Yanis Varoufakis calls for the boycott of Amazon on Black Friday!
Hello. This is Yanis Varoufakis with a message from the Progressive International and DiEM25.
This Black Friday, Friday, the 27th of November 2020 we’re asking you to refrain from buying anything from Amazon.com.
We’re asking you to not even visit Amazon.com on that day. Just for one day. We are asking you to join our global campaign to make Amazon pay. On this day, by boycotting Amazon you will be adding your strength to an international coalition of workers and activists from the ITUC, UNI Global Union, and Public Services International, and Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, to the Tax Justice Network, and Data for Black Lives. Amazon is not a mere company. It is not merely a monopolistic mega-firm. It is far more, and far worse, than that. It is the pillar of a new techno-feudalism.
Amazon treats its workers as expendable robots. Reducible to their capacity to pick and pack under conditions that crush their souls and bend their bodies. Amazon drives into the ground the small bookshops and businesses that are the fabric of our communities. Amazon is not a mere service provider, nor are its profits the rewards of a service provider. Amazon is a gigantic behavior modification machine. Its data services run the business of government while its top executives dictate policy to politicians. Its algorithms provoke and tease that which people buy, watch, and read.
Amazon does not pay for the damage it inflicts upon workers in unhygienic warehouses. For the elimination of small businesses. For the massive damage it inflicts upon the planet, our environment. For the government services that our necessary to repair the damage that Amazon inflicts on our people, on our communities, on our environment. Amazon, in short, is a clear and present danger to workers communities, to public health, to the planet, to our democracies, and, yes, to the notion the liberal individual that the establishment waxes lyrical about.
What can you do to make Amazon pay? Are we not too small to matter? No, we’re not.
Remember: no despot, oligarch, or entrepreneur has the power to rule over the millions, the billions of us without our consent. The truth about despotic power does not lie in the despot’s weapons, bank accounts, or data servers. It lies in the minds of those the despot controls. It lies in our inaction.
The beauty and the power of our Black Friday Day of Action lies in the fact that it requires only a tiny sacrifice from you: Just don’t visit Amazon.com for one day. That’s all! But this tiny activism, when carried out by millions, or billions, out there, will translate into a huge blow for Amazon. Even if we cause a small dent in Amazon’s revenues on that one day, on Black Friday.
You see, Jeff Bezos, a very smart man, will take note. He will get it. Amazon’s days of impunity are over. Together, this Black Friday, we can make a gigantic difference with a tiny act of solidarity to workers, communities, and the planet. This Black Friday let’s make Amazon pay. Okay? Carpe DiEM.
Gender pay gap: fighting each other over crumbs
20 November marked the day when women effectively started to work for free this year.
Every year, the Fawcett Society calculates, according to gender pay gap figures, Equal Pay Day — the day on which women “effectively, on average, stop earning relative to men”, which this year fell on 20 November.
Not only do women tend to get more precarious and poorly paid jobs, but they are also paid less when performing the same tasks as men. Women end up taking more part-time, not career-oriented jobs, because they are also expected to take care of all the unpaid domestic, emotional, and mental labor. Women’s work has been historically framed as a natural resource, used as a prop for capitalism and its need for a low paid workforce that has to be fed, cleaned, cared for and reproduced.
The pandemic has clearly made present and visible what was barely shielded from view.
A system that celebrates masculinity and heroic acts of accumulation and concentration of wealth over anything else, at the expense of what has historically has been naturalised as exploitable. The vulnerability of women and their wage status has spiraled into view as we see front-line workers that are disproportionately made up of women, migrant domestic workers, and people of colour.
UN chief António Guterres warned that the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are falling “disproportionately on the most vulnerable: people living in poverty, the working poor, women and children, persons with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.” With many organisations and companies forced to downsize or file for bankruptcy, women are the most affected by these changes.
Women have been the first to lose their source of income, while women-led or industries that are mostly attributed to women (food service, retail, entertainment, hospitality, etc.) are the sectors that were the hardest hit by the pandemic. Aside from the negative effects on women’s employment, the reorganization of the division of labor has shifted heavily towards women.Unpaid care work has exploded, with women taking on most of the responsibility. The impact of the pandemic has been made present along gender and racial dimensions.These consequences will probably outlast the pandemic, but unfortunately the core issues of unpaid precarious labour, and the marginalization of women in decision-making roles are not new. They have been the focus of the DiEM25 Green New Deal for Europe which proposes a just and sustainable transition. Initiatives such as the Green New Deal for Europe could have a direct impact on the kind of systemic inequalities that create pay gap disparities along gender lines.
