UAE Cracks Down on Social Media in an Effort to Maintain Its Phony Image

Dubai has been struggling to maintain its image as a safe and picturesque locale since the region has been under attack during the Trump-Iran war.  But early on, as Iranian missiles began to fall on Dubai (the largest and most ostentatiously luxe city in the United Arab Emirates) the facade began to crack.   The city once touted as one of the safest places in the world is now no longer a peaceful haven. And the UAE government has rushed to try and control the narrative, prompting a huge crackdown on anyone sharing photos of missile attacks and their aftermath. Instead, content creators have been posting weirdly similar photos and videos full of praise, parroting buzzwords about the city’s strong, stable leaders.

Satellite images of Dubai show smoke from areas damaged by air strikes

How can influencers continue to portray the “Dubai dream” online, when the whole world knows that the city has been mired in conflict? And what about the ordinary people who are being detained for sharing photos and videos that go against the official line?

Like any Fascist, Trump Is Trying to Criminalize Protesting

The Trump administration believes you don't have the right to record Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in public. This stance is both factually wrong and an attempt to chill free speech by conflating it with violence.

At a July 2025 press conference in Tampa, Florida, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said, "Violence is anything that threatens them and their safety, so it is doxing them, it's videotaping them where they're at when they're out on operations, encouraging other people to come and to throw things, rocks, bottles."

In September 2025, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin called "videotaping ICE law enforcement and posting photos and videos of them online" a form of doxing. She added, "We will prosecute those who illegally harass ICE agents to the fullest extent of the law."

These aren't idle threats. The Trump administration strong-armed Apple into removing an app from its mobile store that tracked ICE activity and threatened criminal investigations into its creators.

The most aggressive application of this policy has come in Chicago under "Operation Midway Blitz," where ICE officers have relentlessly targeted protesters, reporters, and clergy engaged in protected First Amendment activity. In October, a group of journalists and protesters filed a lawsuit alleging "a
pattern of extreme brutality in a concerted and ongoing effort to silence the press
 and civilians."

In court filings, the plaintiffs stated that federal officials' own testimony illustrated their point. For example, when ICE field director Russell Hott was asked if he agreed "that it's unconstitutional to arrest people for being opposed to Midway Blitz," he answered "No."  "Similarly, [U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Greg] Bovino testified that he has instructed his officers to arrest protesters who make hyperbolic comments in the heat of political demonstrations, even though such statements—which do not constitute true threats—are protected speech," the motion argued.

U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction against DHS in early November 2025, saying the government's conduct "shocked the conscience."  Ellis found much of the officials' testimony not credible. Bovino, for instance, testified that he never used force against a protester he was filmed tackling, and in another instance, Ellis said, he lied about being hit with a rock before firing tear gas at demonstrators. Nor did evidence support the government's claims that federal officers issued warnings before firing less-than-lethal projectiles at those protesters.  "Describing rapid response networks and neighborhood moms as professional agitators shows just how out of touch these agents are, and how extreme their views are," said Ellis.

Cato Institute senior fellow Walter Olson points out that, "While the Supreme Court itself hasn't yet faced the issue squarely, the seven federal circuits that have done so…all agree that the First Amendment protects the right to record police performing their duties in public."  Likewise, federal circuits have upheld the right to use vulgar language to oppose police without fear of retaliation, and to warn others of nearby police checkpoints or speed traps.

Recording government agents is one of the few tools citizens have to hold state power accountable. Any attempt to redefine observation as "violence" is not only unconstitutional—it's authoritarian gaslighting. When a government fears cameras more than crimes, it isn't protecting the rule of law. It's protecting itself.

 

Nicknames For You to Use on Your "No-Kings" Signs

Honorable mentions:

Acetaminofelon

Adolf Twitler

Cheeto in Charge 

Count of Mostly Crisco 

Donnie D Cups

Founding Farter 

Marmalade Monarch 

President Oompa J. Loompa 

Tangerine Palpatine

More Trump Weaponization of the Federal Government

The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, three people familiar with the matter said Friday.

The bureau last spring had reassigned the agents but has since fired them, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel matters with The Associated Press.  The number of FBI employees terminated was not immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20.

