#which is then followed by extrajudicial killings

[benedictusantonius]

[2023|36] The 23rd Midnight (2023) written by Maxine Paetro “and James Patterson”

[justforbooks]

Ebrahim Raisi

Ruthless prosecutor linked to thousands of executions who rose through the theocratic ranks to become the president of Iran

The career of Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, who has been killed in a helicopter crash aged 63, was defined by violent events. His initiation into politics was triggered by the 1979 Iranian revolution, one of the most cataclysmic and epoch-shaping events of the late 20th century, which unfolded with headline-grabbing drama as Raisi was just turning 18.

Given the heady fervour of that revolutionary period, with daily mass street demonstrations eventually leading to the toppling of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country’s once seemingly invincible western-allied monarch, followed by the return from exile of the messianic cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to ecstatic acclaim, it is perhaps no surprise that a militant, impressionable young activist was sucked into the political system that took shape in the aftermath, was moulded by it - and later participated in some of its more unsavoury actions.

With the theocratic Islamic regime in its infancy, tottering in the face of often violent internal opposition and military attack from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which invaded Iran in September 1980, the young Raisi cut his political teeth in the fledgling system’s judiciary, administering revolutionary justice to political opponents.

He apparently did so with precocious aplomb and a ruthlessness that some say bordered on cruelty. In 1981, aged only 20, he was appointed prosecutor of Karaj, a large town near Tehran; within four months, he was combining that role with prosecutor of Hamadan province, more than 300km away. Political executions during this period were commonplace, although the young Raisi’s direct role in those were unclear.

By 1985, his ideological commitment and judicial zeal earned him a significant promotion to the post of deputy prosecutor of Tehran, Iran’s sprawling capital. He was now well and truly part of the newly formed establishment, so much so that he eventually came to the direct attention of Khomeini, by now undisputed leader of the revolution, who reportedly gave him extrajudicial responsibilities.

It was this relationship that led to a baleful episode that cast an enduring shadow over Raisi’s career and which, critics say, should be the legacy for which he should be remembered.

In 1988, he was among at least four judicial and intelligence ministry-linked figures later revealed to have been members of a shadowy “death committee” established on Khomeini’s orders to oversee the execution of thousands of political prisoners.

According to varying estimates, between 1,700 and 4,400 prisoners – mostly members of the dissident Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), but also leftists, and many of them reportedly in their teens – were summarily put to death. Amnesty International said many had been subject to torture and inhumane treatment. To this day, the executions represent arguably the worst violation of human rights in the 45-year history of the Islamic Republic.

A surviving political prisoner, Iraj Mesdaghi – a writer and activist now exiled in Sweden – recalls seeing Raisi, dressed in plain clothes rather than clerical robes, arriving at Gohardasht prison in Karaj for the purpose of making sure executions were carried out and personally witnessing them. One photograph of Raisi from the period depicts a very different persona from the austere, turbaned figure of his presidential years.

How Raisi acquired such pitiless zeal is open to question. Born into a clerical family, near the religious shrine city of Mashhad, he had begun seminary studies in Qom – seat of Iran’s Shia Islamic establishment – at the age of 15, studying at the Ayatollah Borujerdi school at a time when the city began to be plunged into a state of pre-revolutionary ferment, with cassettes of the exiled Khomeini’s sermons being distributed among devout opponents to the shah’s rule.

Whatever the antecedents, there can be no doubt that Raisi’s commitment to Khomeini’s puritanical vision of Velayat-e-Faqih (rule by Islamic jurisprudence) was unambiguous and lasting.

Under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini as supreme leader after the latter’s death in 1989, Raisi ascended to a series of senior judicial positions that kept him close to the heart of the theocracy, including the role of special clerical court prosecutor from 2012 until 2021 and head of the judiciary. During his two years in the latter post, he oversaw more than 400 executions, according to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights organisation.

At the same time, as the regime under Khamenei – who has the last word on all state matters – turned its face against liberalising reform, Raisi’s political stock rose. With the supreme leader’s apparent approval, he stood in the 2017 presidential election as a conservative candidate but was beaten soundly by the incumbent, Hassan Rouhani, a centrist who had taken on the mantle of a reformist in a climate that had become steadily more intolerant of a loosening of Islamic strictures on social behaviour.

In 2021, once more with Khamenei’s backing, Raisi tried again and this time prevailed, on a historically low turnout of 48.8% and with 3.7m ballots not counted – either because they were deliberately left blank or voters had written in protest choices, in anger over the mass disqualification of other candidates.

As a president he seemed a markedly greyer figure than previous incumbents, such as the populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Mohammad Khatami, the popular cleric who had become a champion of reformism by trying to relax the social impact of Iran’s rigid religious rules.

But the political – and contrasting – effect of having Raisi in office became clear in September 2022 following the mass protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who had been arrested for alleged improper observance of Islamic hijab. Her death spawned a wave of rebellion and the launch of a self-styled movement calling itself “Woman, Life, Freedom”, with women openly flouting strict rules on wearing head covering.

In response, Raisi presided over a brutal clampdown resulting in the deaths, so far, of at least 500 protesters. Repression in the Islamic Republic was not new, but critics detected in the severity of the response an ideological zeal greater even than the crackdown on the 2009 protests that had greeted Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election.

Raisi’s reward for such orthodoxy was to be spoken of as a possible supreme leader-in-waiting, in succession to Khamenei, who is 85. The abrupt ending to his life in a downed presidential helicopter terminates a controversial political career and renders such speculation moot.

Raisi is survived by his wife, Jamileh Alamolhoda, a writer and scholar, whom he married in 1983, and their two daughters.

🔔 Ebrahim Raisi, politician, born 14 December 1960; died 19 May 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[lucem-stellarum]

Spoilers for the Summit pt 3, and under the cut for length

Damn, and I was so convinced it was actually Alexis too.

William, this was not the time or method to let Vincent learn about the murkier parts of your morality. You could have explained it when you told him he had to run the Summit alone. You were just worried that Vincent wouldn't play along if he knew, and you know what? You'd have been right. Everyone makes mistakes when parenting, but I love-hate to see it here. I love the repeated emphasis that William does love Vincent, because that makes it hurt even worse. There's a specific kind of pain with the growth and realization that your parents are people, with real flaws and that make real mistakes.

I'm not saying that Vincent is perfect, either. Porter was right that he was sheltered about it, but Vincent let himself be sheltered as well. Sam, Fred, and Bright Eyes (yes their storyline was scrubbed from the official canon, but then why does Sam get to make it personal about Quinn's actions on Halloween in their little extrajudicial confrontation? I'm getting off topic. Anyway) all had terrible experiences with other vamps, Adam was in the same clan and we all know how messed up he was. Vincent himself experienced how easy it is to push humans to a sort of second class citizen where it didn't matter if he hurt them or overrode their boundaries since he could just wipe memories and it was for his own survival. Why wouldn't other vamps develop that same sort of moral numbness to other people's pain and suffering? It only takes one remorseless vampire monarch for every single one of them to have to resort to those tactics to protect their own regardless of their own personal feelings about violence. Sort of the "carry a bigger stick" mentality that's ridiculously difficult to deescalate (and that's with the benefit of having human generational divides. with immortal vampires everything is personal).