Discourse around gender parity in pay tends to come up with crumbs: since last year for example, women, according to the same research, have had to work 6 days less for free. Meager results attained through pure struggle.
So how does this whole structure stand up? Gender disparities have been a major colonial export, restructuring colonized peoples and societies along systems of power that excluded women from decision making processes and further entrenched disparities through systemic violence in order to govern the distribution and use of resources (material and social). This has contributed to the naturalisation of the exclusion and exploitation of women to this day. Boardroom feminism showed itself to be a parody of male supremacy and its games of privileges in the workplace: it was never meant to question the system that elevated people, like Sheryl Sandberg, to the top of the game. In fact it’s in her best interest to leave what she conquered exactly as is, confirming her access to power and status as result.
During COVID-19, it has become palpable that this old system has collapsed.
The fight for equal pay is a catalysing distraction, meant to dissipate resistance and change. Redressing balances and injustices using mechanisms such as equality and parity dissipates the production of anomalies and deviations, frustrating new possibilities and potentials inherent in the “interstices of institutions, in counter practices and new forms of community… existing concurrently and in contradiction.” (De Laurentiis, The Technology of Gender). Such is the potential of grassroots movements like DiEM25 and its potential to address systemic imbalances with narratives that are built from the ground up.
Fighting over who gets paid less or more is not going to get us the change we need.
The system throws us crumbs and we fight each other over them, and in that fight we reaffirm that same system of inequalities. DiEM25 proposals for care income go some ways at redressing historical imbalances in distribution of wealth through income disparities. However, we need to push for systemic change that combats the way transnational liberal economies justify the exclusion of women and girls from key economic decision making bodies therefore ensuring its continuity.
We need to bring women into formal political and economic decision-making processes if we want to ensure a future built on different premises. An interesting development is the Feminist Green New Deal and how it puts feminism centre stage as a necessary component in the decision making process that looks to ensure the end of silencing of women.
So while we have to coexist with a system of pay gaps designed to antagonise and exacerbate disparities (like throwing salt on a wound, a slow torture that weakens and dissipates our resolve) it is not imperative we negotiate with it.
Achieving equal pay is not enough.
We have to break the very system that pits two genders against each other in all their performative qualities, as well as recognise and compensate the invisible labor that has been holding society together if we want to see other possibilities, and have an idea of the horizons that are available to all of us. As mentioned the Green New Deal goes some way to addressing this through the introduction of care income.
We can go further and deeper. Formulating policies with a feminist and transectional perspective (along all historically feminised and racialized sections of society) will free up potentialities and create opportunities.
Join DIEM25 to have a say on what a truly pan-european democratic future looks like.
Photo by Tatiana Syrikova from Pexels.
The new season of DiEM TV is finally here!
We’re delighted to announce the upcoming season of DiEM TV is finally here!
We launched DiEM TV in March of this year when much of Europe, and the world, entered the first COVID-19 lockdown. Since then, thanks to you, DiEM TV has been watched by more than a whopping 2 million people from all over the world!
During our very successful first season we hosted Noam Chomsky, Gael Garcia Bernal, Saskia Sassen, Ece Temelkuran, Shoshana Zuboff, Jeremy Scahill, Roger Waters, Larry Charles, Judah Friedlander, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, Anish Kapoor, Stephanie Kelton, Johann Hari, Slavoj Žižek, Daniel Ellsberg, and many others.
It was because of you that we were able to achieve these results!
Because as simple as it looks, producing these interactive, online broadcasts requires our small team to scramble and put together a not-so-simple puzzle involving IT, communications, and a ton of work on top of what they already are doing to keep DiEM25 running.
We believe knowledge, critical thinking, and concrete solutions for overcoming the deepest crisis humanity has ever faced has to be available to everyone.
Now we’re pleased to bring you DiEM TV’s new season, which you’ll be able to watch starting on Monday, November 30!
Save the dates, register, send in your questions, and tune in. You will not want to miss DiEM TV’s new season!