The photographs at issue showed a group of agents taking the knee during one of the demonstrations following the May 2020 killing of Floyd, a death that led to a national reckoning over policing and racial injustice and sparked widespread anger after millions of people saw video of the arrest. The kneeling had angered some in the FBI but was also understood as a possible de-escalation tactic during a period of protests.

The FBI Agents Association confirmed in a statement late Friday that more than a dozen agents had been fired, including military veterans with additional statutory protections, and condemned the move as unlawful. It called on Congress to investigate and said the firings were another indication of FBI Director Kash Patel’s disregard for the legal rights of bureau employees.

“As Director Patel has repeatedly stated, nobody is above the law,” the agents association said. “But rather than providing these agents with fair treatment and due process, Patel chose to again violate the law by ignoring these agents’ constitutional and legal rights instead of following the requisite process.”

The firings come amid a broader personnel purge at the bureau as Patel works to reshape the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency. Five agents and top-level executives were known to have been summarily fired last month in a wave of ousters that current and former officials say has contributed to declining morale.

One of those, Steve Jensen, helped oversee investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. Another, Brian Driscoll, served as acting FBI director in the early days of the Trump administration and resisted Justice Department demands to supply the names of agents who investigated Jan. 6.

A third, Chris Meyer, was incorrectly rumored on social media to have participated in the investigation into President Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. A fourth, Walter Giardina, participated in high-profile investigations like the one into Trump adviser Peter Navarro.

At a disastrous congressional hearing last week, Patel denied taking orders from the White House on whom to fire and said anyone who has been fired failed to meet the FBI’s standards.  The FBI has so far not released copies of the FBI "standards" that restrict free speech or prohibit agents from using certain de-escalation tactics.

 

Jimmy Kimmel is Back!

Campus Protests Cap Off Senior Year for College Students

In January 2020, they were seniors in high school. Graduation was just around the corner. But so was a deadly pandemic. By mid-March, Covid had upended daily life and many students were forced to spend their final months of school at home. Proms were cancelled.

Four years later, those same students are now in college about to graduate. And once again, they face a similar souring of what would normally be a festive occasion.  Pro-Palestinian protests have erupted at over 130 college campuses across the US, as organizers demand their universities cut ties from companies linked to Israel. They've set up vast encampments in the middle of university grounds and defied multiple warnings to disperse, sparking police raids and over 2,000 arrests.  Three seniors explain how they're dealing with this tumultuous ending of their academic careers - for the second time.

Georgia GOP Wants to Criminalize Libraries

A proposal that would require school libraries to notify parents of every book their child checks out was advanced by Georgia state  senators, while a proposal to subject school librarians to criminal charges for distributing material containing obscenity waits in the wings.

The measures are part of a broad and continuing push by Republicans in many states to root out what they see as inappropriate material from schools and libraries, saying books and electronic materials are corrupting children.  Opponents say it's a campaign of censorship meant to block children's freedom to learn, while scaring teachers and librarians into silence for fear of losing their jobs or worse.

Georgia senators are also considering bills to force all public and school libraries in the state to cut ties with the American Library Association and to restrict school libraries' ability to hold or acquire any works that depict sexual intercourse or sexual arousal. Neither measure has advanced out of committee ahead of a deadline next week for bills to pass out of their originating chamber.

"This is part of a larger national and Georgia trend to try to limit access," said Nora Benavidez, a board member of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation and lawyer for Free Press, a group that seeks to democratize the media. "The logical endpoint of where this bill, as well as others, are taking us is for children to have less exposure to ideas."

 

Satire is Apparently Now Illegal in Jordan

After a decade lampooning the region’s kings, autocrats and despots, the satirical website AlHudood has been blocked in Jordan, where it was founded in 2013, with Isam  Uraiqat and his team of comedy writers now effectively personae non grata. Their offense? Mocking the lavish wedding of the kingdom’s crown prince.

Comedians and satirists were on the leading edge of the Arab Spring, the wave of protests that brought down or weakened dictators from 2010 to 2012. Bassem Youssef, known as Egypt’s Jon Stewart, ridiculed powerful politicians from across the political spectrum, drawing millions of viewers until his show was canceled in 2014. In the early years of Syria’s civil war, an anonymous collective of puppeteers poked fun at Bashar al-Assad and his regime.

