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“A Brief History of Graphics” is a five-part video series by Stuart Brown of XboxAhoy that examines the history of graphics in video games from pixels to polygons and beyond.
Pixel Pioneers: A Brief History of Graphics, Part One
Sprite Supreme: A Brief History of Graphics, Part Two
Polygon Realm: A Brief History of Graphics, Part Three
Voodoo Bloom: A Brief History of Graphics, Part Four
Future Crisis: A Brief History of Graphics, Part Five
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Patna: A senior state BJP leader, Srikant Bharti was shot dead in Bihar’s Siwan district, triggering violent protests Monday by his supporters, police said.
Bharti was killed by unidentified men late Sunday night when he was returning from a marriage party.
“Hundreds of supporters of the murdered leader, mostly BJP local leaders and workers, blocked roads and burnt tyres. They also raised slogans against the state government,” a district police official said.
Tension prevailed in the area but the situation was brought under control as additional security forces were deployed, police officials said.
Bharti was a confidant of BJP MP from Siwan Om Prakash Yadav.
He contested the 2010 state assembly polls but lost.
Bharti’s family members and supporters considered his murder as a political killing planned by rivals.
(IANS)
A construction worker on site at the Dubai Mall in the United Arab Emirates. Migrant workers are extremely vulnerable to abuse in the Gulf States, say rights groups.
by Al-Akhbar
International rights and labor groups called Sunday for urgent action to protect migrant workers from abuse in Gulf countries.
Ahead of a meeting this week of Gulf and Asian labor ministers, 90 groups issued a statement saying millions of Asian and African workers are facing abuses including unpaid wages, confiscation of passports, physical violence and forced labor.
“Whether it’s the scale of abuse of domestic workers hidden from public view or the shocking death toll among construction workers, the plight of migrants in the Gulf demands urgent and profound reform,” said Rothna Begum, Middle East women’s rights researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Asian countries are meeting on November 26-27 for the third round of the so-called Abu Dhabi Dialogue on labor migration.
About 23 million foreigners, including at least 2.4 million domestic servants, live in the six-nation GCC that brings together Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
GCC countries have come under fire for the kafala system of sponsorship for migrant workers, which is used to varying extents across the Gulf.
It restricts most workers from moving to a new job before their contracts end unless they obtain their employer’s consent, trapping many workers in abusive situations, the statement said.
It called for comprehensive laws to protect migrant laborers and reforming the kafala system to allow workers to change employers without permission from their sponsors.
HRW was one of the signatories of the statement along with other groups including Amnesty International, the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Domestic Workers Federation.
On Tuesday, Amnesty accused the UAE, which is hosting a Formula One race this weekend, of repression it said is the “ugly reality” behind the glitz and glamor of the event.
In a report titled “There is no freedom here: silencing dissent in the UAE,” the human rights watchdog speaks of a “climate of fear” and the “extreme lengths” the authorities go to in order to stamp out opposition or calls for reform.
“Millions of spectators from across the world are expected to tune in to watch the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix this weekend – yet most of them will have little clue about the ugly reality of life for activists in the UAE,” said Amnesty’s deputy director for the region, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.
“Beneath the facade of glitz and glamor, a far more sinister side to the UAE has emerged showing the UAE as a deeply repressive state where activists critical of the government can be tossed in jail merely for posting a tweet,” she said.
Amnesty’s UAE report came a day after a report by Australian-based human rights group The Walk Free Foundation ranked Qatar in fourth place in a global ranking of countries where slavery is most prevalent.
The tiny Gulf state has come under scrutiny by rights groups over its treatment of migrant workers, most from Asia, who come to toil on construction sites, oil projects, or work as domestic help.
Early November, Amnesty International published a report titled, “No extra time: How Qatar is still failing on workers’ rights ahead of the World Cup.”
It said that “Qatar is still failing on workers’ rights ahead of the World Cup” and “has made only minimal progress on a number of plans it announced in May 2014” to tackle the reported exploitations.
The report highlighted the situation of migrant workers in the Gulf state, namely “delays in payments of migrants’ wages, harsh and dangerous working conditions, poor living conditions and shocking details of forced labor.”
