Hidden history: the plight of Palestine

Image by Wall in Palestine via Flickr

In the light of news stories and photographs from the Gaza Strip, the plight of Palestinians has been firmly catapulted back into the public eye. The country’s side of the Israel-Palestine conflict has been largely publicised, provoking sympathy and criticism in equal measures. Palestine’s history of suffering, however, remains obscure. Few who read the news stories and watch the television programmes realise that the plight of Palestine extends beyond the country itself, beyond Israel and beyond the Middle East, to British colonial rule and the failure of the United Nations to solve every crisis with which they were faced.

The Palestinian state had been in the control of the Ottoman Empire prior to the First World War, but following Turkey’s defeat, colonial Britain absorbed the region as the British Mandate of Palestine in 1917. Palestine soon became a forcibly-established ‘haven’ for Jewish people, with Britain and Europe as a whole ignoring the cries of protest from non-Jewish Palestinian inhabitants. Large numbers of Jewish people migrated to the region, peaking in the 1930s during the Nazi-era anti-Semitic movement. This influx led to a three-year national uprising in 1936 against British colonial rule. Although beginning as a largely political protest, a peasant-led resistance marked a more violent second phase in 1937. In British colonial fashion, the revolt was brutally suppressed. Statistics vary, but the death toll for Arabs was estimated at around 5,000, with a further 15,000 injured.

It is the United Nations’ response to this growing crisis of aggression that set the tone for their failures up to the present day. As Britain struggled to control the violence erupting in the region, the UN proposed to partition Palestine into two independent states, one Palestinian Arab and one Jewish, although the latter later proclaimed its independence as Israel. Ultimately, this decision allowed for the absorption of Palestinian land by Israel on one side, and other Middle Eastern countries on the other. The fracturing effect of the division was aptly demonstrated by the mass exodus of indigenous Palestinian people expelled from their homes into neighbouring countries in the late 1940s.

The further absorption of Palestinian territory by Israel in 1967 resulted in another exodus of around half a million people. The fight for Palestinian liberation and the retreat of Israel continued, politically and otherwise, throughout the 1970s. A UN decision to grant the Palestinian Liberation Organisation observer status led to hostility towards the Palestinians from other areas of the Middle East, including Lebanon, in which a large number of Palestinian refugees had settled since the exoduses of the 1940s and 1960s. In 1982, a militia close to the right-wing Kataeb Party massacred Palestinians sheltering in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in West Beirut under the eyes of Israel, despite the latter’s guarantee of Palestinian safety in the region in the same year. The number of deaths in this massacre is disputed: some reports claim around 460 died, but the reality could be anywhere up to 3,500.

The pattern of massacres and mass emigrations has continued into the last few decades of Palestinian history, and has been focused largely on the Israeli-Palestinian region. Attempted and successful Israeli occupations of Occupied Palestinian Territory in 1987 and 2000 led to further heavy losses of life amongst Palestinians as Israelis fighters used brutal force, not limited to extra-judicial killings, suicide attacks and mortar fire. The political and ethical complexities of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict means that it is difficult, if not impossible, to wholly support either side, but figures on the conflict since September 2000 show a huge difference in fatalities between the two: at least 1,198 Israelis have been killed since 2000, whereas in 2015 alone, more than 2,000 Palestinians have died, with overall numbers reaching 9,000 or more.

The plight of Palestine has not lessened in the 21st century, but a large part of recent Palestinian suffering has been significantly neglected by world media. News organisations relish in the controversy of the Israel-Palestine narrative, but rarely jump on stories about internal Palestinian conflicts resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people. The struggles between Hamas and Fatah for control of the Gaza strip, unresolved despite international intervention, remain a key cause of internal tension in the region. The political discordance of Palestine has directly translated into violence and death, with over 600 fatalities since the conflict began in 2006.

It is largely Israeli violence against Palestinians that receives media attention, and indeed Israeli violence makes up a large part of Palestine’s recent history. The huge numbers of Palestinians living under Israeli military rule since the uprisings of 1987 and 2000 continue to suffer under the strict governance of a power bigger than themselves. But while the Israel versus Palestine narrative has dominated media coverage of the conflict, it is important to remember the history that led to this point. The conflict now might be focused inwardly, narrowed down to Israel and Palestine and the regions directly surrounding them, but European countries and international organisations had a significant role to play in the creation of the fragmented region. This history has largely been forgotten, or at least suppressed, and the conflict has been reduced to an ‘us-versus-them’ standpoint between the two countries directly suffering from it. Both are perpetrators and both are victims, and it is impossible to discuss the plight of one without mention of the other. Looking at the long and complex history of the region, though, the failed involvement of other countries and the United Nations should be just as integral to any discussion of the region’s suffering as the Israel-Palestine narrative itself.

Originally posted on The Global Panorama.