But while parts of the Middle East are in the midst of a modernization push that is bringing raves to the Saudi desert and Israelis to World Cup games in Qatar, the region is still wrestling with how seriously to take itself. Police crackdowns and a flurry of new laws restricting free speech are growing.   “The space for comedy and political satire in the Middle East has shrunk,” said Céline Assaf Boustani, president of Human Rights Foundation, a New York-based human rights organization. Many comedians, including Youssef, now reside in exile in the West.

The United Arab Emirates, a favorite target of AlHudood, or “the Limit,” blocked the satirical website two years ago. Egyptian authorities detained three TikTok influencers earlier this year after they posted a parody video about visiting an inmate in the country’s feared prisons. Algeria’s satirical website, El Manchar, cited government pressure when it shut down in 2020. In July, the U.A.E. arrested an influencer living in the country after he posted a biting parody of an Emirati on an exorbitant spending spree.

The AlHudood website is irreverent and ruthless in challenging feared Middle East rulers and daily political life in the region.  It has published sardonic stories about a joint Saudi-Turkish “counter-journalism agreement,” a British-French team of crocodiles patrolling the English Channel looking for migrant boats, and an Israeli offer to help the Syrian government bomb Syrian cities.

But it was AlHudood’s coverage earlier this summer of a royal wedding that seemed to be the final straw in Jordan. It published a series of stories pillorying Jordan’s royal family for spending so much on the wedding when millions in the country struggle with poverty.

Uraiqat suspects that the post that got him in trouble was one about the royal wedding that urged citizens to “be happy, dog,” a pointed insult in the Middle East. Uraiqat suspects that the government thought the reference was to the crown prince who was getting married, not the average citizen. The Jordanian government declined to comment on its reasons for imposing the ban.

In Jordan, widely regarded as one of the region’s more progressive countries, the government is clamping down on its online critics, including AlHudood. The country’s parliament last month approved a cybercrime bill that expands the government’s powers to prosecute people accused of undermining national unity. In a statement ahead of the vote, a State Department spokesman warned that the draft law could “further shrink the civic space that journalists, bloggers, and other members of civil society operate in.”

She Was A Tortured, But Brave Soul

In 1992, Sinéad O’Connor destroyed a photo of Pope John Paul II on U.S. national television. The pushback was swift, turning the late Irish singer-songwriter’s protest of sex abuse in the Catholic Church into a career-altering flashpoint.

That night O’Connor, head shaved and looking straight into the camera, stood alone singing Bob Marley’s song “War” a capella. She finished the final lines, “We know we will win/ We have confidence in the victory/of good over evil,” and then moved an off-screen photo of Pope John Paul II in front of the camera.  Then O’Connor ripped it to pieces. She called out, “Fight the real enemy,” before she threw the scraps to the ground. Clohessy remembers it well.

More than 30 years later, her “Saturday Night Live” performance and its stark collision of popular culture and religious statement is remembered by some as an offensive act of desecration. But for others (including survivors of clergy sex abuse) O’Connor’s protest was prophetic, forecasting the global denomination's public reckoning that was, at that point, yet to come.  The quarter-century legacy of Pope John Paul II has been badly tarnished by evidence he turned a blind eye to abuse even when the Vatican had copiously well-documented cases and even when bishops in the U.S., facing mounting legal liability, begged the Vatican for fast-track ways to defrock abusers in the 1980s.

56-year-old O'Connor was declared dead after being found unresponsive yesterday at her home in southeast London. Saddened by her passing, Brenna Moore, a theology professor at Fordham University in New York and a big fan of O'Connor, described her as “a kind of prophetic truth-teller.” Society, especially in the English-speaking world, is used to men taking on this role, Moore said, but when a woman does it, she’s accused of being crazy and angry. Moore, referencing O’Connor’s memoir, said the singer was more than a rebel with a shaved head.   “She sort of stands in a long line of artists and poets who have a kind of rebellious punk ability to speak truth to power in a very performative way,” Moore said. “She was a profoundly spiritual person, a profound seeker of transcendence and the truth."

