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Dr David Adams is the coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly. View all posts by CPNN Coordinator →

Glenn Greenwald: The Censorship Campaign Against Western Criticism of NATO’s Ukraine Policy Is Extreme

. HUMAN RIGHTS . .

An article by Glenn Greenwald in Scheerpost

If one wishes to be exposed to news, information or perspective that contravenes the prevailing US/NATO view on the war in Ukraine, a rigorous search is required. And there is no guarantee that search will succeed. That is because the state/corporate censorship regime that has been imposed in the West with regard to this war is stunningly aggressive, rapid and comprehensive.

[Alisdare Hickson / CC BY-SA 2.0]

On a virtually daily basis, any off-key news agency, independent platform or individual citizen is liable to be banished from the internet. In early March, barely a week after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the twenty-seven nation European Union — citing “disinformation” and “public order and security” — officially banned the Russian state-news outlets RT and Sputnik from being heard anywhere in Europe. In what Reuters called “an unprecedented move,” all television and online platforms were barred by force of law from airing content from those two outlets. Even prior to that censorship order from the state, Facebook and Google were already banning those outlets, and Twitter immediately announced they would as well, in compliance with the new EU law.

But what was “unprecedented” just six weeks ago has now become commonplace, even normalized. Any platform devoted to offering inconvenient-to-NATO news or alternative perspectives is guaranteed a very short lifespan. Less than two weeks after the EU’s decree, Google announced that it was voluntarily banning all Russian-affiliated media worldwide, meaning Americans and all other non-Europeans were now blocked from viewing those channels on YouTube if they wished to. As so often happens with Big Tech censorship, much of the pressure on Google to more aggressively censor content about the war in Ukraine came from its own workforce: “Workers across Google had been urging YouTube to take additional punitive measures against Russian channels.”

So prolific and fast-moving is this censorship regime that it is virtually impossible to count how many platforms, agencies and individuals have been banished for the crime of expressing views deemed “pro-Russian.” On Tuesday, Twitter, with no explanation as usual, suddenly banned one of the most informative, reliable and careful dissident accounts, named “Russians With Attitude.” Created in late 2020 by two English-speaking Russians, the account exploded in popularity since the start of the war, from roughly 20,000 followers before the invasion to more than 125,000 followers at the time Twitter banned it. An accompanying podcast with the same name also exploded in popularity and, at least as of now, can still be heard on Patreon.

What makes this outburst of Western censorship so notable — and what is at least partially driving it — is that there is a clear, demonstrable hunger in the West for news and information that is banished by Western news sources, ones which loyally and unquestioningly mimic claims from the U.S. government, NATO, and Ukrainian officials. As The Washington Post acknowledged when reporting Big Tech’s “unprecedented” banning of RT, Sputnik and other Russian sources of news: “In the first four days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, viewership of more than a dozen Russian state-backed propaganda channels on YouTube spiked to unusually high levels.”

Note that this censorship regime is completely one-sided and, as usual, entirely aligned with U.S. foreign policy. Western news outlets and social media platforms have been flooded with pro-Ukrainian propaganda and outright lies from the start of the war. A New York Times article from early March put it very delicately in its headline: “Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.” Axios was similarly understated in recognizing this fact: “Ukraine misinformation is spreading — and not just from Russia.” Members of the U.S. Congress have gleefully spread fabrications that went viral to millions of people, with no action from censorship-happy Silicon Valley corporations. That is not a surprise: all participants in war use disinformation and propaganda to manipulate public opinion in their favor, and that certainly includes all direct and proxy-war belligerents in the war in Ukraine.

Yet there is little to no censorship — either by Western states or by Silicon Valley monopolies — of pro-Ukrainian disinformation, propaganda and lies. The censorship goes only in one direction: to silence any voices deemed “pro-Russian,” regardless of whether they spread disinformation. The “Russians With Attitude” Twitter account became popular in part because they sometimes criticized Russia, in part because they were more careful with facts and viral claims that most U.S. corporate media outlets, and in part because there is such a paucity of outlets that are willing to offer any information that undercuts what the U.S. Government and NATO want you to believe about the war.

Their crime, like the crime of so many other banished accounts, was not disinformation but skepticism about the US/NATO propaganda campaign. Put another way, it is not “disinformation” but rather viewpoint-error that is targeted for silencing. One can spread as many lies and as much disinformation as one wants provided that it is designed to advance the NATO agenda in Ukraine (just as one is free to spread disinformation provided that its purpose is to strengthen the Democratic Party, which wields its majoritarian power in Washington to demand greater censorship and commands the support of most of Silicon Valley). But what one cannot do is question the NATO/Ukrainian propaganda framework without running a very substantial risk of banishment.

It is unsurprising that Silicon Valley monopolies exercise their censorship power in full alignment with the foreign policy interests of the U.S. Government. Many of the key tech monopolies — such as Google and Amazon — routinely seek and obtain highly lucrative contracts with the U.S. security state , including both the CIA and NSA. Their top executives enjoy very close relationships with top Democratic Party officials. And Congressional Democrats have repeatedly hauled tech executives before their various Committees to explicitly threaten them with legal and regulatory reprisals if they do not censor more in accordance with the policy goals and political interests of that party.

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Question(s) related to this article:

Is Internet Freedom a Basic Human Right?

Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

(continued from left column)

But one question lingers: why is there so much urgency about silencing the small pockets of dissenting voices about the war in Ukraine? This war has united the establishment wings of both parties and virtually the entire corporate media with a lockstep consensus not seen since the days and weeks after the 9/11 attack. One can count on both hands the number of prominent political and media figures who have been willing to dissent even minimally from that bipartisan Washington consensus — dissent that instantly provokes vilification in the form of attacks on one’s patriotism and loyalties. Why is there such fear of allowing these isolated and demonized voices to be heard at all?

