaming the far-right – the Press was attacked twice in the 1990s by grumpy skinheads – but with police taking away CCTV recordings and saying little since then supporters can do little more than speculate.

The real story isn’t the fire or the culprits, however, it’s the response.

The news broke on social networks at around midday. Within hours hundreds of people had pushed the news on and the phones of Freedom collective members began to ring off the hook.

A callout for help was quickly prepared which also went viral and mainstream press sources began to pick up on the story, ensuring it would go well beyond anarchist circles.

The next day, Angel Alley filled with more people than it had ever seen before from across the left of the political spectrum. So many we could barely fit, hauling the books out, cleaning them, cleaning shelves, washing walls, sorting what could be saved, painting and getting in each others’ way.

Then, each day afterwards, more people came to keep the work going. Collective members who knew what needed doing gave volunteers a steer and left everyone to organise themselves.

On Monday the bookshop reopened in a limited sort of way. By the following Friday it was repainted and the books had all been cleaned and sorted. And now a collection of skilled volunteers are going over what needs to be done to make the bookshop better than it was before.

Online, hundreds of solidarity messages came through from all over the world, alongside promises of donations, fundraising events and other gestures of support, including a book of poetry which has had over 350 submissions at the time of writing and two separate music albums from Scribbo and Iron Column Records.

As a result of this astounding spirit of mutual aid the Press has now got the fighting chance that bewildered collective members had feared would be denied them as they stared at the burnt ruins of decades of hard work.

While the bookshop is not out of the woods yet and will need more donations to get back to business as usual, what has happened so far is a triumph.

To donate, you can send a cheque made out to “Freedom Press” to 84b Whitchapel High Street, London E1 7QX, or you can go online to freedompress.org.uk and buy books, followed by emailing shop@freedompress.org.uk to let them know it’s a donation.

Related articles

• Blaze at historic anarchist bookshop is investigated by police (guardian.co.uk)
• Freedom Press, London Anarchist Bookshop, Hit By Suspicious Firebomb (huffingtonpost.com)
• London’s FREEDOM anarchist bookstore firebombed (boingboing.net)
• Freedom Anarchist Bookshop in the UK firebombed (indybay.org)
• Freedom Bookshop torched (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• London’s Best Independent Bookshops (onefinestay.com)

Greek police brutality report

This video says about itself:

30 June 2011

Police brutality in Greece as protestors took to the streets to oppose a plan to eliminate its debt and qualify for international monetary assistance.

From the New Statesman in Britain:

A disastrous and unconvincing case of brutality and mismanagment by the Greek police

Conflicting stories and doctored photographs reveal clumsy attempts by the Greek police to conceal the degree of forced used during and after the arrest of four anarchists.

By Yiannis Baboulias

Published 09 February 2013 13:56

As more pictures of the four anarchists arrested last week were published today by the Greek police, a new round of controversy has set alight the Greek and international media. In an attempt to prove that the extensive abuse the suspects suffered took place during their arrest and not later as they and their lawyers claim, the Greek police’s Internal Affairs department was set on the case. Their conclusion was that, according to eyewitnesses and officers, signs of struggle were obvious and that the injuries were sustained after the suspects resisted arrest, a claim Nikos Dendias (Minister of Citizen Protection) backed and repeated himself.

This new set of pictures (contrasted against the photoshopped versions the authorities shared last week, see above and below) was also released. According to the police’s official statement, these pictures were taken around 13:00, only ten minutes after the arrest took place. A phone camera and a small digital camera were used and the pictures were sent to the appropriate agency via email on 13:45 after a failed attempt on 13:30. The extent of the bruises on the suspects’ faces is truly appalling and inevitably a series of questions arises.

While the police claims that these pictures were taken immediately after the incident (which they place at 12:50) and also that they attempted to first send them to the appropriate agency at 13:30 and 13:45, the EXIF data (pdf) they themselves provided show that some pictures were not taken until 14:31. Furthermore, to add to the confusion, in the background of one of the pictures a clock showing 08:25 can be clearly seen. As if this is not enough, the metadata of the files shows that the files weren’t created on that specific computer until 13:53, which again doesn’t support their claims. But the metadata and EXIF data were provided in such a manner (PDF file) that they could have been altered with a simple word processor. This is not to say it was actually altered, but rather to point out that it’s a mess and can’t be used to prove anything, just complicates the case even further.

Internal Affairs, after examining the reports, concluded that there was no torture nonetheless. It claims eyewitnesses to the struggle and officers that testified they saw the bruising as the arrestees were brought in and even claims a police officer was injured, a detail we only heard about yesterday, a week after the incident, not supported by a coroner’s report. But the testimony of one of the arresting officers offers much ground for doubt, as he makes no mention of the intense hand-to-hand fight the others describe but rather, a swift and clean arrest:

We’d realised during the pursuit that the driver was unarmed. On the contrary the other guy was holding a Kalashnikov. We didn’t know how many there were in the back of the van. When we blocked them and they were left with no escape route, I approached the passengers door, opened it as fast  as I could, grabbed the armed man, threw him on the street and we started wrestling.

Within seconds, I saw the back door sliding open and someone pointing a gun at me. Before he had the time to shoot at me, or his comrade as we were fighting, one of my colleagues hit his hand and disarmed him. That’s where it all ended and they didn’t make a move to escape.

