Human Rights✊⚖

[Op-ed by Michael Caster, Head of the Global China Program at ARTICLE 19, and co-founder of Safeguard Defenders, a human rights organization focused on China.]

Archived version

...

Thanks to RightsCon organizer AccessNow’s laudable transparency, we now know what many suspected: RightsCon was effectively canceled by the Zambian government under direct pressure from China.

In a statement released on May 1, AccessNow revealed that on April 27, diplomats from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) had reached out to pressure the Government of Zambia over the participation of Taiwanese civil society representatives. A press statement from the government further noted the need to ensure thematic issues aligned with Zambia’s “national values” and “policy priorities,” arguably shorthand for avoiding other topics sensitive to Beijing. Perhaps not so coincidentally, on April 23 China and Zambia signed a development cooperation agreement, including a $1.5 billion USD investment into its energy infrastructure.

While AccessNow says it immediately pushed back, the government’s position did not change. Ultimately, it came to represent a red line. AccessNow says “at a time when this sector is already under immense financial and political strain, what we and our community forcefully experienced is unprecedented and existential.”

...

What happened in Zambia also raises questions of security and civil society access for future gatherings. This includes this year’s Internet Governance Forum (IGF), scheduled for Kenya, which has adopted Chinese surveillance infrastructure, or regional fora such as the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APRIGF), to take place in Nepal, which has engaged with China’s Digital Silk Road.

...

This is a major escalation in transnational repression and a testament to China’s influence on global digital rights far beyond its borders that deserves reflection.

This should be a stark reminder that, even as we must now face rising threats to the freedom of expression and digital rights from previously aligned governments such as the United States, old school authoritarian actors remain significant threats. To be sure, China has seized on geopolitical shifts and recent US funding cuts to expand its already significant influence in ways that continue to threaten human rights in the digital domain. While this is as much about China’s adverse influence in Africa as it is about its campaign of transnational repression against Taiwan, arguably this assault on inclusive, multistakeholder fora like RightsCon is also indicative of China’s broader authoritarian approach to digital governance, against which advocates for democracy and human rights must push back.

...

Four of the top ten countries globally most affected by influence from China are in Africa (Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Algeria, and South Africa), according to Taiwan-based Doublethink Lab’s China Index. Beyond these indicators, China’s footprint exists at multiple layers of the tech stack across the continent, including digital infrastructure, ‘smart cities’ and other surveillance tech, and censorship tools.

Last year, researchers from InterSecLab and others analyzed a leak of over 100,000 documents linked to Chinese tech company Geedge Networks—a little known company with ties to the Great Firewall— revealing a web of partnerships that exports China-style ‘cyber sovereignty’ through technology transfers that let other countries replicate similar internet controls. As noted by the researchers, the investigation identified “a pattern of commercialization of surveillance capabilities, with Geedge Networks offering a suite of products that enable comprehensive monitoring and control of internet users.” Ethiopia was one of the named country partners.

...

China was able to exert pressure on Zambia to take this unprecedented step toward canceling a major international conference in part because China’s influence on the continent has expanded in the absence of adequate rights-based alternatives. Contesting China’s adverse influence in Africa, and around the world, cannot rest merely on criticizing its assault on human rights but must also come with positive and accessible rights-based solutions to real digital development needs. The world’s remaining liberal democracies must expand their efforts to meet the moment, or risk ceding more of the globe to Chinese-style authoritarianism.

...

• China is responsible for the highest number of Transnational Repression (TNI) with more cases than the Turkey and Russia (number 2 and 3) combined
• The report by Freedom House is citing more abuse of Interpol for authoritarian purposes
• There is growing response but uneven protection among democratic states as the report provides recommendation to protect human rights

Here is the full report: Collaboration and Resistance: Tracking Transnational Repression in 202 (pdf)

Last year, governments all over the world assassinated, assaulted, kidnapped, threatened, and harassed critics beyond their borders. Freedom House recorded 126 new incidents of physical, direct transnational repression during the year, bringing the total number of cases in our database, which spans 2014 to 2025, to 1,375.

