 Salaam. This is People's Dispatch and you're watching the Daily Debrief coming to you from our studios here in New Delhi with me, Siddhantani. We're talking on the show today about a massive mobilization of workers, farmers and agricultural laborers in India who are on the streets demanding more from the Narendra Modi-led BJP government. We also talk about the increasing cycle of Israeli state oppression against Palestinians, particularly in the context of the holy month of Ramzan. And finally, why the U.S. justice system is refusing to relook at Mumia Abu Jamal's long-pending plea for bail as well as his trial and incarceration in the first place. First up, our top story for the day. On Wednesday, April the 5th, thousands, tens of thousands, in fact of farmers and workers from across India, came to the country's capital, New Delhi, to protest the central government and its anti-farmer and anti-labor policies. The rally was organized under the banner, Masdur Kisan Sanghash Rally, which translates into worker, farmer agitation rally. It was held at the massive Ramleela Maidan grounds in New Delhi. And protesters demanded relief from inflation, a legal guarantee for a minimum support price for agricultural produce main crops, that is, minimum wages for all workers to the tune of around US dollars 300 per month, relief from debt, pension for all farmers above 60, the repeal of the four anti-labor codes that were passed by the current government in 2020, and the withdrawal of the electricity amendment bill 2020. This is among a wider set of demands that cover the entire gamut of the political sphere or spectrum in India today. Protesters accused the Modi-led government of creating a crisis of livelihood for all sections of the working class. The rally was jointly organized by three of the country's biggest organizations or unions, which represent workers, farmers, as well as agricultural laborers. These are the All India Kisan Sabha, the center of Indian trade unions, and the All India Agriculture Workers Union. In the run-up to the rally, an extensive campaign was held across several parts of North India that garnered widespread support. Workers and farm union leaders held joint conventions in over 400 districts across the country to plan this campaign as well as mobilization. We have more now from Vikram Singh. Right, so we have with us now via video conference, Vikram Singh, who's the joint secretary of the All India Agricultural Workers Union, one of the three mass organizations, like we were saying earlier, representing millions of members across India's working class who were behind the mobilization, organizing things. Vikram, for our international audience, who is perhaps not very well versed with the specifics of the issues faced by the working class in India today, although many of them are in common with what is going on in the rest of the world, particularly in other countries in the global south, what is the context in which this rally took place? It's part of an ongoing movement that is now bringing together workers from all sectors. This rally isn't a result of some last 10 years' efforts. We are trying to unite the working class, means particularly farmers, agricultural laborer and workers, organized and unorganized on their issues. Because from our experience, we have learned and international, people may not be aware, but it is quite evident in India that agriculture is going through very bad time in India. Agricultural laborer and workers are forced to commit suicide in 2021, 15, 200, 50, 200 agricultural farmers and more than 50, 500 agricultural workers committed suicide. And on daily basis, 115 workers, daily wage workers are committed suicide. This is a hint, this is a hint about the conditions, uncertainties and hardships of the working class, all sections of working class are facing. And this is primarily due to the neoliberal economic policies adopted by our regime, the earlier regimes and the present regime, which is taking it one step further, particularly using the periods of pandemic when they introduced these three farm laws against which the historical farmer movement was there, during which they implemented four labor court, during which they are trying to give away all the structure of social welfare state. The hard earned right to work, which is known at Mahatma Gandhi, National Lural Unemployment Guarantee Act, MNRJ we call in India, is the Employment Guarantee Act, which ensures 100 days work to unemployed rural youth, rural people. It is a legal guarantee, but surprisingly, during the last financial year, only for two days work were given. So they are taking it away in lack of a financial budget from central government, this concludes the reduction. So all this is resulting in measures in the life of agriculture workers, farmers and workers. And workers, this toiling masses from their own experience has learned that there is a common enemy and the enemy is this neoliberal policies and the people, our central government and our corporates, we call it Maudisha, our minister and home minister and two big corporates of India, Adani and Abhani. They are nexus, they are nexus along with the politics of Hindutva. We call it corporate, communal nexus, which are running the India at one hand, they are implementing this neoliberal policies, which are depriving majority of the people. And the other hand, they are trying to divide the unity of toiling masses. So with this understanding, we were trying to unite all the sections of working class. During the last two, three years, we are having various programs. In 2018, we had a big program and then this peasant movement, we are all the sections participated. And now it's a culmination of one phase when