So can anyone really rely on the police to investigate itself? Especially in cases like this one, the Greek police is infamous for its tendency to cover up incidents or stall cases to the point of scandal. For the period 2005-09, 281 cases of police brutality were investigated. From those, only thirteen reached any conclusion. And no one is yet ready to forget how this specific agency (North Greece Internal Affairs charter) handled the case of the severe beating of Augoustinos Dimitriou, a Cypriot student, by 8 police officers in Thessaloniki in 2006, before a video that proved his abuse was published. Then, as now, ministers and police officials had gone on record saying they saw no signs of police brutality but “sheer professionalism” and blamed a flower pot for his injuries.

The situation with Internal Affairs is so bad that a new agency had to be founded. The new division for dealing with police arbitration therefore came into being, unfortunately only on paper, as the agency is still inactive. Even if activated, it will still be under police management, and not an independent body that would secure some impartiality. This comes after a number of convictions in European courts and officials from Amnesty International publicly condemning the police for co-operating with the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn.

Before engaging in this panicked crisis management drill, the Greek Police and the Ministry of Citizen Protection ought to consider if these conflicting storylines and timestamps offer anything in the way of truth. By releasing these pictures without a coroner’s report that confirms their claims, they only offer more ground for doubt. And while trying to simply prove the suspects were not harmed after the arrest, the use of excessive force during the arrest is left wide open as a possibility.

For better or for worse, this has been a disastrous case for the police. Photoshopped pictures, half-baked excuses, lack of medical data and muddled information do not constitute the work of a serious and transparent police force. A government that backs them up nonetheless, while lacking evidence itself, appears as reckless and deaf to the reality of the problem. It is well established by now that torture and excessive force is utilised by the Greek police in the street, in holding cells and in prisons. By choosing not to deal with this, the Greek government renders its citizens hostages to the whims of a police force that is now a threat to social cohesion.

Following a visit to the Grevena prison, the justice minister tells parliament’s standing committee on prisons that inmates bear identical burn marks on their bodies. An investigation into allegations of police beatings is underway: here.

On June 29 a solidarity demonstration with Kostas Sakkas took place in Athens. Sakkas is an anarchist who has been imprisoned for 2,5 years without a trial (when the legal maximum is 18 months) and has been on hunger strike since June 4. The demonstration saw a participation of 6,000+, starting from Monastiraki and crossing through most of central Athens: here.

Related articles

• Greek police publish images of arrested and tortured anarchists that are altered in photoshop (dogmaandgeopolitics.wordpress.com)
• Investigation ordered into claims alleged Greek robbers had mugshots digitally altered to hide beatings – @itvnews (itv.com)
• Amnesty International calls for investigation into police brutality claims (ekathimerini.com)
• Greek police ‘battered four terrorist suspects then launched cover-up’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Syrian refugees ‘turned back from Greek border by police’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Human rights commissioner calls for action on police brutality claims (ekathimerini.com)
• Jury deadlocks in Fresno police brutality trial (fresnobee.com)
• Police brutality fears as Greek police alter mugshots (scotsman.com)
• Photoshopped mug shots spur probe into Greek police beatings (photoblog.nbcnews.com)

Money for oppression, not for people in Greece

This video says about itself:

Are Greek Police ‘Colluding’ With Far Right Golden Dawn?

Oct 17, 2012

Greece‘s far-right party, Golden Dawn, won 18 parliamentary seats in the June election with a campaign openly hostile to illegal immigrants – and there are now allegations that some Greek police are supporting the party.

Last week Golden Dawn MP Ilias Panagiotaros led a demonstration that closed down a performance of the Terence McNally play, Corpus Christi.

As police stood by, apparently oblivious, Mr Panagiotaros was filmed shouting racist and homophobic insults at the director of the play, and the actors cowering inside the Chyterio Theatre.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Special forces arrest 80 anarchists at Athens squat

Wednesday 09 January 2013

Anarchists attempting to reoccupy a longstanding Athens squat were confronted by Greek special forces who made at least 80 arrests today.

The face-off centred on the Villa Amalia site, whose occupants were forcibly evicted by police on December 20.

Several anarchists also mounted a short-lived occupation today of offices belonging to the Democratic Left party, which has collaborated in pushing through a relentless barrage of cuts ordered by the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund in return for multibillion-pound bail-out loans.

Leftist opposition group Syriza, which retains a pro-EU stance despite the economic punishment meted out by the bloc, condemned the occupation of party offices but hit out at police tactics that it branded a “strategy of suppression and diversion.”

The group said: “We are not going to make a big issue out of a minor one when most households are literally freezing because they can’t pay the electricity bill or buy heating fuel or when dozens of businesses are closing down while millions of unemployed are being crushed on the margins of society.”

Related articles

• Greek police arrest 100 at squat, sparking protests (news.terra.com)
• The tourists beaten by Greek police (bbc.co.uk)
• Are Greece’s Ancient Treasures Under Threat? (history.com)
• Far-Right Greek Golden Dawn:”very soon we’re going to be ruling this country” (dogmaandgeopolitics.wordpress.com)
• Greek police clash with migrants at detention centre (news.terra.com)
• Far-right Golden Dawn goes on the offensive in Greece (ekathimerini.com)
• Syrian refugees ‘turned back from Greek border by police’ (guardian.co.uk)
• To Slowly Die or Fight Back? (radicalglasgowblog.blogspot.com)

World economic crisis

This video is called Anarchist analysis of the global capitalist crisis.

The world economic crisis continues.