The oil-rich Arab monarchies of the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, have long cracked down on dissent and calls for democratic reform, drawing criticism from human rights groups.
(AFP, Al-Akhbar)
A relative of Abdulrahman Shaludi displays his portrait inside his family home after it was demolished by Israeli Occupation Forces in annexed East Jerusalem Silwan neighborhood on November 19, 2014. AFP / Ahmad Gharabli
by Al-Akhbar
Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian home northeast of Ramallah early Sunday, an official told Ma’an news agency, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) slams Israel’s demolition policy as “collective punishment.”
Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors settler activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that a group of extremist settlers raided the village of Khirbet Abu Falah and torched the home of Abdul Karim Hussein Hamayil.
The settlers threw a fire bomb into the house through a window before fleeing the scene, Daghlas said, adding that Hamayil’s widow and her three daughters were inside the house at the time.
The settlers also spray-painted “death to Arabs” and “vengeance” on the house.
Daghlas added that the settlers first attacked the house with tear gas and stun grenades before attempting to break in, without providing further details.
Also in Ramallah, a group of settlers attempted Friday to burn down a house in the village of al-Mughayyir, but Palestinians were able to prevent them.
The arsons come about a week after a group of settlers attacked the village and torched a mosque as well as 12 copies of the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, in an incident that sparked widespread Palestinian fury.
In mid-October, settlers torched a mosque in the village of Aqraba in the Nablus district and vandalized the interior with racist slogans.
According to Palestinian Religious Endowments Minister Yousef Adeis, in October alone Israeli settlers carried out 110 separate attacks on religious sites across the Palestinian territories.
Hate crimes by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property, referred to as “price tag” attacks, are systematic and Israeli authorities rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.
A report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there were at least 399 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2013.
The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) monthly report stated that one Palestinian child was killed and six others Palestinians injured, four of them children, after being deliberately hit by Israeli settler vehicles in October.
Unrest has gripped annexed Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past four months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and killed 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir because of his ethnicity.
Israeli authorities have also allowed Zionist settlers to take over homes in Palestinian neighborhoods both in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and announced plans to build thousands of settlements strictly for Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem while ignoring Palestinian residents.
Last month, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah slammed Israel for failing to hold Zionist settlers accountable for a recent wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“The Israeli government has never brought settlers to account for the terrorism and intimidation they commit [against Palestinians],” Hamdallah said.
More than 600,000 Israeli settlers, soaring from 189,000 in 1989, live in settlements across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.
HRW: Israel’s demolition of houses is a “war crime”
While Israeli settlers burn down Palestinian properties, Israeli forces demolish thousands of Palestinian houses and livelihood structures.
HRW called on Israel Saturday to stop razing the homes of Palestinians accused of attacking Israelis, saying the practice can constitute a “war crime.”
“Israel should impose an immediate moratorium on its policy of demolishing the family homes of Palestinians suspected of carrying out attacks on Israelis,” the New York-based group said, as the fate of three houses slated for demolition awaits a court ruling.
“The policy, which Israeli officials claim is a deterrent, deliberately and unlawfully punishes people not accused of any wrongdoing. When carried out in occupied territory, including East Jerusalem, it amounts to collective punishment, a war crime.”
The East Jerusalem families of Mutaz Hijazi, Ibrahim al-Akkari, and of cousins Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal, killed by police after two separate attacks, have been served demolition orders on their homes but have appealed.
Al-Akkari, 47, was shot dead by Israeli forces after he ran over a group of Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem on November 5, killing one and injuring 13.
Hijazi was accused of shooting and critically wounding a far-right Zionist rabbi on October 29. Police shot him dead during a raid on his home in Abu Tur the following morning.
The Abu Jamal cousins, from Jabal al-Mukabbir, were shot dead Tuesday after they attacked a synagogue with meat cleavers and a pistol, killing four Zionist rabbis and an Israeli policeman.
Mohammed Mahmoud, the lawyer of the Hijazi and Abu Jamal families, said in a statement that an Israeli military court would hear their petition on Sunday morning.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces razed the East Jerusalem home of a Palestinian who killed two Israelis after running them over with his car last month.