I do wish that Lovely got to interject a little bit more about all of this. The Bennetts were mainly killed for their part in the Inversion. The Inversion which, just so it's stated for the official record, had a pretty big impact on our vampire listener character. Porter says to ask the Shaw pack if the Bennetts deserved to die, but Lovely was right there. I'm hoping there's a follow up with them and Vincent afterwards where they get to say their piece to him, and maybe it will help Vincent understand why William decided that they had to die. They might have better luck once the shock has worn off a bit, had time to settle in. In universe it's only been, what, 2-3 hours since the start of the Summit? I'm giving Vincent a lot of grief, but as a character he's a lot closer to the stress of it all both physically and temporally. The Summit is his duty, therefore (if William has taught him anything about taking responsibility) the Bennett's deaths are also his fault because it happened under his supervision when (in his mind) he was supposed to make everyone "play nicely together" for the evening. He didn't stop it, therefore it's his fault, and he's made it very clear how he feels about causing violence/death.

Speaking of Lovely being oddly quiet, there wasn't a whole lot about Sam being mentioned either. Alexis got brought up, because obviously she would when talking about the amoral and bloodthirsty side of the clan. I think Sam's going to be more pragmatic than Vincent is with all of this, but I can't decide how far he's willing to go about it. Thoughts?

Was anyone else inspired or intrigued by Porter saying that "William always does the right thing"? I was listening (with headphones) out in public before driving home, so the exact wording might be different, but that sounds like there's an interesting story there.

I don't want to have the reputation of someone who just hates on Porter, because damn it I ought to like him more. His character hits so many notes that I like to see. Vincent calling him William's weapon and attack dog? I love watching that kind of relationship and devotion. I've shipped it before, and I will again (though I have to say, that would make Porter's relationship with Vincent so much worse. I kinda want to see the trainwreck of the evil step father). His gray morality, his intelligence, his quick wit, his deft manipulation of people? I can enjoy and envy all of it. But damn his hypocrisy, inconsistency, and that fight is just infuriating. "I can't hold it against you that you act sheltered because you've been sheltered your whole afterlife". Bullshit, Porter, you absolutely did blame Vincent for being sheltered and that's one of the reasons you got in that fight with Vincent in the first place. Porter might not be actively lying to us here, but he's certainly not being truthful. I've already gone through and found quotes to prove it before here. Adding on to the linked post, the way Vincent and Porter are talking to discuss Porter's joining of the clan and how William treated him sounds a whole heck of a lot like Porter joined the Solaires before Vincent did, which only further supports my points there. Ughhh I was in the middle of researching for a different analysis post for other characters; I don't want to be distracted by writing up what I think their fight should have been about. It's almost worse that I don't like him because I keep thinking about how much I should like him and what it would take for me to support him wholeheartedly, flaws and all.

To cap it all off, this subplot has been wonderful so far. I'm happy that someone spelled out all the dirty little secrets for Vincent/Lovely/Us, because my head was starting to spin keeping everything straight and digging up the tiniest insinuations and turning into the Pepe Silvia meme. I know it's not over yet, but I think the evening is starting to wind down for the characters and I'm so glad that it is because the stress and intensity of it all is killing me. I know that this is probably the starting point for more developments later (what is Sweetheart gonna do after all of this in their official department capacity? is any of this going to put David in a rough spot politically? though Sam and Darlin ran into Alexis they didn't really get the chance to weigh in on the whole, y'know, state-sanctioned double murder? where are we going with that little teaser about Quinn having friends in high places? where's Treasure in all of this? Porter's ominous words about Close Knit planning another Inversion-level event??) I'm hoping there's gonna be a bit of a breather. Kudos Mr. Redacted, and thank you.

[ewingstan]

So all the wildbow protags seem to have some frog-being-boiled trick about them where you are nodding your head along with all their choices and then look up from where you started and start noticing how bonkers things have gotten. But how exactly that manifests differs between books in pretty interesting ways.

Taylor makes a bunch of choices that read as understandable for an awkward teenager trying to make the best out of a bad situation, but it doesn’t take long before those choices become pretty clearly (although crucially often not to the extent that they would stick out while reading through the first time) indicative of a much higher willingness to use people as tools than the norm, not be motivationally hindered by empathy, etc. And of course in hindsight a lot of her choices are less careful utility calculus and more an expression of her desire for friendship and control as well as her need to be invaluable in whatever circumstance she finds herself in.

Blake has a much more prototypical set of ethics and motivations, and these largely don’t change throughout the text. He starts and ends as your stock angry but fundamentally “good” YA protagonist. He’s just put into situations where the morals of that type of character means he acts like a horror movie monster. Which is a pretty neat thing for a text to do, to take your typical Percy Jackson-esque character and show that “hey if you put him in enough situations then he could end up asking a facebook group of teenage girls if they want him to kill any of their husbands.”

Sylvester is an interesting case because he starts performing actions the audience would consider objectionable well before they’d get acclimated to it as they could in the case of Taylor or Blake. He performs extrajudicial killings of rouge academics for the government using manipulation and underhanded tactics while peeking up people’s shirts. It’d be tempting to say that his gradual transformation is into an okay person, and that might be true to an extent—the seeds to him eventually rebelling from the academy get planted early and slow shifts in his perspective before that point could be detected going a while back. I don’t think that would be the whole story though. It would probably be more accurate to say that you don’t notice how much Sy’s matured until he’s at the point of rewriting his personality to an adult’s persona.

Its much too early in my reading of Ward to be able to say if the pattern is going to hold. But I found it interesting to see one of the big morally questionable decisions be made early, and in a pretty noticeable way. I’m talking about Victoria secretly tailing Rain home after the capture-the-flag game, after he specifically denied her offer to follow him for protection. It doesn’t read as totally unjustified or anything, she is doing it to protect someone’s life when she has good reason to think its threatened. But she’s also doing it because she’s suspicious Rain’s been lying. And she flies in uncomfortable conditions for hours to find out what he’s up to. Its a huge breach of privacy, and while well-intentioned, it does read strongly as Cop Shit™. And while I only have my own response to the text to go off of, it kind of feels like it was meant to be framed as a pretty ethically questionable act on Vicky’s part. So if I was reading this with no knowledge of the story, I might think “Oh, wildbow’s done the here’s-how-being-in-the-social-position-of-the-criminal-puts-certain-behavioral-pressures-on-you story, now he’s doing the here’s-how-being-in-the-social-position-of-the-protector/peacekeeper-puts-certain-behavioral-pressures-on-you story. We’re gonna see how the moral beliefs that make someone strongly want to be a superhero, and the system of designated “heroes” they get slotted into, cause a lot of shitty behaviors.” But from everything I’ve heard, that is very much not the type of story I’ll be getting! This isn’t the “ACAB doesn’t exclude the well-intentioned cops” story, this is the “we do need a carceral justice system because people need to face punishment for past crimes and also some people are just inherently evil” story. And right now I’m not seeing how we get there?

[good-old-gossip]

Israeli army expands its use of quadcopters to kill more Palestinian civilians

Palestinian Territory - As part of its genocide that has been ongoing since 7 October 2023, Israel has been ramping up its use of small drones, or quadcopters, to drop explosive bombs and “shoot to kill” more Palestinians.

The Israeli army uses electronically controlled quadcopter drones remotely for a variety of tasks, including espionage and surveillance, issuing displacement orders, frightening civilians with loud noises, and—most dangerously—using them as a weapon to kill and injure Palestinians.

Since the start of its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has increased the number of extrajudicial executions and premeditated killings of Palestinian civilians. Drones are being used for sniping and shooting operations in various parts of the Gaza Strip, and are also being used to infiltrate homes and narrow alleyways. Meanwhile, the Israeli army has continued to kill Palestinians on a massively large scale by targeting residential areas with artillery and aerial strikes.