The answer seems clear. The benefits from this war for multiple key Washington power centers cannot be overstated. The billions of dollars in aid and weapons being sent by the U.S. to Ukraine are flying so fast and with such seeming randomness that it is difficult to track. “Biden approves $350 million in military aid for Ukraine,” Reuters said on February 26; “Biden announces $800 million in military aid for Ukraine,” announced The New York Times on March 16; on March 30, NBC’s headline read: “Ukraine to receive additional $500 million in aid from U.S., Biden announces”; on Tuesday, Reuters announced: “U.S. to announce $750 million more in weapons for Ukraine, officials say.” By design, these gigantic numbers have long ago lost any meaning and provoke barely a peep of questioning let alone objection.

It is not a mystery who is benefiting from this orgy of military spending. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that “the Pentagon will host leaders from the top eight U.S. weapons manufacturers on Wednesday to discuss the industry’s capacity to meet Ukraine’s weapons needs if the war with Russia lasts years.” Among those participating in this meeting about the need to increase weapons manufacturing to feed the proxy war in Ukraine is Raytheon, which is fortunate to have retired General Lloyd Austin as Defense Secretary, a position to which he ascended from the Raytheon Board of Directors. It is virtually impossible to imagine an event more favorable to the weapons manufacturer industry than this war in Ukraine:

Demand for weapons has shot up after Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24 spurred U.S. and allied weapons transfers to Ukraine. Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity. . .

Resupplying as well as planning for a longer war is expected to be discussed at the meeting. . . . The White House said last week that it has provided more than $1.7 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the invasion, including over 5,000 Javelins and more than 1,400 Stingers.

This permanent power faction is far from the only one to be reaping benefits from the war in Ukraine and to have its fortunes depend upon prolonging the war as long as possible. The union of the U.S. security state, Democratic Party neocons, and their media allies has not been riding this high since the glory days of 2002. One of MSNBC’s most vocal DNC boosters, Chris Hayes, gushed that the war in Ukraine has revitalized faith and trust in the CIA and intelligence community more than any event in recent memory — deservedly so, he said: “The last few weeks have been like the Iraq War in reverse for US intelligence.” One can barely read a mainstream newspaper or watch a corporate news outlet without seeing the nation’s most bloodthirsty warmongering band of neocons — David Frum, Bill Kristol, Liz Cheney, Wesley Clark, Anne Applebaum, Adam Kinzinger — being celebrated as wise experts and heroic warriors for freedom.

This war has been very good indeed for the permanent Washington political and media class. And although it was taboo for weeks to say so, it is now beyond clear that the only goal that the U.S. and its allies have when it comes to the war in Ukraine is to keep it dragging on for as long as possible. Not only are there no serious American diplomatic efforts to end the war, but the goal is to ensure that does not happen. They are now saying that explicitly, and it is not hard to understand why.

The benefits from endless quagmire in Ukraine are as immense as they are obvious. The military budget skyrockets. Punishment is imposed on the arch-nemesis of the Democratic Party — Russia and Putin — while they are bogged down in a war from which Ukrainians suffer most. The citizenry unites behind their leaders and is distracted from their collective deprivations. The emotions provoked by the horrors of this war — unprecedentedly shown to the public by the Western media which typically ignores carnage and victims of wars waged by Western countries and their allies — is a very potent tool to maintain unity and demonize domestic adversaries. The pundit class finds strength, purpose and resolve, able to feign a Churchillian posture without any of the risks. Prior sins and crimes of American elites are absolved and forgotten at the altar of maximalist claims about Putin’s unprecedented evils — just as they were absolved and forgotten through the script which maintained that the U.S. had never encountered a threat as grave or malignant as Trump. After all, if Putin and Trump are Hitler or even worse, then anyone who opposes them is heroic and noble regardless of all their prior malignant acts.

And that is why even small pockets of dissent cannot be tolerated. It is vital that Americans and Europeans remain entrapped inside a completely closed system of propaganda about the war, just as Russians are kept entrapped inside their own. Keeping these populations united in support of fighting a proxy war against Russia is far too valuable on too many levels to permit any questioning or alternative perspectives. Preventing people from asking who this war benefits, and who is paying the price for it, is paramount.

Big Tech has long proven to be a reliable instrument of censorship and dissent-quashing for the U.S. Government (much to the chagrin of corporate media employees, Russian outlets still remain available on free speech alternatives such as Rumble and Telegram, which is why so much ire is now directed at them). A rapid series of ostensible “crises” — Russiagate, 1/6, the COVID pandemic — were all exploited to condition Westerners to believe that censorship was not only justified but necessary for their own good. In the West, censorship now provokes not anger but gratitude. All of that laid the perfect foundation for this new escalation of a censorship regime in which dissent, on a virtually daily basis, is increasingly more difficult to locate.

No matter one’s views on Russia, Ukraine, the U.S. and the war, it should be deeply alarming to watch such a concerted, united campaign on the part of the most powerful public and private entities to stomp out any and all dissent, while so aggressively demonizing what little manages to slip by. No matter how smart or critically minded or sophisticated we fancy ourselves to be, none of us is immune to official propaganda campaigns, studied and perfected over decades. Nor is any of us immune to the pressures of group-think and herd behavior and hive minds: these are embedded in our psyches and thus easily exploitable.

That is precisely the objective of restricting and closing the information system available to us. It makes it extremely difficult to remain skeptical or critical of the bombardment of approved messaging we receive every day from every direction in every form. And that is precisely the reason to oppose such censorship regimes. An opinion or belief adopted due to propaganda and reflex rather than autonomy and critical evaluation has no value.

(Editor’s note: Thank you to Transcent Media Service for calling our attention to this article.)

April 19, 2022FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global, HUMAN RIGHTSglobalCPNN Coordinator

Russian Nobel Laureate Muratov Doused With Red Paint By Unknown Attacker

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

Dmitry Muratov, the editor in chief of one of Russia’s leading independent newspapers, Novaya gazeta, said he was attacked by an assailant who threw a mixture of red paint and acetone on him.