means lakhs of people, almost 0.1 million people participated in this program, which really gave a hope, which is giving a hope not to the toiling classes, but to the whole democratic people who are thinking that this country is still a democratic country. Thanks for giving that quite detailed background, Vikram. India is going into a next election cycle for its general assembly. And like you say, this is just the culmination of one phase of the movement that has been on for a decade of work. So what next? Where does it go from here? And what are the kind of mobilizations and other kinds of political pressure we hope to see in the lead up to the next general election? We are not saying that we are going into entering into a very important phase that we are entering into the election here. And the whole word is saying towards the largest democracy of the world, the largest democracy of the world. We are an independent, democratically elected government is working in an autocratic way. They are using all government machineries to silent all kinds of dissidents, including from political to this simple activism. They are not tolerating any dissent. They are doing that. In this scenario, when I said that we are just concluded one phase, the second phase is a continuity. There's no phase basically. There's no phase. It's in the continuity from 1st August to 8th August, we are having, we are going to have a vigorous propaganda, vigorous campaign, because on 9th August, we celebrate in India as a quick India movement, the legacy of freedom movement where we fought against imperialist forces. And we are thinking we are with our understanding is that this government and this regime is containing those imperial imperialist policies in India. So we will be having a vigorous program all lower level agitation, struggle, mass actions, A, B, standard trade unions are going to hold three days strike 9th, 10th, and 11th of August. See, see, New Kisan Morcha, which is a platform of farmers, they are going to, we have a big programs in the month of May and June. So all sections, all sections independently and unity will be in the struggles on the basis of the issues of the particular sections. And we think our responsibility is two sided, two way we will be fighting. First, for the livelihood, for the right of presenting and workers. And the second is political fight until and unless our struggle, the economic struggle is not connoted into the political struggle. We are not challenging this regime. We are not fighting to save our democracy and our constitutional India. We won't be succeeding in our, the whole aim. So that is our understanding that we will be working as this government, not only this government, basically that nexus unholy nexus of political and this corporate along with the blend of this communal politics of BJP. So this is a whole year program. And we are hoping that our government, which is an an illusion that through their skilled mechanism of communal polarization and riding on this election bonds, the huge money they are getting from the corporate, they will be managing Indian democracy. They will be managing Indian elections. They're not going to succeed in this because now working class, the creator of wealth, the producer of wealth are on the roads and they are challenging this unholy nexus. All right. Vikram Singh of the All India Agricultural Workers Union. Thank you very much for your time and for joining us on Daily Debrief today. Next up, world leaders and global organizations are expressing concern about as well as condemning Israeli violence against Palestinians at the Al Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem. This is happening during the holy month of Ramzan. And on Wednesday, we saw a second day of consecutive raids with some warning that it could further escalate tensions. The spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez said that the Secretary General is appalled by the images he saw of the violence and beating by Israeli security forces inside the Al-Kibli Mosque in Jerusalem, sorry, at a time of the calendar, which is holy to Jews, Christians, as well as Muslims, of course. Other countries and organizations such as Germany urged calm while the Arab League denounced the aggression calling an emergency meeting as well. The Arab League called on the UN to assume legal moral and humanitarian responsibilities for halting Israeli aggression and providing international protection for Palestinian people. Dr Abdul Rahman is with us to discuss the latest in what is an ongoing spiral of violence against Palestinians. Abdul, we've spoken quite regularly on the escalating levels of violence and oppression being exerted by the Israeli state, particularly since the coming of the new coalition government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, also last year being the deadliest for Palestinians. In the month of Ramzan, now the holiest month for Muslims, this seems to intensify. Take us through the events of the past few days and what you make of what's going on despite calls from world bodies and the international community to sort of tone down the kind of provocations. Well, as per the reports on Tuesday, I think it is well known now on Tuesday night when the thousands of Palestinians were inside the Alaska Mosque compound, basically performing what is called Taravi prayers. After the five basic prayers, there are additional prayers performed during the month of Ramadhan. So when they were performing that set of occupation forces entered Alaska compound and they tried to basically vacate the space because as you all know, along with Ramadhan this year again, there is a Jewish festival of Passover going on and they wanted to clear