Monday, November 30, 19:00 CET
Another Now with Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis will focus his show on one of the most powerful companies in the world: Amazon. The discussion will be followed by a 30-minutes Q&A session (You can already send questions by registering here!)
[Register Here!]Monday, December 7, 19:00 CET
News from the Frontline with Mehran Khalili
An incredibly special new series where we interview people who are successfully confronting the Establishment. Make sure to tune in to learn how they work and what drives them – and learn about the tactics that WE can use as a movement to strengthen our activism and increase our impact!
[Register Here!]Monday, December 14, 19:00 CET
Virus Mythologies with Srećko Horvat
We are back with philosopher and DiEM25 co-founder Srećko Horvat in a programme that aims to shed critical light on the ideologies and mythologies of the current pandemic with an explosive mix of semiotics, and critical theory.
[Register Here!]Monday, December 18, 19:00 CET
Faces of DiEM25 with Erik Edman Venita, Linardou and Christina Grammatikopoulou
A brand-new series where we speak to DiEM25 members who set out to unite people across the continent around a common vision of what Europe could be. In each episode we will discuss what brought them to our movement and what they have been up to with us so far!
[Register Here!]Carpe DiEM25!
Grenfell public inquiry sheds light on unethical practices at construction firms
What does the Grenfell inquiry mean for the future of social housing regulation?
New details have emerged from the public inquiry into the cause of the Grenfell Tower fire. A former employee of Celotex, the company responsible for manufacturing the insulation foam, RS5000, used in the building’s construction, has revealed that the company rigged a fire test in order to bring their product to market. A closer look at the inquiry findings so far suggests that this is far from an isolated example of such behaviour.
A number of materials used in the insulation and cladding of the Grenfell Tower during its refurbishment in 2016 are now known to have contributed to the fire, which claimed 72 lives.
Jonathan Roper, who was a project manager at Celotex, oversaw the rebranding and testing of the company’s insulation product, formerly known as FR5000, which was unsuitable for high rise buildings. After RS5000 failed a first fire test in 2014, fire-resistant panels were added to the rig and a smaller ventilation gap was used to help the product pass the test.
No video footage was taken of the test and drawings were also manipulated. In materials created for the Celotex sales team, the failed test was not mentioned. Roper admitted that the company had behaved in a “completely unethical” and “dishonest” way, and had made “misleading” claims about their product.
In June, DiEM25 reflected on the failure of the UK media to respond to the well-documented concerns of Grenfell Tower residents.
Once again, the full extent of the shocking details that have been revealed within the public inquiry are not being given the attention that they need.
National newspapers and news outlets have led with Roper’s contribution to the inquiry. A recent Business studies graduate, with little knowledge of building regulations, Roper was quickly promoted to the role of product manager and tasked with the rebranding of Celotex’ insulation product for use in buildings above 18 metres. Saint-Gobain, a French multinational corporation set to acquire Celotex, had pushed for the company to enter the lucrative high rise market in 2012, setting targets and bonuses that incentivised the passing of RS5000 for use in such buildings. Grenfell Tower was seen as a potential flagship for the new product.
The public inquiry has discovered further incidents of malpractice which suggest that this is representative of a widespread problem within construction, and that experts in the field are complicit in such practices.
Jonathan Roome, who was a sales manager for Celotex, advised, in emails with the refurbishment project manager, that the insulation foam be used in much greater thickness than was deemed safe. Equally concerning is the revelation that a sales director at the Local Authority Building Control (LABC), who Celotex had contacted in order to gain approval for their products use on high rise buildings, was unable to tell the difference between RS5000’s Class 0 fire rating and a “limited combustibility” classification.
The inquiry has also documented a number of oversights made by cladding specialist Harley Facades, including failing to properly inspect all sides of the building during the refurbishment, and ordering an unsuitable substitute insulation material based on an outdated safety certificate. Employees of the company, then known as Alcoa, which made and sold the combustible cladding used on Grenfell Tower, have refused to give statements to the public inquiry.
The lawyer representing the bereaved and survivors of the disaster, Stephanie Barwise, has claimed that Alcoa, now known as Arconic, also manipulated testing to achieve the safety rating that they needed to be used in the Grenfell refurbishment.
When taken as a whole, the details exposed by the inquiry, which is still ongoing, are greatly troubling.
