Posts Tagged ‘Genocide’
Pensioner (Sue Pentel) arrested during pro-Palestine protest outside Belfast bank ‘will not stay silent’, lawyer says – Belfast Telegraph Report
A Belfast Telegraph report is below :
Source :
A pensioner arrested during a pro-Palestine protest outside a bank in Belfast will “robustly contest” any charges that are brought, her solicitor has said.
Sue Pentel was one of two women held on suspicion of criminal damage after an incident on Saturday.
The 72-year-old Jewish grandmother is a high-profile campaigner against Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Her solicitor said she was arrested “whilst peacefully protesting against the ongoing genocide in Palestine at Barclays Bank”.
According to reports, the two women were arrested after stickers promoting a boycott of the bank were allegedly placed on an ATM.
Read the rest of this entry »Support Ukrainian Resistance – Not Monstrous Rearmament Plans – Simon Pirani, People and Nature
An important left-wing conference in solidarity with Ukraine took place in Brussels on March 26 and 27 2025. We will present a number of reports from this conference in the next few days. Here is the first item – written by Simon Pirani who publishes a People and Nature blog.
Support Ukrainian Resistance – Not Monstrous Rearmament Plans – Simon Pirani, People and Nature
By Simon Pirani. Based on a talk given at a panel, “What peace?”, at the Solidarity with Ukraine event this week in Brussels
“What peace?” is a wide question. To narrow it down, we can ask: what sort of peace is being discussed among Ukrainians?
In an interview about the Trump-Putin talks, and the prospects for any agreement, our comrade Denis Pilash, a member of Sotsialnyi Rukh, said that “Ukrainians have two things in mind when thinking about any deal: the fate of people in the occupied territories, and how to prevent Russia from restarting the war.”
These points could frame areas for agreements, he argued. He pointed to the Ukrainian government’s position that it will not recognise illegal annexations, but would accept a ceasefire followed by negotiations.
Read the rest of this entry »There will be no peace without justice: Statement of Ukrainian civil society organizations on the US-Russia negotiations
Links :
No Peace Without Justice – Statement of ukrainian Civil Society on the US-Russia Negotiations – ESSF
We, representatives of [Ukrainian] civil society and human rights organizations, decisively condemn the negotiations between the delegations of the Russian Federation and the United States regarding Ukraine, which took place in Saudi Arabia, as well as the plans to create negotiating groups without the participation of Ukraine. Any agreements about Ukraine without its direct participation are not only unacceptable, but also contradict the fundamental principles of international law, the sovereignty of states, and the right of the people of Ukraine to independently determine their future.
Such agreements are fundamentally incapable of accomplishing sustainable peace and international security, creating additional security, economic, and other threats to states that will support them. This path repeats the fatal mistake the international community made during the Munich Agreement of 1938, which, as was discovered later, did not satisfy the encroachment of the aggressor state and led to an even more destructive war.
Ukraine is not an object, but a sovereign state affected by aggression
Russia continues waging a full-scale war against Ukraine in violation of the fundamental principles of international law, including the prohibition to use force against the territorial integrity and political independence of any state enshrined in the UN Charter. This has been recognized not only by numerous decisions of international organizations, but also supported by the majority of countries in the world. The aggression committed by the Russian Federation has already resulted in numerous war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the likely genocide of the Ukrainian people.
Read the rest of this entry »Peace between neofascists and war on oppressed peoples – the Trump-Putin Anti-Ukraine Summit in the land of Saudi Arabian Bloodbaths
Convicted Rapist-President Donald Trump (USA) and wanted international war criminal President Vladimir Putin (Russia) are knifing Ukraine Palestine and Syria, hosted by the Saudi Arabia bloodbath kingdom.
Three sociopathic assassins (Putin, Trump, and Mohammed bin Salman) have form. Barcelona journalist Cristina Mas notes : “This format would have been unthinkable just five years ago, after the murder of journalist and opposition leader Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a crime that prompted condemnation around the world and the cooling of relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia”
From the pro-Ukraine left, useful interpretations are circulating.
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Extract :
Read the rest of this entry »In a highly confrontational speech delivered at the Munich Security Conference opening on 14 February, US Vice President JD Vance declared that the “internal threat” facing Europe was more serious than that posed by Russia and China. He criticised the annulment of a recent election in Romania, the prosecution of an anti-abortion protester in the United Kingdom, and the exclusion of far-right and far-left German politicians from the event itself.
Elections (USA): Making Sense of Trump’s Victory & the Necessary Resistance – Frieda Afary
Frieda Afary has written an excellent analysis (see below). She shows that the Democratic party candidate Kamala Harris lost 10 million votes compared with Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. Trump’s vote totals in 2020 and 2024 were almost identical.
Source :
Elections (USA): Making Sense of Trump’s Victory & the Necessary Resistance (ESSF)
This article analyzes the vote breakdown, the pundits’ views, argues that Trump is a fascist and offers perspectives for the needed anti-fascist resistance.
Donald Trump’s election as president, and the Republican victories nationwide are a catastrophe for progressive forces in the U.S. and around the world. What the November 5, 2024 election showed was that while this country is still divided, there has been a rightward shift nationwide and across all demographic and geographic groups. (Levitt, 2024)
Vote Breakdown:
Let’s take a closer look at the demographic breakdown of the votes. Approximately 72 million voted for Harris and 75 million voted for Trump. Approximately 700,000 voted for Jill Stein and 700,000 voted for Robert Kennedy. This means that Democrats received 10 million fewer votes than in 2020 when Biden received 81 million. Trump received approximately the same number of votes he received in 2020. (U.S. Election Results, 2024)
Read the rest of this entry »Interview with Ilya Yashin – Russian anti-war activist released as part of a prisoner exchange – plus an Irish Clare Daly (ex MEP) connection
Cristina Mas interviews Released Russian Political Prisoner Ilya Yashin (Web Link)
During the interview Cristina asks Ilya about Pablo Gonzalez (real name Pavel Rubtsov ) who was accused of espionage in Poland. See postscript about an Irish connection at the end of this fascinating interview.