Jamie Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, was a teen living on Long Island with her traditional Catholic Italian family in 1992; she recalled just how horrified they were by O’Connor’s protest.  Manson called O'Connor a visionary, especially given that neither the Irish or U.S. Catholic hierarchy had yet publicly reckoned with the pervasiveness of clergy sex abuse.  “Not many people that we would call prophetic are willing to risk everything, and she was. … And she lost almost everything as a result,” Manson said. “It is very, very scary to challenge the church in a very public way. And it takes enormous bravery and a willingness to be able to let go of everything.”

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who has represented victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse in numerous cases across the U.S., connected with O'Connor around the time of her SNL appearance. In a statement, Anderson called her wise and ahead of her time.  “Sinéad saw predator priests not as a ‘couple bad apples’ but as signs and proof of a deeply corrupt and almost untouchable clerical system,” Anderson said. “It took tremendous courage for her to be one of those early, lonely voices for the voiceless."

Michael McDonnell, interim executive director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said O’Connor "wore the anguish of victims of clergy abuse and it seems as though she knew in 1992 the horrors that hadn’t yet been revealed.   “Ultimately,” he said, “she relieved the pain for tens of thousands of victims with rebellion.”

Shunned by America after her SNL appearance, O'Connor continued to release music and tour. Her concerts were always packed. As a new generation discovered her artistry and power, something changed.   Among her 21st century crowds there was a new energy, a joyous appreciation. Her 2021 memoir, Rememberings, reclaimed her narrative. She had won, because she had pursued an authentic life beyond the artifice of the music industry structures, and she wanted everyone to know that.

Kathryn Ferguson's documentary that came the following year, Nothing Compares, extrapolated on this narrative, closing with scenes of Irish protest and progress on marriage equality and abortion rights, demonstrating how it was O'Connor's worldview that would ultimately be followed.  O'Connor had been right all along, and everyone knew it. Her resilience was a human manifestation of vindication. As Ireland became a more secular country, she was one of the leading voices for confronting the Catholic Church while maintaining a personal spirituality.

 

Elon Musk is All About Free Speech, Except When it Offends India's Modi

While Elon Musk likes to complain about suppression of speech against conservatives in the United States — something that he has described as nothing less than “a battle for the future of civilization” — he appears to be failing at the far graver challenge of standing up to the authoritarian demands of foreign governments.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Twitter censored a report critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in coordination with the government of India, according to a top Indian official. Officials called for the Big Tech companies to take action against a BBC documentary exploring Modi’s role in a genocidal 2002 massacre in the Indian state of Gujarat, which the officials deemed a “propaganda piece.”

In a series of posts, Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser at the Indian government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, denounced the BBC documentary as “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage.” He said that both Twitter and YouTube had been ordered to block links to the film, before adding that the platforms “have complied with the directions.” Gupta’s statements coincided with posts from Twitter users in India who claimed to have shared links to the documentary but whose posts were later removed.

This act of censorship — wiping away allegations of crimes against humanity committed by a foreign leader — sets a worrying tone for Twitter.  Elon Musk’s self-identification as a “free-speech absolutist” has been a primary talking point for the billionaire as he has sought to explain why he took ownership of the platform last year. 

Twitter even blocked Indian audiences from seeing two posts by actor John Cusack linking to the documentary. (They remain visible to American audiences.) Cusack said he “pushed out the links and got immediate blowback.” He told The Intercept, “I received two notices that I’m banned in India.” The actor wrote a book, “Things That Can and Cannot Be Said,” with celebrated Indian scholar Arundhati Roy, a fierce critic of the Modi government.

The Gujarat riots, as the violence is sometimes known, occurred in 2002, when Modi was the chief minister of the state. A group of militants aligned with the Hindu nationalist movement, which encompasses Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, launched a violent campaign against local Muslims. Modi, who has been accused of personally encouraging the violence, reportedly told police forces to stand down in the face of the ongoing violence, which killed about 1,000 people.

“The documentary has unnerved Mr. Modi as he continues to evade accountability for his complicity in the violence,” Naik, the journalist, said. “He sees the documentary as a threat to his image internationally and has launched an unprecedented crackdown in India.”

Twitter’s moves at the behest of Modi’s government bode ill for Musk’s claims to be running the company with an aim of protecting free speech. While Musk has felt fine wading into U.S. culture wars on behalf of conservatives, he has been far more reticent to take a stand about the far direr threats to free speech from autocratic governments.