It is necessary that the revelations of the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire are given the platform they need to reach the public, and that the culture that puts profits over safety within the construction industry is challenged.
DiEM25 is already campaigning to end the rent burden faced by low-income Europeans and for sustainable public housing as part of the Green New Deal for Europe. The latter includes policy recommendations which call for safe housing and participatory construction processes that are accountable to the workers and community. However, the issues raised by the Grenfell inquiry demand a renewed focus on the safety of social housing, including:
- The testing of building materials needs to be carried out independently to prevent internal manipulation
- Safety certification needs to be standardised to ensure that combustibility ratings are not confused
- Building authorities need to be held accountable for the safety of social housing
The COVID-19 pandemic has given an even greater urgency to the continuing demands for housing reform, and we must ensure that the safety of residents is at the center for any call for an accessible and sustainable redevelopment of housing across Europe.
Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect DiEM25’s official policies or positions.
Discrimination against LGBTQIA+ students in the Netherlands
The DiEM25 South Holland local group and the Feminism, Diversity, and Disabilities Task Force stand with LGBTQIA+ students.
The Dutch Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Arie Slob, made a pronouncement during a parliamentary debate that schools had the “constitutional freedom” to deal with issues regarding religion and sexuality. Invoking the freedom of education and religion, he defended some Christian Reform schools that require parents or children to sign waivers rejecting homosexuality or “homosexual lifestyles” as long as they ensure a safe learning environment for students. But his statement goes against the freedom against discrimination which is also a first fundamental right, with many MPs asking how there could be a safe environment when such a waiver exists. Slob pulled back on his comment after coming under heavy criticism from other members of the House of Representatives, as well as on social media.
LGBTQIA+ rights group COC chairman Astrid Oosenbrug stated that:
“It is unacceptable for schools to propagate rejection of people for their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or gender characteristics. Just as unacceptable as people reject because they are, for example, Black, Jewish or Muslim”.
MPs from various parties (PvdA, SP, GroenLinks) have submitted a proposal to tighten up the citizenship mandate for education for schools to not allow this rejection of LGBTQIA+ youth.
There has been an increase in discrimination against LGBTQIA+ youth in education.
The comment made by Slob aggravates the already difficult environment that LGBTQIA+ youth are experiencing, especially at school. According to a study by the Social and Cultural planning office, lesbian, gay, and bisexuals experienced an increase in discrimination in schools from 13% in 2013, to 25% in 2018. Oosenbrug adds that “gay” is the most commonly used swear word at school, with the LGBTQIA+ youth being bullied four times more often, leading to negative effects on their emotional and mental well-being. Furthermore, it is established that young adults who suffered from bullying during their childhood are more likely to have mental health problems.
Other examples include a number of Dutch Reformational schools that are said to have told students to reject homosexuality, as well as accord their appearance with “the distinction between man and woman laid in creation,” with 34 of them clearly stating in their school profiles their nonacceptance of the LGBTQIA+. Some Islamic primary schools were also criticized in 2019 for hostile teaching methods found in a school textbook that would convey punishment for being homosexual such as suffering, death, and being abhorred by Allah. The Dutch Muslim community has expressed their disapproval of such teaching methods highlighting that this is a wrong interpretation of Islam. It is important to note that other secular, and non-secular schools may also have concerns with LGBTQIA+ discrimination and that the two aforementioned schools are not the only ones dealing with the problem.
It isn’t a freedom of education and religion issue, but rather an issue of fundamental human rights.
The DiEM25 South Holland 1 DSC and DiEM25 Feminism, Diversity, and Disabilities Task Force strongly condemn the statement made by Minister Slob, as well as those expressed by fundamentalists against the rights of students and children with regards to their sexual orientation and gender identity. Those remarks are against the first article of the Netherlands Constitution which asserts that all persons in the Netherlands are to be treated equally, and discrimination on the grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race, sex, or on any other reason shall not be permitted.
Hiding behind freedom of education, religion and even expression to further prejudice vulnerable groups such as the LGBTQIA+ youth infringes on their fundamental human rights.
A person’s sexual orientation or gender identity should never be held against themselves, their family, or their community. Even if schools have the freedom to develop an education system according to their religious or other beliefs, they are still legally bound by Dutch laws to provide a safe space for every child regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity, race, or beliefs.
