GET A GRIP Profile picture
Mar 19 18 tweets 7 min read
#THREAD

Like the UK Govt's Rwanda Plan, the Nazi's Madagascar Plan aimed to forcibly relocate a minority population of Europe to East Africa. The plan was not viable due to a British naval blockade, but it functioned as an important psychological step toward the Final Solution.
#Rwanda is NOT a "safe" country.

The US State Dept '2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices' reveals Rwanda to be one of the most autocratic, authoritarian, & repressive regimes on earth, currently ranked 126th out of 167 countries for democracy.

state.gov/reports/2021-c…
According to the US State Department, significant human rights issues in #Rwanda included credible reports of:

🚨unlawful or arbitrary killings by the Govt;

🚨forced disappearance by the Govt;

🚨torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the Govt;
🚨harsh & life-threatening prison conditions;

🚨arbitrary detention;

🚨political prisoners or detainees;

🚨politically motivated reprisals against individuals located outside the country, including killings, kidnappings, & violence;

🚨 unlawful interference with privacy;
🚨serious restrictions on free expression & media, including threats of violence against journalists, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, & censorship;

🚨serious restrictions on internet freedom;
🚨substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly & freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on the organization, funding, or operation of nongovernmental & civil society organizations;
🚨serious & unreasonable restrictions on political participation;

🚨and serious government restrictions on or harassment of domestic & international human rights organizations.
🚨In the context of the UK's #Rwanda Plan to forcibly relocate people there, one of the most concerning features of the US State Dept report is that "human rights advocates continued to report instances of illegally detained individuals tortured in unofficial detention centers".
🚨 "Conditions at Rwanda prisons and unofficial detention centers ranged from harsh and life threatening to approaching international standards."
🚨 "The Rwandan government was often intolerant of public reports of human rights abuses & suspicious of local & international human rights observers, & it often impeded independent investigations & rejected criticism as biased & uninformed."
🚨Human rights NGOs expressed fear of the Rwandan Govt. State security forces monitored their activities resulting in & self-censorship.

🚨NGOs working on human rights & deemed to be critical of the Govt experienced difficulties securing or renewing required legal registration.
🚨The Rwandan government conducted surveillance on some international & domestic NGOs.

🚨Some NGOs expressed concern that Government intelligence agents infiltrated their organizations to gather information, influence leadership decisions, or create internal problems.
🚨Individuals who contributed to international reports on human rights reported living under constant fear that the Rwandan Govt could arrest & prosecute them for the contents of their work. Some domestic NGOs focused on human rights abuses self-censored, limiting effectiveness.
🚨Most NGOs that focused on human rights, access to justice, and governance matters vetted their research and reports with the Rwandan government and refrained from publishing their findings without government approval.
Imho, the above evidence makes it crystal clear that one of the reasons the UK Government chose #Rwanda is that the chances of anyone in Britain finding out the REAL conditions that deportees will find themselves in will be all but impossible to fund out.

The whole thing stinks.
Of course, #Rwanda isn't the only country about which there is international concern over human rights & the rollback of democratic freedoms: the UK has now joined Hungary, South Africa, & Poland, having been downgraded from ‘narrowed’ to ‘obstructed’.

More evidence that the UK Government is now a far-right Government which relies on hateful, dangerously irresponsible rhetoric, & pure #propaganda to divide voters.

And as for Gary Lineker's claim that the UK Government sometimes 'uses language not dissimilar to that used in 1930s Germany', it is an honest & compassionate statement of indisputable fact, as @MichaelRosenYes so convincingly articulates here:

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with GET A GRIP

GET A GRIP Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @docrussjackson

Mar 20
The European Convention on Human Rights is one of humanities' greatest achievements: an international response from Allied nations to the Nazi Holocaust & other human rights violations during WWII, to ensure they never happened again.

And now the SICK @Conservatives want out. 🤬 ImageImageImage
The new UN human rights chief @volker_turk has urged the British government to reconsider its plans to deport asylum seekers to #Rwanda, warning that in the past similar “offshoring” schemes had led to “deeply inhuman” treatment of refugees.

theguardian.com/global-develop…
In his first public comments on the controversy since taking office last year, Volker Türk rejected PM Rishi Sunak’s description of the £140million deal as “common sense”, saying that as well as being legally & ethically problematic it was also “very costly” & unlikely to work.
Read 12 tweets
Mar 18
'Harass, mislead, & polarize: An analysis of Twitter political bots’ tactics in targeting the immigration debate before the 2018 U.S. midterm election'.

This research analyzed the strategies of influential bots seeking to affect the immigration debate.
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Researchers analyzed the strategies of influential bots seeking to affect the immigration debate before the 2018 US midterm elections. Findings reveal that the 10 most influential bots in our dataset all presented an anti-immigration viewpoint.
These bots both posted tweets & RTd other bot accounts’ tweets to give a false sense of authenticity & anti-immigration consensus. Bots’ messages relied on negative emotional appeals by spreading harassing language & disinformation likely intended to evoke fear toward immigrants.
Read 28 tweets
Mar 18
“Following the outpouring of support for Gary Lineker & his compassionate stand on behalf of refugees, this government knows it is on the back foot & is once again ramping up the cruelty to distract from their own failures.”
- CEO, Freedom from Torture.

theguardian.com/politics/2023/…
"We are concerned to hear that journalists from organisations judged to be critical of the government’s immigration policy have not been invited... Democracy depends on an open & transparent relationship between government and the media."
- Martin Bright, Index on Censorship.
“Index on Censorship believes that access to government ministers, both domestically and as part of international visits, should not be treated as a reward for favourable coverage.”
Read 5 tweets
Mar 18
#THREAD

I've been researching twenty-first century UK non-broadcast 'news' articles featuring #TuftonStreet's ideologically extreme (deregulatory, anti-welfare, anti-union, low tax, free-market) 'think tank' (lobbyist) the 'Institute for Economic Affairs' (#IEA).
Counting articles is a relatively crude measure, but it's clear that the overwhelming majority present the the #IEA as disinterested/neutral, often using IEA reports & spokespeople to help frame or initiate stories. With very few exceptions, the IEA's funders are never revealed.
From 2000-2023, across all print & online non-broadcast UK news outlets, the #IEA is mentioned a staggering 9,175 times - predictably, mainly in Murdoch's, Barclay's, & Harmsworth's "newspapers":

The Times: 1,278
Sunday Times: 424
Times online: 457

The Sun: 379
Sun online: 133
Read 8 tweets
Mar 17
#THREAD

20 years ago today, Robin Cook resigned.

"It is false to argue that only those who support war support our troops. It is entirely legitimate to support our troops while seeking an alternative to the conflict that will put those troops at risk."

Below, I'll just give the later part from Robin Cook's resignation speech - still one of the most important, ethical, truthful & moving speeches ever given in the UK parliament.

Here's a link to the full speech:

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cm…
"Only a year ago, we & the USA were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider & more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition".
Read 35 tweets
Mar 17
#THREAD

We know *precisely* what the reaction of the @Conservatives & the right-wing media would be to a @UKLabour PM making an ex-Goldman Sachs banker & one of its biggest donors, with zero media management experience, the Chairman of our @BBC - because it happened in 2001.
Here's what Raymond Snoddy, writing in Murdoch's Times on May 4th, 2001, shortly before the appointment of New Labour donor & ex-Goldman Sachs banker Gavyn Davies said about his proposed appointment:
"A few eyebrows were raised when Davies became @BBC vice-chairman, but moving up to Chairman would be a step too far. The reason is that he is irredeemably attached, privately & publicly, to New Labour."
Read 22 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(