Home demolitions have long been used as a deterrent punishment in the occupied West Bank, but this is the first time they have been adopted as a matter of policy in occupied East Jerusalem.
The practice has been condemned by human rights watchdogs and the international community as collective punishment that targets the families of perpetrators rather than the assailants themselves.
Last Sunday, Israeli rights group B’Tselem said that punitive house demolitions are “fundamentally wrong” and contravene “basic moral standards by punishing people for the misdeeds of others.”
The PLO said that Israeli forces demolished at least 32 Palestinian structures, including houses, barracks, shops and stores in Jerusalem and the West Bank during the month of October.
They also gave demolition notices for five water wells and a barrack near Hebron, as well as eviction notices to 27 houses.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in 2013, Israel demolished more than 500 Palestinian homes in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Moreover, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions estimates that Israeli authorities have demolished about 27,000 Palestinian structures in the West Bank since 1967.
The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.
(Ma’an, AFP, Al-Akhbar)
Thick black smoke rises over an eastern Kobani neighborhood following an air strike on November 8, 2014. CREDIT: REUTERS/YANNIS BEHRAKIS
by Reuters
Beirut: Air strikes by U.S.-led forces in Syria have killed 910 people, including 52 civilians, since the start of the campaign against Islamic State and other fighters two months ago, a group monitoring the conflict said on Saturday.
The majority of the deaths, 785, were Islamic State fighters according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Islamic State, a hard-line offshoot of al Qaeda, has seized land in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where it has also been targeted by U.S.-led strikes since July.
Eight of the civilians killed were children and five were women, the Observatory said. The United States has said it takes reports of civilian casualties seriously and says it has a process to investigate any reports of such deaths.
The Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of contacts on the ground, said 72 members of al Qaeda’s Syria wing Nusra Front were also killed in the air strikes, which started on Sept. 23.
The United States has said it has targeted the “Khorasan Group” in Syria, which it describes as a grouping of al Qaeda veterans under the protection of Nusra Front. Most analysts and activists do not differentiate between the groups in this way.
According to the United Nations, around 200,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which is in its fourth year.
(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; editing by Susan Thomas)
WHO warns of deadly disease spreading in densely populated capital city with weak healthcare system.
![Plague, a bacterial disease, is mainly spread from one rodent to another by fleas [Al Jazeera]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Plague-Madagascar.jpg)
Plague, a bacterial disease, is mainly spread from one rodent to another by fleas [Al Jazeera]
by Al Jazeera
An outbreak of plague has killed 40 people out of 119 confirmed cases in Madagascar since late August and there is a risk of the disease spreading rapidly in the capital, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said.
So far two cases and one death have been recorded in the capital Antananarivo but those figures could climb quickly due to “the city’s high population density and the weakness of the healthcare system”, the WHO warned on Friday.
“The situation is further complicated by the high level of resistance to deltamethrin (an insecticide used to control fleas) that has been observed in the country,” it added.
Plague, a bacterial disease, is mainly spread from one rodent to another by fleas. Humans bitten by an infected flea usually develop a bubonic form of plague, which swells the lymph node and can be treated with antibiotics, the WHO said.
If the bacteria reaches the lungs, the patient develops pneumonia (pneumonic plague), which is transmissible from person to person through infected droplets spread by coughing.
It is “one of the most deadly infectious diseases” and can kill people within 24 hours. Two percent of the cases reported in Madagascar so far have been pneumonic, it added.
The first known case of the plague was a man from Soamahatamana village in the district of Tsiroanomandidy, identified on August 31. He died on September 3 and authorities notified the WHO of the outbreak on November 4, the agency said.
The WHO said it did not recommend any trade or travel restrictions based on the information available about the outbreak.
The last previously known outbreak of plague was in Peru in August 2010, according to the WHO.