Israel’s army has released a video documenting its use of these kinds of quadcopter aircraft to drop bombs on groups of people and houses while conducting military operations in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli army forces deliberately targeted and executed Silah Muhammad Ahmad Odeh, 52, while she was trying to escape from the Jabalia refugee camp by raising a white flag. Odeh was killed due to direct fire from Israeli quadcopter aircraft on 21 May, in front of her family.

Her brother, Nidal, 40, told the Euro-Med Monitor team the following: 

“On 20 May, at a late hour, my sister Silah suggested that we stay at our neighbours’ house on a backstreet of our Jabalia camp, which had been completely destroyed by Israeli bulldozers, and leave early the following day. Early on 21 May, we agreed on the plan. With our neighbour from the Abu Al-Tarabishfamily joining us, Silah made the decision to lead the group and carry the white flag. We counted around twelve people. As soon as we got to the main street, my sister emerged, and the quadcopter fired right at her, striking her squarely in the head. She was falling in front of us and her head was covered in blood. The artillery shells began flying in our direction as we hurried back towards the house we had left. I was the last of my brothers to return home. Upon turning around, I discovered my sister dead. Since it was difficult to get to her because she was in the middle of the main street, I went back home.

After just two or three hours, a small aircraft flew in and took pictures of us inside the house. The army forces then moved in and started shooting at us. They fired sound shots, causing a state of panic among the women and children.  

They forced us to take off all our clothes and tied our hands [together]. Then they interrogated us, photographed us, gave us a white flag, and then told us to head west, towards the sea. My brother, Mahdi, isfluent in Hebrew. He told a soldier that we wanted to take Silah’s body with us, since it was [still] in the street, but he refused.

We left under heavy artillery shelling on the designated route until we reached the western areas of the camp, where we met several people. After the army left the camp, on 30 May, we went back, found my sister Silah’s body, and buried her in Al-Faluja Cemetery, west of the camp.” 

Seventy-year-old elderly man Fathi Hassan Yassin was similarly killed on 10 May, after being shot by quadcopter aircraft in Gaza City’s southern Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood.

Yassin’s son, Ibrahim, told the Euro-Med Monitor team the following:

“After a sleepless night brought on by the constant artillery shells and airstrikes, we decided to leave the house and head to a school where my uncle had fled. We departed at 10 a.m., with everyone in the vicinity evacuated. At the Zaytoun Martyrs school, displaced people were directly targeted by artillery shelling and quadcopter planes, causing multiple casualties. When aquadcopter got close, I ran away, but my father stayed behind, looking for a safe place with his blanket and mattress. I was struck in the head, and he was instantly killed by a direct shot.”

Euro-Med Monitor’s team also documented Ibrahim Aziz Atallah’s death on 7 May; Atallah was hit by abomb dropped by an Israeli quadcopter in the neighbourhood of Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood.

Muhammad Mazen Karam, the victim’s cousin, told Euro-Med Monitor the following: 

“We live in the Yarmouk neighbourhood. Searching for copper and plastic to sell and feed our families, my cousin Ibrahim Atallah and I were at the Salah al-Din Mosque in the Zaytoun neighborhood, just before the Dawla intersection. People were moving around the place as usual. We were approached by a quadcopter as we went by a side street. I warned him to run and hide as soon as I saw it, but it is likely that his poor hearing prevented him from hearing my call. I told him to hide,as I was doing, when all of a sudden I heard an explosion. When I heard Ibrahim calling, I told him to stay [put] to the right until assistance arrived. I saw him being targeted by a quadcopter bomb. That was at nine in the morning, and he passed away shortly after I saw him take his last breaths."

Twenty-five-year-old Kamal Hamid Al-Astal also spoke with the Euro-Med Monitor team. He described how he was shot and injured by an Israeli quadcopter that bombed his home in Al-Qarara, east of Khan Yunis, on 9 March 2024:

“After an Israeli bombing on 8 March killed my brother, I was unable to retrieve his body for burial until the following day. Therefore, I went at 7 a.m. andbrought his body to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where it was covered and buried. Then I decided to return to inspect the house, in the area of Al-Qarara. At noon, after I had checked over the house and climbed to the roof, a quadcopter came over. I managed to get away quickly, but as it got closer to the window, it opened fire on me. I tried to flee again, but the house was bombed by the warplanes, and I spent almost five hours under the rubble. I was shot by a drone as I attempted to escape and free my leg. Ultimately a man and his spouse arrived, removed me, and took me to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital at 5 p.m.; in addition to the burns on my face and hands, a leg bone had broken apart and was no longer in my knee. The muscles also needed to be put back together.”

According to earlier investigations by Euro-MedMonitor, Israel’s army is using the “SMASH Dragon”system made by Israeli company Smart Shooter, which can be supplied to various aircraft; the Matrice 600;and the “Thor” aircraft made by the company Elbit Systems—all of which are highly mobile and versatile, i.e. ideal for short-term operations. Their systems can automatically search buildings and create maps to identify possible targets, carry lethal or non-lethal payloads, and carry out a variety of missions for military personnel and special forces.

These drones have killed dozens of civilians, as confirmed by Euro-Med Monitor in earlier reports, by firing automatic machine guns mounted beneath anaircraft at random gatherings, or shooting directly at people.

Since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinian civilians have been killed or wounded by Israeli snipers and quadcopter drones, in addition to those killed during the Israeli army’s ground incursions, which began at the end of October 2023 and have intensified in recent weeks.

Israel has used quadcopter drones in a systematic and widespread manner lately to carry out extrajudicial executions and premeditated killings of Palestinian civilians, according to testimonies gathered by Euro-Med Monitor. These drones are used, in particular,against civilians who attempt to return and inspect their homes after the Israeli military retreats from areas it has attacked by land or air.

Given their constant presence in the air, these aircraft are also used to terrorise, intimidate, and negatively impact the psychological well-being of Palestiniancivilians by making horrifying noises and broadcastingorders from Israeli soldiers.

Some drones, like DJI drones, were made mainly for use in photography and other industries, but were converted by the Israeli army into intelligence aircraft and instead used for extrajudicial killings and executions.

Drones with various attributes and functional features, known as quadcopters, are produced by Israeli military companies. With a diameter of no more than one metre, they are simple to program and use for remote electronic flying.

In addition to carrying out additional military duties like shooting and carrying bombs, this kind of drone is outfitted with excellent cameras and highly precise listening devices. Numerous suicide drones, also known as loitering weapons, have also been produced. One such example is Israeli company Rafael’s “Spike Firefly” aircraft.

Euro-Med Monitor emphasises that, while drones are not illegal weapons (weapons that are prohibited internationally), their use must adhere to international humanitarian law regulations that apply to all armed conflicts, just like any other weapon that is allowed to be used. These regulations ensure respect for the important principles of distinction and proportionality, and require taking all necessary precautions before carrying out any military attack.

Given their advanced technology and advantages over most other weapons, such as their ability to monitor areas with cameras, conduct real-time surveillance, and accurately track, fire at, and move quickly with a target, the main goal of using these drones as weapons in other armed conflicts has been to prevent or reduce civilian casualties in military attacks. By contrast, however, Israel is intentionally using such drones to target Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. This isevident as the majority of Israel’s targeting takes place in public spaces where it is easy to distinguish fighters from civilians, and because the Israeli military flies planes over the areas it targets for periods of time that are long enough to allow for the precise monitoring and evaluation of field conditions; plus, most of the killings occur within a close targeting range.

In a primary report submitted in late December 2023 to United Nations special rapporteurs and the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Euro-Med Monitor documented dozens of cases of field executions carried out by the Israeli army in the Stripand requested an immediate investigation into these crimes, calling for the perpetrators to be held accountable and for justice for all victims.