(Editor’s note: So far Muratov has avoided assassination, but when he received the Nobel Peace Prize last year, he said the prize was for his colleagues at Novaya Gazeta who had been assassinated: “for Yuri Shchekochikhin, it’s for Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya, it’s for Nastya Baburova, it’s for Natalia Estemirova, for Stas Markelov,” he told Russian media. “It is that of those who died defending the right of people to freedom of speech.”)

A photo of Muratov posted by the newspaper on Telegram showed his head, shirt, hands, and arms covered in red paint.

Muratov, co-winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize with Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, was on a train bound from Moscow to Samara on April 7 when the attack occurred.

A photo of Muratov posted by the newspaper on Telegram showed his head, shirt, hands, and arms covered in red paint.

Muratov said the attacker shouted, “Muratov, here’s to you for our boys.”

He told the new European edition of Novaya gazeta about the attack, saying that his eyes were burning badly

(continued in right column)

Question(s) related to this article:

Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

The courage of Mordecai Vanunu and other whistle-blowers, How can we emulate it in our lives?

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Novaya gazeta, a leading independent Russian newspaper, suspended operations last month after it said it received warnings from Russian authorities.

The newspaper said it had been warned twice by Roskomnadzor, meaning the state communications regulator was open to pursue closing the independent outlet down through legal action.

Earlier on April 7, journalists from Novaya gazeta who fled Russia amid the ongoing crackdown on independent reporting said they have launched a new media outlet that aims to cover news and developments in Russia and around the world in Russian and several other languages.

Kirill Martynov, the former editor of Novaya gazeta’s unit on political issues, will be the editor in chief of Novaya gazeta Europe, the publication said in a statement on its website.

“We know that we have readers around the world who are waiting for verified information,” the statement said.

“That is why we, Novaya gazeta journalists who were forced to leave their country because of a de facto occupational ban being in put into effect, are pleased to announce that we have launched Novaya gazeta Europe — an outlet that shares our values and standards.”

The statement did not say where the newspaper would be based.

Russia has placed strict limits on how media can describe the war Moscow launched in Ukraine. According to the regulator, media must follow official government communications only for what Moscow calls a “special military operation.” Usage of the words “war” or “invasion” with regard to the fighting in Ukraine is banned.

In early March, President Vladimir Putin signed into a law legislation that punishes those who distribute what is deemed “false information about the Russian Army” in their reports about Ukraine, with a prison sentence of as much as 15 years.

Several other Russian media outlets have already opted for suspending operations rather than face heavy restrictions on what they can report, and the Kremlin has also blocked multiple foreign news outlets, including RFE/RL.

April 19, 2022Europe, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATIONEuropeCPNN Coordinator

From Mosul to Raqqa to Mariupol, Killing Civilians is a Crime

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies in Codepink

Americans have been shocked by the death and destruction of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, filling our screens with bombed buildings and dead bodies lying in the street. But the United States and its allies have waged war in country after country for decades, carving swathes of destruction through cities, towns and villages on a far greater scale than has so far disfigured Ukraine.

Bombed homes in Mosul Credit: Amnesty International

As we recently reported, the U.S. and its allies have dropped over 337,000 bombs and missiles, or 46 per day, on nine countries since 2001 alone. Senior U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officers told Newsweek that the first 24 days of Russia’s bombing of Ukraine was less destructive than the first day of U.S. bombing in Iraq in 2003.

The U.S.-led campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria bombarded those countries with over 120,000 bombs and missiles, the heaviest bombing anywhere in decades. U.S. military officers told Amnesty International that the U.S. assault on Raqqa in Syria was also the heaviest artillery bombardment since the Vietnam War.

Mosul in Iraq was the largest city that the United States and its allies reduced to rubble in that campaign, with a pre-assault population of 1.5 million. About 138,000 houses were damaged or destroyed by bombing and artillery, and an Iraqi Kurdish intelligence report counted at least 40,000 civilians killed.

Raqqa, which had a population of 300,000, was gutted even more. A UN assessment mission reported that 70-80% of buildings were destroyed or damaged. Syrian and Kurdish forces in Raqqacounting 4,118 civilian bodies. Many more deaths remain uncounted in the rubble of Mosul and Raqqa. Without comprehensive mortality surveys, we may never know what fraction of the actual death toll these numbers represent.

The Pentagon promised to review its policies on civilian casualties in the wake of these massacres, and commissioned the Rand Corporation to conduct a study titled, “Understanding Civilian Harm in Raqqa and Its Implications For Future Conflicts,” which has now been made public.

Even as the world recoils from the shocking violence in Ukraine, the premise of the Rand Corp study is that U.S. forces will continue to wage wars that involve devastating bombardments of cities and populated areas, and that they must therefore try to understand how they can do so without killing quite so many civilians.

The study runs over 100 pages, but it never comes to grips with the central problem, which is the inevitably devastating and deadly impacts of firing explosive weapons into inhabited urban areas like Mosul in Iraq, Raqqa in Syria, Mariupol in Ukraine, Sanaa in Yemen or Gaza in Palestine.

The development of “precision weapons” has demonstrably failed to prevent these massacres. The United States unveiled its new “smart bombs” during the First Gulf War in 1990-1991. But they in fact comprised only 7% of the 88,000 tons of bombs it dropped on Iraq, reducing “a rather highly urbanized and mechanized society” to “a pre-industrial age nation” according to a UN survey .

Instead of publishing actual data on the accuracy of these weapons, the Pentagon has maintained a sophisticated propaganda campaign to convey the impression that they are 100% accurate and can strike a target like a house or apartment building without harming civilians in the surrounding area.

However, during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Rob Hewson, the editor of an arms trade journal that reviews the performance of air-launched weapons, estimated that 20 to 25% of U.S. “precision” weapons missed their targets.