(Reuters)
by James Petras
There are clear signs that a major war is about to break out in Ukraine: A war actively promoted by the NATO regimes and supported by their allies and clients in Asia (Japan) and the Middle East (Saudi Arabia). The war over Ukraine will essentially run along the lines of a full-scale military offensive against the southeast Donbas region, targeting the breakaway ethnic Ukraine- Russian Peoples Republic of Donetsk and Lugansk, with the intention of deposing the democratically elected government, disarming the popular militias, killing the guerrilla resistance partisans and their mass base, dismantling the popular representative organizations and engaging in ethnic cleansing of millions of bilingual Ukraino-Russian citizens. NATO’s forthcoming military seizure of the Donbas region is a continuation and extension of its original violent putsch in Kiev, which overthrew an elected Ukrainian government in February 2014.
The Kiev junta and its newly ‘elected’ client rulers, and its NATO sponsors are intent on a major purge to consolidate the puppet Poroshenko’s dictatorial rule. The recent NATO-sponsored elections excluded several major political parties that had traditionally supported the country’s large ethnic minority populations, and was boycotted in the Donbas region. This sham election in Kiev set the tone for NATO’s next move toward converting Ukraine into one gigantic US multi-purpose military base aimed at the Russian heartland and into a neo-colony for German capital, supplying Berlin with grain and raw materials while serving as a captive market for German manufactured goods.
An intensifying war fever is sweeping the West; the consequences of this madness appear graver by the hour.
War Signs: The Propaganda and Sanctions Campaign, the G20 Summit and the Military Build Up
The official drum- beat for a widening conflict in Ukraine, spearheaded by the Kiev junta and its fascist militias, echoes in every Western mass media outlet, every day. Major mass media propaganda mills and government ‘spokesmen and women’ publish or announce new trumped-up accounts of growing Russian military threats to its neighbors and cross-border invasions into Ukraine. New Russian incursions are ‘reported’ from the Nordic borders and Baltic states to the Caucuses. The Swedish regime creates a new level of hysteria over a mysterious “Russian” submarine off the coast of Stockholm, which it never identifies or locates – let alone confirms the ‘sighting’. Estonia and Latvia claim Russian warplanes violated their air space without confirmation. Poland expels Russian “spies” without proof or witnesses. Provocative full-scale joint NATO-client state military exercises are taking place along Russia’s frontiers in the Baltic States, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.
NATO is sending vast arms shipments to the Kiev junta, along with “Special Forces” advisers and counter-insurgency experts in anticipation of a full-scale attack against the rebels in the Donbas.
The Kiev regime has never abided by the Minsk cease fire. According to the UN Human Rights office 13 people on average –mostly civilians –have been killed each day since the September cease fire. In eight weeks, the UN reports that 957 people have killed –overwhelmingly by Kiev’s armed forces.
The Kiev regime, in turn, has cut all basic social and public services to the Peoples’ Republics’, including electricity, fuel, civil service salaries, pensions, medical supplies, salaries for teachers and medical workers, municipal workers wages; banking and transport have been blockaded.
The strategy is to further strangle the economy, destroy the infrastructure, force an even greater mass exodus of destitute refugees from the densely populated cities across the border into Russia and then to launch massive air, missile, artillery and ground assaults on urban centers as well as rebel bases.
The Kiev junta has launched an all-out military mobilization in the Western regions, accompanied by rabid anti-Russian, anti-Eastern Orthodox indoctrination campaigns designed to attract the most violent far right chauvinist thugs and to incorporate the Nazi-style military brigades into the frontline shock troops. The cynical use of irregular fascist militias will ‘free’ NATO and Germany from any responsibility for the inevitable terror and atrocities in their campaign. This system of ‘plausible deniability’ mirrors the tactics of the German Nazis whose hordes of fascist Ukrainians and Ustashi Croats were notorious in their epoch of ethnic cleansing.
G20-plus-NATO: Support of the Kiev Blitz
To isolate and weaken resistance in the Donbas and guarantee the victory of the impending Kiev blitz, the EU and the US are intensifying their economic, military and diplomatic pressure on Russia to abandon the nascent peoples’ democracy in the south-east region of Ukraine, their principle ally.
Each and every escalation of economic sanctions against Russia is designed to weaken the capacity of the Donbas resistance fighters to defend their homes, towns and cities. Each and every Russian shipment of essential medical supplies and food to the besieged population evokes a new and more hysterical outburst – because it counters Kiev-NATO strategy of starving the partisans and their mass base into submission or provoking their flight to safety across the Russian border.
