Tag: rights

Biden to mark Good Friday peace deal in 5-day Irish trip

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DUBLIN — U.S. President Joe Biden will pay a five-day visit to both parts of Ireland next month to mark the 25^th anniversary of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday peace accord, according to a provisional Irish government itinerary seen by POLITICO.
The plans, still being finalized with the White House, have the president arriving in Northern Ireland on April 11. That’s one day after the official quarter-century mark for the Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal designed to end decades of conflict that claimed more than 3,600 lives.
With Irish roots on both sides of his family tree, Biden has long taken an interest in brokering and maintaining peace in Northern Ireland. He has welcomed the recent U.K.-EU agreement on making post-Brexit trade rules work in the region — a breakthrough that has yet to revive local power-sharing at the heart of the 1998 accord.

According to two Irish government officials involved in planning the Biden visit itinerary, the president will start his stay overnight at Hillsborough Castle, southwest of Belfast, the official residence for visiting British royalty, as a guest of the U.K.’s Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris.
Then he’s scheduled to visit Stormont, the parliamentary complex overlooking Belfast, at the invitation of its caretaker speaker, Alex Maskey of the Irish republican Sinn Féin party.
That could prove controversial given that, barring a diplomatic miracle, the Northern Ireland Assembly and its cross-community government — a core achievement of the 1998 agreement — won’t be functioning due to a long-running boycott by the Democratic Unionists. That party has not yet accepted the U.K.-EU compromise deal on offer because it keeps Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the U.K., subject to EU goods rules and able to trade more easily with the rest of Ireland than with Britain. Nonetheless, assembly members from all parties including the DUP will be invited to meet Biden there.
The president is booked to officiate the official ribbon-cutting of the new downtown Belfast campus of Ulster University. During his stay in Northern Ireland he also is expected to pay a visit to Queen’s University Belfast, where former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton serves as chancellor.
Next, the Irish government expects the presidential entourage to cross the border into the Republic of Ireland, potentially by motorcade, the approach last adopted by Bill Clinton during his third and final visit to Ireland as president in 2000.
This would allow Biden to pay a visit to one side of his Irish family tree, the Finnegans, in County Louth. Louth is midway between Belfast and Dublin. Biden previously toured the area in 2016 as vice president, when he met distant relatives for the first time and visited the local graveyard.
In Dublin, it is not yet confirmed whether Biden will deliver a speech at College Green outside the entrance of Trinity College. That’s the spot where Barack Obama delivered his own main speech during a one-day visit as president in 2011.
A White House advance team is expected in Dublin this weekend to scout that and other potential locations for a speech and walkabout. He isn’t expected to hold any functions at the Irish parliament, which begins a two-week Easter recess Friday.
Members of Ireland’s national police force, An Garda Síochána, have been told by commanders they cannot go on leave during the week of April 10-16 in anticipation of Biden’s arrival. The Irish expect U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to accompany the president and take part in more detailed talks with Northern Ireland’s leaders.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar plans to host the president and Blinken at Farmleigh House, a state-owned mansion previously owned by the Guinness brewing dynasty, inside Dublin’s vast Phoenix Park.
The final two days of Biden’s visit will focus on the other side of his Irish roots, the Blewitts of County Mayo, on Ireland’s west coast, which he also visited in 2016. Distant cousins he first met on that trip have since been repeated guests of the White House, most recently on St. Patrick’s Day.
White House officials declined to discuss specific dates or any events planned, but did confirm that Biden would travel to Ireland “right after Easter.” This suggests an April 11 arrival in line with the Irish itinerary. Easter Sunday falls this year on April 9 and, in both parts of Ireland, the Christian holiday is a two-day affair ending in Easter Monday.
Jonathan Lemire contributed reporting.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 30, 2023
Russian father jailed after daughter made anti-war drawing goes on the run