The promotion of human rights and children’s rights — especially that of the LGBTQIA+ youth — should be improved through better laws that protect and empower them physically, socially, emotionally, and mentally. Schools, as an institution, have a responsibility to uphold the fundamental values of Dutch society — freedom, equality, and solidarity.
Article written by South Holland DSC 1 in collaboration with DiEM25’s Taskforce for Feminism, Diversity, and Disabilities.
Photo Source: Kevin Jasini on Flickr.
Legal but not accessible: abortion in Turkey from an ethical perspective
Can abortion just be a medical decision?
As has been reported by Amnesty International, “Around 47,000 women die as a result of unsafe abortions every year.” The testimony of Rajat Khosla, Amnesty International’s Senior Director of Research and Advocacy shows the peril of the siege over women’s bodies. Although the political authorities try to establish their presence under the subject of religious sensitivity with the slogan that “abortion is murder”, many women have died as a result of the operations carried out under improper conditions.
In countries where abortion is restricted or prohibited, women who are wealthy have the chance to get an abortion abroad and return to their countries, while the poor have to terminate their pregnancy using dangerous methods such as clothes hangers, as in Argentina.
In this context, it is not possible for women — especially those that are struggling economically — to make decisions about their own body and implement them under safe conditions.
As a result, those seeking abortions are further marginalised with each passing day.
Abortion debates get even more intensified when we consider how governments perceive women’s bodies as a medium of capitalist reproduction (as described in Marxian Economics) and try to intervene in women’s bodily integrity using religion as a pretext.
From the most conservative countries to the most ‘modern’ ones, anti-abortion creates authority over the female body, albeit in different doses. By denying that abortion is a human right to bodily integrity, the abortion process is blocked by ‘regulatory’ laws.
The pandemic has already affected the reproductive rights of women.
The access to abortion has been limited even in countries where abortion is legal. Abortion centers are being reserved for COVID-19 patients, pre-appointments are difficult when clinics are open, and the prohibition of abortion is expressed louder than ever.
In Turkey, where abortion is legal; anti-abortion policies have been implemented since the first years of the Republic. Especially after World War I, using the decrease in the population ratio as an excuse, parents were incentivised to have children. There was also a period during which having access to contraception methods and pregnancy termination were made difficult. The legal consequences of having an abortion was stated as imprisonment and fines. With an amendment made in 1938, under the title of “Crimes Against the Unity of the Race and Health”, abortion was even named a betrayal of Turkishness .
With the Law on Population Planning No. 2827, which became effective in 1983, it was stated that one can decide to get an abortion until the tenth week of pregnancy, and the abortion ban was abolished. Under the same law, arbitrary abortion is subject to the consent of the spouse if the pregnant woman is married, and the permission of the parent if the pregnant woman is a minor.
Although abortion was made legal as of 1983, anti-abortion rhetoric has continued and even increased.
Especially after the AKP (Justice and Development Party) came to power, the abortion opposition was used as a means of consolidating society with the statement that “the duty of women is motherhood by nature.” “I see abortion as murder, nobody should have the right to allow this” stated AKP president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2012 reflecting a patriarchal perception, and creating a period during which pressures on women have increased and abortion has become virtually prohibited.
Although abortion is a legal right in Turkey, there are certain situations in which abortions are not performed in public and even certain private hospitals unless it is deemed a medical necessity. Indeed, there remain obstacles to abortion; abortions are left to the doctors’ initiative, abortion appointments are given weeks after the request, and there is pressure against hospitals that perform abortions. Due to this, women experience shame and trauma when they return home.
According to the “Abortion Services in State Hospitals” report published by Kadir Has University in 2016; in 53 out of 81 provinces, there are no hospitals that provide abortion services on demand.
In an environment where abortion is de facto banned, we are also experiencing a period during which assistive mechanisms of contraception methods have decreased, and women have to face an increase of unwanted pregnancies.
The decisions regarding the lives and bodies of women living in economic difficulties are unjustly left to the initiative of the authorities.
The common feature of governments that try to make abortion illegal is that they oppose gender equality and clearly state this. Trump being the first US president to participate in anti-abortion actions in the USA, the recent discussion in Poland on abortion ban, the emphasis on political Islam in Turkey, supporting that women and men cannot be equal and that the sacred duty of women is to bear children, while discussions about the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention are going on, show that the capitalist and patriarchal mentality is imposing its hegemony all over the planet.