After suffering a series of defeats, the Kiev regime and its NATO strategists decided to sign a ‘peace protocol’, the so-called Minsk agreement, to halt the advance of the Donbas resistance into the southern regions and to protect its Kiev’s soldiers and militias holed-up in isolated pockets in the East. The Minsk agreement was designed to allow the Kiev junta to build up its military, re-organize its command and incorporate the disparate Nazi militias into its overall military forces in preparation for a ‘final offensive’. Kiev’s military build-up on the inside and NATO’s escalation of sanctions against Russia on the outside would be two sides of the same strategy: the success of a frontal attack on the democratic resistance of the Donbas basin depends on minimizing Russian military support through international sanctions.
NATO’s virulent hostility to Russian President Putin was on full display at the G20 meeting in Australia: NATO-linked presidents and prime ministers, especially Merkel, Obama, Cameron, Abbott, and Harper’s political threats and overt personal insults paralleled Kiev’s growing starvation blockade of the besieged rebels and population centers in the south-east. Both the G20’s economic threats against Russia and the diplomatic isolation of Putin and Kiev’s economic blockade are preludes to NATO’s Final Solution – the physical annihilation of all vestiges of Donbas resistance, popular democracy and cultural-economic ties with Russia.
Kiev depends on its NATO mentors to impose a new round of severe sanctions against Russia, especially if its planned invasion encounters a well armed and robust mass resistance bolstered by Russian support. NATO is counting on Kiev’s restored and newly supplied military capacity to effectively destroy the southeast centers of resistance.
NATO has decided on an ‘all-or-nothing campaign’: to seize all of Ukraine or, failing that, destroy the restive southeast, obliterate its population and productive capacity and engage in an all-out economic (and possibly shooting) war with Russia. Chancellor Angela Merkel is on board with this plan despite the complaints of German industrialists over their huge loss of export sales to Russia. President Hollande of France has signed on dismissing the complaints of trade unionists over the loss of thousands French jobs in the shipyards. Prime Minister David Cameron is eager for an economic war against Moscow, suggesting the bankers of the City of London find new channels to launder the illicit earnings of Russian oligarchs.
The Russian Response
Russian diplomats are desperate to find a compromise, which allows Ukraine’s ethnic Ukraine- Russian population in the southeast to retain some autonomy under a federation plan and regain influence within the ‘new’ post-putsch Ukraine. Russian military strategists have provided logistical and military aid to the resistance in order to avoid a repeat of the Odessa massacre of ethnic Russians by Ukrainian fascists on a massive scale. Above all, Russia cannot afford to have NATO-Nazi-Kiev military bases along its southern ‘underbelly’, imposing a blockade of the Crimea and forcing a mass exodus of ethnic Russians from the Donbas. Under Putin, the Russian government has tried to propose compromises allowing Western economic supremacy over Ukraine but without NATO military expansion and absorption by Kiev.
That policy of conciliation has repeatedly failed.
The democratically elected ‘compromise regime’ in Kiev was overthrown in February 2014 in a violent putsch, which installed a pro-NATO junta.
Kiev violated the Minsk agreement with impunity and encouragement from the NATO powers and Germany.
The recent G20 meeting in Australia featured a rabble-rousing chorus against President Putin. The crucial four-hour private meeting between Putin and Merkel turned into a fiasco when Germany parroted the NATO chorus.
Putin finally responded by expanding Russia’s air and ground troop preparedness along its borders while accelerating Moscow’s economic pivot to Asia.
Most important, President Putin has announced that Russia cannot stand by and allow the massacre of a whole people in the Donbas region.
Is Poroshenko’s forthcoming blitz against the people of southeast Ukraine designed to provoke a Russian response – to the humanitarian crisis? Will Russia confront the NATO-directed Kiev offensive and risk a total break with the West?
