UK spends millions training security forces to control Palestinians in West Bank and Lebanon

source: Daily Maverick
published: 20 May 2021

British aid projects supporting Palestinian security forces appear to be as much about helping to stop threats to Israel, the occupying power, as they are about enhancing Palestinian state-building.

The UK is running a multimillion-pound aid project in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to develop “more capable” Palestinian security forces who can prevent the “potential overspill of violence into Israel.”

The project, which is managed jointly by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Foreign Office and lasts until 2022, aims to “deal with threats to Israel originating in the West Bank”. It also intends to build the capacity of Palestinian security forces to promote “security cooperation with Israel”.

11 May 202121 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Demand that the National Police Chiefs Council adopts a new, eleven-point Charter

provided by: Netpol
published: April/May 2021

The government’s new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is an unprecedented attack on the freedom to protest. We have to fight against this Bill. But we need more than opposition – that’s why we’re launching a new Charter For Freedom of Assembly Rights. Please sign the petition here >

For the last decade, successive governments have been increasingly hostile towards protests. This has been matched by the way the police have interpreted “peaceful” protest so that even minor breaches of the law are treated as invalidating the collective legitimacy of protesters’ demands, justifying even more aggressive tactics and more surveillance.

7 February 202115 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Biden moves to end justice contracts with private prisons

source: New York Times
published: 26 January 2021

President Biden signed executive orders on Tuesday to end Justice Department contracts with private prisons and increase the government’s enforcement of a law meant to combat discrimination in the housing market, part of the new administration’s continued focus on racial equity.

Mr. Biden also signed orders that make it the federal government’s policy to “condemn and denounce” discrimination against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, who have faced harassment since the coronavirus pandemic spread from China to the US, and to strengthen relationships between the government and Native American tribes.