the space for the settlers to visit what they call the Temple Mount. So because of course the Palestinians resisted the attempt to vacate and that led to the Israeli forces unleashing violence against the Palestinians, arresting around 400 of them. The videos are already there in public domain and on social media, which shows how brutal the violence was against the people who were basically performing their religious rituals. This is nothing new. This has been repeated again on Wednesday. Then today also there were reports. Today means Thursday also. There are reports that Israeli forces have entered. They have kind of restricted the entry of Palestinians below the age of 40. There are reports of several restrictions on those number of people who can perform prayers inside the mosque and when they have to vacate it and so on and so forth. If you see the inside the videos which have come out in public domain, they portray how the elderly people, the people who are performing the prayers while performing their prayers were beaten up, how the property of the mosque were destroyed by the Israeli forces and all of this happened with so much impunity and this is happening repeatedly. Last year also we saw similar things happening. Thousands of Palestinians were injured on the repeated days of violence unleashed by the Israeli forces and last year also similar things were reported. So this is nothing new. Every year it seems that the Israeli forces get some kind of instruction from the occupation authorities to basically vacate the premises. It seems there are two things which we can make out of all these developments. Of course, there is the fear of an organized Palestinian gathering inside the mosque basically creates some kind of fear among the occupation forces. Of course, that is one. The other thing is we all know that there were protests going on in Israel for last several months and those protests are still going on. Palestinians have always been a bait which basically thrown to the Israeli people to divert their attention and to kind of get whatever they want to get. So all these things basically are related to the larger tactics of the occupation. The Palestinian lives are disposable when it comes to the occupation forces and Al-Aqsa, particularly during the month of Ramadan, becomes the hot target each year. And Abdullah, like you were saying, Al-Aqsa because of its importance in the Islamic world understandably becomes the focal point of the attention as well. But this is not something we are seeing. It's not an isolated sort of event or location. We are seeing this across the board at a time when in a wider sort of geopolitical sense, there's also a diplomatic push towards normalization and the whole Abraham Accords conversation still going on. Is it the case of another government playing one way within its own sphere of influence and completely different outside? Well, exactly the point. It seems that the Israelis are trying to give very confusing a message. If you see the violence against Palestinians since not only since Netanyahu came to power has increased. It is basically the escalation of violence against Palestinians is going on for many years. But in the last few years, if you see at least three years, what we see that there are repeated raids inside the occupied West Bank, scores of people, hundreds of people each year are killed by the Israeli forces. And nothing happens. At the same time, if you see the Gaza, the blockade is still continuing. Ever since the Netanyahu government has come to power, the measures against the Palestinians, for example, if we take one example of Palestinian prisoners inside the Israeli prisons, if you see how the atrocities have been, quote unquote, legitimized through different kinds of orders passed by the Itamar Ben-Guin, who is the National Security Minister in the Netanyahu government, who himself has been a settler and how settler violence has increased. What we saw in Huwara a few weeks ago, those things have become, quote unquote, normal. So inside the occupied territories, the violence against Palestinians has been normalized. There is an increasing attempt to normalize it and make it legit, in fact. But outside, it seems that the U.S. and all those backers of the Israeli regime, they don't seem to bother about it. If you see the New York Times heading about Al-Aqsa's violence on Tuesday, they seem to justify it. And this is not the first time they're doing it. They have done it before as well. So they try to portray it as clash, which is not the case. It is basically one-sided violence against the Palestinians. So this attempt to send confusing messages to the international community has been a very well-used practice by the Israeli regime. And fortunately for them, they have powerful backers sitting outside, both in terms of media image and also in terms of the state support by the United States, by the European countries. It seems that Israel is immune to all the violence. It is unleashing against the Palestinians. And it is still enjoys a legitimate presence in the international community, which is basically giving much more scope and legitimacy to the Israeli violence against the Palestinians. Like Abdullah was pointing out, even the United Nations General Assembly's committee on the inalienable rights of Palestinians condemning this attack as the UN has in several forums before. But again, the impunity is actually shocking. But all right, thanks very much, Abdul, for that update. And we will, of course, continue covering the region as we have been consistently on. And finally, despite international high-profile campaigns for his release, political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal's appeal was