Autocrats collaborating in Southeast Asia and in East Africa were responsible for the majority of incidents recorded during the year. Thailand cooperated with both Chinese and Vietnamese authorities to detain and return members of minority groups. The deportation of 40 Uyghur men to China in February cemented China’s status as the world’s leading perpetrator of transnational repression. In East Africa, Kenyan, Ugandan, and Tanzanian authorities helped each other track, detain, and return activists in an effort to impede civic mobilization ahead of and during elections.

...

Collaboration among authoritarian governments fueled transnational repression in Southeast Asia and East Africa in 2025. Over half of the incidents recorded last year—69 of 126—occurred in these two regions.2 In Asia, the collaboration was driven by geopolitical pressure and economic incentives from Beijing. In Africa, meanwhile, collaboration stemmed from a mutual desire to suppress mobilization by activists during especially tense political moments, like the lead-up to elections.

...

Perpetrator governments continued to weaponize Interpol to bolster their transnational repression efforts in 2025. Despite suggestions in some media coverage that it is a global policing force with the power of arrest, Interpol is in fact an organization that facilitates law enforcement cooperation across borders through information sharing ... But this information-sharing function is routinely abused by some of its 196 member countries for the purpose of transnational repression. In 2025, Freedom House recorded 11 incidents that were linked to Interpol. Governments including Egypt, Kuwait, and Turkmenistan contravened the organization’s own constitution by manipulating the law enforcement network to pursue regime opponents abroad on political grounds.

....

Democracies Take Action to Counter Transnational Repression, but Gaps Remain ... Host countries where exiled dissidents and activists have taken refuge are working together to create responses to the threat posed by transnational repression and warning targeted individuals about security concerns. But protection remains unevenly available in Europe and elsewhere, while changes to migration enforcement policies in the United States are exposing exiled individuals to the threat of transnational repression.

...

Recommendations

• [Governments should] adopt and codify a government-wide definition of transnational repression that can be used across departments and agencies and in official communications ...

• Apply sanctions and visa bans against foreign government officials who facilitate transnational repression via forced returns ...

• Interpol Member States should consider increasing their funding to the organization’s oversight bodies: the Notices and Diffusion Task Force and the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files ...

• Continue to engage directly with diaspora communities by creating online resources, providing information on ways to report transnational repression, and connecting communities with local law enforcement ...

• Ensure that immigration enforcement does not facilitate transnational repression ...

....

Web Archive link

...

Oleksandr Pavlichenko, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, confirms that Russia’s deportation of children primarily violates the Rome Statute, the Fourth Geneva Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, among other related international agreements.

...

Researchers at Yale University’s School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab have been among the most active in investigating the deportations, with findings from each of their studies immediately sent to the ICC.

The abduction of a child from an occupied territory can be reported on the Children of War portal. The child’s information is then entered into Ukrainian government agencies and databases. Abductions can also be reported to the National Police of Ukraine and the Office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights.

According to Daria Herasymchuk, commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children’s Rights, in most cases parents are told their children are being taken to recreational camps for their health and wellness. Refusal is not an option.

“The problem is that, unfortunately, no international organisation, no country, not even Ukraine itself, can say exactly how many children have been abducted by Russian authorities,” Herasymchuk continued. “It’s possible that even the Russians themselves don’t know this number. They had reported abducting 744,000 Ukrainian children before the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin and his Children’s Rights Commissioner, Lvova-Belova.”

...

Mykola Kuleba, Ukraine’s former presidential commissioner for children’s rights and founder of the Save Ukraine organisation, reported that from the beginning of the full-scale war until October 30, 2025, Save Ukraine had successfully returned 1,001 Ukrainian children from occupied territories and deportation. This was made possible by financial support from international partners, particularly European organisations.

...

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/50531925

In 2019, Chinese diplomat Jiang Duan told UNHCR delegates in Geneva that “the experience in Xinjiang in this field can be introduced to other countries.” While “this field” referred to management of minoritized peoples, the “experience” he touted was China’s vast system of internment camps, so-called “vocational training centers,” targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples. Survivor testimony has implicated the camps in a systematic campaign of forced labor, cultural assimilation, political indoctrination, torture, and forced sterilization. The Uyghur Tribunal determined these abuses to constitute genocide, while the very body Jiang Duan addressed, UNHCR, found they may amount to crimes against humanity.

...