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A man sentenced to two years in prison in a case launched against him after his daughter drew an anti-war picture at school is on the run from the authorities, a spokeswoman for a provincial court told journalists.
Earlier Tuesday, a judge in the town of Yefremov in Russia’s Tula region, south of Moscow, found Alexei Moskalyov guilty of discrediting the Russian army on social media and sentenced him to two years in a penal colony.
Moskalyov was not present at the hearing.
Once the proceedings were over, a court spokeswoman, responding to inquiries as to Moskalyov’s whereabouts, said: “The defendant, Mr. Moskalyov, was not present when the verdict was announced because he fled house arrest last night.”
Her words were met with applause and several cries of “Bravo!” from some of those in attendance.
Formally, Moskalyov was sentenced for two comments he made on social media in which he described Russian soldiers as rapists and Russia’s leadership as “terrorists.”
But Moskalyov’s defense team and rights activists have argued his persecution is in fact retribution for a drawing made by his daughter Masha at school in April last year, when she was 12.
In the drawing, a woman and child stand next to a flag reading “Glory to Ukraine” in the path of a rocket shower coming from the direction of a Russian tricolor flag labeled: “No to war.”

According to an interview given by Moskalyov to independent media before his arrest, Masha’s teacher informed the director of the school, who then got the police involved, triggering a chain of interrogations that he claimed involved threats and beatings.
Moskalyov was eventually detained in early March and his daughter, now 13, taken into state care. While Moskalyov was soon released under house arrest, Masha remains in what the authorities call “a social rehabilitation center” and has been denied any communication with the outside world.
The ruling on Tuesday, though not a surprise, has been decried as a further crackdown on those who oppose Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and described by some as a return to the Stalinist practice of targeting the children of “enemies of the state.” А petition calling for Masha’s release has received more than 140,000 signatures.
Speaking to journalists outside the court on Tuesday, Moskalyov’s lawyer Vladimir Biliyenko said he had been unaware of his client’s plan to flee. He said the last time they saw each other was at a court hearing a day earlier.
In another development, Moskalyov’s supporters on Tuesday attempted to visit Masha at the so-called social rehabilitation institution where she is supposedly being held, only to be told that she was not there.
According to comments from the center’s director cited by independent Russian media, Masha was attending a “culinary tournament” out of town, fueling speculation about her actual location.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 28, 2023
EU transport chief quits his post over free Qatar flights

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BRUSSELS — A top European Union official is leaving his role in charge of transport policy, following POLITICO’s revelations that he accepted free flights on Qatar Airways while his team negotiated a major aviation deal with the Gulf state.
Henrik Hololei, director general of the European Commission’s transport department, faced an internal investigation into the flights, and whether he was right to clear himself of any conflict of interest.
On Wednesday, POLITICO revealed Hololei will leave his job as director general of the transport department, known in the Brussels lexicon as DG MOVE, and will become a political adviser with no management responsibility in DG INTPA, the Commission’s department in charge of international partnerships.

A spokesperson for the Commission later confirmed to reporters that Hololei would move to his new role on April 1.
Hololei himself announced his job switch in an email to staff. “Dear friends and colleagues,” Hololei wrote. “I wanted to let you know myself that Friday will be my last day at DG MOVE. I am sure that you have seen the recent press coverage of my participation in international conferences.
“This has become a distraction, and is preventing DG MOVE from moving forward with the files that are so important for the safer, more sustainable, smarter and more resilient transport system that Europe needs and deserves,” he said. “I have asked to be moved to another position, which I will take up at DG INTPA.”
POLITICO reported a month ago that Hololei flew business class for free on Qatar Airways nine times between 2015 and 2021, according to details obtained through freedom of information requests. Six of the free flights occurred while the market access agreement between the EU and Doha was being put together, and four of these were paid for by the government of Qatar or a group with links to Qatar.
The disclosures immediate triggered a storm of criticism, calls for an inquiry and demands to overhaul the rules. The Commission initially insisted Hololei had not broken any rules, but then later moved to tighten those same rules to make sure his behavior could not be repeated in future. An internal investigation is under way into the flights, after officials confirmed that Hololei himself had been the person who signed off on the ethical question of whether they represented a conflict of interest.
In recent days, POLITICO has reported on calls from within the Commission for Hololei to step aside.
The episode comes at a highly sensitive time for the EU. The Brussels institutions are already battling to save their reputation amid a corruption scandal involving allegations that Qatar and other foreign governments paid MEPs and others to do their bidding in the European Parliament.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the Commission, vowed in light of the so-called Qatargate scandal to crack down on corruption, throwing her weight behind the idea of an ethical oversight body that would be able to probe and penalize misdeeds across all EU institutions.
While the Parliament is undergoing reforms to avoid future corruption problems, the Commission and the Council of the EU have not been involved in the scandal and stopped short of announcing any internal changes as a result.
But the Hololei case, which centered on a senior official closely involved with a major transport deal crucial to the Gulf state, widened the focus of scrutiny to include the European Commission, which is in charge proposing EU legislation.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 28, 2023
New Social Media Guidelines Violate Basic Fundamental Rights: Mehbooba

