When I was a journalist in #Egypt, I interviewed @BaheyHassan dozens of times. He represents the integrity and courage of human rights defenders. And this farcical trial and outrageous sentence represent the fascism and depravity of the Sisi regime. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…
A “terrorism” court in #Cairo sentenced exiled Bahey el-Din Hassan, a prominent human rights defender and one of the founders of the human rights movement in #Egypt, to 15 years in prison on fabricated charges related to “insulting the judiciary” and “disseminating false news”
“#Egypt continues to be an open-air prison for those human rights defenders who are not already behind bars or in forced exile, as authorities slap bogus state security charges on anyone who dares to criticize them or their draconian laws...” @amnesty
When he was the head of the #Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and director of the #Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, @BaheyHassan was always one of the first people I would call for comment and explanation on the most pressing human rights issues.
All solidarity
“The evidence used to convict Bahey el-Din Hassan was tweets about the dire human rights situation in #Egypt &about his participation in the UN Human Rights Council, where he called for justice for Giulio Regeni, an Italian student who was forcibly disappeared &unlawfully killed”
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White & Christian are considered norm and not dangerous in the U.S. 👇🏽
"GOP Sen Anthony Kern & his prayer team of anti-abortion extremists praying in tongues (that’s not an audio issue) that an 1864 law banning nearly all abortion becomes law again."
It's easy to see the fascists and theocrats when they don't look like you. When they're white and Christian, their danger has not registered enough:
So successful has white supremacist patriarchy been at convincing white women that they’re lucky to live in the U.S. and not Saudi Arabia:Iran, that so many white women didn’t pay enough attention to theocracy that white supremacy was building at home theguardian.com/us-news/2024/m…
It was being built by white men who look like their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, not the scary brown men with beards, right?
The same arrogance and naiveté that made so many white Americans think Trump would never become president is same arrogance & naiveté that made so many think "it would never happen here” whether it was destruction of abortion rights:anti-divorce laws feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-ha…
Two months into its genocide in Gaza, the more Israel displays its savagery against Palestinians, the more obvious its moral and philosophical defeat.
Militarily, Israel is armed to the teeth and propped up by the U.S., the world’s most powerful country.
And Israel is losing
The unconscionable vote against ceasefire at the UN yesterday by U.S. & abstention by the UK are reminders that while some western political powers might still be propping up Israel’s crimes,around the world more & more people vehemently oppose the genocide.
Israel is losing
Israel’s crimes are repeatedly being equated w/some of worst genocidal crimes: from ethnic cleansing and genocide in Srebrenica to the cultural genocide of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
It has come at a staggeringly high Palestinian death toll—at least 20,000.
When the NYT is reporting it like this, something is changing
"People are being killed in Gaza more quickly, they say, than in even the deadliest moments of U.S.-led attacks in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, which were themselves widely criticized by human rights groups."
"It is not just the scale of the strikes...Israel’s liberal use of very large weapons in dense urban areas, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs that can flatten an apartment tower, is surprising, some experts say."
Some of you will remember that at in Sept. 2012, I was arrested in NYC for spray painting over an Islamophobic and racist pro-Israel ad.
Notice the language of the ad and how it continues to echo today. 📷 Kristy Leibowitz
Anytime you see the words “civilized” and “savage” being used, understand that the purpose is dehumanization.
I refused to allow that dehumanization to exist without challenge on the walls of the subway that I and millions of New Yorkers use.
We who oppose Israel are not savages and there are more options than Israel/Jihad. And if it makes me a savage to oppose that option, if it makes me a savage to support Palestinian freedom from apartheid, occupation, ethnic cleansing and genocide, then I am a proud savage.