 

Critics of Anti-Cheating Technology Being Silenced by Lawsuits

 n 2020, a Canadian university employee named Ian Linkletter became increasingly alarmed by a new kind of technology that was exploding in use with the pandemic. It was meant to detect cheating by college and high-school students taking tests at home, and claimed to work by watching students’ movements and analyzing sounds around them through their webcams and microphones to automatically flag suspicious behavior.

So Linkletter accessed a section of the website of one of the anti-cheating companies, named Proctorio, intended only for instructors and administrators. He shared what he found on social media.  Now Linkletter, who became a prominent critic of the technology, has been sued by the company. But he is not the only one.  Linkletter’s continuing case illustrates how vicious the fight over so called e-proctoring has become. At the height of the pandemic, it was estimated to be in use in nearly 63% of US and Canadian colleges and universities, and is thought still to be available in many of those, despite students’ return to classrooms.

And while there are a number of companies which offer versions of the contentious software, Arizona-based Proctorio, which has a partnership with education giant McGraw Hill, is among the largest providers. It has been carving a name for itself by taking on its critics both in and out of court.  The company, founded in 2013 by its current CEO, Mike Olsen, uses face and gaze detection among other tools to surveil test takers and ensure they are consistently interacting with an exam. Algorithms based on artificial intelligence flag abnormal behavior to university administrators for review.  However, how effective e-proctoring technology is at detecting cheating, or even deterring it, is the subject of debate. And a notable instance when the software was unable to recognize a Black student’s face has brought unflattering attention.

We Need More Shame

Many media observers were shocked by an utterly moronic opinion piece from the New York Times' editorial board last month ("America Has a Free Speech Problem") where they lamented, "Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country:  the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions without fear of being shamed or shunned."  The board thought that it was a grave social problem that 55% of survey respondents said that they had held their tongue over the past year because they were concerned about retaliation or harsh criticism."

If anything, I would think that number should be much higher.  I would hope that all of us would have second thoughts about our opinions before we go shooting off our mouth. It may have been too many years since I was in college, but I thought freedom of speech meant that you have the right to speak your mind without fear of retaliation, censorship or legal sanction by the government.  It doesn't mean that you are shielded from the consequences of your words by law-abiding citizens.

And of course, there is no constitutional right to "feeling good" as a result of your speech-- and thank god, we finally have an opinion writer at the NYT who comes out and says that.  In "What's Shame Got to Do With It", University of North Carolina professor Tressie McMillon Cottom writes, "[shame] can be functionally good, like when it keeps your pants on in public.  Despite the bad rap that shame gets in our overly psychoanalyzed culture, it is merely a feedback loop that tells you something about your behavior as well as the expectations of others . . . it is bizarre to think that we should legislate, regulate or condition away an emotion."

What's even more important is the distinction Cottom makes between shame and stigma, pointing out, "When we elevate shame from psychological state to social problem, we value systems of oppression that stigmatize those with the least power." Read the piece here.

Chinese "Squid Games" Mired in Controversy From the Start

People are incredulous and outraged about the controversial $3.4 billion Olympic games that begin today. The first unbelievable thing is the absence of the one element central to any Winter Olympics:  snow. 

Olympic organizers should have known this would be a problem.  Between January and March of last year, the competition venue at the National Alpine Ski Centre in Yanqing (50 miles NW of Beijing) had less than one inch of snow cm of snow-- less than London or Madrid.

And pictures of the venues tell their own story. The new national ski-jumping center is certainly impressive – but sits incongruously in a barren landscape of dirty brown hills. It's hardly alpine.  As for the snowboarding slope, it has been built in the heart of the city's concrete-clad industrial area, overlooked by the massive former cooling towers of an old steel mill.

Dubious decisions by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in awarding the Games are nothing new.  For the 2014 Games in the subtropical Russian resort of Sochi, 80 per cent of the snow was fake.  But Yanqing, which hosts the alpine skiing, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton, will take the phony white stuff to new extremes. Using 49 million gallons of water, 300 snow guns will blanket the competition surfaces – despite the regular water shortages that China's parched capital suffers.