A Global Model for Repression

Despite a focus on the domestic management of minoritized peoples, the implications of the Ethnic Unity Law do not end at China’s borders. Chinese state officials and amplifiers argue this approach is the optimal way to govern diverse ethnicities. Chen Xiaoyan, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a rubber-stamp advisory body, stated that the law “will not only benefit the people of China but also serve as a valuable model for other countries and regions grappling with ethnic relations.” In an article for CGTN, academic Bai Fan claimed the Ethnic Unity Law “represents a model approach to addressing ethnic issues internationally.”

If adopted overseas, the principles underlying the Ethnic Unity Law risk normalizing deeply troubling practices, including the framing of ethnic relations primarily as a national security issue and the promotion of state authority over cultural pluralism. For the Uyghur people, the consequences are already clear through the systemic and iterative dismantling of their cultural and religious heritage. Exporting this model globally risks a dramatic expansion of similar abuses against minoritized peoples and the further erosion of international human rights protections.

To prevent the normalization of the repressive framework represented in the Ethnic Unity Law, the multilateral system must move beyond statements and invoke formal accountability for the outcomes of China’s assimilationist policies and practices. In addition to the 2022 UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) call for an investigation, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and the Special Rapporteur on minority issues should issue a joint communication expressing grave concern over the law’s compatibility with international treaties.

...

Web Archive link

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/50387254

China is intensifying its exploitation of Uyghur people in Xinjiang to maintain control over global mineral supply chains. “The system of coercive labor allocation applied to minority communities in Xinjiang will continue under the 15th five-year Plan," a study authored by Uyghur researcher Nyrola Elimä Global Rights Compliance (GRC), an international NGO, and directed by Samir Goswami, finds.

“China’ s plans to dominate semiconductors, clean energy, and artificial intelligence are all dependent in part on Xinjiang – for both its critical minerals, and the cheap, repressed forced labor used to extract them,"

Here is the full report: Strangling Supply, Exploiting Labor: Inside China’s Five-Year Plan in Xinjiang (pdf)

Among the report’s key findings:

• China's goals in semiconductors, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing all depend on upstream raw materials, and Xinjiang is being deliberately positioned to supply them.
• The Plan aims to concentrate industrial development and employment absorption in southern Xinjiang – the area with the highest Uyghur population density and the most extensively documented record of forced labour. Every policy applied to Xinjiang, such as employment, economic development, education, culture, becomes an instrument of social control and ideological re - engineering.
• Industrial electricity in Xinjiang costs about 2.7 cents per kWh, far below roughly 7.5 cents in the U.S. and 22 cents in the EU. Given that power accounts for 40 to 60 % of processing costs for materials like titanium, magnesium, and lithium, this price d isparity creates a significant competitive barrier for Western producers.
• Advanced technology systems, including U.S. military capabilities and AI, are heavily dependent on Chinese lithium - ion batteries, much of which rely on raw materials including lithium and graphite, sourcing from Xinjiang., China holds a strategic lever ove r these critical technologies - and they can’t dominate this production without exploiting the labor of Uyghur people.
• The 15th Five - Year Plan will accelerate close monitoring, surveillance and re-intervention for Uyghurs who refuse to participate will continue throughout the 2026 to 2030 period.
• The CCP also adopted the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which pursues assimilation practices for ethnic minorities to strengthen the “cohesion” of Chinese culture and identity. When combined with the industrial ambitions of the Five-Year Plan, this Law facilitates the continued eradication of Uyghur identity and culture alongside the strategic resource exploitation of their homelands.

...

( Francais en dessous. )

In the "Super Picsou Géant" number 246

We can see this comic strip

It narrate a place where youngling can play a video game like Luanti / MineCraft. They create a virtual world and at the end of the day they can visit it IRL[^1] ! The end twist is that it might be undocumented migrants, that do that heavy job !

But the story tell at the end

ces rumeurs n'intéressent pas grand monde. Ce qui compte..

Those rumors do not interests people, what's matter..

I summarize the last sentence: What matter is that YOU had fun !!

So first they make an statement that globally no body give a F... secondly they encourage the ( young ) reader to act the same, focusing only on his pleasure...

WTF Mickey !?