All parties were urged to take serious action within the international community in order to achieve a ceasefire, ensure a cessation of the ongoing unjustifiable killing, open a criminal investigation into all of the Israeli military’s reported atrocities, and achieve accountability and justice for every Palestinian victim and survivor.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor called in Decemberfor the formation of an independent international investigation committee specialising in Israel’s ongoing military attack on the Gaza Strip. It also urgedthe international community to enable the work of a separate independent international investigation committee concerned with the Occupied Palestinian Territory—a group which was in fact formed in 2021—to carry out its work by ensuring its access to the Strip,and open the necessary investigations into all crimes and violations committed against Palestinians there, including the deliberate killing and extrajudicial execution of civilians.

Euro-Med Monitor also demanded that the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions visit the Strip as soon as feasible to look into the illegal killings that fall under the purview of his substantive mandate.

According to international human rights law, Israeli extrajudicial and judicial executions of Palestinian civilians—whether through direct liquidation or sniping and shooting operations—violate their right to life. The Geneva Conventions classify these executionsas war crimes and crimes against humanity, under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and they are a fundamental component of the genocide that Israel has been committing against the Gaza Strip’s inhabitants since 7 October 2023.

[news4dzhozhar]

Leahy Law Fact Sheet - United States Department of State

Leahy Law Fact Sheet - United States Department of State

1. What is the Leahy law?

The term “Leahy law” refers to two statutory provisions prohibiting the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights (GVHR). One statutory provision applies to the State Department and the other applies to the Department of Defense. The State Department Leahy law was made permanent under section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, 22 U.S.C. 2378d. The U.S. government considers torture, extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance, and rape under color of law as GVHRs when implementing the Leahy law. Incidents are examined on a fact-specific basis. The State Department Leahy law includes an exception permitting resumption of assistance to a unit if the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the government of the country is taking effective steps to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice.

The DoD Leahy law is similar to the State Leahy law. Since 1999, Congress included the DoD Leahy law in its annual appropriations act. The DoD Leahy law is now permanent in Section 362 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code. It requires that DoD-appropriated funds may not be used for any training, equipment, or other assistance for a foreign security force unit if the Secretary of Defense has credible information that such unit has committed a GVHR. The law allows for two exceptions to this restriction. The first in cases where the Secretary of Defense (after consultation with the Secretary of State) determines that the government of that country has taken all necessary corrective steps. This first exception is also known as “remediation.” A second exception exists if U.S. equipment or other assistance is necessary to assist in disaster relief operations or other humanitarian or national security emergencies.

2. How is the law implemented?

In cases where an entire unit is designated to receive assistance, the Department of State vets the unit and the unit’s commander. When an individual security force member is nominated for U.S. assistance, the Department vets that individual as well as his or her unit. Vetting begins in the unit’s home country, where the U.S. embassy conducts consular, political, and other security and human rights checks. Most often, an additional review is conducted by analysts at the Department of State in Washington, D.C. The State Department evaluates and assesses available information about the human rights records of the unit and the individual, reviewing a full spectrum of open source and classified records.

When assessing whether information is credible, the following factors should be considered weighing both the credibility of a source and the veracity of an allegation:

Past accuracy and reliability of the reporting source as well as original source, if known;

How the source obtained the information (e.g., personal knowledge obtained by a witness, witness interviews collected by a non-governmental organization (NGO), descriptions collected from government records, etc.);

Known political agenda of a source (both reporting source and/or original source, if known) which might lead to bias in reporting;

Corroborative information to confirm part or all of the allegation;

Information that contradicts part or all of the allegation;

History of unit and known patterns of abuse/professional behavior;

Level of detail of the GVHR allegation, including detail in identification of the GVHR, perpetrator (or link to an operational unit), and victim.

3. Can assistance be reinstated to units previously found ineligible for assistance?

Yes. Consistent with the exception under both Leahy laws, the Departments of State and Defense have adopted a joint policy on remediation that outlines a process for resuming DoD- and State-funded assistance to foreign security force units that are ineligible for assistance under the Leahy laws. This can occur when the Secretaries of Defense and State determine that the government of that country has taken, or is taking, effective measures to bring those responsible to justice. Such measures may include impartial and thorough investigations; credible judicial or administrative adjudications; and appropriate and proportional sentencing.

[codenamesazanka]

As far as Spinner knows, Heroes:

have beaten Shigaraki into a comatose ashen pulp at Jaku

tried to strangle Spinner and the League (Best Jeanist)

supports a fellow League member's abusive asshole of a father

extrajudicially killed Twice

caused Toga to come back to the League in tears and disillusioned

As far as Spinner is concerned, Heroes are still his and the League's extremely dangerous enemies, who are aiming to at best capture Spinner and his friends and throw them into lifelong indefinite detention, and at worst straight up kill them. Spinner's just not gonna side with anyone who's gonna kill Shigaraki, his friend that he loves.

Meanwhile, to Spinner's knowledge, AFO is a evil creep who:

has taken over Shigaraki's body, but at least says that Shigaraki is still Shigaraki (and Spinner has no choice but to believe in that, because he loves Shigaraki)

Left Machia and Compress behind at Jaku

...but that's mostly it. That's as much harm as AFO has done to the League. It's bad, but unlike the Heroes, AFO isn't actively trying to beat up and/or kill the League at the moment.

It's a rock and a hard place. Both options are bad for Shigaraki - one side wants to kill Shigaraki, the other uses him like a puppet. But forced to choose, Spinner has picked AFO, because at least he knows AFO wants to keep Shigaraki alive.

Because Heroes have done nothing to show that they want to save Shigaraki. Nothing at all. Deku might have internally decided he wants to try to save the 'crying little boy', but I don't think he has told a single person on the Heroes' side his decision, much less announce it to Shigaraki or Spinner or the League.

We readers know Deku wants to save Shigaraki, but none of the Villains know this. All they continue to see is Deku beating the crap out of Shigaraki, enough to kill him.

The tragedy of the Villains is that they're always faced with very limited choices, because that's what society has given them. Heroes have never given them any alternatives or solutions. There's no incentive for the Villains to join the Heroes' side.

Twice was given the choice of betraying his friends (and doom them to Tartarus or death) or get killed himself - just those two options. Had Twice been told that there's more ways to happiness than destruction, had Twice been given a deal where he does betray his friends but Heroes would promise to try to rehabilitate them as well, and maybe Twice can see them again when they're all a lot healthier and happier, then I think Twice might have agreed. Twice's deepest desire was caring for his friends and seeing them happy - had Heroes appealed to that, given him more than the two choices he had, Jaku probably could've ended a lot more differently, with a lot less death.

Heroes punch first and never ask any question. Heroes have simply never tried to do anything but fight fire with fire. Heroes gotta give the Villains something. AFO is evil and we know that following him will lead to doom, but he is often the only other option for people who have been rejected by Hero Society to survive. Ironically, to the Villains, he is the lesser of two evils.

Wouldn't it be cool if Spinner sides with the Heroes because of his love for Shigaraki? Betrays AFO to save his friend? I know a lot of people are hoping to see that. Well, that can only happen if Heroes gives Spinner any proof at all that they won't kill Shigaraki, that they will try to get rid of the AFO vestige parasite, that they're willing to offer a better (non-indefinite-Tartarus, non-killing) way than what AFO offers.

tl;dr - As far as Spinner knows, Heroes want to kill Shigaraki and has said nothing about helping/saving Shigaraki. AFO is using Shigaraki as a puppet, but at least Shigaraki is alive and still there. Both choices are terrible for Spinner who only wants Shigaraki to be okay, but he's gonna pick the option in which Shigaraki lives. If Spinner is going to betray AFO because he cares for Shigaraki, Heroes are gonna have to offer an alternative.