Even when they do hit their target, these weapons do not perform like space weapons in a video game. The most commonly used bombs in the U.S. arsenal are 500 lb bombs, with an explosive charge of 89 kilos of Tritonal. According to UN safety data, the blast alone from that explosive charge is 100% lethal up to a radius of 10 meters, and will break every window within 100 meters.

That is just the blast effect. Deaths and horrific injuries are also caused by collapsing buildings and flying shrapnel and debris – concrete, metal, glass, wood etc.

A strike is considered accurate if it lands within a “circular error probable,” usually 10 meters around the object being targeted. So in an urban area, if you take into account the “circular error probable,” the blast radius, flying debris and collapsing buildings, even a strike assessed as “accurate” is very likely to kill and injure civilians.

U.S. officials draw a moral distinction between this “unintentional” killing and the “deliberate” killing of civilians by terrorists. But the late historian Howard Zinn challenged this distinction in letter to the New York Times in 2007. He wrote,

“These words are misleading because they assume an action is either ‘deliberate’ or ‘unintentional.’ There is something in between, for which the word is ‘inevitable.’ If you engage in an action, like aerial bombing, in which you cannot possibly distinguish between combatants and civilians (as a former Air Force bombardier, I will attest to that), the deaths of civilians are inevitable, even if not ‘intentional.’

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Question related to this article:

Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

(Article continued from the column on the left)

Does that difference exonerate you morally? The terrorism of the suicide bomber and the terrorism of aerial bombardment are indeed morally equivalent. To say otherwise (as either side might) is to give one moral superiority over the other, and thus serve to perpetuate the horrors of our time.”

Americans are rightfully horrified when they see civilians killed by Russian bombardment in Ukraine, but they are generally not quite so horrified, and more likely to accept official justifications, when they hear that civilians are killed by U.S. forces or American weapons in Iraq, Syria, Yemen or Gaza. The Western corporate media play a key role in this, by showing us corpses in Ukraine and the wails of their loved ones, but shielding us from equally disturbing images of people killed by U.S. or allied forces.

While Western leaders are demanding that Russia be held accountable for war crimes, they have raised no such clamor to prosecute U.S. officials. Yet during the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, both the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) documented persistent and systematic violations of the Geneva Conventions by U.S. forces, including of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention that protects civilians from the impacts of war and military occupation.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and human rights groups documented systematic abuse and torture of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, including cases in which U.S. troops tortured prisoners to death.

Although torture was approved by U.S. officials all the way up to the White House, no officer above the rank of major was ever held accountable for a torture death in Afghanistan or Iraq. The harshest punishment handed down for torturing a prisoner to death was a five-month jail sentence, although that is a capital offense under the U.S. War Crimes Act.

In a 2007 human rights report that described widespread killing of civilians by U.S. occupation forces, UNAMI wrote, “Customary international humanitarian law demands that, as much as possible, military objectives must not be located within areas densely populated by civilians. The presence of individual combatants among a great number of civilians does not alter the civilian character of an area.”

The report demanded “that all credible allegations of unlawful killings be thoroughly, promptly and impartially investigated, and appropriate action taken against military personnel found to have used excessive or indiscriminate force.”

Instead of investigating, the U.S. has actively covered up its war crimes. A tragic example is the 2019 massacre in the Syrian town of Baghuz, where a special U.S. military operations unit dropped massive bombs on a group of mainly women and children, killing about 70. The military not only failed to acknowledge the botched attack but even bulldozed the blast site to cover it up. Only after a New York Times exposé years later did the military even admit that the strike took place.

So it is ironic to hear President Biden call for President Putin to face a war crimes trial, when the United States covers up its own crimes, fails to hold its own senior officials accountable for war crimes and still rejects the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). In 2020, Donald Trump went so far as to impose U.S. sanctions on the most senior ICC prosecutors for investigating U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan.

The Rand study repeatedly claims that U.S. forces have “a deeply ingrained commitment to the law of war.” But the destruction of Mosul, Raqqa and other cities and the history of U.S. disdain for the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and international courts tell a very different story.

We agree with the Rand report’s conclusion that, “DoD’s weak institutional learning for civilian harm issues meant that past lessons went unheeded, increasing the risks to civilians in Raqqa.” However, we take issue with the study’s failure to recognize that many of the glaring contradictions it documents are consequences of the fundamentally criminal nature of this entire operation, under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the existing laws of war.

We reject the whole premise of this study, that U.S. forces should continue to conduct urban bombardments that inevitably kill thousands of civilians, and must therefore learn from this experience so that they will kill and maim fewer civilians the next time they destroy a city like Raqqa or Mosul.

The ugly truth behind these U.S. massacres is that the impunity senior U.S. military and civilian officials have enjoyed for past war crimes encouraged them to believe they could get away with bombing cities in Iraq and Syria to rubble, inevitably killing tens of thousands of civilians.

They have so far been proven right, but U.S. contempt for international law and the failure of the global community to hold the United States to account are destroying the very “rules-based order” of international law that U.S. and Western leaders claim to cherish.

As we call urgently for a ceasefire, for peace and for accountability for war crimes in Ukraine, we should say “Never Again!” to the bombardment of cities and civilian areas, whether they are in Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Iran or anywhere else, and whether the aggressor is Russia, the United States, Israel or Saudi Arabia.

And we should never forget that the supreme war crime is war itself, the crime of aggression, because, as the judges declared at Nuremberg, it “contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” It is easy to point fingers at others, but we will not stop war until we force our own leaders to live up to the principle spelled out by Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson:

“If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

April 19, 2022FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, globalglobalCPNN Coordinator

Global Progressive Leaders Urge Biden to Drop US Charges Against Assange

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by Jake Johnson in Common Dreams (licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

A coalition of progressive leaders from across the globe demanded Monday (April 11) that the Biden administration immediately drop all charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is currently jailed in a high-security London prison as he fights U.S. extradition attempts.