🇫🇷
Dans le Super Picsou Géant 246

se trouve cette planche de BD

L'histoire se déroule dans un endroit où des jeunes peuvent jouer à un jeu vidéo comme Luanti/MineCraft. Ils créent un monde virtuel et, à la fin de la journée, ils peuvent le visiter dans la vraie vie ! Le twist final, c'est que ce sont peut‑être des migrants en situation irrégulière qui accomplissent ce travail pénible.

A la fin de l'histoire on peux lire

ces rumeurs n'intéressent pas grand monde. Ce qui compte..

En gros, ce qui compte c'est que TU t'es amuser...

D'abord, ils affirment qu'en gros personne n'en a rien à faire... Ensuite, ils encouragent le lecteur (jeune) à en faire autant, en ne se concentrant que sur son plaisir...

P*tain ! Mickey !?

[^1]: In Real life

cross-posted from: https://belgae.social/post/1306984

Yes, it is batshit crazy that this happened, and that municipalities actually stripped people of Belgian nationality that they already acquired.

Even more puzzling is how flimsy Belgian nationality is -- that you can lose Belgian nationality so easily and without even any kind of wrong-doing.

The Federal Ombudsman says the “Immigration Office is exceeding its powers.” But AFAICT the immigration office is just making a request -- one that can and should be ignored.

Very bizarre that the municipality has these powers. Sure, the muni has the power to grant nationality. Fair enough. But I find it a bit disturbing that the muni has power to strip nationality. Such a serious assault on someone’s human right to self-determinism should be a federal procedure, no?

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/49524156

Here is the study: Willing Accomplices: Gazprom & Rosneft's Role In The Transport and Indoctrination of Ukraine's Children (pdf)

...

Russian state-owned energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft are directly involved in the transfer and political indoctrination of thousands of Ukrainian children, according to a report published by the Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab.

The report, Willing Accomplices: Gazprom & Rosneft's Role In The Transport and Indoctrination of Ukraine's Children (opens pdf), comes soon after U.S. President Donald Trump's decision this month to ease sanctions on Russian energy, notably to authorize the sale, delivery, or offloading of Russian-origin crude oil and petroleum products that were already loaded onto shipping vessels in an attempt to stabilize global energy markets amid disruptions from the Iran war.

Gazprom- and Rosneft-controlled subsidiaries and trade unions helped facilitate and sponsor the transport and re-education of Ukraine’s children through direct ownership of camps, provision of camp vouchers, and coordination of pro-Russia indoctrination. Three of the camps previously identified by Yale HRL were owned by Gazprom subsidiaries when children from Ukraine were present at these facilities. As of March 2026, two of the three camps still are owned by Gazprom subsidiaries.

It is worth noting that Gazprom and Rosneft have sponsored children from Russia to attend camps since as early as 2008. Additionally, at least 15 children from Ukraine were taken by Gazprom to the “Kubanskaya Niva” camp in 2015, which is owned by Gazprom subsidiary Gazprom Dobycha Urengoy. However, the energy companies' involvement into this illegal activities have been increasing since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"What this report demonstrates for the first time is that Gazprom and Rosneft, two of Russia’s most critical oil and gas companies, are willing accomplices in this interconnected web of diverse entities," the report concludes.

Key findings:

• Children from Ukraine have been taken to at least six camps in Russia and Russia-occupied Crimea, including three camps owned by Gazprom subsidiaries as recently as 2025.

• At least 2,158 children from the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts of Ukraine were taken to camps owned by Gazprom subsidiaries and/or sponsored by Gazprom and Rosneft subsidiaries and trade union organizations to attend these or other pro-Russia camps beginning in 2022.

• At least 1,072 children from Russia-occupied Ukraine received vouchers from Gazprom subsidiaries and trade union organizations to attend pro-Russia camps in 2022 and 2023.

• Rosneft Trade Union sponsored 100 children from Ukraine to attend three camps in 2023, including: “Kubanskaya Niva” camp, “Art-Quest” camp, and A.V. Kazakevich Children’s Health camp.

• Gazprom subsidiaries facilitated the pro- Russia re-education of Ukraine’s children.