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SRINAGAR: PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said the new social media guidelines for the Jammu and Kashmir government employees are in complete violation of the basic fundamental rights of people.
Taking to Twitter, Mehbooba wrote, “Whether it was blacklisting contractors & the social media gag to employees, a clear intimidation of dispossessing people in J&K of their livelihood has emerged. Authorities have become judge, jury & executioner in complete violation of the fundamental rights of people.”
Senior CPIM leader Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami also criticised the circular issued by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir regarding the use of social media by its employees stating that government cannot snatch the rights of employees guaranteed to them by the Constitution.
“Government employee is a citizen also and he has every right to exercise his freedom. A government employee can either support or oppose the government’s view and actions and depriving him of this right is against the law and the very principles of the Constitution,” Tarigami said.
Tarigami said that every criticism within the ambit of law and constitution is justified. “For this freedom and these rights, people have fought and now government can’t take these rights away from the citizens,” he said.
According to the new social media guidelines, no government employee shall, by any utterance, writing, or otherwise discuss or criticize in public or in any meeting of any association or body any policy pursued or action taken by the government nor shall he in any manner participate in any such discussion or criticism.

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( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

March 25, 2023
House Republicans pass broad education measure on ‘parents rights’

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Amendment drama: The bill also became a sweeping vehicle for several other GOP priorities such as ensuring parents know what their schooling options are and policies on transgender students. However, Republicans failed to shore up enough votes to add a sense of Congress that the Education Department should be eliminated by the end of the calendar year.
Roughly half of the 22 amendments considered on the floor were tacked onto the legislation ahead of the final vote, which came after some internal strife among Republicans about the limited debate. The amendments that received bipartisan support included requiring schools to provide parents timely notices on major cyberattacks and the GAO to submit a report to Congress on the cost of the requirements of the bill and to evaluate the impact of the bill on protecting parents’ rights.
The legislation — which has already faced condemnation from the White House — will not be brought up on the other side of the Capitol, said Senate Majority Leader Schumer, who vowed Friday that the bill “will meet a dead end” in his chamber.
The Education Department was also quick to criticize the bill.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is happy to work with House Republicans on the issues most important to parents. … Unfortunately, looking at Republican officials’ track record on education, it’s not rooted in the reality that parents are living in,” an Education Department spokesperson told POLITICO in a statement. “Whether it be cutting funding for public education, ignoring tragic gun violence in our schools, or banning books to fit a political agenda, Republican officials are focused more on playing politics than helping our parents, kids and schools.”
Still, the House vote does allow Republicans to use Democrats’ vote against a “Parents Bill of Rights” as 2024 campaign fodder.
While the measure was lauded by many Republicans, especially the party’s leadership, Democrats and the handful of Republicans who voted against the measure criticized it.
Gaetz on Twitter said he voted against the bill because “the federal government SHOULD NOT be involved in education” and he wants to “abolish” the Education Department.