Chinese authorities have detained two prominent human-rights activists in the lead up to the games-- quietly intensifying a crackdown on dissent weeks before the country hosts the most politicized Winter Olympics in recent memory.  Free speech advocate Yang Maodong was formally detained in the southern city of Guangzhou on suspicion of inciting subversion, just two days after his wife died of cancer in the U.S.  Yang, who writes under the pen name Guo Feixiong, has been blocked from leaving China for the past year.  Authorities rejected his pleas (and entreaties from friends and family) that he be allowed to be with his wife in her final months.  Friends said they had lost contact with the 55-year-old Yang in early December, though it was only until January 12 that police officially confirmed his detention by the state.  According to Yang's sister, the police have been vague about the reason for his detention. 

Xie Yang, a 49-year-old lawyer who has taken up politically sensitive cases related to religion and land rights, was detained on January 11 also on subversion charges, and is being held in the southern city of Changsha, according to his family. Yang has been in police custody on and off since 2013. While in detention five years ago, he gave an explosive account of being tortured, beaten and threatened by interrogators.   "You can imagine authorities all over the country are tightening control preemptively to strike out an potential dissent and criticism," said Renee Xia, a senior researcher with Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Washaington, DC-based group.

Chinese authorities also pressured dissidents and activists ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics.  Under President Xi Jinping, China has grown less tolerant of dissent, tightening controls over the media and the internet while pursuing a campaign of forced assimilation against ethnic minorities in remote regions of the country.  And of course, all of this is happening during the slow-motion erosion of civil liberties in Hong Kong.

Human Rights Watch says China wants to 'sportswash' its human-rights record.  A spokesman said: "These Winter Games reflect President Xi Jinping's efforts to burnish China's image on the world stage and distract attention from the Chinese government's assault on human rights, targeting independent civil society, erasing press freedom and expanding high- tech surveillance."

Beijing Olympics are being operated in closed, heavily censored environment. Those outside can’t enter. Those inside can’t leave, and can only catch glimpses of the country from bus windows.  Chinese staff working the Games wear white hazmat suits that make it difficult to see the person inside, lending to dystopian atmosphere that many are comparing to the Korean TV show Squid Game. The ill-fated games were plagued by controversy from the very start, however . . . 

China Steps Up Suppression of Tianenmen Commemorations

One of the last public memorials in Hong Kong to those killed in the Tiananmen protests has been covered up.  The calligraphy-- painted on the pavement of a bridge-- paid tribute to the pro-democracy protesters killed by Chinese authorities in Beijing in 1989.

It was covered with metal by the University of Hong Kong, which called the work routine maintenance.  But its removal comes as Beijing has increasingly been cracking down on political dissent in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong used to be one of few places in China that allowed public commemoration of the Tiananmen protests - a highly sensitive topic in the country.  The Tiananmen Square massacre came amid large-scale demonstrations calling for greater political freedoms.  At the height of the protests, about one million people assembled in the Square, but in June 1989 the military moved in and troops opened fire.  The Chinese government claim that 200 civilians and several dozen security personnel died - but it is widely accepted that thousands died, with several thousand more wounded.

The image that China wants people to forget

 

Since China began tightening its grip over Hong Kong, it has cleared the city of criticism of the ruling Communist party.  Last month, a famous statue at the University of Hong Kong - the Pillar of Shame - was removed. The following day, two more universities in the city took down monuments.

The latest memorial to be taken down is calligraphy painted on a pavement on Swire Bridge outside a university dormitory.  The slogan celebrated martyrs it said were slaughtered in cold blood, and every year students would repaint it in an act of remembrance. But construction workers were seen covering up the words.  The university gave no explanation, merely saying it had carried out routine maintenance. 

Earlier this month, a pro-democracy Hong Kong activist was jailed for organizing a vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen Square crackdown.  Hong Kong authorities have banned the vigil for the past two years, citing Covid restrictions - though it is widely believed that local officials have bowed to pressure from Beijing in advance of the Winter Olympics.

 

Florida Professors Banned From Testifying Against Florda Anti-Voting Law

The decision by the University of Florida (UF) to muzzle three professors from testifying against a new state law restricting people from their constitutional right to vote has exploded into a political and public relations battle. 

In a case challenging Senate Bill 90, UF political science professors Daniel Smith, Michael McDonald, and Sharon Austin were notified via email that their request to serve as experts was denied. Now, according to reporting by The New York Times, five more professors have come forward about being banned from testifying.