James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. Latest book: “The New Extractivism. A Post-Neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century?” Henry Veltmeyer and James Petras. Zed Books. http://petras.lahaine.org/
The internet has become a safe haven for racial and religious abuse. Shutterstock
by Imran Awan, The Conversation
In late 2013 I was invited to present evidence, as part of my submission regarding online anti-Muslim hate, at the House of Commons. I attempted to show how hate groups on the internet were using this space to intimidate, cause fear and make direct threats against Muslim communities – particularly after the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich last year.
The majority of incidents of Muslim hate crime (74%) reported to the organisation Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) are online. In London alone, hate crimes against Muslims rose by 65% over the past 12 months, according to the Metropolitan Police and anti-Islam hate crimes have also increased from 344 to 570 in the past year.
Before the Woolwich incident there was an average of 28 anti-Muslim hate crimes per month (in April 2013, there were 22 anti-Muslim hate crimes in London alone) but in May, when Rigby was murdered, that number soared to 109. Between May 2013 and February 2014, there were 734 reported cases of anti-Islamic abuse – and of these, 599 were incidents of online abuse and threats, while the others were “offline” attacks such as violence, threats and assaults.
A breakdown of the statistics shows these tend to be mainly from male perpetrators and are marginally more likely to be directed at women.
After I made my presentation I, too, became a target in numerous online forums and anti-Muslim hate blogs which attempted to demonise what I had to say and, in some cases, threaten me with violence. Most of those forums were taken down as soon as I reported them.
Digital hate-speak
It’s become easy to indulge in racist hate-crimes online and many people take advantage of the anonymity to do so. I examined anti-Muslim hate on social media sites such as Twitter and found that the demonisation and dehumanisation of Muslim communities is becoming increasingly commonplace.
My study involved the use of three separate hashtags, namely #Muslim, #Islam and #Woolwich – which allowed me to examine how Muslims were being viewed before and after Woolwich. The most common reappearing words were: “Muslim pigs” (in 9% of posts), “Muzrats” (14%), “Muslim Paedos” (30%), “Muslim terrorists” (22%), “Muslim scum” (15%) and “Pisslam” (10%).
These messages are then taken up by virtual communities who are quick to amplify their actions by creating webpages, blogs and forums of hate. Online anti-Muslim hate therefore intensifies, as has been shown after the Rotherham abuse scandal in the UK, the beheading of journalists James Foley, Steven Sotloff and the humanitarian workers David Haines and Alan Henning by the Islamic State and the Woolwich attacks in 2013.
The organisation Faith Matters has also conducted research, following the Rotherham abuse scandal, analysing Facebook conversations from Britain First posts on August 26 2014 using the Facebook Graph API.
They found some common reappearing words which included: Scum (207 times); Asian (97); deport (48); Paki (58); gangs (27) and paedo/pedo (25). A number of the comments and posts were from people with direct links to organisations such as Britain First, the English Brotherhood and the English Defence League.
Key Islamophobic words used online as compiled by Faith Matters. Faith Matters, Author provided
Abuse is not a human right
Clearly, hate on the internet can have direct and indirect effect for victims and communities being targeted. In one sense, it can be used to harass and intimidate victims and on the other hand, it can also be used for opportunistic crimes.
Apart from this threat to cut my throat by #EDL supporter (!) overwhelmed by warm response to what I said on #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/D9RRkpUqGF
— Salma Yaqoob (@SalmaYaqoob) June 7, 2013
Few of us will forget the moment when Salma Yaqoob appeared on BBC Question Time and tweeted the following comments to her followers: “Apart from this threat to cut my throat by #EDL supporter (!) overwhelmed by warm response to what I said on #bbcqt.”
The internet is a powerful tool by which people can be influenced to act in a certain way and manner. This is particularly strong when considering hate speech that aims to threaten and incite violence.
This also links into the convergence of emotional distress caused by hate online, the nature of intimidation and harassment and the prejudice that seeks to defame groups through speech intending to injure and intimidate. Some sites who have been relatively successful here include BareNakedIslam and IslamExposed which has a daily forum and chatroom about issues to do with Muslims and Islam and has a strong anti-Muslim tone which begins with initial discussion about a particular issue – such as banning Halal meat – and then turns into strong and provocative language.