Silencing a nation: Spain’s anti-protest Gag Law

Photograph via travelwayoflife via Flickr

The Spanish senate passed a bill in March 2015 that will have severe repercussions for the social movements of the country. The Citizen Safety Bill – to go into effect from July 1, 2015 – includes the controversial Ley Mordaza, or ‘Gag Law’. This law makes most forms of social protests illegal, with fines from 600 euros to 600,000 euros imposed for any breach of its terms. As well as limiting its citizens’ legal ability to protest, the ‘Gag Law’ will affect social media and the press. It will, in short, have a huge impact upon a body of people who have been protesting against their country’s austerity for years.

The Spanish people have been using protests for three years to amplify their voices against the right-wing Partido Popular (People’s Party) government. Demonstrations have risen and intensified over the party’s severe austerity measures and their conservative stance on abortion, which aims to limit abortion to cases of rape or serious health risk. In the wake of the 2008 financial crash, Spain was pushed into economic crisis, and the government’s response to this has led to a large number of protests – some violent – against the consequential austerity measures. The ‘Gag Law’, by limiting the number of acceptable forms of protest, therefore, takes steps to silence anti-austerity demonstrators – the indignados movement – by restricting their capacity to object.

Some of the most popular forms of protest favoured by the indignados movement will be penalised under the law. Protestors will be banned from assembling outside Congress and other government buildings – a rule that can cost dissenters up to 6,00,000 euros if broken. Permission must be sought from authorities before public gatherings can be arranged. The law also affects media coverage and social media activity. Filming or photographing police manoeuvres, and indeed publishing pictures of them will be considered a criminal offence. Online activity is seen to promote or publicise a political event – for example, by using hashtags – will also be illegal. As a huge and effective platform on which anti-austerity organisations can communicate their messages, censoring social media is a major step towards silencing the virtual narrative of dissent underlying the protestors’ real lives.

The ‘Gag Law’ has, of course, been met with outrage. Since the first mention of the bill in late 2014, thousands have joined in solidarity to show their discontent. Their perception of the bill as being harmful to citizens’ free speech has been shown by protestors’ use of gags: the Citizen Safety Bill has been reimagined and renamed to reflect the damaging nature of a legislation used to silence a country’s people. Recently, the world’s first virtual demonstration was staged against the bill in Madrid – a clear reaction to the government’s opposition to ‘flesh-and-blood’ protests. Thousands of holograms marched outside the Spanish parliamentary building on April 11 in a somewhat eerie demonstration organised by the group Holograms for Freedom.

The ‘Gag Law’, and by extension the Spanish government, will impose censorship on people’s virtual as well as their social lives. In a time where protests are the key tool available to social movements against austerity, the bill strongly impacts the Spanish people’s capacity to speak and drastically limits their power. It is the latest act of a right-wing government that drives towards austerity in the face of constant financial uncertainty.

Originally published on The Global Panorama.

Child labor: Israel's farm settlements

Photograph by Wagner T. Cassimiro “Aranha" via Flickr

A report from the Human Rights Watch released in April has stated that Palestinian children working on Israeli farm settlements are subjected to dangerous working conditions that violate international standards.

Children from the age of 11 have reported being exposed to potentially harmful pesticides and, in some cases, have to pay for any medical treatment they need as a result of work-related illness or injury. The organisation interviewed children who have experienced nausea, dizziness, vomiting and breathing difficulties as a result of their working conditions. The issue has been described by Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director for Human Rights Watch as a human rights abuse.

Many of the children exploited by Israeli farms have a common economic background. According to the report, they belong to communities that have suffered as a result of Israel’s settlement policies, and in many cases have left school to work on the farms in order to provide for their families. The children are paid low wages in return for their labor, and 21 of the 38 children interviewed by the organisation had not completed the 10 years of basic education compulsory under both Palestinian and Israeli laws.

Israel is not alone in exploiting children for cheap labour. Figures published by the International Labor Organisation show that 168 million children undertake exploitative work globally, with 85 million of them in conditions classified as hazardous. While 78 million of these incidences occur in Asia and the Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the highest occurrence of child labor: 59 million children—which is more than 21% of their child population—undertake exploitative work.

Agriculture is the most prominent sector in employing child labour around the world. Competition between producers of global goods is so high that child labour is seen as an effective tool to lower costs and keep their prices competitive. This is certainly the case for the cocoa trade in Western Africa, where 60% of the Ivory Coast’s export revenue comes from cocoa, according to the Food Empowerment Project. Children on cocoa farms, like those working on Israeli settlements, are exposed to agricultural chemicals without protective clothing. The project also reports that the children use chainsaws and machetes as standard tools, which violate international labour laws and a UN convention on child labour.

Like the Palestinian children, too, some of the children working on the cocoa farms do so because they need work to help support their families. In some cases, they are sold to farm owners by their relatives. That families are willing to subject their children to child labour is reflective of the great financial need many face in some of the poorest countries in the world. Although in most cases, the children’s relatives are unaware of the dangers involved in farm work.