[tieflingkisser]

Gaza: Israeli army expands its use of quadcopters to kill more Palestinian civilians

Palestinian Territory - As part of its genocide that has been ongoing since 7 October 2023, Israel has been ramping up its use of small drones, or quadcopters, to drop explosive bombs and “shoot to kill” more Palestinians. The Israeli army uses electronically controlled quadcopter drones remotely for a variety of tasks, including espionage and surveillance, issuing displacement orders, frightening civilians with loud noises, and—most dangerously—using them as a weapon to kill and injure Palestinians. Since the start of its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army has increased the number of extrajudicial executions and premeditated killings of Palestinian civilians. Drones are being used for sniping and shooting operations in various parts of the Gaza Strip, and are also being used to infiltrate homes and narrow alleyways. Meanwhile, the Israeli army has continued to kill Palestinians on a massively large scale by targeting residential areas with artillery and aerial strikes. Israel’s army has released a video documenting its use of these kinds of quadcopter aircraft to drop bombs on groups of people and houses while conducting military operations in the Gaza Strip. Israeli army forces deliberately targeted and executed Silah Muhammad Ahmad Odeh, 52, while she was trying to escape from the Jabalia refugee camp by raising a white flag. Odeh was killed due to direct fire from Israeli quadcopter aircraft on 21 May, in front of her family. Her brother, Nidal, 40, told the Euro-Med Monitor team the following:  “On 20 May, at a late hour, my sister Silah suggested that we stay at our neighbours’ house on a backstreet of our Jabalia camp, which had been completely destroyed by Israeli bulldozers, and leave early the following day. Early on 21 May, we agreed on the plan. With our neighbour from the Abu Al-Tarabish family joining us, Silah made the decision to lead the group and carry the white flag. We counted around twelve people. As soon as we got to the main street, my sister emerged, and the quadcopter fired right at her, striking her squarely in the head. She was falling in front of us and her head was covered in blood. The artillery shells began flying in our direction as we hurried back towards the house we had left. I was the last of my brothers to return home. Upon turning around, I discovered my sister dead. Since it was difficult to get to her because she was in the middle of the main street, I went back home. After just two or three hours, a small aircraft flew in and took pictures of us inside the house. The army forces then moved in and started shooting at us. They fired sound shots, causing a state of panic among the women and children.   They forced us to take off all our clothes and tied our hands [together]. Then they interrogated us, photographed us, gave us a white flag, and then told us to head west, towards the sea. My brother, Mahdi, is fluent in Hebrew. He told a soldier that we wanted to take Silah’s body with us, since it was [still] in the street, but he refused. We left under heavy artillery shelling on the designated route until we reached the western areas of the camp, where we met several people. After the army left the camp, on 30 May, we went back, found my sister Silah’s body, and buried her in Al-Faluja Cemetery, west of the camp.”  Seventy-year-old elderly man Fathi Hassan Yassin was similarly killed on 10 May, after being shot by quadcopter aircraft in Gaza City’s southern Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood.

[...]

Euro-Med Monitor’s team also documented Ibrahim Aziz Atallah’s death on 7 May; Atallah was hit by a bomb dropped by an Israeli quadcopter in the neighbourhood of Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood.

[...]

Twenty-five-year-old Kamal Hamid Al-Astal also spoke with the Euro-Med Monitor team. He described how he was shot and injured by an Israeli quadcopter that bombed his home in Al-Qarara, east of Khan Yunis, on 9 March 2024: “After an Israeli bombing on 8 March killed my brother, I was unable to retrieve his body for burial until the following day. Therefore, I went at 7 a.m. and brought his body to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where it was covered and buried. Then I decided to return to inspect the house, in the area of Al-Qarara. At noon, after I had checked over the house and climbed to the roof, a quadcopter came over. I managed to get away quickly, but as it got closer to the window, it opened fire on me. I tried to flee again, but the house was bombed by the warplanes, and I spent almost five hours under the rubble. I was shot by a drone as I attempted to escape and free my leg. Ultimately a man and his spouse arrived, removed me, and took me to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital at 5 p.m.; in addition to the burns on my face and hands, a leg bone had broken apart and was no longer in my knee. The muscles also needed to be put back together.”

[...]

These drones have killed dozens of civilians, as confirmed by Euro-Med Monitor in earlier reports, by firing automatic machine guns mounted beneath an aircraft at random gatherings, or shooting directly at people.

[curioussubjects]

in which i revisit black market and it's worse somehow

for reasons even i find elusive, i read the transcript for rdm's podcast episode on "black market" (i know i know), but i really do appreciate the spirit behind this particular pod episode. i just. it's just. y'all....you cannot make this stuff up:

"there is no socioeconomic structure beyond the Rag Tag Fleet. There's no government. There's no social system. There's no nothing. Other than these particular ships. Isn't everything black market? Isn't everything to be bartered?" there's so much going on here. like. what do you mean there's no government or social system. the fleet literally has an executive and legislative branch. the executive literally has an enforcement arm through the military. ron please. 😭😭 the idea there's no social system is also bizarre when there's no indication the colonial social system wasn't reproduced down to caprican hegemony. also love the implication that the presence of a barter system nearly if not completely equates to the existence of a black market. that's. that-. hm. what i do think is interesting here though is that a black market existing isn't actually, imo, a foregone conclusion. that it exists at all suggests: 1. there seems to be no enforcement of the rule of law, 2. no regulation of trade, and 3. the government isn't adequately meeting the needs of the fleet with supply distribution.

sometimes i remember rdm has a polisci degree and i want to jump into a river.

but anyway, some of this stuff is discussed in the writer's room and all i can think about is how in the world did anybody think a topic this huge could fit into one standard episode of television. a lot of the bulk could be done in one episode, but you'd be returning to this as subplots and background commentary in future episodes.

"I was really disappointed in the show and myself and what we had done and didn't feel like the episode really had anything going for it." yeah man no fucking shit. you can't build a story out of vibes alone 😭

"You never quite get at the satisfaction of truly having gone through a plot that you had no idea where it was gonna go and you're shocked where it ended up. And you're not really sitting back and going, "My God. Lee Adama is nothing like I thought he was." It just doesn't- it falls in between. It's classically standing on the two chairs and falling in between both of them." the problem you're having is that you never connect what's going on with the black market plot with what's going on with lee. there's no line there beyond right place right time. clearly there's an ethical issue here in that lee is complicit with the black market. THAT'S what's interesting. our ethical center character, who values justice and the law is complicit in something that is happening outside of legal purview and also harms and exploits people. and then culminates with lee doing some light extrajudicial killing. but we never sit with any of it. much less see it play out in future episodes.

which is why this following bit kills me : "Tigh and Ellen and Ellen's involvement in the black market and she's getting things for Tigh, who is a senior officer in Galactica. There's a whiff of corruption here and what does it mean? We're not gonna- we don't take the easy way out. Tigh isn't shocked at what his wife is doing and promises never to do it again. He understands what she's doing. There is an implication that, "Who knows what else Ellen Tigh is doing with Commander Fisk?" I'm not sure that's a picture I want in my mind, but, ok. And Lee is also a bit dirty in this scene. Lee is also engaged in things that are probably not that above-board. There's an implication that Lee helped get the medicine for the little girl and probably went outside official channels. And it's a personal, emotional, confrontation with people with conflicted and conflicting motivations." THAT'S THE EPISODE! RIGHT THERE! YOU HAD IT!