Most of this anti-Muslim hate speech hides behind a fake banner of English patriotism, but is instead used to demonise and dehumanise Muslim communities. It goes without saying that the internet is just a digital realisation of the world itself – all shades of opinion are represented, including those Muslims whose hatred of the West prompts them to preach jihad and contempt for “dirty kuffar”.
Clearly, freedom of speech is a fundamental right that everyone should enjoy, but when that converges with incitement, harassment, threats of violence and cyber-bullying then we as a society must act before it’s too late. There is an urgent need to provide advice for those who are suffering online abuse.
It is also important to keep monitoring sites where this sort of thing regularly crops up; this can help inform not only policy but also help us get a better understanding of the relationships forming online. This would require in detail an examination of the various websites, blogs and social networking sites by monitoring the various URLs of those sites regarded as having links to anti-Muslim hate.
It is also important that we begin a process of consultation with victims of online anti-Muslim abuse – and reformed offenders – who could work together highlighting the issues they think are important when examining online Islamophobia.
The internet offers an easy and accessible way of reporting online abuse, but an often difficult relationship between the police and Muslim communities in some areas means much more could be done. This could have a positive impact on the overall reporting of online abuse. The improved rate of prosecutions which might culminate as a result could also help identify the issues around online anti-Muslim abuse.
Imran Awan is a Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University.
by Counterview
Australia-based Walk Free Foundation, in its new report, “The Global Slavery Index 2014”, has identified India as ranking fifth out of 167 countries of the world in severity of modern slavery. It defines modern slavery as involving “one person possessing or controlling another person in such as a way as to significantly deprive that person of their individual liberty, with the intention of exploiting that person through their use, management, profit, transfer or disposal.” Modern-day slaves, it adds, include children denied an education by being forced to work or marry early, men unable to leave their work because of crushing debts they owe to recruitment agents, and women and girls exploited as unpaid, abused domestic workers. The report estimates, there are 35.8 million people living in some form of modern slavery globally. This is what the report has to say about India:
*India’s Index rank: 5
*Estimated number of people in modern slavery: 14,285,700
*Government response to modern slavery: CCC
*Vulnerability to modern slavery: 56.7%
*Population: 1,252,139,596
*GDP (PPP): per capita (Int$) $5,410
Prevalence
India’s modern slavery challenges are immense. Across India’s population of over 1.2 billion people, all forms of modern slavery, including inter-generational bonded labour, trafficking for sexual exploitation, and forced marriage, exist. Evidence suggests that members of lower castes and tribes, religious minorities, and migrant workers are disproportionately affected by modern slavery. Modern slavery occurs in brick kilns, carpet weaving, embroidery and other textile manufacturing, forced prostitution, agriculture, domestic servitude, mining, and organised begging rings. Bonded labour is particularly prevalent throughout India, with families enslaved for generations. There are reports of women and children from India and neighbouring countries being recruited with promises of non-existent jobs and later sold for sexual exploitation, or forced into sham marriages.
Modern slavery: Top ten countries
In some religious groups, pre-pubescent girls are sold for sexual servitude in temples. Recent reports suggest that one child goes missing every eight minutes; it is feared that some are sold into forced begging, domestic work, and commercial sexual exploitation. Bangladeshis and Nepalese, particularly women and children, migrate to India in search of work. Young Nepali women banned from traveling to the Gulf for domestic work also pass through India as an alternative route. Some of these migrants then experience abuse and exploitation. Other migrants are fraudulently sent by recruiters to India to be transported to jobs in the Gulf, only to remain in India in positions of forced labour or commercial sexual exploitation.
Government Response
Given the scale and complexity of the response required in India, it is significant that the Indian Government has taken steps to better communicate key elements of its anti-trafficking response. In 2014, the Ministry of Home Affairs launched the ‘anti-trafficking portal’, which includes information on criminal justice statistics, anti-trafficking police units, government and law enforcement training, the anti-trafficking legislation, and reporting mechanisms, including the ChildLine hotline number. The portal does not appear to provide information about forced or bonded labour, which reflects a broader institutional separation between responses to bonded labour, which is the responsibility of the Department of Labour, and human trafficking, which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice. On paper, criminal justice reforms specific to human trafficking are the strongest component of India’s response to modern slavery.