Buck also expressed a similar sentiment, tweeting that “the overwhelming majority of the House Republicans will now be on record supporting the idea of expanded federal powers in your child’s education.”
Pushback on transgender student provisions: Several LGBTQ advocacy groups denounced the legislation due to the inclusion of provisions that establish that a parent has the right to know whether their child’s school allows transgender girls to play on sports teams or use restrooms and changing rooms that match their gender identity. The bill would also require schools gain parental consent to allow students to use different names and pronouns or facilities that match their gender identity.
“These efforts to censor curriculum and force the outing of transgender and nonbinary students are borrowing from a discriminatory wave of bills sweeping the country — a wave of bills, incidentally, that the majority of voters have not asked for and do not support,” said David Stacy, the government affairs director for the Human Rights Campaign.
In the coming weeks, Republicans are expected to consider a bill — H.R. 734 (118), the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 — that would restrict transgender girls from playing on women and girls’ sports teams.
Lawmakers attached the amendments seeking to mandate disclosures around transgender students by voice vote this week, signaling that lawmakers on both parties weren’t yet ready to force their colleagues into a roll call on the sensitive issue. The sports bill would be the next prominent opportunity for the GOP to put lawmakers on record for gender identity policies.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 24, 2023
India must immediately end crackdown on Kashmiri human rights defenders: UN expert

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United Nations: A top UN expert on Friday asked India to immediately end the crackdown on Kashmiri human rights defenders and urged New Delhi to release and close all investigations initiated against them.
Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders made this comment days after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) formally arrested jailed Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society programme coordinator Khurram Parvez in connection with its NGO terror funding case.
The NIA said the case relates to the terror funding of proscribed terrorist organisations, such as LeT and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, by certain NGOs, trusts and societies based in the Valley.
“Indian authorities appear to be intensifying the long-standing repression of Kashmiri civil society,” Lawlor said. “The State must respect its human rights obligations and be held accountable where it violates them,” she said in a statement. Parvez has been in prison since his arrest by the NIA in November 2021 for anti-national activities, including collecting information on vital installations and deployment and movement of security forces, procuring secret official documents and passing the same to his LeT handlers for monetary consideration. He was charge-sheeted along with six others on May 13 last year.
India has previously said that authorities in the country act against violations of law strictly in accordance with established judicial processes. The UN expert said prior to Parvez’s arrest, a former associate of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies, human rights activist and journalist Irfan Mehraj, was also arrested in the same case on March 20 from Srinagar and transferred to New Delhi.
“The Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) carries out essential work monitoring human rights. Their research and analysis of human rights violations are of immense value to international organisations seeking to ensure accountability and non-repetition of abuses,” Lawlor explained.
The statement issued in Geneva said UN experts have repeatedly highlighted “grave concerns” regarding the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which allows the designation of any individual as a “terrorist,” bypassing the requirement to establish membership or association with banned outfits.
The expert also called for the release and the closing of investigations against Kashmiri human rights defenders. “The arrest and detention of persons for exercising their human rights are arbitrary. There must be accountability and remedy where such abusive actions are taken,” Lawlor added.

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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 24, 2023
Gun rights hearing turns chaotic amid arrest of Parkland parent

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“You’re removed. You’re breaching protocol and disorder in the committee room,” Fallon told Patricia Oliver, as she continued to speak about her son, who was killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. After Joaquin Oliver’s death, his parents co-founded a gun reform group and have previously staged civil disobedience actions.
After the Olivers were removed by Capitol Police from the Rayburn hearing room, two officers pinned Manuel Oliver to the ground in the process of making an arrest, putting his face on the floor.
“Back up or you’ll go to jail next,” one officer shouted at Patricia, in response to her speaking to the officers and leaning over the arrest, according to video of the incident. The second officer kicked Patricia away. Patricia eventually made her way back into the committee room while the panel was called into recess.
“It was really awful,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) “They took them out of the room, and there was a sound like there was some big scuffle in the hallway.”