The body that sets the accreditation for the university opened an inquiry to determine whether banning the faculty was in legal conflict with the “academic freedom” and “undue political influence” standards of the school, Miami Herald reported.  In reaction to the accreditation threat, the university’s president ordered a review of the decision to ban the professors from testifying.

“The University of Florida stands firmly behind its commitment to uphold our most sacred right as Americans, the right to free speech, and to faculty members’ right to academic freedom,” UF said in a statement. “Nothing is more fundamental to our existence as an institution.”

Since the start of all of this controversy, all roads have conspicuously led to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who of course denies any involvement.   "This is an internal U.F. issue and not the sort of thing that the executive branch would be involved in,” Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’ spokeswoman told the Times. “Governor DeSantis has always championed free speech, open inquiry and viewpoint diversity on college and university campuses.” 

It seems awfully suspicious that the one professor in Florida allowed to testify is one who chose to defend the state's oppressive and racist voting law, doesn't it?  Florida International University professor Dairo Moreno was allowed to testify as an expert witness in defense of every GOP-drawn redistricting map since 1994, according to the Tampa Bay Times. 

FBI Foils Iranian Plot to Kidnap American Journalist

Four Iranian intelligence officials have been charged with plotting to kidnap Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American author and activist.  The conspirators, who all live in Iran and remain at large, are also believed to have plotted to lure a person in the UK and three others in Canada to Iran.  All of the targets had been critical of Iran.

DOJ says the Iranian officials sought to lure the New York-based journalist to a third country where the abduction was planned.  The plotters even offered money to the writer's relatives in Iran to betray them, which they refused to do, the indictment contends.

They hired private investigators to spy on the target's Brooklyn home and family, and set up a live video feed of the property. They also planned to hire a military-style speedboat to evacuate Alinejad from New York City, and use international maritime routes to take her to Venezuela, an ally of Iran.

44-year-old Alinejad is a prominent figure on social media and hosts a program on Voice of America Persian. She runs the My Stealthy Freedom and White Wednesdays campaigns against the mandatory wearing of headscarves for Iranian women. In a public statement, she said, "I am grateful to FBI for foiling the Islamic Republic of Iran's Intelligence Ministry's plot to kidnap me. This plot was orchestrated under Rouhani. This is the regime that kidnapped & executed Ruhollah Zam. They've also kidnapped and jailed Jamshid Sharmahd and many others."

In 2019, the Paris-based dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam was enticed by Iranian agents to travel to Iraq, where he was kidnapped. He was executed last year after being convicted of sedition charges.

 

Unprecedented Protests Erupt in Cuba

Thousands of Cubans have joined the biggest protests for decades against the island's Communist government.  They marched in cities including the capital Havana, shouting, "Down with the dictatorship!".  Images on social media showed what appear to be security forces detaining and beating some of the protesters.

Cubans have been angered by the collapse of the economy, as well as by restrictions on civil liberties and the authorities' handling of the pandemic.  The protesters were demanding a faster coronavirus vaccination effort with the country reporting a record of nearly 7,000 daily infections and 47 deaths.

Posts on social media showed people overturning police cars and looting some state-owned shops which price their goods in foreign currencies. For many Cubans, these shops are the only way they can buy basic necessities but prices are high.  "This is the day. We can't take it anymore. There is no food, there is no medicine, there is no freedom. They do not let us live. We are already tired," one of the protesters, who gave his name only as Alejandro, told reporters. 

Last year, Cuba's largely state-controlled economy shrank by 11%, its worst decline in almost three decades. It was hit hard by the pandemic and U.S . sanctions.

Thousands of pro-government supporters also took to the streets after the president went on television to urge them to defend the revolution - referring to the 1959 uprising which ushered in decades of Communist rule.  President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the protests were a provocation by mercenaries hired by the U.S. to destabilize the country.  "The order to fight has been given - into the street, revolutionaries!" he said in an address on TV.

The top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, Julie Chung, tweeted: "We are deeply concerned by 'calls to combat' in Cuba.  We stand by the Cuban people's right for peaceful assembly. We call for calm and condemn any violence."

 

Modi Continues His Attack on Media and Freedom of Speech in an Effort to Deflect Criticism of His Handling of the Exploding COVID Crisis in India

India's government has instructed social media companies to remove any content that refers to the "Indian variant" of Covid-19.