Cristina Mas writes for the Spanish language journal Ara
Cristina Mas articles in the magazine Ara
Ilya Yashin—Interview with Cristina Mas, Ara, September 30, 2024
Ilya Yashin is a Russian opposition politician who was released from prison on August 1, in the prisoner exchange between Russia and the United States. Since his exile in Germany, he has been touring several European cities to reach out to the Russian diaspora, which has taken him to Barcelona. Yashin, now 41, was jailed in 2022 for criticizing the invasion of Ukraine on his YouTube show. He was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for denouncing the Butxa massacre. He is now free thanks to the largest prisoner exchange of the Cold War, in which sixteen Russian political prisoners and U.S. citizens Evan Gershkovitx and Paul Whelan were exchanged for prisoners in the West claimed by Russia, including Spain’s Pablo Gonzalez, accused of espionage, and Vadim Krasikov, who shot a man in the head to death in a Berlin park on Moscow’s orders.
Read the rest of this entry »Birds of a Feather Flock Together – Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson MP (DUP, East Antrim)
There is more to this story than initially meets the eye. Much capitalist development is based on Ethnic Cleansing of original populations and the plantation of new non-indigenous populations – it happened in the United States of America (USA) and Australia – naming just two. It did not happen so brutally in Ireland – but British imperialism made a significant effort.
Links :
Plantation of Ulster
Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland – Wikipedia
The Northern province of Ulster was “planted” in the 1600’s, but the native Irish were not completely exterminated. Waves of native Irish emigrated – especially in the 19th century after a misnamed Famine (in reality a “Great Hunger” caused by British Imperialist Policy) drove millions of the native Irish to the four corners of the globe. These emigrants kept alive the idea of Irish freedom, and played a significant role in every attempt to rid Ireland of British rule.
The stubborn Irish “national question” remains on today’s agenda because of the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty which divided Ireland into 2 sectarian states. A key feature of extreme Irish Unionism is identification with plantation/ethnic cleansing forms of capitalism – and that goes a long way towards explaining Irish far-right Unionist sympathy for the present day attempted ethnic cleansing of Palestine and Ukraine. We should situate recent pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine statements by the British far-right politician Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson within this framework :
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The Russian imperialist occupation of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk is ethnic cleansing capitalism in action – accompanied by child stealing and abuse similar to the behaviour of the Catholic Church in the 26 county bit of Ireland from the 1930’s to the 1990’s.
An excellent Ukrainian blog, Ukr-Taz, covers the story of Putin’s ethnic cleansing dreams in Ukraine, and Donald Trump’s enthusiastic support :
Trump on Putin’s “dream”
29 06 2024
For all that can be said about Thursday’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — including about the former’s dismal performance and about the boundless creativity of Trump’s fabrications on almost every topic under the sun — Trump’s curious note about Putin’s “dream” stood out to me:
Read the rest of this entry »Struggles for Self-Determination: Ukraine and Palestine Solidarity Discussion
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Ukraine and Palestine: building real solidarity is hard work
A guest post by JOHN LAWRENCE, from the People and Nature Blog hosted by Simon Pirani.
This article is relevant to the European Parliament Election campaign in Ireland and other parts of Europe.
“Genocide is genocide, a mass grave is a mass grave. We are with the people who are in there, and against the people who put them there”, journalist Ed Vulliamy told a discussion meeting in London on Monday.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Israel’s war on Gaza – both of which have settler colonial and genocidal dimensions – had thrown an unusually clear light on the hypocrisy of people who oppose one, but not the other, Vulliamy said.
Marching in London, March 2024. Photos from United Action UK on instagram
In the United Nations, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky abstains over Gaza, and South Africa abstains over Ukraine, Vulliamy said.
“Large sections of the left wonderfully support Gaza but, having denied and justified [the massacre in 1995 of Bosnians by Serb troops at] Srebrenica, at best indulge, or support, Vladimir Putin and his imperial endeavour,” he continued.
Read the rest of this entry »USA President Genocide Joe Biden
What public figure do you disagree with the most?
Genocide Joe Biden has the blood of thousands of innocent Gazans on his hands.
“Are there two international courts?!!” – Post published by the Cedar Lounge Revolution Blog
A very welcome post by Des Derwin, first published on the Cedar Lounge Revolution blog. Source : https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/are-there-two-international-courts/
Last week the left – alongside all decent people – was blaring a fanfare for the referral of Israel by South Africa to the International Court of Justice. And rightly so, of course. It is to be welcomed and it should be supported by the Irish government. All platforms and publications of the left are buzzing with it. South Africa is being commended effusively for their initiative and congratulated wholeheartedly for their solidarity with the people of Gaza. The left has, obliviously, great respect and faith in the International Court of Justice. The left sees it as very significant that a state should be brought to the International Court of Justice to answer for its crimes.
The BBC reported: ‘evidence submitted by South Africa claims “acts and omissions” by Israel “are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”’. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67922346
The Irish government and many other governments are being accused, not least by the Irish radical left, of double standards, inconsistency and hypocrisy in their attitudes and responses to Russian crimes in Ukraine and Israeli crimes in Palestine.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 