“You took away my son,” Patricia Oliver shouted over Fallon talking about gun violence rates in Mexico compared to the U.S., according to video of the proceedings.
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Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo
Fallon, who chaired the committees’ joint hearing on the Second Amendment, said it was unclear to him why the Oliver arrest occurred. He described hearing “a lot of ruckus” in the hallway from his position on the dais.
Then, during the panel’s brief recess, Cicilline and Fallon had a verbal altercation over the Olivers’ removal — a clash that Fallon described as more of “an intellectual exercise.”
The Democrat, however, maintained in an interview after the hearing that during the break Patricia Oliver had the right to “speak as loudly as she wants.”
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) tweeted his disappointment with how the scene played out, accusing Fallon of “escalating” the situation and saying the Olivers should have gotten a warning. (Immediate removal is standard practice for disruptive attendees at congressional hearings.)

Frost ran out of the hearing and witnessed the arrest of Manuel Oliver, asking “what’s going on here?” and being repeatedly told to “get back sir” by the police.
The first-term lawmaker and gun safety activist, who got his start in the wake of the Parkland shooting in his home state, declined to comment following the arrest.
“Anyone who disrupts a Congressional hearing and disregards a law enforcement officer’s orders to stop are going to be arrested,” Capitol Police spokesperson Tim Barber said in a statement to POLITICO.
Capitol Police say that Manuel Oliver refused to stop shouting and attempted to get back into the hearing room, which resulted in the arrest. He was not put in jail, but cited and released.
Patricia Oliver was not arrested, according to the Capitol Police, “because she followed the lawful directions of our officers.”
Fallon said he would look into if any lawmakers encouraged Patricia Oliver to reenter the committee room, saying that such a move could “lead to censure that could lead to removal from committees.”
Nicholas Wu and Olivia Beavers contributed.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 24, 2023
World does not need lessons on democracy and human rights from Pakistan: India at UNHRC

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Geneva: India on Thursday said the world does not need lessons on democracy and human rights from Pakistan whose contribution as a leading exporter of terror and violence is unparalleled and where terrorists thrive and roam its streets with impunity.
Exercising India’s Right of Reply at the 52nd Session of Human Rights Council General Debate, Under Secretary Dr. P R Thulasidass also called on Pakistan to focus on the safety, security and well-being of its minority communities instead of engaging in futile propaganda and attempting to foment communal disharmony in India.
“From a country where terrorists thrive and roam its streets with impunity, the world does not need lessons on democracy and human rights. Pakistan’s contribution as a leading exporter of terror and violence is unparalleled,” Thulasidass said.
He underlined that Pakistan is home to as many as 150 UN designated terrorists and terrorist entities listed by the UN, and these proscribed individuals have actively campaigned and contested in elections.
“Can Pakistan deny the fact that impunity reigns supreme in the country as perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks continue to roam free?…Can Pakistan deny the fact that the world’s most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden was found living in Pakistan near a military academy, sheltered and protected by the deep State?” he asked.
Asserting that Jammu and Kashmir was, is and shall forever remain an integral part of India, Thulasidass said that the union territory is marching towards peace and prosperity along with the rest of India.
“This is despite Pakistan’s repeated attempts to derail the process, through its active and sustained support to terror groups and its malicious disinformation campaign against India. The delegate of Pakistan has voiced Pakistan’s frustration due to its failure in its malicious propaganda against India,” the Indian diplomat said.
Thulasidass said the pluralistic democracy of India is mature enough to address any issues including those instigated from outside.

“India is a secular State and safeguarding the rights of minorities forms an essential core of our polity. What minorities receive in Pakistan are blasphemy laws, systemic persecution, discrimination, denial of basic rights and freedoms, enforced disappearances and killings,” he said.
Noting that the extent of religious discrimination is reflected in the loss of life, liberty and property on the mere accusations of blasphemy laws, the Indian diplomat said that Pakistan today stands out as the country having more cases of blasphemy than the rest of the world put together in the past few years.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 23, 2023
What the hell is wrong with TikTok?

