 but um not know that uh we're getting alive for instance right now we're alive okay well oh in theory what do you mean it's always it's always fun to begin these discussions with this question and we are live yes we are live i think we are live okay we are live and is this is give the people what they want it's uh friday which is why you're here with us uh the best show on the internet half and a global roundup today um is an important day it's uh you know the fifth of march 2021 it's the death anniversary of ugo chavez um one of the most luminous people presences political presences about time so we would like to on behalf of give the people what they want which is brought to you every week by people's dispatch from whom we have prashant hi prashant um we have zoe hi zoe and myself and hello viewers yeah and me vijay from globetrotter on behalf of our various projects we want to salute uh ugo chavez um on his death anniversary it's eight years on um today also uh katalan pen had a marathon session on behalf of the cultural worker artist musician uh paulo hustle uh paulo hustle you know has been charged with lese majesty the law of insulting the monarchy is absurd law in fact i would say he was not charged with that he was actually charged with trying to make the world a better place because we well know you know uh it's a crime to make the world a better place uh we saw our colleagues in india get harassed by the enforcement directorate it's a crime to make the world a better place this young woman uh disha ravi you know picked up by the deli police it's a crime to make the world a better place it's not a crime to be a pandemic profiteer you know like the top 10 billionaires who've made half a trillion dollars in the first half of 2020 i mean effectively what we used to have a phrase war profiteering people who profit of war these are pandemic profiteers that's not a crime it's a crime um to try to make the world a better place prashant um just you know towards your east you're sitting in new deli towards your east in bangladesh lots of sensitive people trying to make a better world trying to make the world a better place seem to keep getting into trouble bring us up to speed prashant about what's happening in bangladesh right so uh there have been protests going on almost every day since february 25th actually when mushta kehmer the writer died and mushta kehmer was 53 year old 53 years old and he had been in preventive detention for 10 months and he had been detained after he criticized the government's response to the pandemic now uh the interesting thing or the sad thing of course is that he was arrested the law called the digital security act and the digital security act was introduced in 2018 and it's a law that basically gives the government a huge amount of power to silence any kind of criticism that happens online now we've seen a lot of these laws enacted in many places across the world india had its own version some years ago which was struck down called section 66 a but basically what this law gives the government the power to is to actually arrest without a due process and keep people in jail for huge amounts of time now mushta kehmer uh what do you call was denied bail six times as was uh someone arrested alongside with him a cartoonist called Ahmad kabeer kishore who was actually given bail just a few days ago probably because of the crisis the protests mushta kehmer's death led to and there have been protests almost every day journalist students activists coming out on the streets they've been met with repression there's been lati charging a beaten charging there's been tear gas all that kind of stuff and what the protesters are demanding is a very simple clear very simple demand that the digital security act be withdrawn there be a proper investigation into his death because the government is claiming of course that he died of natural causes although there are reports that he was already brought there to hospital but the tragedy of this of course is a fact that a writer who criticized the government's response to the pandemic was kept in jail for 10 months like what kind of a system permits permits that and again of course the fact is that this this also becomes an issue because after the after his death says the other person is granted bail but suppose he just only vaguely taken ill they would have it may have continued there's no end to the process for how long say Ahmad kabeer kishore could have been in jail or mushta kehmer could have been in jail so this is actually one of the things we've been talking about a lot that while this law was introduced say in 2018 the pandemic has provided states across the world an opportunity to actually crack down further on any kind of descent you've seen that of course recently in India of course with new regulations on how digital media or platforms like amazon and netflix can function we've seen various repressive laws introduced or reintroduced across the world under the guise of say security and preventing the spread of the pandemic we've seen dissidents being targeted we're seeing protests and trade unions being attacked all this in the name of cobit 19 prevention whereas those associated with the government those associated with the state nonetheless get to have a free hand and do whatever they want so we've seen that in number of elections as well that being used as an excuse so i think this is an important time to also reflect on these kind of laws across the world which for instance in philippines we have a very similar very harsh brutal terror law hearings against that are going on in the supreme court right now that has been used against a number of people the thing with the bangladesh law of course is also the fact that journalists are among those who have been targeted extensively so number of cases hundreds of cases of journalists including very senior journalists being targeted with this law because it's phrased so