the episode is about ethics, a government failing its people, and complacency. you want an episode of television without having to make a mini arc out of it? those are your themes.

then there's the clusterfuck that is the gianne/shevon/dee portion of the episode, which makes no gd sense AND HERE'S WHY LMAO: "It's not really getting to a place where we're explaining, or at least hinting, or making you think about what is the nature of the relationship between Dualla and Lee. Why is Lee interested in her and vice versa? What does it mean to him as a character? We had conversations in the writers' room that dealt with things like, "Well, Lee's got the girl he left behind on Caprica, he's seeing the prostitute, and then there's Dualla." So there's the classic- there's three women in Lee's life. One dead, two not. What does Dualla represent in that? What is- what is Dualla to Lee in juxtaposition to the dead woman and to the hooker with the little girl? Is she the hope? Is she the future? Is she something more realistic? Is the hooker the hope? There's a lot of ways you can just sit and talk about it endlessly about what it all represents, and it was all fascinating conversation. Unfortunately it just doesn't quite sync-in to what we have. You don't ever- you never quite get to a place where you're rooting for Lee and Dualla. I think that's might be the central problem with it. You're never quite rooting for her."

truly mysterious why this doesn't work rdm. boggles the mind.

he offers no explanation as to why it doesn't work, btw, it's all just "???"

we're not rooting for dee because lee doesn't actually want her. just like he didn't actually want gianne.

meanwhile shevon is the epitome of lee playing it safe. he's obviously lonely and in need of talking to someone, and having emotional and physical intimacy. he wants it without the possibility of being too vulnerable or hurting someone else when he runs. through shevon we understand some of the reasons why lee left gianne. through his relationship with shevon and gianne, we can begin to see what might underlie lee's budding relationship with dee.

and then perhaps we remember lee's behavior during the miniseries. and then maybe we watch scar next and a couple more things become clear.

we're not rooting for dee because we're rooting for someone else entirely. (kara. it's kara.)

i am in the tantrum hole.

"we're playing that Zarek needs to tell Lee about Phelan and about this ship out there where you can get anything you want that's the hub or the nexus of the black market. And yet everybody else seems to know about it. It's clearly the place where all this activity is going, but somehow Lee needs to be told by Zarek that it even exists, which tends to undercut Lee's role as an investigator and the procedural aspect starts to feel a bit weak because you feel like he should've- Lee should've known all that on his own and again, it's an element that doesn't work"

OR it could be something about complacency, a failure in governance, and how out much the Galactica is actually a bubble. very interesting concept for lee who feels disconnected after RS2.

it's not that lee's obliviousness doesn't work, it's that he has the privilege of not needing to think about it. he could even already be seeing shevon and thinking it's all above board like it was back in the colonies, not realizing there's a criminal enterprise going on that is exploiting desperate people.

what happens when lee does learn about how bad it is out there in the fleet?

that's your episode set up.

"When Lee shoots him, you should feel that he shoots him because, "Oh my God! I'm realizing that he is like Bill Duke and oh! Woah! I'm like shocked. And that's- I don't know how I feel about Lee, but I'm really surprised because he's more like Bill Duke than I thought." I don't think the show really says that. I don't think we've accomplished that mission. And that should have been the mission here, is if you're going to predicate a whole show on this concept, about this central confrontation it should pay off that idea." that should not have been the mission there omfg. lee shoots this man because he's doing fucked up shit. the shocking moment isn't that lee is like the bad guy, the shocking thing is that mr. articles of colonization did an extrajudicial killing. he executed a man without due process.

the question here is: is lee more like his father and laura roslin than he'd like to admit? if so, what is he going to do about it?

and btw, is lee like his father completely ties back to a possible reason why he runs from gianne: he saw himself marrying a woman he got pregnant, thus repeating the story of his parents. and it doesn't need to be 1:1 exactly, but there are too many similarities for his comfort. so he runs.

and another theme: lee doing what he knows is the right thing to do vs. lee doing what he thinks is the Right thing to do. and to what extent does lee hide behind duty because he's scared of going after what he wants. (and oh look at that we're back to kara)

this scene is interesting because lee does something he felt in the moment to be right (and he does it on impulse, which is another bit of tension with his character in other episodes), but he also acted against his ethical code. what are the effects of that? how does lee grapple with that? WE JUST DON'T KNOW

i am still in the tantrum hole.

"I think if I had to sum up what's wrong with this episode in my opinion, it's that this time we went for a much more tv, conventional tale and execution." narrator: that's not what was wrong with the episode. "So again it's a grab bag of things we're trying to do." narrator: that's more like it.

incredible podcast though it's like 10/10 reflection 0/10 insight. showrunner of all time this guy.

[arcplaysgames]

I'm not gonna post the grisly screencaps but the Shujin principal got murdered via mental shutdown and hit by a massive truck. It's unfun.

you know akechi

i'm not sure i disagree with you here

The fucking predictable shit happens, which I'm glad about because the game has put so much effort into the Thieves wanting to do "big stuff" and get popular that it needed to be foreshadowing for this. The principal died after a tabloid revealed that he helped cover up Kamoshida's abuses. Despite killing not being the modus operandi of the Thieves, people start saying the Thieves are the ones who killed him for his crimes, many even justifying his death because the cover up and he "got what he deserved."

So at least we are running with that story beat, I'm honestly glad, though also interested in what Persona 5 thinks of the morality of the Thieves. Again: fictional characters, and I have the foresight of being the player of this game so I'm vaguely on the Thieves' side. But as a morality question the game is proposing, I'm not sure I am.

Though if you did it Right, if you stripped out the Phansite shit and stopped Ryuji from running his mouth about making it big and being famous, if it was genuinely about extrajudicial actions to target untouchable people, then sure. I'm with you.

But that's def not the scenario we're in, is it?

So.

Here we go, spin me a yarn, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 5 The Royal. I am listening.

come on Sae, you can't be this fucking mean and get this little results from it

F I N A L L Y it's hitting the more sensible members of the group that hey maybe this huge fame spike is actually a super bad idea.

Ann even suggests they lay low until it dies down a bit but Ryuji jumps down her throat, and tensions are sky high as everyone discusses Okamura. Basically, the majority of the mental shutdown cases are linked to him by proximity, though no obvious cause/correlation is known yet.

But he has a Palace, so Ryuji wants to take him out.

Aaaaand the Mona Bomb finally detonates. That fuse was bound to run out.

Ryuji and Morgana have a huge fight and Morgana fucks off to apparently take on the Palace alone.

AND BECAUSE ATLUS IS RAILROADING ME, I DON'T HAVE AN OPTION TO SAY "Morgana, I think this is reckless, but I'll be damned if I let you go alone, lemme grab my shoes."

DON'T GO WHERE I CAN'T FOLLOW

okay but for real, if Morgana dies or something, I'm uninstalling

oh okay so

let's talk about Akechi because we got a Beige Front coming in from the south

Akechi shows up to be a sassy bastard to Sae again, which I feel is justly deserved because she kinda sucks despite her awesome intro

And weirdly, Akechi was absolutely the one to tout the idea that the Thieves were the ones behind the mental shutdown cases before, but now he is upset with her for threatening Sojiro without any evidence to back up her theory.

I know Akechi is not on the Thieves' side and I know that he's fucking with Sae.