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Western governments are ticked off with TikTok. The Chinese-owned app loved by teenagers around the world is facing allegations of facilitating espionage, failing to protect personal data, and even of corrupting young minds.
Governments in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and across Europe have moved to ban the use of TikTok on officials’ phones in recent months. If hawks get their way, the app could face further restrictions. The White House has demanded that ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, sell the app or face an outright ban in the U.S.
But do the allegations stack up? Security officials have given few details about why they are moving against TikTok. That may be due to sensitivity around matters of national security, or it may simply indicate that there’s not much substance behind the bluster.

TikTok’s Chief Executive Officer Shou Zi Chew will be questioned in the U.S. Congress on Thursday and can expect politicians from all sides of the spectrum to probe him on TikTok’s dangers. Here are some of the themes they may pick up on:
1. Chinese access to TikTok data
Perhaps the most pressing concern is around the Chinese government’s potential access to troves of data from TikTok’s millions of users.
Western security officials have warned that ByteDance could be subject to China’s national security legislation, particularly the 2017 National Security Law that requires Chinese companies to “support, assist and cooperate” with national intelligence efforts. This law is a blank check for Chinese spy agencies, they say.
TikTok’s user data could also be accessed by the company’s hundreds of Chinese engineers and operations staff, any one of whom could be working for the state, Western officials say. In December 2022, some ByteDance employees in China and the U.S. targeted journalists at Western media outlets using the app (and were later fired).
EU institutions banned their staff from having TikTok on their work phones last month. An internal email sent to staff of the European Data Protection Supervisor, seen by POLITICO, said the move aimed “to reduce the exposure of the Commission from cyberattacks because this application is collecting so much data on mobile devices that could be used to stage an attack on the Commission.”
And the Irish Data Protection Commission, TikTok’s lead privacy regulator in the EU, is set to decide in the next few months if the company unlawfully transferred European users’ data to China.
Skeptics of the security argument say that the Chinese government could simply buy troves of user data from little-regulated brokers. American social media companies like Twitter have had their own problems preserving users’ data from the prying eyes of foreign governments, they note.
TikTok says it has never given data to the Chinese government and would decline if asked to do so. Strictly speaking, ByteDance is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, which TikTok argues would shield it from legal obligations to assist Chinese agencies. ByteDance is owned 20 percent by its founders and Chinese investors, 60 percent by global investors, and 20 percent by employees.
There’s little hope to completely stop European data from going to China | Alex Plavevski/EPA
The company has unveiled two separate plans to safeguard data. In the U.S., Project Texas is a $1.5 billion plan to build a wall between the U.S. subsidiary and its Chinese owners. The €1.2 billion European version, named Project Clover, would move most of TikTok’s European data onto servers in Europe.
Nevertheless, TikTok’s chief European lobbyist Theo Bertram also said in March that it would be “practically extremely difficult” to completely stop European data from going to China.
2. A way in for Chinese spies
If Chinese agencies can’t access TikTok’s data legally, they can just go in through the back door, Western officials allege. China’s cyber-spies are among the best in the world, and their job will be made easier if datasets or digital infrastructure are housed in their home territory.