vaguely that anything is interpreted as criticism it's very easy to sort of crack down so that's the situation right now the government has taken a very almost the prime minister responded in a very you know harsh in almost very uncaring manner the government decided we'll try to address some of the issues but has refused to withdraw so i think that in the coming weeks we are definitely going to see more protests on this as well i mean this is a key story because i mean i i think the way you put it is very well you know in other words you know here we have a situation we have a pandemic it's out of control pandemic we have the people have the right to criticize the government for failing to step up you know and and provide rational policy i mean i think that should be a basic question of the un charter applicable from the un charter seems to me prashant these bills digital security act and so on they violate the right of freedom of expression at the core it's not even how they interpreted but basically in the way they are framed i mean look bangladesh is struggled with this pandemic but it seems that no country has really had as much internal conflict over this pandemic as brazil it's been a tough week in brazil i think that questions of being able to criticize the government for the way it's handled the pandemic is also on the table zoe it's they consider this a historic week in brazil regarding the pandemic take us to brazil show us what's happening there well brazil has been kind of one of the worst impacted countries from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic you know there's been kind of just a complete disregard from the federal government of jair boltonado to take responsibility to take measures and to protect the population and this week we saw really concerning numbers of record for the country which you know in terms of deaths brazil is second in the world already over 260 000 deaths more than 10.7 million infections but this week brazil unfortunately broke its own record of most deaths per day which was over 1900 and so i mean these COVID milestones that keep getting broken down milestones which we thought couldn't be surpassed have been continually surpassed and it's extremely concerning because in some parts of the world there is a bit of optimism there is kind of a bit of a new light in which we're looking at the COVID-19 pandemic because of the vaccine but in brazil you know there's a feeling that there's kind of no one in sight i mean we're seeing new strains of the virus more deadly strains that are just rapidly spreading and the government still still after now i mean let's see on what is it in march 11th it will be one year since this was declared a global pandemic and jair boltonado still does not put the proper care and seriousness into dealing with this pandemic just to remind people you know over a year i mean not less than a year go out shortly after it's declared a global pandemic um jair boltonado famously said that it's just so it's just a little flu and if you have a history as an athlete like he does and you can easily get over this and now we're talking about 260 000 people who have lost their lives because he has his you know callousness of his uh just insistence on putting profit on putting big business on putting you know his own beliefs about you know disregarding vaccines disregarding social distancing above protecting the brazilian people and of course as we've seen across the board in brazil um the people who are being most impacted are the working class people it is the indigenous communities in brazil i mean i really recommend the people follow brazil de facto they have excellent coverage of this they've been covering the pandemic since day one have done really really careful and thoughtful reporting on this looking at the impact on you know diverse communities have really highlighted how in indigenous communities that are more isolated that have you know due to the same neoliberalism that's been put forth by uh jair boltonado by michelle temer following the coup in brazil you know public health infrastructure has uh been dismantled human doctors who were serving communities that have been horribly impacted by this pandemic were sent away so i mean it's it's a tragedy all of our solidarity and all of our you know support to our brazilian comrades who continue to resist who are not able to take the streets because it is simply too dangerous it is too dangerous to risk that in brazil right now with the current situation but they remain steadfast in the resistance the government as we know there have been at this point i don't even know what the official number is probably over 80 impeachment requests put before brazilian's congress for jair boltonado to be impeached the resistance has been constant we see of course movements like the landless world workers movement responding directly to the needs of the people providing food providing support on healthcare you know doing you know meeting the needs and putting the people above all else um so i think it's really unfortunate and hopefully there is soon going to be more hope for brazil i mean i know they've approved several vaccines the vaccine rollout is happening but unfortunately not fast enough you know last year um fallah de sampaulo which is a mainstream newspaper said that the main author of the tragedy is jair bolsonaro um you know reminds you of the slogan from rosa luxembourg where she said the choice between human before humankind is socialism or barbarism um this is a barbaric attitude of this government you know and today is rosa luxembourg's 150th uh birthday so happy birthday to rosa luxembourg who very clearly said look we have a choice either it's people or it's capitalism and jair bolsonaro i think is capitalism last year 27th of july healthcare unions in brazil uh you know filed a case of genocide against mr bolsonaro at the international criminal court um a significant