The continuous subjection to violence, the disregard for domestic labor, marginalization in working life, exposure of immigrant women to pressure during and after migration are only some of the reflections of the efforts to ‘put women in their place’.
We will either live the life they try to convict us of, or build our future right from where the Dominican Mirabal sisters started, from who we inherited the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November.
In the words of Margaret Atwood:
“There isn’t “the future” that we’re doomed to enact. There are all kinds of possible futures. And which one we’re going to get is going to depend on what we do now.”
Right now, our sisters are defending their civil liberties and right to bodily autonomy in the streets against patriarchy’s domination over women all around the world.
We, members of Gender 1 DSC and DiEM25 Volunteers, stand against all kinds of attempts to infringe on the lives of women and the LGBTQIA+.
We will not allow any government or sexist mentality to hide the discriminations they created by using women’s bodies as a token on which they base political rhetoric and action.
We will increase our solidarity with women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and all who are oppressed by patriarchy and capitalism. We will fight collectively for our present and future, against the darkness, and in doing so create a butterfly effect. We will fight against the darkness of patriarchy, which threatens to lock us in our houses and turn our bodies into a vessel for reproduction.
Photo Source: Daily Beast.
Make your voice heard: protect Assange and the freedom of the press
Please ensure that the freedom of the press will be secured in Europe!
Dear Comrades,
On Tuesday 24th, during the evening vote session, the European parliament will be voting on the Report on the situation of fundamental rights in the European Union 2018-2019.
The rapporteur on this report, Clare Daly MEP, included a reference to the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, recognising that it poses a threat to journalists and freedom of expression in Europe. The European Federation of Journalists stated that the detention and prosecution of Assange sets “an extremely dangerous precedent for journalists, media actors and freedom of the press.”
The Council of Europe statement ‘Continued Detention of WikiLeaks Founder and Publisher Julian Assange’ also highlights Julian Assange’s arbitrary confinement and the findings of UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Nils Melzer. His conclusion was that in Belmarsh Assange exhibited “all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.”
As the Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed “Julian Assange should not be extradited due to potential impact on press freedom and concerns about ill-treatment.”
What we can do to protect Julian Assange from extradition
- We can support Julian by sending a letter to the EU parliamentarians tomorrow asking them to vote on amendment 44 (see annex).
- You can see the attached letter, as well as the email addresses of the parliamentarians and some arguments that you can use in your personal letter.
Here are our suggestions about points to include:
- Write to each of the MEPs who represent you. You can find out who they are here.
- Explain why the prosecution of Julian Assange is a threat to freedom of expression and journalism in Europe.
- Make reference to the findings of authoritative bodies in support of this, including the statement of the EFJ on the case, the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the statement of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe;
To further help, you can:
- Express your support for including a reference to the case in the Fundamental Rights report, and your displeasure that the EPP, the S&Ds and Renew groups took it out.
- Inform them that Clare Daly MEP has tabled an amendment adding it back in, specifically mention the number of the amendment, and encourage them to support it.
- Tell them that you will be paying attention to how they vote on Tuesday, and that you are depending on their support.
Resources you’ll need:
Letter to MEPs – Julian Assange.docx
DiEM25 has long supported Julian Assange, with many protests and events held across Europe by our members, such as solidarity actions in Brussels and Bonn, and the ‘We Are Millions’ exhibitions.
MeRA25 has also recently filed a motion to declare Julian Assange’s extradition case null and void.
The Progressive International, co-founded by DiEM25 and The Sanders Institute, has additionally held The Belmarsh Tribunal on 2 October which sought to “evaluate US war crimes in the 21st century, and defend Julian Assange’s right to reveal them.” You can now watch it here!
If you want to learn more about the case, read more here.
Read our call to action on our Forum!
Photo Source: Council of Europe.
Whistleblower Maria Efimova fears for her safety: “This is part of their vindictive strategy: to silence me”
MeRA25 and DiEM25 to pressure the Greek Government to grant asylum to Maria Efimova, the whistleblower at the centre of a corruption scandal involving high-level officials in Malta.