Demonstrators rally in support of freeing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange outside of the Royal Courts of Justice in London on January 24, 2022. (Photo: Thomas Krych/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“Freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and freedom of the press constitute an instrument that can controvert the interests of any government.”

In a letter to Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), more than 30 progressive advocates, intellectuals, and former heads of state argued that dropping the Espionage Act charges against Assange would “send a strong message to the world: that freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and freedom of the press constitute an instrument that can controvert the interests of any government, including that of the United States of America.”

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Click here for the Spanish original of this article.

Question related to this article:

Julian Assange, Is he a hero for the culture of peace?

Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

(Article continued from the column on the left)

“The cases where there are reports of serious violations of freedom of expression would also be impacted by the dropping of the 18 charges against Assange,” the letter reads. “It would affirm the defense of this fundamental human right and would undoubtedly represent a clear and robust sign that everyone can express their opinion without fear of retaliation; that all the press outlets can give news to all the citizens of the world, with the certainty that the pluralism of thought is guaranteed.”

Signed by former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, Chilean intellectual Carlos Ominami, and 30 others, the letter was sent on the third anniversary of Assange’s forced removal from the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2019.

Assange has since been languishing in Belmarsh prison under conditions that human rights experts have characterized as “torture.” Last month, the U.K. Supreme Court denied Assange’s request to appeal an earlier decision allowing him to be extradited to the U.S., where he could face up to 175 years in prison.

The charges against Assange stem from his publication of classified material that exposed U.S. war crimes, including video footage of American forces gunning down civilians in Iraq.

Given that journalists frequently report on and publish classified documents, U.S. efforts to prosecute Assange have been denounced as a grave threat to press freedoms.

But despite pressure from rights groups, the Biden Justice Department has continued to pursue charges against Assange that were originally brought by the Trump administration, which reportedly considered kidnapping or assassinating the WikiLeaks founder.

In their letter on Monday, the progressive leaders wrote that the U.S. “has a long tradition of defending freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and freedom of the press.”

“It is precisely in the name of this tradition,” they wrote, “that we, progressive leaders of the world, address you to ask that, within the scope of its constitutional and legal competence, in respect of due process of law and the democratic rule of law, that your presidency exercise its prerogative of dropping all 18 charges leveled against journalist Julian Paul Assange.”

April 19, 2022Europe, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, North AmericaEurope, North AmericaCPNN Coordinator

Statement of The Ukrainian Pacifist Movement Against Perpetuation of War

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

A statement published in Pressenza

Ukrainian Pacifist Movement is gravely concerned about the active burning of bridges for a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on both sides and signals of intentions to continue the bloodshed indefinitely to achieve some sovereign ambitions. We condemn the Russian decision to invade Ukraine on 24 February 2022, which led to a fatal escalation and thousands of deaths, reiterating our condemnation of the reciprocal violations of the ceasefire envisaged in the Minsk agreements by Russian and Ukrainian combatants in Donbas prior to the escalation of Russian aggression.

We condemn the mutual labeling of parties to the conflict as Nazi-alike enemies and war criminals, stuffed into legislation, reinforced by the official propaganda of extreme and irreconcilable hostility. We believe that the law should build peace, not incite war; and history should give us examples of how people can return to peaceful life, not excuses for continuing the war. We insist that accountability for crimes must be established by an independent and competent judicial body in due process of law, in the result of unbiased and impartial investigation, especially in the most serious crimes, such as genocide. We emphasize that the tragic consequences of military brutality must not be used to incite hatred and justify new atrocities, on the contrary, such tragedies should cool the fighting spirit and encourage a persistent search for the most bloodless ways to end the war.

We condemn military actions on both sides, the hostilities which harm civilians. We insist that all shootings should be stopped, all sides should honor the memory of killed people and, after due grief, calmly and honestly commit to peace talks.

We condemn statements on the Russian side about the intention to achieve certain goals by military means if they cannot be achieved through negotiations.

(Continued in right column)

Questions related to this article:

Can the peace movement help stop the war in the Ukraine?

How can we be sure to get news about peace demonstrations?

Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

(Continued from left column)

We condemn statements on the Ukrainian side that the continuation of peace talks depends on winning the best-negotiating positions on the battlefield.

We condemn the unwillingness of both sides to a ceasefire during the peace talks.

We condemn the practice of forcing civilians to conduct military service, to perform military tasks, and to support the army against the will of peaceful people in Russia and Ukraine. We insist that such practices, especially during hostilities, grossly violate the principle of distinction between militaries and civilians in international humanitarian law. Any forms of contempt for the human right to conscientious objection to military service are unacceptable.

We condemn all military support provided by Russia and NATO countries for militant radicals in Ukraine provoking further escalation of the military conflict.We call on all peace-loving people in Ukraine and around the world to remain peace-loving people in all circumstances and to help others to be peace-loving people, to collect and disseminate knowledge about a peaceful and nonviolent way of life, to tell the truth, that unites peace-loving people, to resist evil and injustice without violence and debunk myths about necessary, beneficial, inevitable, and just war. We don’t call for any particular action now to ensure that peace plans will not be targeted by hatred and attacks of militarists, but we are confident that pacifists of the world have a good imagination and experience of practical realization of their best dreams. Our actions should be guided by hope for a peaceful and happy future, and not by fears. Let our peace work bring closer the future from dreams.

War is a crime against humanity. Therefore, we are determined not to support any kind of war and to strive for the removal of all causes of war.

UPM
Fb.com/PeaceUkraine
yuriy.sheliazhenko@gmail.com
Tverskyi tupyk street, 9, app. 82
01042
Kyiv
Ukraine

April 19, 2022DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Europe, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATIONEuropeCPNN Coordinator

Transformative Peace Initiatives through TOCfE Tools

… EDUCATION FOR PEACE …

Special to CPNN from Nancy Oley

Community leaders from the United States, Singapore, Myanmar and Somalia reported on their ongoing peace projects in a session entitled “Transformative Peace Initiatives through TOCfE Tools” at the virtual TOCfE International Symposium on February 26, 2022. Presentations of the four speakers are summarized below.

