Researching counterterrorism & the criminalisation of social movements @ISGnews • Organising, thinking, writing on & against counterinsurgency ☀️
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My piece on the November 2024 raids on the Kurdish community in London has been published in Race & Class. Thanks to everyone at @IRR_News for getting this out into the world!
It's open access, please read & share widely. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.…
The security state is insatiable in its search for maximum powers to disrupt & pacify the population.
The sheer hypocrisy of European liberals decrying ICE tactics when the Mediterranean remains the most dangerous border in the world & a mass graveyard...
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Not trying to get too Foucauldian with it, just remembering that the state assemblage's drive is ultimately towards violent social ordering & counterterrorism is where that's most easily accomplished.
The Palestine Action verdict shows that there are still cracks in the arsenal of counterterrorism legislation.
The question is, where will this trial run of expanding those powers exponentially take us now. Because there will be other avenues trialled.
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The Palestine Action verdict shows that there are still cracks in the arsenal of counterterrorism legislation.
The question is, where will this trial run of expanding those powers exponentially take us now. Because there will be other avenues trialled.
It's been said time and again but I do think an entire global population watching genocide unfold month after month with constant hegemonic distortions of reality has created levels of cognitive dissonance and emotional suffering that can't simply be undone.
Speaking of collective action:
Join the People's Caravan, see @RISEUP4R0JAVA for info
Donate to @Heyva__Sor, the only reliable way of getting aid to Rojava
And see you on the streets too ☀️
Shameful to see the gloating/scolding tone of various leftists responding to an all-out patriarchal, fascist, NATO-backed assault on Rojava. Your so-called anti-imperialism has no regard for humanity or dignity. What a spiritual death.
While Rojava is under attack by Western-backed HTS forces, I spent another day observing the trial of six members of the Kurdish community in London, who are all charged with membership of the PKK, facing potentially up to 14 years in prison. A masterclass in imperialism.
Solidarity between peoples will be the graveyard of fascism and imperialism, and will plant the seeds of freedom. Today more than ever we hold on to each other for hope.
We will protect the gains of the Rojava Revolution to the last drop of our blood.
An Serkeftin An Serkeftin
#Rojava
#NubarOzanyan
Also this is not in reference to the current situation but deserves another reading, esp by those who struggle with the realities and nuances of real internationalism.
jadaliyya.com/Details/45428/…
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The short memory of the Western left is so evident in the level of discourse on Rojava. You lot are outing yourselves as fetishists of whatever struggle is trendy, rather than committing to the nuance of principled internationalism. Embarrassing to be so gullible.
A history of prisoner hunger strikes shows us that the outcome is entirely determined by people outside of prison: if there is not a mass movement in support of the hunger strikers, tragedy is inevitable. Without one, these sacrifices are barely an inconvenience to the state.
A Palestine Action-linked prisoner on hunger strike is at "risk of sudden cardiac arrest", his sister has told Novara Media.
Kamran Ahmed, 28, is experiencing shrinkage to the muscle of his heart and has been diagnosed with bradycardia after being admitted to hospital on Wednesday. He has now gone 60 days without food.
Read the full report from @harriepw on the condition of Ahmed and Heba Muraisi: novara.media/4aLDq9q
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On my way to court on the first day of a three-month trial in which six Kurdish defendants, all based in London, are charged with membership of the PKK. A crucial case for understanding the repression of anticolonial struggle in the UK & the geopolitical aims of the British govt.
US oil acquisition & regime change were always partial aims of the so-called War on Terror. That's effective opportunism. The WoT grew out of Cold War imperial geostrategy & the repression of left-wing struggles in the imperial core, and these remain its ultimate priorities.
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Internal rifts within the security state always emerge around points of heightened contradiction. A clash of public/internal narratives & policies of counterterrorism. It's not that MI6 considers the powers themselves an overreach, but rather disagrees with whom they're aimed at.
NEW: A source very close to the senior leadership of MI6 has got in contact. They wanted to make public the opposition within the intelligence agency to the proscription of Palestine Action.
Senior figures are said to feel it is a distraction from the battle against real terrorist threat - and should never have happened.
The source has been verified.
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Unequivocally fuck the IOF.
But our energies should go into resisting & abolishing counterterror legislation. The idea that the inherently violent powers of proscription could be used in the favour of the people is sadly naïve.
State response to acts of horrific political violence is entirely predicated on racialised models of protection, and defence of the ideological status quo. "Terrorism" always defined according to pre-existing hierarchies which dehumanise & endanger so many.
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Jess Phillips laughing while claiming Palestine Action proscription was based on 'intelligence' is correct. It is laughable. What we've seen so far of such 'intelligence' has been dubious (the notion that Iran was funding PA). Ideological choices disguised as security measures.
"Would you have voted to proscribe the Suffragettes?"
At Labour's annual party conference, Novara Media reporter @RivkahBrown asked Jess Phillips MP about the seeming hypocrisy of voting for the proscription of Palestine Action, while also celebrating the legacy of the Suffragettes.
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Media outlets happy to repeat & amplify claims of intelligence that emerge as propaganda points with no context. Churned into news stories that then function as justification for state overreach. Many, many such cases.
declassifieduk.org/how-gover…
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Me on @12rulesforwhat discussing the legacies of counterterrorism, & why the proscription of Palestine Action is not a misuse of counterterror legislation, as many argue, but rather reveals the function of such powers in repressing anticolonial dissidence open.spotify.com/episode/35Q…
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If there's a silver lining to the hounding of Kneecap by the British state, it's to expose (again) the shamelessness of the state's use of counterterror legislation, and the purposeful expansion of "terrorism" to include the "support offence".