Dutch intelligence agencies have advised government officials to uninstall apps from countries waging an “offensive cyber program” against the Netherlands — including China, but also Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Critics of the cyber espionage argument refer to a 2021 study by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which found that the app did not exhibit the “overtly malicious behavior” that would be expected of spyware. Still, the director of the lab said researchers lacked information on what happens to TikTok data held in China.
TikTok’s Project Texas and Project Clover include steps to assuage fears of cyber espionage, as well as legal data access. The EU plan would give a European security provider (still to be determined) the power to audit cybersecurity policies and data controls, and to restrict access to some employees. Bertram said this provider could speak with European security agencies and regulators “without us [TikTok] being involved, to give confidence that there’s nothing to hide.”
Bertram also said the company was looking to hire more engineers outside China.
3. Privacy rights
Critics of TikTok have accused the app of mass data collection, particularly in the U.S., where there are no general federal privacy rights for citizens.
In jurisdictions that do have strict privacy laws, TikTok faces widespread allegations of failing to comply with them.
The company is being investigated in Ireland, the U.K. and Canada over its handling of underage users’ data. Watchdogs in the Netherlands, Italy and France have also investigated its privacy practices around personalized advertising and for failing to limit children’s access to its platform.
TikTok has denied accusations leveled in some of the reports and argued that U.S. tech companies are collecting the same large amount of data. Meta, Amazon and others have also been given large fines for violating Europeans’ privacy.
4. Psychological operations
Perhaps the most serious accusation, and certainly the most legally novel one, is that TikTok is part of an all-encompassing Chinese civilizational struggle against the West. Its role: to spread disinformation and stultifying content in young Western minds, sowing division and apathy.
Earlier this month, the director of the U.S. National Security Agency warned that Chinese control of TikTok’s algorithm could allow the government to carry out influence operations among Western populations. TikTok says it has around 300 million active users in Europe and the U.S. The app ranked as the most downloaded in 2022.
A woman watches a video of Egyptian influencer Haneen Hossam | Khaled Desouki/AFP via Getty Images
Reports emerged in 2019 suggesting that TikTok was censoring pro-LGBTQ content and videos mentioning Tiananmen Square. ByteDance has also been accused of pushing inane time-wasting videos to Western children, in contrast to the wholesome educational content served on its Chinese app Douyin.
Besides accusations of deliberate “influence operations,” TikTok has also been criticized for failing to protect children from addiction to its app, dangerous viral challenges, and disinformation. The French regulator said last week that the app was still in the “very early stages” of content moderation. TikTok’s Italian headquarters was raided this week by the consumer protection regulator with the help of Italian law enforcement to investigate how the company protects children from viral challenges.
Researchers at Citizen Lab said that TikTok doesn’t enforce obvious censorship. Other critics of this argument have pointed out that Western-owned platforms have also been manipulated by foreign countries, such as Russia’s campaign on Facebook to influence the 2016 U.S. elections.
TikTok says it has adapted its content moderation since 2019 and regularly releases a transparency report about what it removes. The company has also touted a “transparency center” that opened in the U.S. in July 2020 and one in Ireland in 2022. It has also said it will comply with new EU content moderation rules, the Digital Services Act, which will request that platforms give access to regulators and researchers to their algorithms and data.
Additional reporting by Laura Kayali in Paris, Sue Allan in Ottawa, Brendan Bordelon in Washington, D.C., and Josh Sisco in San Francisco.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 23, 2023
Macron on the brink: How French pensions revolt could wreck his presidency