move by them things that the icc moved very slowly at the criminal court but i think it's important for people to know that there's a genocide filing at the international criminal court of course speaking of the criminal court um fatih bensouda the prosecutor at the court she's a very fine person you know has decided after five years of careful study of a criminal complaint against the israeli government for its the nature of the occupation of the palestinian people crimes against humanity on the table and so on after five years of investigation um madame bensouda has decided to actually advance the case um you know the the the complaint against the israeli government is really significant because this case suggests that anything after 2013 must be looked at seriously you know i mean look at what we have we have operation cast lead leave everything else out on the table operation cast lead use of white phosphorus etc um you know the the kind of brutal assault on children um in the west bank that we've seen at checkpoints and so on so i think people need to pay attention of course to the international criminal courts i think now uh you know this is a very important investigation and i want people to pay attention to it because it will be attacked and they will try to discredit the international criminal court on the one side and madame bensouda and the other you know she is from gambia she is a person of high integrity but also i think it's important to pay attention to the fact that the trade unions and the landless workers movement of brazil have a case that they've put into the docket at the criminal court against mr bolsonaro precisely because of what you were talking about zoe which is you know callous handling of the pandemic callous handling of the pandemic criticized in bangladesh which then leads to the arrest and killing of people i mean what a world we live in for us as journalists you reporting these stories at people's dispatch myself you know from globetrotter trying our best to keep up with this stuff um that's why we're here every week we give the people what they want trying to bring to make sense first of what's happening and then bring you the story well a story prashant i don't think anybody's covered um horn of africa a place of great strife for a very long time unfortunately in somalia you know we see our colleagues in the in the union of journalists being attacked for reporting the truth we've tried to stand up for the somali journalist i know that's an issue but you've been looking at the question of tigre where um you know it's a conflict of i think some great importance please take us prashant and take your time because i don't think anybody knows very much about what's happening in the tigre region right so i think tigre is one of those issues which again it uh it does appear occasionally in the mainstream press of course but nonetheless a very serious uh crisis right now happening which requires far far far more attention part of the problem of course is that uh there the access of journalists of humanitarian aid workers for that matter has been very limited at a stake in a long time even now it's not really there there was a communications block blockade during the crisis and part of it is the fact of course that the logical journalism uh works to of course write and talk only about certain issues at certain times and one reason it got talked about now of course is the fact that the issue was discussed in the un security council that happened yesterday that's march the fourth and the issue also the discussion also happened in the context of some reports by human rights organizations including amnesty international of what though the kind of violence that is taking place and it's truly terrifying that way because the war in tigre started in november 2020 uh abhi Ahmed we talked about this before a Nobel peace prize winner for the peace deal between ethiopia and eritria uh launching uh ordering this offensive against the tigre region in the north which is ruled by the tigre people's liberation front and this conflict ended by the end of november but even during this period uh there there was a huge amount of there were quite a few human rights violations and recent reports have indicated there were war crimes crimes against humanity specific mention made of incidents in the city of axum in ethiopia where it is believed that eritrian forces uh and ethiopian forces who were at war until uh some decades ago now working together against the population there are reports of of course uh shelling there are reports of extrajudicial executions the numbers are not clear within a day or two it could have about 200 people may have died towards the end of november and very horrifying stories because it is very clear that you know and the thing of course being that both ethiopia and eritria have denied that eritrian soldiers were in that area but enough there are enough accounts of the fact that eritrian soldiers were there they went around the city uh you know chose boys and men executed them and uh you know this is of course the only information we have right now there are many more such incidents which may have taken place we don't know about it many more incidents of violence there's been a huge amount of internal displacement as well so the overall number is around over 200 000 people may have been internally displaced under the 40 000 plus people definitely uh were forced to move into sudan which itself is going through its own crisis and the worst part of course is that there is a very strong possibility of famine as well so again authorities aid agencies warning that there is the possibility of famine and demanding that the government allow access to you know organizations to actually try to help address this problem whereas i suspect the government's attitude is considering the extent of violence that has been perpetrated they are probably not willing to let you