It's interesting that he's the second Detective Prince because Naoto was absolutely rigorous on the search for truth, but I don't think that's what Akechi's into here. Like, I don't know what his job is functionally for the police at all, and it seems the majority of what he does is just sow more chaos.

Which, yes, I know this is not MegaTen proper, but it is still interesting, this inversion it's presenting. MegaTen games tend to give you a choice not between good or evil but Order vs Chaos, without really advocating for either. It's more like a player personality test than a judgement call.

Akechi is on paper on the side of Order, but he is extremely good at muddying the waters and making things less clear. He's excellent as a plant or spy.

Meanwhile, the Thieves are on paper Chaotic (albeit Chaotic Good/Neutral) but they are trying to rein in people who are breaking the order of the world. They're trying to enforce justice where it has failed.

So, at least at this point, this feels like the game is flirting with Chaos vs Order, with the representatives of each inverted for funsies.

Hm.

SMASH CUT TO

I'm going to set everything you love on fire Ryuji

oh god i've been replaced. Morgana has replaced Reverie with the girl with the poofy hair and the high pitched voice.

REPLACED

MAYBE SHE WILL BE A BETTER KEEPER OF YOUR HEART, MORGANA, I'M SORRY SOBS

Anyway, the team (minus Ryuji) is actually concerned when Mona doesn't return and thus Futaba tells everyone to gear up, they are going into Okamura's palace tomorrow, no delay.

Futaba is the only person here I respect.

[iteratedextras]

[ @captain-acab ]

So, hear me out. What do we think about radicalizing (or, I guess, de-radicalizing?) police-state-loving right-wing youtubers by swatting them?

Worst case scenario, they get murdered by a pig, which is the pig's fault. Best case scenario, they become vocally anti-pig.

How many times do you think this could be done before all those white conservative men whine and cry enough about it that something is actually done to reduce swatting at a policy level? In other words:

1 - Reduce the number of vocally pro-cop right-wingers (and possibly make some of them start leaning left) 2 - Decrease popular support of police in the general public 3 - Possibly produce some actual police reform (at least by reducing drop-of-a-hat SWAT calls, which would make everyone safer)

Love to hear everyone's thoughts about this completely-hypothetical proposal!

Well it depends a lot on what you're trying to accomplish.

If your goal is to convince Republican voters that they can't rely on the police to lower the rise in crime that followed the 2020 riots and they should switch to lynch mobs of angry Hispanics, saving huge amounts of money on procedural costs like "state-appointed defense attorneys" or "keeping people alive in prisons instead of just extrajudicially executing them on the spot" or "maintaining a chain of evidence instead of just going by what some asshole said on Twitter,"

Then this is a great plan. It will be absolutely awful for race relations and hate crime statistics, but if you think literally nothing has changed in the country since 1850 and that isn't just cynical bullshit rhetoric to convince low-information voters to support the latest plan to nationalize the health insurance system, then you think the situation couldn't possibly get any worse.

If your goal is to convince right-wing streamers that Communists want to kill them all and that they need to support whoever will kill the Communists first... well they already believe that in a sort of distant, general, abstract sense due to all those times Communists killed large numbers of people in the past. But you could convince them that Communists want to kill them immediately, right now, instead of some abstract distant hypothetical. A broad campaign to do this to lots of streamers would be effective here.

If your goal is convincing the government to finally cryptographically secure the phone system so that all callers can be reliably identified and sued, this might also have some effect on that. Republicans might even pass a law that sends SWATters to federal prison for 10 years.

As a positive side effect, the phone network would become usable again due to the reduction in spam calls.

If your goal is to convince right-wingers that it's a good idea, and that they are morally required to, permit crazy people with a dozen prior convictions whose lack of impulse control causes them to push women in front of subway trains, to roam freely among the rest of society out of some dipshit view that all human beings are perfectly identical and that such a guy is, like, a victim of Society, maaan...

It won't work for that.

"You morally have to accept getting a brain concussion from some lunatic because we've deemed him more marginalized than you" just leads to "fuck your morality," which is usually written "Based."

[humanrightsupdates]

(Beirut) – Jordan should ensure accountability for airstrikes in southeast Syria that killed 10 people on January 18 and compensate the victims and their families, Human Rights Watch said today. The strikes, which killed women and children, appear to amount to extrajudicial executions.

The airstrikes were part of an intensified campaign by the Jordanian Armed Forces against drug and weapons traffickers following recent clashes on its border with armed groups reportedly carrying narcotics, arms, and explosives that it suspects are tied to pro-Iranian militias. On January 23, the Syrian government responded, saying there was no justification for Jordan’s attacks. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry retorted, neither denying nor confirming the attacks, but emphasizing the threat posed by drug and weapons smuggling, its impact on Jordan’s national security, and the lack of effective action by the Syrian government to combat such operations in its territory. Human Rights Watch wrote to Jordan's Foreign Minister on January 31 detailing its findings, but received no response as of the time of publication.

“Cross-border airstrikes that kill civilians demand scrutiny regardless of the threat posed by drug smuggling from southern Syria,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Jordan should halt military strikes against non-military targets and compensate victims of previous attacks and their families.” (Human Rights Watch)

[milkboydotnet]

Ahead of Philippine President Marcos Jr.’s visit with President Biden on Monday, May 1st, over one hundred faith organizations and institutions–including Ecumenical Advocacy Network on the Philippines, Pax Christi USA, Presbyterian Church – USA Office of Public Witness and the United Methodist Church Board of Church & Society – initiated an ecumenical letter with the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines to call on President Biden to abstain from any new military agreements with President Marcos that will further contribute to human rights violations. The cosigning faith groups additionally urged President Biden to support the Philippine Human Rights Act, which would suspend US security assistance to the Philippines until the Government of the Philippines has investigated and prosecuted human rights abuses in the military and police force.

Noting the lack of change since Marcos assumed office 10 months ago, faith communities state: “President Marcos and his administration have shown ongoing impunity for human rights abuses similar to those seen under the preceding Duterte presidency. Human Rights Watch reports there has been “no let up” in the war on drugs under Marcos Jr., which took as many as 30,000 lives under Duterte. Karapatan Human Rights Alliance reports that from July to December 2022, there were 17 extrajudicial killings, 165 illegal arrests, and a total of 825 political prisoners, 73 of whom are elderly. Karapatan additionally recorded 200 cases of red-tagging and notes that the Marcos Administration continues to use the Anti-Terrorism Act and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) “to create an unsafe environment for activists, rendering them more vulnerable to attacks against their persons.”

The ecumenical letter, which follows an interfaith delegation hosted by ICHRP that traveled to the Philippines in February, notes the delegation “met with dozens of community members and organizers who confirmed that the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police are guilty of widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. We are aghast,” it states, “that despite the human rights situation, our government continues to channel various forms of resources to the Philippines (i.e. military training, weapons). In addition, the most recent military deal to build  four more US military bases in the country is an affront to the peace of the region. As people of faith, we strongly oppose and condemn the use of a large portion of our country’s budget to support regimes that oppress their populations.” 

The release of the letter comes alongside mass protests of Filipino-Americans and allies from labor and human rights organizations, who are holding an all-day vigil in front of the White House on Monday. 

[danzafila]

I admittedly have only played ME1 but yeah. I was hyped for Garrus because I knew he was really popular and he was ultimately a dull and crappy person :\ Maybe he gets better later I dunno.

Like if you were looking for a Murder Lizard as a favourite Wrex is RIGHT THERE. Better personality, better motivations, better design. (Maybe it’s silly to compare them but STILL)

So many people say 'oh that's just ME1!' and that he gets so much better and deeper and more complex and etc. in 2/3 once Bioware saw his popularity and decided to play into it by giving him more attention (like the whole making him a romance option due to fan demand).