denied by Philadelphia Judge Lucretia Clemens. Abu Jamal has spent over four decades in prison after being convicted of killing a police officer in a politically motivated persecution for his work as a journalist and black liberation fighter. The movement for his release has spanned decades and has grown to international levels. As Angela Davis wrote in an open letter last month, a judge recently ruled that over 200 boxes of materials must be handed over to Abu Jamal's defense. After previously unknown or unseen, exculpatory evidence was mysteriously discovered in 2018. The evidence relates to Abu Jamal's trial and includes documents that indicate a level of procedural discrepancy that could well constitute a mistrial. This includes jury selection based on racial lines and bribing of witnesses. Natalia Marquez has a detailed report up on the PD website and sent us this take on the continued denial of justice to Mumia Abu Jamal. So despite the fact that for the past one to two months, there's been an international very high-profile campaign for the release of Mumia Abu Jamal, his appeal for a new trial was just denied by Philadelphia Judge Lucretia Clemens on March 31st. This is a really devastating blow for Mumia and his supporters. Mumia Abu Jamal has spent over 40 years in prison in the US as a US political prisoner and like many political prisoners in the US, he was active in the Black Liberation Movement of the 1670s. He's a former Black Panther and also unique to Mumia, he is a journalist who wrote very faithfully about police brutality and corruption in Philadelphia and his supporters actually alleged that his conviction in 1981 of killing a police officer which gives cover to his imprisonment as a political prisoner is nothing more than a cover and a front for persecution for political persecution and that there in fact is no evidence of him killing Daniel Faulkner, Philadelphia police officer at that time. The movement for his release has spanned decades and this was a really recent and a really good shot at release for Mumia when in 2018 six boxes of previously unseen exculpatory evidence was discovered mysteriously and a judge ruled in December that over 200 boxes of new evidence must be handed over to Mumia Abu Jamal's defense. You know some of the evidence that was uncovered were documents that indicate that a witness was bribed for testimony that the prosecutor had removed Black people from the jury for racial reasons which is illegal it's unconstitutional under the 14th amendment and that the prosecution offered leniency to a key witness for crimes that she had been charged with you know there's not only is are there notes prosecutor notes that show that the prosecutor tracked the race of each juror during jury selection but also you know the trial prosecutor wrote down also in his notes a template that he created to select jurors that he you know applied unevenly based on the race of the different jurors you know prosecutors often select jurors for racial reasons as you know as a training video from the Philadelphia district attorney's office indicates from 1986 that Black people are less likely to convict and prosecutors want juries that will convict and will have them win the case you know this very infamous video from 1986 that really revealed the strategy of prosecutors in Philadelphia and across the US has many really notable quotes but but an especially damning one is you know the person telling trainees in selecting Blacks to the jury again you don't want the real educated ones so this idea that jurors need to be easily convinced and gullible and susceptible and also of a certain racial demographic you know it's unconstitutional to strike Black people from the jury based on their race but prosecutors often get away with it and this was you know a rare moment where it was actually proven that it was racially motivated by this exculpatory evidence and yet still Mumia did not get a new trial based on that evidence which is pretty incredible and this new evidence could have given Mumia his best shot at release in a long time but now you know of course supporters are devastated because Mumia also has a lot of health issues you know he's been experiencing medical neglect in prison for over 40 years and he suffers from heart problems he contracted covid he contracted hepatitis C a few years ago and was denied a medical treatment for a very long time so it's not like he has a ton of time left actually his time was very limited that's why supporters want him out of prison as soon as possible and now you know this new evidence has really proven unfruitful so they're looking at things like clemency etc but really just hoping that they're able to get Mumia out of prison soon again you know the allegation is that he is in prison for entirely politically motivated reasons the United States makes a lot out of political prisoners in other countries really plays up political prisoners in countries that it's hostile to like Cuba and China and Russia but at the same time we in the U.S. we have political prisoners right here at home who are not given opportunities to have a fair trial so you know at the same time supporters are going to continue fighting of course they've been fighting for decades but it's it's a really devastating blow and with that we bring to a close this episode of the daily debrief from Natalia myself and the entire team here at People's Dispatch thank you very much for watching as always we invite you to head to our website peoplesdispatch.org for more details on these stories and all the other work we do don't also forget to follow us on the social media platform of your choice we'll be back same time same place tomorrow until then stay safe goodbye