At least 80% of Russian Federation-affiliated entities involved in the activities described in this report are not currently under sanction by the United States or Europe. Yale HRL identified 44 entities – including camps, oil and gas subsidiaries, trade unions, and high-level company directors – involved in the transport and/or re-education of Ukraine’s children. Among the 44 entities identified, 35 (80%) are not currently subjected to sanctions by the United States or Europe, six entities are subject to sanctions by the United States and European countries, and three entities have an unknown sanction status.

...

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/48320144

[This is an opinion piece by Rayhan Asat, a human rights lawyer of Uyghur descent, an international law scholar at Harvard Law School and a senior legal and policy advisor at the Atlantic Council Strategic Litigation Project.]

Web archive link

At Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney drew applause for his plea to middle powers to “build a new order that encompasses values.” ... It was also deeply painful to see Carney feted for his “principled pragmatism” only days after he visited China to forge a new strategic partnership, devoid of any mention of human rights concerns.

...

Carney’s embrace at Davos and his appeal to deal with the “world as it is, not as we wish it to be” left me with the question: Will the “new” world order he’s advertising protect everyone, or only those whose suffering is not inconvenient? The old order certainly didn’t. Treating human rights as separate from trade, as if mass atrocity can be compartmentalized to appease China, may have safeguarded commercial interests and avoided friction in the short-term—but it also helped normalize the intolerable.

It’s been 10 years since China began building a sprawling system of concentration camps—designed to bury atrocities behind bureaucracy and beyond tourists’ gaze.

...

It’s been three years since the U.N.’s foremost human rights body determined China is committing crimes against humanity. Carney and his “middle power” peers can hardly claim that they didn’t know.

But what happens when China’s façade becomes useful? Even for leaders of the democratic world, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently visited China, it allows suffering to be acknowledged just enough to be set aside, framed as a difference in systems rather than a violation that demands consequence. Public pressure is muted, accountability deferred and appeals for justice quietly absorbed into diplomatic language.

...

It's not just Uyghurs; there are Tibetans, Hong Kongers. International law has never protected Taiwan. Its security rests not on legal norms, but on strategic necessity—especially its dominance in advanced semiconductor chips.

Carney argued that middle powers need to unite to hedge against stronger countries, because what we’re living through is not a transition but a rupture in the rules-based order ... The deeper irony is that leaders of the Global South, including President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s advisor, argued that Brazil would continue working with Europe, China and others who champion multilateralism and international law. It’s unfathomable to square China's status as a champion with its promotion of what Professor Tom Ginsburg described as authoritarian international law.

...

An international legal order worth its name is more than just policing borders and battlefields. It must serve as a shield for those hidden from sight, protecting them from the machinery of disappearance, torture, cultural erasure and similar threats.

...

The US can be credited with starting the Orwellian idea of forcing all “visa-free” visitors to file an ETA¹. It’s not just a money grab for us$ 20. It’s a snooping mechanism to link people to social media accounts, and then perform a background check on travelers to look for any speech that’s critical of the US.

Someone from Lebanon got a scholarship for Harvard. Then he was blocked at the border by border control. The cause: a friend linked to him on social media said something critical of the US. Even though the aspiring student did not himself criticise the US, being associated with someone who did was sufficient to block his entry. (He eventually made it back after some hassle and back and forth on flights).

Then the UK decided decided to impose travel authorisations as well, thus doing a money grab of £16. Initially it seemed to just be a retaliation against the US. But recently the UK decided to target Europeans.

So now the EU has decided to follow suit. In 2027, the loss of visa-free travel hits Europe. Even those who merely have a connecting flight in Europe will have to pay €20 and pass the background check. You need not even leave the airport to be subjected to this.

Of course it’s bullshit to continue calling this “visa-free travel”. They hope a technical semantical spin will fool people into accepting unfunded background checks coupled with surcharges as still “visa-free”.

¹ Electronic Travel Authorisation

Human rights

Do we still have privacy and free speech, as guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12 and 19, which states (respectively):

12. “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”
    …

19. “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

?

Yes, those rights are protected -- but only if you stay in your homeland. Only if you do not expect to simultaneously exercise your Article 13 rights, which states:

“1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.”

What other UDHR-signatory countries have joined this ETA shit-show?

Is this also a loss of a right to be analog?