Platforms were asked to "remove all the content that names, refers to, or implies 'Indian variant' of coronavirus from your platform immediately", the Press Trust of India reported.   "It has come to our knowledge that a false statement is being circulated online which implies that an 'Indian variant' of coronavirus is spreading across the countries. This is completely FALSE," AFP news agency quoted the same letter as saying.

Even though the World Health Organization (WHO) has listed the variant as B.1.617, geographical terms have been used to describe a number of other variants, including the UK and Brazil.  B.1.617, a more transmissible variant, was first detected in India last year and has spread to dozens of countries. A number of nations have severely restricted arrivals from India.  Practically speaking, it would be extremely difficult to take down all references to "Indian variant" on the internet-- and what Modi's government is seeking is complete censorship over all reporting across the world.

India's government is extremely sensitive to criticism, due to its poor handling of the Covid-19 crisis.  It also drew anger last month after it ordered Twitter to remove posts critical of some of its actions during the pandemic.

The country has been hit hard by the new variant since late March and is now second only to the US in terms of overall infections, at more than 26 million, according to Johns Hopkins University research.  Covid-related deaths are close to 300,000, behind only the US and Brazil, although experts widely believe that India's fatalities are considerably higher.

India's government this year introduced guidelines it said were intended to curb misuse of social media and the spread of misinformation.  If the government deems that any material appearing on a social media platform is "unlawful", the company can be prosecuted if it does not remove the content. The rules in essence mean companies cannot evade responsibility for what users post.

Many accused the Modi government of yet another attack on freedom of speech and this latest move fuels concerns over Modi's  persistent attacks on the freedom of the press.  Last month, the government told Twitter and Facebook to remove some posts critical of Modi's handling of Covid-19. It also recently criticized Twitter for labeling some tweets by Indian politicians "manipulated media", which the platform uses referring to possible fabrications and deceptions.

 

 

 

 

 

Owner of Chinese Takeout Goes Viral for Savage Responses to Customer Reviews

The owner of a Chinese restaurant in West Yorkshire, England has become an internet icon for her fiery responses to disgruntled customers.  Alice Cheung, the boss of Oriental Express restaurant, has garnered 149 online reviews and she’s made a point of personally replying to every negative one.

While most customers award the eatery five or six stars, Cheung refuses to pander to the complaints of some of the “sillier” reviews, she told reporters. 

So when one woman complained that the food was “terrible”, the feisty owner was having none of it.  “You ordered a Vegetarian Munch Box and then called the shop to complain there was no MEAT in it,” Cheung wrote back.  “We sent what you ordered and there was nothing wrong with it. The bad review is to cover your error,” she continued, before ending the response: “Please do not call again.”

Another reviewer moaned that her meal was “not good, soggy and old” and that she “threw most of it away,” before condemning it for being much more expensive than her regular takeaway.  Cheung replied: “I suggest you stay with the other takeaway and take your false review with you.”

Responding to a one-star reviewer, whose full comment has been deleted, Cheung wrote: “What sort of idiot orders ‘Salt & Pepper Chicken’ and then complains it has salt in it, our delivery record shows it was NOT late and it was NOT cold. “A fake review and derogatory too. Take your foul mouth and business somewhere else.”

Another critic – who offered the restaurant a similarly measly two stars out of six – said her meal had been “totally ruined” by “small pieces of battered dry chicken mixed in with battered prawns.”  The furious response read: “Will you please open your eyes and read the descriptions, you ordered the ‘Special sweet and sour’ which contains king prawns. You got what you ordered so how is this our fault?  “The food was fresh and perfectly cooked. We are good but mind-reading the stupid is not one of our skills.”

A reviewer named Michael complained the deluxe box was too expensive, and nowhere near enough food for the price.  Cheung replied, "I'm sorry the food was not good for you.  You should cook your own-- thank you for [your] review."

Another two-star reviewer failed to write a justification for his low score. So Cheung replied sarcastically: “Thank you Kyle, what? Too much food, too hot, too tasty, delivered too quickly?”

Speaking to reporters, Cheung defended her tough tactics: “If you’re writing a review just be honest about the situation-- If we messed up, we’ll reply seriously. If not, expect some banter.”

 

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