But I just... don't buy it?

(Hope you don't mind character spoilers since I'm gonna get into the rest of his arc here. Skip the following paragraph if you do?)

So like, I played a pretty much full blown Paragon in my first playthrough, which meant my Shepard spent pretty much the entirety of her interactions with Garrus in ME1 trying to rein him in and slowly but surely teach him the simplest of moral lessons like 'shoot first, ask questions later bad;' 'taking law into own hands bad;' 'disdain for due process bad;' and 'extrajudicial executions REAL BAD BUDDY.' ....Aaand then ME2 started and he'd taken what he learned from Shepard and gone off and become a fucking vigilante in the interim. Admittedly, there's some understandable circumstances that explain why Shepard's lessons didn't stick, it makes perfect sense why he regressed, was actually good writing, yadda yadda. But dammit dude! Did you learn nothing?? And it REALLY doesn't help that the fanbase saw that and was like 'WOW Garrus is so BADASS now!' and Bioware just played right into that perception. Like, it really hurts the narrative of a character who thinks he's above the law and wants to met out vigilante justice learning restraint and that killing isn't a solution to all life's problems if you're constantly playing up how COOL being a 'plays by his own rules' vigilante he is, Bioware! By ME3, he gets straight up rewarded for all of this by attaining a position of respect/authority within the Turian Hierarchy (you know, that notoriously by the book militaristic society). And it kinda... reframed his whole struggle into not being able to follow bad orders (like a good little turian should) and not being comfortable with the "ruthless calculus" of leadership/war? The dude who when you first met him didn't care about innocents getting caught in the crossfire of his actions? Apparently that was his issue with following rules all along?? 🙄

And then there's the whole Bioware pandering to his fan favorite status by basically forcing him onto the player as Shepard's best friend/100% trusted and valued second in command by the end. Personally, my Shepard was too preoccupied with concerns he was a hairsbreadth away from mowing down innocents (or supposed criminals who really should get a fair trial before we decide if they're guilty or not, Garrus!) to ever bond that deeply with him. But sure Bioware, "there's no Shepard without Vakarian."

(and lol hard agree on Wrex being way cooler. he had a better voice/design from the get go and had a MUCH more satisfying arc by the end imo.)

[pyramidscience]

The Pharisees, ever vigilant, observed Jesus and His disciples closely, seeking opportunities to accuse them of transgressing Roman and Judaic laws, in order to have Jesus, under the law, detained and killed. The irony of their scrutiny becomes apparent against the backdrop of Jesus's identity and claims about Himself. Remarkably, when the matter of Roman tax arose—a tax Jesus initially neglected—He miraculously produced a coin to settle the debt, much to the chagrin of the Pharisees. This group, who had exploited the tax as a means to subordinate the Jewish populace under Roman authority, found themselves outmaneuvered by an act that both fulfilled the obligation and subtly subverted their authority.

Moreover, Jesus and His followers faced accusations of overindulgence in wine and performing acts of kindness on the Sabbath, Jesus walking with criminals and sex workers, which the Pharisees deemed unlawful. Despite these charges, Jesus's followers upheld His sinless nature. This historical tension casts a peculiar light on the posture of some modern Christians who endorse legal frameworks reminiscent of those contributing to Jesus's crucifixion. This suggests a disconnection from the essence of Jesus's teachings and the conduct of His early disciples.

Many contemporary believers, particularly in America, seem to hold the notion that human-made laws carry divine endorsement. Yet, scriptural narratives forewarn that all earthly nations will be subject to complete destruction. God, as the scriptures reveal, will judge humanity not by a standard of grace and mercy—which was often rejected—but by the very laws humans stringently applied to others. The divine judgment, it is implied, will mirror the severity with which individuals—particularly those in power—judged the less fortunate, even desiring extrajudicial execution for minor infractions. Thus, the narrative calls into a sharp focus the need for a reevaluation of the legalistic rigor in favor of the grace and mercy.

[good-old-gossip]

Gaza: The Israeli army likely to erase Beit Lahia, killing and uprooting its citizens

Palestinian Territory - The Israeli army is likely to carry out a fresh massacre in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia, as it has recently initiated a new round of forced evacuation orders against the town’s estimated 50,000 residents. The United Nations and other international parties must take immediate action to protect Palestinian civilians.

After declaring Beit Lahia to be a “dangerous combat zone” and threatening to “act with extreme force”, the Israeli army has started to launch heavy air and artillery attacks on the town, followed by fresh evacuation orders.

Israel’s army said it had set up shelters for Beit Lahia residents, instructing them to evacuate towards shelters in blocks 1770 and 1766. These shelters, however, are known to be areas that have already been destroyed by Israeli airstrikes and rendered unfit for any form of life, as they lack water supply as well as functioning sewage systems.

The two designated evacuation points are unsafe areas and, like all areas of Beit Lahia, in particular, and the whole northern Gaza Strip, have previously been subjected to widespread destruction. Israel has targeted areas including shelter centres and public facilities as part of its genocide against Palestinians in the Strip, ongoing since 7 October 2023.

On account of Israel’s crime of genocide and its forced displacement policy in the Gaza Strip, every area designated by the Israeli army as a military operation area since October has completely destroyed and subjected to a strict and oppressive siege, and its residents have been horrifically massacred. The surviving residents of these areas are left with nowhere safe to flee.

In the absence of strong international accountability mechanisms and any swift international action to put an end to these crimes, which Israel has been committing for six months, the military operation that the Israeli army has launched in Beit Lahia will likely result in additional serious crimes and violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

The town of Beit Lahia has seen multiple large-scale military operations by the Israeli army during the past seven months of its military assault on the Gaza Strip. One such operation occurred at the end of December 2023 and resulted in extensive damage to homes, infrastructure, and civil and service facilities, with approximately 90% of the town’s buildings and infrastructure being destroyed by Israel’s army.

The current Beit Lahia military operation began on the 200th day of the massive military assault on the Gaza Strip, which has had horrific consequences due to Israel’s direct and deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians, amid a shameful degree of international inaction. The international community has failed to push Israel to abide by international humanitarian law and the orders of the International Court of Justice to prevent its crime of genocide.

The Israeli army has killed 42,510 Palestinians over the course of its 200-day genocide, 38,621 of whom were civilians, including 10,091 women and 15,780 children. There are still several thousand individuals who are dead under the rubble, while thousands more remain missing. Based on these data, the daily death toll for Palestinians has reached 212, including 50 women and 79 children. These are horrifying statistics in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as other current conflicts.

Euro-Med Monitor teams have documented thousands of specific crimes in which the Israeli army has targeted Palestinian civilians without necessity or proportionality. These crimes include bombing homes and shelters on the heads of their residents, extrajudicial executions, and indiscriminate bombing with the intention of intimidating.

The international community must break its silence now and take all necessary action to end the massacre in Beit Lahia and shield the Palestinian people from further harm, given the horrific crimes being committed across the Gaza Strip, which include murders, executions, arbitrary detentions, torture, forced disappearances, and forced displacement. It needs to uphold its legal obligations under international law and pressure Israel to immediately cease all acts of genocide against the people of Gaza and abide by the rulings of the International Court of Justice.

In order to avoid being complicit in the crimes committed in the Gaza Strip, including the crime of genocide, all nations should accept their international obligations and cease providing Israel with any kind of political, financial, or military support. In particular, arms transfers to Israel, including export permits and military aid, should be immediately stopped.