Cross-posting to !right_to_unplug@sopuli.xyz because:

1. the “E” in ETA is electronic, thus implying that there is no offline mechanism for unplugged people and unbanked people (correct me if I am wrong)
2. those who declare not having a social media account are distrusted, presumed nefarious, and potentially denied entry (e.g. entering the US with a new/clean phone has triggered suspicion and ultimately entry refusals)

Hello everyone,

We created and are developing an archive to document, archive, and expose the crimes of ICE.

It is on https://crimesofice.org/

TOR link: http://ice7fl7ycodmekhrch5wkclblrbbpjctvdniikzs5gfatnk6pgseilqd.onion/

Unfortunately, our abilities to find different videos and documents of ICE on the internet are still limited. We are a small team.

If you want join our team to help us find more material and show the crimes of ICE to the whole world, let us know :)

SimpleX Chat:

https://smp17.simplex.im/a#6B-MiQ-P7nUt5-xsf3iIfh6H-VS_LWBZoId9VqK4GMU

Matrix: @cardboardenjoyer:unredacted.org

Mail: basedbatman@airmail.cc

cross-posted from: https://libretechni.ca/post/715575

There are many manifestations of this way of thinking that people must conform to behaviour, methods and styles that differ from that of bots and criminals. For example:

• Countless websites falsely accuse me of being a robot based on whatever faulty logic is making poor assumptions. I cannot access publications of laws or my own credit history because Cloudflare benefits financially from crude and cheap access decisions.
• The Tor community is collectively targetted for opaque adverse treatment despite a vast majority of Tor users being non-criminal.
• Countless email servers falsely refuse my mail server on the crude basis of having a residential IP address - mandating that I conform by hiring a 3rd party relay service which then becomes an additional MitM.
• A landlord’s email system accepted my email but then silently directed it to a spam quarantine that the landlord never reviews. When a dispute errupted, the landlord claimed it was my fault he did not get my msgs. My fault, as if I have control over his mail server (which signalled to me the msg was delivered).
• Creditors refuse cash payments under the faulty premise that cash is used by criminals and thus non-criminals must change their lifestyle & give up using cash in order to support the faulty logic used in targetting criminals.
• Public libraries have removed or disabled ethernet ports (or neglect to install them) based on the faulty logic that cybercriminals use ethernet and legit users only use Wi-Fi.
• This nutter believes humans should not use emoji because he thinks bots use emoji and he would like his crude AI detector to work.
• We cannot buy lye in enough bulk to make our own biodiesel and bar soap from waste oil because lye is also used by meth labs.
• Asylum seekers cannot cross a national border because they are presumed criminal.
• (update) Cannot send email directly from your dynamic IP address because lazy email admins use that as a flag for spam.

All these scenarios represent different manifestations of the same oppressive paradigm: that it is okay to control people’s innocuous behaviour in order to support the convenience of a simplified and unsophisticated distinction from nefarious actors.

From a human rights standpoint, the result is a form of oppression that violates:

• autonomy
• self-determinism
• privacy
• consumer protection
• the right to a presumption of innocence

What do we call this?

• “Collective punishment” is somewhat fitting because a whole demographic of people are punitively targetted. But unlike the traditional meaning, it’s not a response to a particular incident. It’s more like a preemtive strike.
• “Collateral damage” is somewhat fitting because innocent people are damaged by the oppression. OTOH, collateral damage implies the victims are comrades aligned with the aggressors. But in reality the victims do not necessarily agree with the mission that causes the sloppy assault. I do not necessarily consider myself on the same team as the oppressors.

Neither are quite right. We need a term to express “pusher of forced lifestyle comformity to assist lazy baddy finders”.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/30909420

According to the linked leaflet, the EU’s payment services directive ensures that “You can no longer be charged extra costs by a merchant when you pay using a card issued in the EU.” But they neglect to extend reciprocity to cash payers.

Incidentally, this exacerbates adversely discriminatory treatment of Americans who face uniquely poor treatment by banks. Cash is the sole notable refuge from shitty banks.

Upcharging cash payers violates human rights. This is not only attributed to banks discriminating on the basis of nationality. We have a human right to:

• self-determinism
• autonomy
• consumer protection
• privacy

Penalising cash payers is an assault on any consumer who exercises their self-deterministic right to live autonomous and independent from banks.