Just when she thought the persecution was over, Maria Efimova, the Russian whistleblower who helped expose corrupt ties between organised crime and Malta’s political establishment, came to realise that the nightmare was back. Last Monday, November 16, Efimova’s husband was arrested in Crete following a request from Cyprus’ authorities.
Efimova is a former employee of Pilatus Bank, who in 2017 was the source of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. The journalist revealed an intricate web of corruption and money laundering schemes in Malta based on the information contained in the “Panama Papers” scandal, and implicating high-level officials in the country, including its prime minister Joseph Muscat. Caruana Galizia, a mother of three, was murdered in late 2017, when her car was blown up just metres from her home.
At first, Efimova acted as an anonymous source for Caruana Galizia, but when her identity was revealed, she fled the country with her husband and two children and sought refuge in Greece.Earlier this week, as her husband Pantelis Varnava was released pending a court hearing, Efimova approached MeRA25 party leader and DiEM25 founder Yanis Varoufakis. “At this point, going public, sharing my story with the world, is all I have left to protect myself and my family. Like an insurance policy in case something was to happen to us,” Efimova said.
Varoufakis expressed serious concerns over Efimova’s safety. “The source who helped expose a money laundering and corruption scheme involving Malta’s former prime minister is now under fierce attack by Malta, Cyprus and a corporate, murderous establishment willing to do anything to silence her. We will fight to protect her, just as we do with other champions of transparency and freedom of information like Julian Assange”, said Varoufakis.
“By going against my husband on made-up charges they are just trying to exert pressure on me,” said Efimova. “This is another twist in the plot.” The charges relate to when she and Varnava lived in Cyprus in 2013. Varnava, she notes, never even worked at the company he is being accused of stealing from.
Efimova already won a battle against the Maltese government when it sought her extradition back in 2018 and a Greek court overturned the request.
Since her husband’s arrest, Efimova has been receiving threats via Facebook. One such message reads: “Come back to Malta or else we are going to find you one way or another. You have dues to pay here, you frickin liar!” She filed a police report and reported the threatening posts to Facebook; the social network has not responded.
Largely due to Caruana Galizia’s investigation and Efimova’s critical contribution to it, Pilatus Bank had its license revoked by the European Central Bank in 2018.
Renata Ávila, a member of DiEM25´s Coordinating Collective and legal adviser to Julian Assange denounced Efimova’s situation as yet another case of an assault on whistleblowers around the world: “This is an urgent call for the European Union to accelerate its implementation of the Whistleblowing Directive. The level of violence and corruption truth tellers face and the failure of our institutions to protect them cannot continue. Maria Efimova’s case is another test for Europe’s courage; it is the opportunity to act as a community, act beyond borders, and live up to its commitment to effectively protect and guarantee whistleblowers’ safety and their right to a life free from fear of persecution and retaliation. Maria and all whistleblowers make democracy in Europe stronger.”
Efimova said that she is in possession of unreleased information and evidence related to Caruana Galizia’s investigation of illegal transactions.
Varoufakis announced that MeRA25, the political party of DiEM25 in Greece, will soon file a request in the Hellenic Parliament for Efimova to be granted political asylum, as well as a legislative initiative to enhance Greece’s whistleblower protection laws.
But Efimova expects this situation to worsen, and to become even more dangerous for her and her family. In addition, she has recently learned about a new case being filed against her for perjury in Malta. The continued arrest warrants are putting her family under severe financial stress. “Legal costs are mounting, and we will soon be financially destroyed,” she said.
“This is part of their vindictive strategy: to silence me.”
DiEM25 is a pan-European political movement with over 120,000 members. Since its inception in 2016, DiEM25 has campaigned for transparency, freedom of the press and protection for whistleblowers.
It is proud to count WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange among its founding members. MeRA25, its political party in Greece, entered parliament in the 2019 legislative election. For more information about DiEM25’s work and campaigns, visit this page.
DiEM25 is solely financed by small, individual donations from people like you. Your continued contribution helps us give truth tellers vital legal and communications support, to ensure their stories get heard.
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Transgender Day of Remembrance: Martyrs at the altar of patriarchy
DiEM25’s Taskforce on Feminism, Diversity and Disabilities’ statement commemorating the victims of anti-trans violence.
Warning: descriptions of violence.