The Human Rights Watch report suggests that countries in Europe as well as the United States, should take responsibility in ensuring that they do not contribute to the human rights abuses against children by ending business relationships with settlements. Products produced under child labour are already monitored by the US in an attempt to address this issue, but they do not include Israeli settlement products among these. It is essential that countries around the world are aware of the extent of child labor and take action to ensure that they do not benefit from it: the Human Rights Watch report is a hopeful step towards this.

Originally published on The Global Panorama.

India's unreported police brutality

Photograph by nevil zaveri via Flickr

On April 15, 2014, India’s Supreme Court recognised the country’s transgender community as individuals in their own right. It passed a law that declared the transgender community to be a third gender. The law was regarded as a significant step forward on the civil rights front, and became a talking point for those looking to introduce similar laws in some European countries who had not already done so.

The law came only four months after the Supreme Court re-criminalised homosexuality and bisexuality, which led to a considerable increase in police violence against transgender people across the country. This re-criminalisation is still in place, presenting a danger in the LGBTQ community: while transgender people do have legal recognition, it is still against the law for them to engage in gay sex.

Following the Supreme Court’s recognition of the transgender community, there have been issues around implementing the law, particularly with regards to the fundamental rights transgender people should, by the court’s ruling, enjoy. In an interview with DW, Jayshree Bajoria, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, called attention to abusive colonial-era laws still underlying some Indian states today that make transgender people vulnerable to police abuse.

Transgender people in India have often had to engage in begging and sex work due to the lack of opportunities available to them in working life, and these activities can increase their susceptibility to police abuse. In November 2014, the Indian police detained 167 transgender women in a beggars’ colony in Bangalore. The police claimed that the event was part of a ‘crackdown’ on public begging, but a report from Orinam claimed that many of the women detained were going about their daily chores; some were allegedly dragged out of their homes by the police. Orinam speculates that the ‘crackdown’ merely disguised the police’s real objective to target transgender women in general.

Newspaper reports on the Supreme Court’s recent decisions concerning transgender rights have been decidedly vague about the levels of police violence against the community in India. Most reports refer to a general increase in police abuse of transgender people, but give no specific details. Even Amnesty International’s annual report at the end of 2014 was unable to elaborate on the issue, claiming only that since the ruling in April 2014, ‘cases of harassment and violence against transgender people continued to be reported.’ It is notoriously difficult to find details about specific cases demonstrating the issue many transgender people face in India. This is perhaps a reflection of the conservative position news avenues continue to take when addressing the plight of LGBTQ people in India, no matter how liberal they may otherwise be.

Originally published on The Global Panorama.

Torture: the rise of a global humanitarian crisis

Photograph: Andrew Ratto via Flickr 

The UN Convention Against Torture, published in 1984, established the grounds for modern rulings and legal discussions of torture. It encouraged all governments to sign and ratify the Convention, to make all acts of torture unlawful and punishable by appropriate penalties, and to recognise that under no circumstances should torture be deemed justified.

In a report published last year, Amnesty International reviewed the 30 years since the Convention was established. Their findings were significant: out of the 142 countries Amnesty followed that ratified the agreement, at least 79 still had torture cases in 2014, while a further 40 hadn’t adopted the Convention despite the global legal ban on torture deeming it compulsory.

In a global survey on attitudes to torture, Amnesty USA reported that from a poll taken of 21,000 people in 21 different countries, 82% of people believed there should be clear laws against torture. However, 36% believed that torture was justifiable under certain circumstances.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, members of armed forces and individuals considered a threat to national security are at high risk of torture in all regions of the world. Members of ethnic and religious minorities, people of diverse sexual orientations and the poor are also deemed to be at high risk of serious mistreatment.

The immediate issue on a global scale is that the Convention and the legal framework that has subsequently been created have not been properly enforced around the world. Governments are required to act upon cases of torture as soon as it is brought to their attention. However, torture cases are often secretive, and it is understood that the actual level of torture worldwide is likely to be significantly higher than what is reported.

Torture of detainees in prison is common in many regions across the world, including Africa: whilst the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights is in place to prevent such cases, only 10 countries in the continent have actually criminalised it. The culture of torture perpetrated by police and security forces is by no means limited to Africa, however, and extends across the world to regions with some of the strictest measures against torture, including Europe and the Americas.

In many cases, where it is difficult to separate the police from the state and there is significant evidence for the involvement of a government in torture cases, the Convention and its subsequent developments have clearly not been influential enough for states to enforce safeguards against such acts. Amnesty International has reported that some countries, including Uzbekistan, are closed to the organisation and are often unwilling to release information about torture and their regulations against it.

While the UN Convention was a welcome and substantial step in the direction of fighting against worldwide torture, it is clear that more is needed on a global scale in order to enforce strict regulations in all countries. The definition of torture in the Convention—‘severe pain or suffering’ on a physical or mental basis—should be made less susceptible to subjective understanding, because ‘severe suffering’ is not a definitive term on a global scale. And finally, more should be done to align attitudes towards torture, and to make clear the fact that torture is unjustifiable in any circumstance: torture is not an issue of regional or national interpretation, but an issue of global human rights.

First published on The Global Panorama