know more aid agencies and journalists enter precisely because of the possibility of these kind of revelations so a very difficult situation for hundreds of thousands of people in the tigre region there is and justice is definitely a long long way away because the prime minister has really centralized power as well new frame also has some really good stories on this about how basically he's somebody who's really centralized power you know introduce a lot of neoliberal reforms so a lot of complex politics involved there and i think in the coming weeks and months it's also something that progressive people journalists media organizations need to keep tracking so that you know this issue is not really lost sight of and just does not become one of those forgotten stories you know one of the the important things that we've talked about many times is that you know a story like this requires the details you know you cannot allow this to become a story of like an african tragedy and and so on because you know this is what takes the politics out of it this is the racism of journalism you know when you just say well it's a tragedy there is this there is that i think i just want to underline the fact that the stories that have been there people's dispatch are interested in the politics why is this happening what are the issues at stake and so on years ago edward side wrote a really fine book called covering islam where he made just this point is that you know people who cover they say oh terrorist this that and shut the story the real issue is what are the politics what's happening and so on and i think that the coverage at people's dispatch on this story is exemplary for that you know the details are important just because migrants start to stream into the west doesn't make this a migration story every story of a person trying to enter europe is not a migration story it's a politics story it's got to do with the politics of the region it's the same in Honduras you know when the Honduran caravans came through Mexico and toward the united states it became reported as this migration story these migrants coming in and so on how to deal with the migrants but it's this is not a migration story the migration issue comes at the end this is a story of the politics in in Honduras and i mean zoe you know i know this is some an area where you have very close affinities after all um we're now five years after the death of bertha the great leader of the Honduran people um the Honduran story is not just a migration story it's a story of politics what what are the politics of that story yeah well last week we were lucky to be able to share a bit about bertha's life her story her case um and you know bertha and the organization of copin works really closely with another organization called ofrane the fraternal black organization of Honduras and you know this past as as we've been speaking about and whenever Honduras comes up we've been speaking about kind of the how the government time and time again just undermines the possibility of the people to live with dignity um to live in with the bare minimum conditions um continually takes away this right which is why we see of course massive migration and of course we have to mention that this government has complete backing from the United States and i mean without taking away the agency of people like Juan Orlando Hernandez who commit you know horrible crimes of corruption of drug trafficking of you know everything else a lot of this has been enabled and uh supported by the United States and of course um incentivized but i wanted to bring people's attention to a case that happened just uh two days ago um so ofrane as i mentioned is an organization of the garifuna people um the garifuna people are afro indigenous people who live on the coast the Caribbean coast of Honduras um they've been engaged of course for decades um in really strong resistance um against of course this process of land privatization of this process of displacement of the people in favor of extractive projects in favor of something we'll look at in the dossier that's coming out on track on these special economic development zones and so the garifuna people have been specifically targeted by these zones essentially of creating lawlessness uh in terms of foreign investments um so these companies invest in these territories in Honduras don't have to pay any taxes don't have to abide by Honduran legislation and these have by and large been projects that have been developed in territories of the garifuna people um and so all this to say is that two days ago uh two sisters from ofrane marianela and jennifer soloranzo they were detained and accused of land usurpation and so these are women who have been very active in the uh organization of frane they've been you know part of these efforts to fight against um you know land grab by these foreign companies by the government and they are the ones who are accused and still in detention to this day over land grabbing of land usurpation and so i think i mean this case is is ridiculous because how can you i mean people who's had their entire life and livelihoods uprooted to favor foreign capital against their ancestral rights and now accused of land usurpation and just to highlight i mean this isn't a context where the garifuna community has been facing countless attacks and violations of human rights um according to ofrane in the past two years over 40 members of their community have been assassinated in just two years um they have actually created this um committee this uh body that's called sunla which in garifuna language which the garifuna people have their own language um it means uh enough and this committee is created to investigate these crimes to investigate these systematic rights violations that are essentially all related to territory and lands disputes between the community and between foreign capital and the government you know giving all reigns to