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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron will face a moment of reckoning Thursday as lawmakers gear up for a final vote on the government’s deeply unpopular pension reform.
The controversial bill, a centerpiece of Macron’s second term, has sparked weeks of nationwide protests led by trade unions and faced intense criticism from both the far left and the far right in the National Assembly.
The French president wants to increase the legal age of retirement to 64 from 62 and extend contributions for a full pension in an effort to balance the accounts of France’s state pensions system — among the most generous in the world. According to projections from France’s Council of Pensions Planning, the finances of the pensions system are balanced in the short term but will go into deficit in the long term.

Despite government concessions on various aspects of the bill in recent weeks, opposition to the reform remains very high, with polls saying two-thirds of French citizens oppose it.
Speculation is running high that Macron might not have enough support in the National Assembly, and may choose a constitutional maneuver to bypass parliament — in a move that could unleash a political storm in France.
On Thursday, the French Senate and the National Assembly are expected to cast a crucial vote on the second reading of the bill, after the Senate voted in favor last week. The outcome will determine the shape of Macron’s second term and stands to bear heavily on his legacy.
The worst case: Macron loses the vote in parliament
Losing the parliamentary vote would be a stunning defeat for the French president, who pinned his bid for a second term on his promises to reform France’s pensions system. But political commentators have been speculating in recent days that Macron’s Renaissance party doesn’t have enough votes to pass the bill.
The French president lost its absolute majority in the National Assembly in parliamentary elections last June. He has since been forced into making ad-hoc deals with MPs from France’s conservative party Les Républicains. But the once-mighty conservatives appear split on the reform, despite assurances this week from their leader Olivier Marleix that there was “a clear majority” backing the bill.
A defeat in parliament would have seismic and long-term repercussions for Macron’s second term and it is likely that the president’s trusted lieutenant Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne would have to resign in such a scenario. Party heavyweights however say they will not shy away from seeking a vote.
“There will be a vote, we want a vote, everyone must take its responsibilities,” said Aurore Bergé, leader of the Renaissance group in the National Assembly.
“There can be an accident … we’ll manage it as we can,” admitted Jean-Paul Mattei, a centrist MP who belongs to Macron’s coalition, with reference to a defeat in parliament.
However, this is the most unlikely scenario as expectations are that the government will bypass a vote if they sense that they are short on votes.
Protestors hold an effigy of French President Emmanuel Macron, during a demonstration on the 8th day of strikes and protests across the country against the government’s proposed pensions overhaul in Paris on March 15, 2023 | Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images
Pretty bad: Macron bypasses parliament and loses credibility
In the face of a potential defeat in the National Assembly, Macron has a nuclear option: invoke article 49.3 of the French constitution. This mechanism allows the government to force through legislation without submitting it to a vote.
While the constitutional maneuver may seem like an easy way out, it’s a highly risky move as it allows lawmakers to table a motion of no confidence within 24 hours. Macron’s government has faced down motions of no confidence in the past but the stakes are much higher this time around.
Beyond surviving a motion of no-confidence, Macron and Borne will also come under fire for refusing to submit to the democratic process.
According to Frédéric Dabi, general director of the IFOP polling institute, the impact on public opinion if the government uses the 49.3 article as opposed to passing a tight vote in parliament would be “radically different.”
“Public opinions on the 49.3 article have changed … it is regarded as a tool to brutalize the National Assembly: it’s now seen as authoritarian instead of merely authoritative. People want more transparency, more democracy today,” he said.
France’s hardline unions would no doubt use this to stoke unrest and call for further strike action.
Trade union leader Laurent Berger has warned the government against using the 49.3 article, saying that it would be “incredible and dangerous.”
“Nobody can predict what will happen, the protest movement seems to be running out of steam, but if the government invokes article 49.3 it could be read as forcing the issue and may relaunch the protest movement,” said Dabi.
Still not great: Macron wins vote but faces mass protests
If the French president wins the vote in parliament, it’ll be seen as a victory but one that may completely drain his political capital, and whip up protests on the streets.
“It’ll be a victory for Macron, but it’ll only bear its fruit in the long term. In the short term, he’ll face a tense country where relations have become very strained,” said Chloé Morin, a writer and political analyst.
Trade union leader Berger has said that he would “take on board” the result of Thursday’s vote in parliament. But protests, which have been almost weekly since January, may continue nonetheless across the country in an effort to force the government into backing down and withdrawing the text.
Morin thinks it is unlikely there will be “an explosion of protests” after the vote as people are resigned to seeing it pass.
French police officers intervene during a protest by local council employees against the government’s retirement reform in front on the prefecture in Seine Saint-Denis, in Bobigny, a surburb of Paris on March 14, 2023 | Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images
“However, the protest movement might become more radical with lightning protests or sabotages, led by a minority in the citizens’ movement,” said Morin.
In October last year, industrial action in France’s refineries led to nationwide shortages at petrol stations, forcing the government to intervene in what was seen as Macron’s biggest challenge since his re-election last year.
There are dangerous precedents for Macron too. In December 2019, the government was forced to abandon a new green tax when faced with the explosive Yellow Vests protests that shook the political establishment.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 15, 2023