No consumer protection is more important than the right to opt out of a transaction. It’s the only consumer protection that one can give themself without relying on others. Surcharging consumers who opt out of banking is an attack on that option. It puts a price on consumer protection.

Banking inherently entails abuse of privacy. The digital footprint is huge and undermins data minimisation rights.

(crossposted from !exclusive_public_resources)

The Council of State is a court that handles appeals, often to challenge non-court decisions like that of a public enforcement body. E.g. you report to SPF Mobilité that an airline or rail operator did not compensate you for a delay or cancellation, and they give you a flippant rejection, the Council of State is your recourse.

The Council of State will not open a case unless you pay a few hundred euros to their bank account. They do not accept cash.

So you might think: I’ll just hire a lawyer with cash and the lawyer will open the case. Nope. Belgian lawyers are prohibited from accepting cash.

I have two Beko washing machines, both “broken”. All components work fine - proven by hotwiring each component individually after some fixing. Yet the control panel wash LEDs just blink. The user manuals both conceal what the faults are, but leaked service manuals for similar models enabled me to expose the error codes, Beko tried to prevent me from seeing.

The errors are bullshit. One of them indicates “unbalanced load”. Beko actually designed the unbalanced load sensor to enter an error trap that cannot be escaped by the consumer. In effect, it is a kill switch. The service manual actually says to instruct the client on how to avoid unbalanced loads. But it does not tell the technician how to escape the error trap either. Reversing the kill switch is apparently so secret that they don’t even write it in the service manual. Putting it in writing would serve as hard evidence that the kill switch exists.

I have some amateur repair capability. I want to develop this skill so I can live independantly. I don’t want to be helplessly dependant on technicians that cost more than replacing the machine. I also respect the planet too much to throw away fixable machines. I believe my right to “self-determination” applies here, as well as autonomy and dignity. I choose not to be helpless. Throwing money at the problem is just another form helplessness. I intend to live a self-sufficient life.

When Beko creates these secret steps to unlock an otherwise working washing machine, they do so with intent to deprive people of their personal property, ultimately to boost more sales. Aspiring repairers are at a loss for self-determinism and autonomy. Self-sufficiency is both a matter of autonomy and dignity. Dependency strips us of dignity. As Beko assults consumer rights, environmental protection is also a human right they undermine. Forcing people to throw away working machines seems to violate all that.

Europe’s useless right to repair law is part of a higher green initiative (forgot what they called it). It apparently neglects non-environmental human rights, which I believe is why the law is so weak.

Is Beko violating human rights? This is what I find:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- Article 17 (emphasis added)

1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- Article 22 (emphasis added)

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- Article 29

1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights -- Article 1 (emphasis added)

1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights -- PART I, Article 1 (emphasis added)

1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU -- Article 17

Right to property

1. Everyone has the right to own, use, dispose of and bequeath his or her lawfully acquired possessions. No one may be deprived of his or her possessions, except in the public interest and in the cases and under the conditions provided for by law, subject to fair compensation being paid in good time for their loss. The use of property may be regulated by law in so far as is necessary for the general interest.

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU -- Article 37

Environmental protection
A high level of environmental protection and the improvement of the quality of the environment must be integrated into the policies of the Union and ensured in accordance with the principle of sustainable development.

Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU -- Article 38

Consumer protection
Union policies shall ensure a high level of consumer protection.

European Convention on Human Rights -- Article 8

Right to respect for private and family life

1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

(analysis of the above: “Guide on Article 8”)

1. Right to personal development and autonomy
   ¶253. Article 8 protects a right to personal development, … (Niemietz v. Germany, § 29; Pretty v. the United Kingdom, §§ 61 and 67; Oleksandr Volkov v. Ukraine, §§ 165-167;…).

FATCA specifically oppresses Americans who live outside the US. It strong-arms banks into treating Americans adversely different based on their national origin (ranging from denial of service to extra data collection and disclosure). I thought Americans were the only people who broadly face discrimination in banking due to their nationality. But I recently heard of other nationalities (not Americans) who are refused bank access due to their nationality (in Europe, where we might have a high expectation of human rights).

I could never get the details. People that report this to me have been vague. But I’ve heard it twice now. Does anyone know the specifics? Which nationalities and why?