foreign capital to displace these people um again want to mention the case of the five members of the garifuna community who were kidnapped forcibly disappeared in july of 2020 their bodies they have still not been found and you know part of the idea of this committee is to be able to investigate these crimes that the Honduran state is has no interest in has no interest in finding the truth finding justice for these communities and actually would prefer that there is none you know we um started off of course talking about Bangladesh uh well you know Pablo Hassel Bangladesh and so on people thrown in prison die in prison you know for being critical trying to advance the cause of of humanity now you're telling us about these people in the Honduras um it's a pretty miserable situation and yet of course people seem to continue to fight for things um this next couple of months are going to see a series of elections and you know i'm going to come back next week perhaps to the elections in Ecuador and in in Chile and so on in South America but today i just want to put in the few you know remaining time we have the fact that 225 million people in India are going to have their representatives chosen in the next um you know months ahead including in West Bengal a state of 91 million people i think in seven or eight phases uh unbelievable what the planning you know what why they've decided to do it like that um there are entire countries in the world that vote on one day you know um the United States population of 320 million okay it's a dysfunctional political system but somehow this they're able to have their representative their vote happened in one day in West Bengal over eight phases i mean seems to me is very odd and suspicious but leave that aside i don't know why i'm just speculating but uh four states one union territory going to the polls in none of them will be ruling BJP be tested as the farmers movement enters 100 days of the farmers struggle they will not be tested in these states because these are not the states where this is the main live issue you know the one state where the BJP is in power is in Assam up in the northeast of India and there the question of the citizenship amendment act this what i consider i think many consider an anti-muslim proposition by the extreme right government in New Delhi this will be the issue to some extent and the pandemic and unemployment and local issues will be there it's a triangular contest i think it's going to be possible for the BJP to pull it off to win that again um West Bengal again a triangular contest between a regional cronies party the TMC then the BJP which is you know interestingly using its money power and the so-called charisma of Mr. Narendra Modi to push an agenda against the left and the congress in alliance again a split mandate we don't know what's going to happen there most likely this regional crony party will prevail in Tamil Nadu it's a contest between the AI DMK and the DMK these are two parties two parties that emerged out of Dravidian or non-Brahman politics i mean there's there's a lot that unites them there's a lot that shows them to be different the DMK is led by a gentleman with the name of Stalin it's in alliance with the left most likely it'll win the DMK has had a good run recently the election i wanted to spend the last minute on is the election in Kerala and Prashant i mean ordinarily i would say Prashant you should talk about it since you're from Kerala but let me take advantage of the situation to say a few things one is that since 1918 no government actually has been able to win a re-election this is an extraordinarily bright electorate 36 million people live in Kerala it's a highly literate society they seem to want to keep going between the left democratic front and the congress led udf and the reason i feel that this is the case is actually the electorate is quite polarized and it's a matter of the margins going either way this particular year it is likely for the left to repeat and to beat anti-incumbency and win again it's a government of some i think note because they were able to deal with two years of terrible flooding several viruses the Nipah virus first and now the pandemic in front in fact the health minister was profiled by the guardian KK Shalja she was called corona slayer now that may be a bit excessive but nonetheless you know Kerala has been able to hold down the infection but more than anything has demonstrated rational governance governance that puts people first and so on so please keep an eye on these elections in India you know i think it's it behooves us to pay attention to the fact that 225 million people will have their representatives chosen this is a lot more than the number of people in Germany Germany will have an election in september and i can tell you there's going to be a lot of media coverage of the german election as there should be but there should also be some coverage of the election in in india we've covered a lot of things in this half hour prashanta anything else as usual no no there's of course a lot but as usual are you voting well prashanta are you going to vote and it depends on what the pandemic scene is at that time etc etc so yeah i mean etc etc etc it's a far away from New Delhi to Kerala so it's the other side of the country etc etc we can expect a lot of very young candidates especially from the left like that like happened in local body elections recently so i'm sure that we have a lot of fresh faces a lot of interesting both young as well as women candidates as well very likely yeah it's going to be a good election i want people to take a look at it obviously for continued coverage of all this please go to peoplesdispatch.org bookmark the page support the page social media etc etc follow us at globetrotter i very much like this etc etc yeah give the people what they want comes to you every friday comes to 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