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Cake day: July 29th, 2023

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  • Relevant quote from the trial.

    This court believes that defendant Zhang Zhan repeatedly used WeChat, Twitter, Youtube, and other online media platforms to assume the role of a personal witness and spread indiscriminately fabricated video and written content during a critical period in the effort to control the spread of the coronavirus in Wuhan. This content was published with the aim of distorting the record of, and commentary on, Wuhan’s coronavirus control and prevention efforts, accepting interviews with foreign media outlets including the Epoch Times and Radio Free Asia, thus causing the spread of the relevant false information through networks at home and abroad. The extensive dissemination of this content on the Internet, newspapers, and other media has caused a great number of netizens to see, comment on, and repost it, misleading the public and creating serious public disorder. This behavior constitutes the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble. The facts presented by the prosecution are clear, the evidence sufficient, the defendant convicted of the charges, and the court believes the sentencing recommendations are appropriate.





  • If it’s about Xinjiang then:

    The US’s “Uyghur genocide” (“cultural” or otherwise) disinformation campaign has already been debunked several times over.

    We see here for example the evolution of public opinion in regards to China. In 2019, the ‘Uyghur genocide’ was broken by the media (Buzzfeed, of all outlets). In this story, we saw the machine I described up until now move in real time. Suddenly, newspapers, TV, websites were all flooded with stories about the ‘genocide’, all day, every day. People whom we’d never heard of before were brought in as experts — Adrian Zenz, to name just one; a man who does not even speak a word of Chinese.

    Organizations were suddenly becoming very active and important. The World Uyghur Congress, a very serious-sounding NGO, is actually an NED Front operating out of Germany […]. From their official website, they declare themselves to be the sole legitimate representative of all Uyghurs — presumably not having asked Uyghurs in Xinjiang what they thought about that.

    The WUC also has ties to the Grey Wolves, a fascist paramilitary group in Turkey, through the father of their founder, Isa Yusuf Alptekin.

    Documents came out from NGOs to further legitimize the media reporting. This is how a report from the very professional-sounding China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) came to exist. They claimed ‘up to 1.3 million’ Uyghurs were imprisoned in camps. What they didn’t say was how they got this number: they interviewed a total of 10 people from rural Xinjiang and asked them to estimate how many people might have been taken away. They then extrapolated the guesstimates they got and arrived at the 1.3 million figure.

    Sanctions were enacted against China — Xinjiang cotton for example had trouble finding buyers after Western companies were pressured into boycotting it. Instead of helping fight against the purported genocide, this act actually made life more difficult for the people of Xinjiang who depend on this trade for their livelihood (as we all do depend on our skills to make a livelihood).

    Any attempt China made to defend itself was met with more suspicion. They invited a UN delegation which was blocked by the US. The delegation eventually made it there, but three years later. The Arab League also visited Xinjiang and actually commended China on their policies — aimed at reducing terrorism through education and social integration, not through bombing like we tend to do in the West.




  • For context

    On 7 October, the Almog-Goldsteins had barricaded themselves in Yam’s bedroom, which served as the safe room of their home in the Kfar Aza kibbutz. Five hours later, five Hamas gunmen burst in and shot Nadav, 48, in the chest at point-blank range.

    The family had to step over the talented triathlete’s body as the militants led them outside, where Yam fainted. Almog-Goldstein tried to wet her daughter’s face in the bathroom before going to check on her other children. When she returned a few seconds later, she saw that Yam, a soldier just two months from the end of her service, had been shot in the face.

    “I remember there was a hole in her cheek and she was gasping her last breaths. There was an exit hole on the other side and her head was bleeding profusely,” Almog-Goldstein said through tears.

    “With time this image becomes more and more blurred but every night, throughout this whole time, just before night-time, I try to force myself to remember that image, that scene. It was such a difficult thing that I was witnessing, that it’s a process of self-torture in a way for me not to ever forget that.”





  • WAFA is probably older than you.

    Pursuant to the decision adopted by the Palestinian National Council in its extraordinary session, held in Cairo in April 1972, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee issued a decision establishing the Palestinian News & Information Agency (WAFA) on June 5, 1972. WAFA was established as an independent body that was structurally, politically and administratively linked to the PLO Executive Committee with a mandate to confront the dominant Israeli propaganda at the time and serve as an independent platform to report events from the official Palestinian perspective without being subject to any trusteeship (guardianship) or subordination.

    https://english.wafa.ps/Home/AboutUs



  • From the article

    “If you have enough money, South Korea is a great place to live. But if you don’t . . .” she trails off.

    Just work harder some people will say.

    Quoting George Carlin

    "Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying . . . lobbying, to get what they want . . . Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want . . . they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that . . . that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers . . . Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it . . . they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin’ place. It’s a big club and you ain’t in it. You and I are not in The big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people . . . white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means . . . continue to elect these rich removed who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you . . . they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all . . . at all . . . at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it . . .”



  • Sample size: 58 people

    18 in the U.K., 28 in Turkey, and 12 in Thailand.

    The authors wish to extend their gratitude to the individuals and organisations who supported this research by providing concrete feedback for revisions on the report, offering suggestions and advice at the planning stages, and offering ongoing collaborative and moral support while conducting this research: Elise Anderson, Campaign for Uyghurs, Freedom House, Tim Grose, Ondřej Klimeš, Julie Millsap, David O’Brien, the Rights Practice, Radio Free Asia, Isabella Rodriguez, David Stroup, Hannah Theaker, Emily Upson, the Uyghur Human Rights Project, the Uyghur Transitional Justice Database, the World Uyghur Congress, the Xinjiang Documentation Project, the Xinjiang Victims’ Database, and Adrian Zenz.

    Author

    Yes, very trustable! /s