A huge and multiyear effort goes into compiling the numbers of the deaths of trans bodies the world over. To date, since data has started to be gathered and compiled in 2008, there have been 3664 murders of trans and gender divergent people. In 2020 alone, 350 transgender people have been killed. These figures are obviously a misrepresentation of the real numbers, but they are an insight into a reality that claims victims daily. A vast majority of those killed were trans women or trans femmes: 98% to be precise.
If you care to log on to the website collating the data, you can find names like Pedrita, Brighit Miron, La Pompis, as well as dates, places, and a brief description of the violent act: “The victim was found with her hands and feet tied with a telephone wire” or “She was found with stab wounds and her face covered with a towel to muffle the screams.”
What is interesting about the language of the descriptions of the acts of murder is an almost complete lack of reference to the murderers. They are not relevant, or sometimes are referred to as “three men” or “a man in a white car”, but mostly they remain anonymous. A comprehensive list of names and descriptions of the assassins is impossible to find. Is that a coincidence?
In these places of violence we need to ask who and why?
Looking at what is missing in any context when understanding a situation with a critical eye is always revelatory. The answer to this question seems to escape the narrative, which is focused on the victims and their demeaning and humiliating deaths. These are not clean deaths, if there ever is one. These are brutal and violent killings, and that too is revelatory of the societies and politics we live in.
So who does the killing? Who plunges the knife repeatedly into the trans body? Whose hands strangle the neck of the trans woman denying her not only her breath but her voice, silencing her verb? Whose hands hold the guns, pull the trigger, cast the stones, dismember the body, beat, torture and burn? And what for, to what end?
Trans bodies are places of crisis, in constant movement towards something new, while political and gender regimes remain unchanged.
Trans bodies occupy spaces and places of rupture, of migration from one gender to another, putting into question one set of narratives to imagine different horizons of possibilities. But most importantly, trans bodies represent a rupture in the masculine universe.
The binary identity on which male supremacy is built is placed in an immediate and absolute position of questioning between what is affirmed and decided and what could be, but has no standing. The trans body is a place of political possibilities and epistemic paradox. They are places of crisis, in constant movement towards something new, while political and gender regimes remain unchanged.
By stepping out from one gender, the trans body reveals its performativity and becomes an exile of patriarchy. The trans body assumes the migratory nature of a body searching for safety, for recognition, for new belongings — dreaming of possibilities yet to be defined. The vulnerable nature of trans bodies is defined precisely by this place of non-belonging, of not having a sovereign nation they can swear allegiance to, lacking legal, cultural and affective belonging.
It is not a coincidence that half of all trans victims in the EU are also migrants for they share, in the end, the same status.
Refugees from one place of fragile certainties (a locus of such violence that it forces the subject to abandon it in favour of exile) to occupy a place of vulnerability and non-belonging, a non-place: transition as status. This place of social vulnerability inhabited by trans women and men represents a kind of coming together, an overlapping of identities, a transectionality of vulnerabilities. This leads to important questions related to race, precariousness of living conditions and legal status, illegality of sex work, discrimination in the workplace, misogyny, police violence and access to health care.
Before the recent migrations from Africa and the Middle East, trans-women escaped violence, poverty and discrimination in a steady flow from the Americas towards European cities such as Barcelona, Paris, Milan looking for financial security and social inclusion. These migratory flows question the rules of colonial patriarchy and the fictions of masculine supremacy. Within these flows, bodies inhabit a place of suspended politics, where ownership of the body is in flux and uncertain.
Trans bodies and migrant bodies come at the feet of the palaces of the colonizers to ask to be recognized, seen, and acknowledged. At the same time, they bear witness, in and on their bodies, to the colonial and patriarchal violence with which they were historically excluded.
Today, we come to listen to the silent witnesses — the Jennifers, Selenas, Ajitas — whose voices have been strangled and whose bodies have been lain, bleeding at the altar of patriarchy.
Their bodies tell us of the crises of the state, of citizenship, of structures, of truths and certainties.
The very idea of the nation state is bursting at the seams with the bodies of trans women and of migrant populations, attesting with their precarious existence to the violence of the narratives of race, sex and gender.
On this day of remembrance, we in the Feminism, Diversity, and Disabilities task force, commemorate and mourn trans people who have been murdered and are victims of systemic forms of anti-trans violence.
Video Source: TGEU website for the Trans Day of Remembrance 2020.