Kathy Suerken is a Rotarian, President of Theory of Constraints for Education, Inc. (TOCfE) and organizer of the TOCfE International Symposium. Founded by the late Israeli physicist Eliyahu Goldratt, TOCfE is dedicated to the application of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) to education. Suerken argues that peace is not a zero-sum game in which “I win, and you lose;” it is a process. The tools and strategies of TOC are the means by which we develop a “win-win” mindset and find “win-win” solutions to conflicts, assuring that no one is harmed. Even young children have used the simple TOC thinking and communication tools to resolve conflicts and become peacemakers on the playground and in their classrooms. TOCfE is currently active in 23 countries and six continents.

The Rotary Peace Fellowship Program is a program designed for community leaders who have experience in and are committed to international peace and development. Fellows are offered financial support and are trained at international Rotary Peace Centers to carry out projects promoting peace around the world as they pursue a master’s degree or Professional Development Certificate. There are currently 1,300 Fellows working in 115 countries. Fellowships are awarded through local Rotary Clubs.

Two Peace fellows whose work is described below are using the graphical tools of TOC to prevent and resolve conflicts (win-win solutions), to logically analyze cause-effect relationships, to analyze and sequence the steps needed to achieve a goal, and to create systemic change.

Christina Cheng, Singapore Director of TOC for Education and a Rotary Peace Fellow, noted that the cost of conflict and violence is 10% of the world’s GDP or about $5 per person. Given that 9% of the world lives on less than $1.90 per day, a 3% reduction in conflict spending could fund the entire global food aid fund. Countries that ranked high on the 2021 Global Peace Index based on their safety and security, domestic and international conflict, and militarization, also ranked high on the World Happiness Report (2021) that measures life evaluations, as well as positive and negative emotions. Happiness is correlated with a sense of security, and security is correlated with physical peace. However, countries ranking high on happiness are also among the highest users of anti-depressants, suggesting that the absence of physical conflict/ war or “negative peace” is not sufficient. For a society to have “positive peace” – to be free from stress, anxiety, depression, and unresolved personal conflicts – mindsets, attitudes, systems and structures must be changed. Studies show that training in the areas of conflict resolution and problem-solving can reduce the incidence of depression in youth. So why, then, is so little time and money spent on teaching these skills in school? TOCfE provides the tools for people of all ages, races, religions, genders and cultures to analyze problems and to resolve conflicts logically without blame or anger, producing more harmonious and peaceful individuals, families and communities.

In this regard, an important application of TOC tools has been with repeat offenders. TOCfE training helps inmates recognize their negative thinking patterns by identifying the root cause of their behavior and uncovering mistaken assumptions that have led them into a downward spiral. Simple TOC peace tools have also been taught to men and women in halfway houses, military prisons, and drug rehabilitation centers.
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Question for this article:

Mediation as a tool for nonviolence and culture of peace

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Pastor Fidy Sung lang Len is Head of the Women’s Department and Christian Education Department of the Olive Baptist Church, a Committee Member in the Hakha Baptist Association (HBA) Women’s Division, a Committee Member in the HBA CE Department, and a Committee Member in the Cultural Department of Chin Association for Christian Communication. Collectively, these groups touch roughly 35, 000 women/girls and 15, 000 children from the Hakha Chin community. According to Len, the Chin people are the smallest, poorest, and least educated minority group in war-torn Myanmar, with gender inequality, violence and abuse deeply rooted in their culture and identity.

Len has used TOC thinking process tools to help empower Chin women, despite the cultural, religious, and political obstacles to doing so. The cloud tool was used to resolve conflicts. In Len’s work there is a conflict between the desire/want to speak out against gender inequality and the desire/want to not speak out. Each of these alternative “wants” is necessary to fulfill its associated “need”— to help others and improve the situation on the one hand, and to avoid further conflict and unhappiness on the other. The overarching goal, to have a happy and satisfying life, can be achieved by fulfilling both needs. By logically examining the assumptions underlying the suggested causal connections between wants and needs, one can find ways to satisfy the needs and provide a “win-win” solution to the conflict. Len’s analysis suggested a number of steps to be taken, among them: partner with international non-governmental organizations with knowledge of how to reduce gender inequality, work for equal education, introduce concepts of gender equity into the early curriculum, work with church leaders to correct misunderstanding of biblical teachings about gender, always include men’s voices in the discussion, speak to men with respect and sensitivity to their fears, work with respected male leaders to champion women’s equity, and emphasize that gender equity benefits both women and men.

Sharmarke Yusuf, Rotary Peace Fellow, Certified TOC Facilitator and TOC Country Director, noted that Somalia’s two-decades long armed conflict and civil war has had a psychological impact on the population, and that to be successful, any educational approach must promote inclusivity, peace, respect, non-violence and avoid blaming others. Toward this end, local teachers learned TOC critical thinking and communication tools to empower youth with coping and decision-making skills, self-understanding, and the psychological support they need to resist being manipulated by others.

As one example, Yusuf noted that early marriage prevents young Somalis, especially women, from attaining their educational goals. Using the graphical TOC cloud tool, a young couple came to understand their common goal (a happy family together), what each person needed (not to lose the relationship/continue in school), and how their wants conflicted (marry now vs. not marry now). By critically examining the assumptions underlying their conflict, they came to recognize that their common goal would be easily met if they both continued their education, a “win-win” solution.