In 2013, the government amended the Indian Penal code to include specific anti-trafficking provisions. In 2014, the government expanded the number of police anti-human trafficking units across the country to 215 units, aiming to establish a unit in 650 districts. The judiciary and over 20,000 law enforcement have received training on victim identification, the new legal framework, and victim-centered investigations. The government’s victim compensation scheme extends to human trafficking victims, however, the amount and efficiency of dispersal is largely dependent on the State administration, and is not available country-wide. Although bonded labour is criminalised, it is still a significant issue.
The government response to bonded labour is monitored by the National Human Rights Commission that reviews existing policies and practices, and provides training to district Magistrates, Deputy Commissioners, and other government officials. Reports suggest that most States are yet to implement the Supreme Court Order which required District Vigilance committees to undertake surveys to identify and release those in bonded labour, as already required by the Bonded Labour Act. The State of Karnataka is an exception and has made progress on the Order. Efforts need to be directed toward expanding and improving victim support services.
The Ujjawala project is a victim support programme that provides rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration services for commercial sexual exploitation victims, and trafficking prevention initiatives. In addition, the SWADHAR GREH scheme provides temporary accommodation and rehabilitation services for women and girls, including survivors of trafficking. While government shelters are required to register, there are no standards attached to registration, and no inspections or followup. The shelters have limited facilities and resources to provide holistic support and are currently only available for women and girls. Of particular concern are reports of traffickers re-recruiting women into trafficking from shelters.
Indian police are beginning to collaborate with regional counterparts on transnational human trafficking investigations. In 2014, Indian and Bangladeshi police undertook a joint investigation to identify two Bangladeshi girls sold into commercial sexual exploitation in India. Both girls were found and successfully repatriated; the offenders are being prosecuted under new anti-trafficking provisions.
Vulnerability
Dalits have the least social protections and are highly vulnerable to severe forms of exploitation and modern slavery. The limited ability for people to move out of this group increases their vulnerability. Approximately 90 percent of India’s labourers are in the informal economy, presenting risks associated with a highly unregulated and unmonitored work environment. Women and girls face significant discrimination and high rates of sexual violence across India.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi referred to a string of rapes as a national ‘shame’, and there has been a raft of legislative and criminal justice reforms signalling some progress, women are still at risk of sexual assault and domestic violence. The rates of forced and servile marriage continue to trap women and girls in cycles of domestic servitude with few opportunities for education, meaningful employment or access to reproductive rights. Indian migrant workers actively seek jobs in construction and care industries, primarily in the Gulf, Europe and North America. From 2012 to 2015, there were more people leaving India than arriving, with most migrants seeking work through their networks rather than formal channels.29 Official migration processes are complex and often tainted by corruption, which further encourages irregular migration. These channels leave migrants with little recourse against practices such as unilateral contracts, dangerous working and living conditions, limited movement and access to communications, withholding of passports and wages, and physical and sexual abuse.
Recommendations to Government
Murli Deora. Photo: Bloomberg
Mumbai: Veteran Congress leader and former union minister Murli Deora passed away here early Monday following a brief illness, a senior party leader said.
He was 77 and the end came around 3.30 am. He is survived by his wife and two sons, including former union minister of state Milind M. Deora.
A former Mayor of Mumbai in 1977-78, and later chief or the Congress Party’s city unit for two decades, he was also Lok Sabha MP from Mumbai South, besides being the union minister for petroleum and natural gas, among other important assignments.
Deora’s body will be kept for public darshan at the Mumbai Region Congress Committee (MRCC) office in south Mumbai and the funeral ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. Monday at the Chandanwadi crematorium in the city.
Top party leaders and politicians cutting across the political spectrum started arriving at the Deora residence to pay their last respects to the high-profile leader.
Deora was one of the pillars of support to the Gandhi family and the Congress Party.
An economics graduate with a strong pro-US temperament, the Mumbai-born Deora had excellent personal relations with top political and business leaders, celebrities and media personalities all over the country.
(IANS)