Yusuf also outlined his efforts to prevent the radicalization of incarcerated youth using TOC tools to change the systemic factors contributing to incarceration and destructive post-release behaviors. He analyzed “what to change,” “what to change to,” and “how to cause the change.” His ongoing study includes 10 female and 10 male youth 18-32 who are school dropouts, unemployed and/or involved in conflict—- a population very vulnerable to being used for fueling conflicts, radicalization and extremist violence. The goal of the project is to engage and empower the participants to be a positive force for transformation and peace through: training in TOC communication, thinking and conflict resolution tools; “positive peace” education; employment skill building; and community volunteer activities. The number of young people participating in the interventions and their attitudes before and after the interventions are being measured. At the end of the study, he will assess participants’ integration into their community, their ability to think critically, and their success at making changes in their lives, i.e., to be agents of peace and productive community members.

(Comments on this topic may be sent to . Please indicate if you wish them to be published with this article and/or forwarded to its author.)

April 17, 2022EDUCATION FOR PEACE, globalglobalCPNN Coordinator

Censorship in Russia: Do not use this word

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(Editor’s note: On March 17 we wrote with regard to the war against Ukraine that “Russians are taking risks to express their opposition in the face of police action that is sometimes even ridiculous.” Here are some new examples taken from the April 11 blog of Sergey Aleksashenko .)

On March 15, the police detained Anastasia Parshkova, who had attended an anti-war picket gathering with a placard reading: “The Sixth Commandment. Thou shalt not kill.” (In the Orthodox Church, this is the Sixth, not the Fifth.)

On April 10, the police detained Konstantin Goldman, who stood at the pedestal of the Hero-city of Kyiv in the Manezh Garden near the Kremlin, holding in his hands the book War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

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Questions related to this article:

Can the peace movement help stop the war in the Ukraine?

How can we be sure to get news about peace demonstrations?

Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

(Continued from left column)

On April 9, a St. Petersburg court fined Artur Dmitriev 30,000 rubles (50% of the average Russian salary) based on the article “public actions aimed at discrediting the Russian military.” On April 7, Dmitriev had gone to an anti-war picket event holding an A4 sheet of paper with the following words: “The war brought so much grief that it is impossible to forget it. There is no forgiveness for those who once again plot aggressive plans.” The phrase for which Dmitriev was detained was said by the President of Russia on May 9, 2021, during the Victory Day parade on the Red Square.

April 12, 2022Europe, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATIONEuropeCPNN Coordinator

France : “We, Mayors, want to be architects of Peace!”

. . DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION . .

A statement from l’AFCDRP-Maires pour la Paix (translation by CPNN)

In our cities, this military attack on Ukraine brings to the surface the family stories of the past century. It also has a particular resonance with the conflicts of today’s world, for the inhabitants of the first, second and third generation of immigrants who have fled wars and misery to offer their loved ones a better life on our continent. .

In kyiv, the departure of people fleeing Russian bombardments in Ukraine. | THE PICTORIUM/MAXPPP

On a daily basis, in the face of the war in Ukraine, cities are taking action!

On a daily basis, in the face of the war in Ukraine, cities are taking action! They organize and support the journey and reception of refugees, collection of donations, accommodation and schooling, literacy courses and professional integration.

Cities also work every day to anchor the values of peace, solidarity and mutual understanding in local public policies.

In 2010, during a Mayors for Peace conference, Ban Ki Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, stressed that “peace is built in towns and villages all over the world and not only in conference halls in New York or Geneva”.

Against all warmongers, war makers and military industry, the cities carry within them the powerful peaceful force of the peoples and their primary desire to stop all wars.

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(Click here for the French version of this article)

Question related to this article:

How can culture of peace be developed at the municipal level?

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In our modern era, no city has ever declared war on another. The cities and their representatives of the people know too well the human cost of blood, weapons and tears!

A vibrant city diplomacy

From the day after the Second World War, the cities were, on the contrary, architects of peace with twinnings on each side of the Rhine.

This city diplomacy is very much alive thanks to the Mayors for Peace network, which has been alerting the world for decades to the nuclear risk, thanks to the association Cités Unies France, which unites municipalities in common objectives of union of Peace and Democracy, and thanks also to United Cities and Local Governments.

Alongside the imperative need to silence the arms, cities promote every day the values of dialogue. Diplomacy is, basically, long-term patience against the use of arms!

Bringing cities on the international stage

To build a better world, more than ever, we need to bring cities onto the international stage and give voice to peaceful municipalism and city diplomacy.

We, mayors, want to keep alive our twinning and cooperation for dialogue between peoples.

We, mayors, have a duty to build local strategies for a culture of peace with our fellow citizens.

We thus strongly reaffirm that everything must be done to find a diplomatic solution to this war and to all wars!

Signed by : Philippe Rio, Mayor of Grigny (PCF, 91), President of Mayors for Peace France; Gilles Leproust, mayor of Allonnes (PCF, 72); Stéphanie Daumin, mayor of Chevilly-Larue (PCF, 94); Jérôme Pasco, mayor of Conches-en-Ouch (Without label, 27); François Rebsamen, mayor of Dijon (PS, 21); Christophe Sonrel, Mayor of Damelevières (PCF, 54); Quentin Gesell, mayor of Dugny (DVD, 93); Olivier Corzani, mayor of Fleury-Mérogis (PCF, 91); Patrice Leclerc, Mayor of Gennevilliers (PCF, 92); Patricia Tordjman, mayor of Gentilly (PCF, 92); Michel Soriano, mayor of Lasséran (Without label, 32); Jean-François Fountaine, mayor of La Rochelle (DVG, 17); Jacqueline Belhomme, mayor of Malakoff (PCF, 92); Michaël Delafosse, mayor of Montpellier (PS, 34); Philippe Lacroix, mayor of Oradour-sur-Glane (LREM-Horizons, 87); Patrick Jarry, mayor of Nanterre (DVG, 92); Ali Rabeh, Mayor of Trappes (Generation. s, 93); Pierre Garzon, mayor of Villejuif (PCF, 94); Pierre Bell-Lloch, mayor of Vitry-sur-Seine (PCF, 94).

April 4, 2022DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, EuropeEuropeCPNN Coordinator

Chad, Cameroon and Gabon: Youth as Weavers of Peace in the border region

TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY .

Special to CPNN from Jerry Bibang

With an information and orientation meeting on March 31, Gabon joined the project Youth as Weavers of Peace that has been developed by the other Central African countries of Cameroon and Chad.

The project team with members of PAYNCOP

The meeting took place in the town hall of the municipality of Oyem, in the province of Woleu-Ntem, in the north of Gabon bordering on Cameroon. It was chaired by the Governor of the province as the project involves the localities of Oyem, Minvoul, Bitam and Meyo – Kye.

The project aims to identify, train and operationalize 250 young people (young men and women 18-35 years old) to become weavers of peace in their respective communities.

(This article is continued in the column on the right.)

(Click here for the original article in French.)

Question related to this article:

Solidarity across national borders, What are some good examples?

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In addition, nearly 60 young leaders of community-based social enterprise projects will be trained and supported in order to launch their initiatives.

This work will be implemented by several organizations including the Pan-African Youth Network for the Culture of Peace (PAYNCOP) and will be coordinated by the United Nations System in Gabon, with UNESCO and UNODC as the lead agencies.

“This project comes at the right time because it gives young people the opportunity to contribute significantly to the prevention of violence and the consolidation of peace in our country. It is in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2250 that recommends States to involve young people as actors in peace and security issues,” explained Jerry Bibang, PAYNCoP Permanent Secretary.

“It will also be a real opportunity that will allow young women and men to embark on income-generating initiatives in order to contribute, even a little, to their economic empowerment and to fight against the youth unemployment that is growing in our country,” he added.

The launching ceremony of the project saw the participation of the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations system in Gabon, the Representative of UNESCO, the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA), the United Nations Office Drugs and Crime (UNODC), a representative of the government, and several civil society organizations.

April 2, 2022Africa, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITYAfricaCPNN Coordinator

English bulletin April 1, 2022

. THE RUSSIAN PEACE MOVEMENT . .

As we stated in last month’s bulletin the mass media is jammed with articles about the war in Ukraine, whether Russian atrocities or Western arms being sent to expand the war.

We see our role in CPNN to provide the other side of the news, the mobilization of the peace movement.

Last month we published information from the peace movement on all sides of the conflict. This month there has been an enormous mobilization of the peace movement in Russia opposing their government’s aggression, despite censorship and despite the risks of loss of jobs, destruction of independent media and imprisonment of those who protest. This has been expressed in social media, since mainstream media is government-controlled.

A relatively complete list of Russian petitions, appeals and open letters against the war in social media is published on Google docs and we have reprinted it in CPNN along with frequent updates to overcome the censureship being imposed by the Russian government.

Those aspects of Russian culture that are world-renowned are strongly represented, including science and mathematics, information technology, chess and the arts.

Thousands of Russian scientists have signed an open letter condemning the war and saying that it “means that we, scientists, will no longer be able to do our job normally: after all, conducting scientific research is unthinkable without full cooperation with colleagues from other countries.”

Hundreds of Russian mathematicians have signed a similar open letter, saying that “our many years of efforts to strengthen the reputation of Russia as a leading mathematical center have been completely depreciated as a result of the unprovoked military aggression initiated by our country.”

Tens of thousands of Russian IT workers have signed an open letter, saying that “Progress and development of technologies for the benefit of man are impossible in conditions of war and threats to people’s lives and health, they are possible only in conditions of cooperation, diversity of points of view, information exchange and open dialogue.”

Leading Russian chess players have signed an appeal, saying, “The Ukrainian chess team is the reigning European champion, one of the best teams in the world along with ours. We played dozens of matches and hundreds of games. We have always put the game above politics – and the Ukrainians have responded to us in return. We ask you to give teams, players and ordinary people from both countries a chance for mutual respect. We are for peace. Stop the war!”

Tens of thousands of cultural figures signed an open letter against the war, saying, “the further escalation of the war will have irreparable consequences for artists and cultural workers. This will take away our last opportunities to fully work, speak out, create projects, popularize and develop culture, take away the future. Everything that has been done culturally over the past 30 years has now been jeopardized: all international ties will be broken, cultural private or public institutions will be preserved, partnerships with other countries will be suspended.”

Other aspects of deep Russian culture are also represented, including the Russian Orthodox Church and schoolteachers and the mothers of Russian soldiers.

Many priests and deacons of the Russian Orthodox Church signed an appeal to end the war, warning that “The Last Judgment awaits every person. No earthly authority, no doctors, no guards will protect you from this trial,” and “No nonviolent call for peace and an end to war should be forcibly suppressed and regarded as a violation of the law, for this is the divine commandment: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’”

Thousands of teachers from all regions of Russia signed a petition against the war but the names were withdrawn after they were threatened. However, some of the teachers who signed it describe the difficulty they face in responding to students’ questions about what is happening.

The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers began during the Soviet war in Afghanistan as a network of locally based initiatives led by the families – principally the mothers – of soldiers to lobby the Kremlin for their safe return. They have become the main contact for tearful family members across Russia frantically tried to figure out the fate of their sons, brothers and husbands fighting in the Ukraine. And if there is one thing that can effectively counter the Kremlin’s narrative about its use of force in Ukraine, it is personal knowledge from trusted sources of information – such as the testimony of combatants delivered to their parents. And these parents will share this knowledge with their extended family, with neighbours, with co-workers, and with friends.

A public opinion poll in Russia found 72% support for the Ukraine war in Russians over the age of 50. Their opinion is strongly influenced by state-controlled television. And this coincides with the fact that opinions about the United States and its allies, which were positive 25 years ago, have turned negative in recent years with the increasing menace cf the incorporation of Eastern Europe into NATO.

On the other hand, only 29% of Russians 18-24 years old support the war. They are more influenced by social media than by television. Hopefully, they will join with the Russian cultural figures mentioned above into a peace movement that can help bring an end to the war.

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Russian anti-war movement takes shape on the streets – and on screens