Monthly Archives: February 2021

Gender, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Azerbaijan News | LGBTQ+ & Women

Azerbaijan capital hosts virtual festivals showcasing LGBTQ+ artists and filmmakers

  • The two-week Queer Art Festival brought together local artists over the theme “Queer x Azerbaijan – My Body, My Identity, My Heritage,” exploring queer and feminist issues in a landscape historically inhospitable to both.
  • In-Visible presents international queer films and educational workshops organized by Salaam Cinema, an independent cultural space in Baku and community for Azerbaijani artists and filmmakers.
  • Locked out of the government-funded arts system, queer artists in Azerbaijan depend on a network of activist organizations as well as the support of international organizations and foreign embassies.

Read

“Two festivals bring queer art to Azerbaijani audiences” (Eurasanet | February 2021)

Moving In—Moving On (Trans Europe Halles | 2020)

“Azerbaijani artists win fight to save a prayer house-turned-cinema from demolition” (Global Voices | July 2019)

Connect

Queer Art Festival Baku 2020

Salaam Cinema Baku

Ideology + Affiliation, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Canada News | Far-Right, Immigrants & People of Color

Canadian government assigns terrorist designation to far-right groups

  • The Proud Boys and the Atomwaffen Group join a list of dozens of organizations—primarily Islamist groups—that the Canadian government has classified as “terrorist entities” in the aftermath of the 1/6 attacks in the United States.
  • The designation enables seizure of the assets of the group and its members, movement restrictions, and the criminalization of material support, which civil liberties groups criticize as governmental overreach and, ironically, facilitating harm against religious and racial minorities.
  • In the wake of the January 6th events, Canadian Proud Boys chapters have seen their online presence evaporate, with webpages and social media platforms where they were active—such as Parler—shuttered.

Read

“Canada declares the Proud Boys a terrorist group” (The Washington Post | February 2021)

“Terror list a ‘problematic’ way to fight white supremacists, civil society groups say” (The Canadian Press via CTV News | February 2021)

“Canadian Proud Boys in ‘panic’ as platforms go offline and government talks of terror listing” (Global News | January 2021)

View

Listed terrorist entities (Government of Canada)

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Australia News | Immigrants, Muslims & People of Color

Demands for government to deal with far-right extremism grow in Australia

  • Groups such as the now-defunct United Patriot Front and the Lads Society and the current National Socialist Network have created space for White nationalists in Australia to organize both online and offline.
  • All 27 currently listed terrorist organizations are extremist Islamist groups, despite the fact that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (AISO) reported that far-right terror accounted for 40% of its caseload; in the two decades since membership in a terrorist organization was criminalized in response to the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., no far-right group in Australia has been classified as a proscribed organization.
  • The increasingly transnational dimensions of far-right organizing have posed a particularly difficult challenge, including the influence of the mainstreaming of far-right politics in the U.S. and fallout from the 2019 Christchurch massacre in which an Australian national killed 51 in an attack on the Al Noor Mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre.

Read

“How Australia’s anti-terror regime has failed to rein in far-right extremists” (The Guardian | January 2021)

“‘Peddlers of hate’: Australia’s growing legion of far-right extremists hail US Capitol invaders” (The New Daily | January 2021)

“Neo-Nazis go bush: Grampians gathering highlights rise of Australia’s far right” (The Sydney Morning Herald | January 2021)

Study

Listed terrorist organizations (Government of Australia)

Australian Security Environment and Outlook (Australian Security Intelligence Organization)

Age, Race + Color + Ethnicity

U.S. News | People of Asian Descent

Recent anti-Asian violence in U.S. extends pandemic trend

  • Metro areas from coast to coast have seen an explosion in anti-Asian hate incidents since the beginning of the pandemic, including cities such as Oakland, San Jose, and New York.
  • Between 1,800 and 2,500 incidents of anti-Asian harassment, discrimination, and violence were reported through August 2020, ranging from vandalism and verbal abuse to physical attacks and homicide.
  • President Joe Biden recently signed a memorandum condemning anti-Asian bias and discrimination, pledging support from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, and other executive agencies.

Read

“String of attacks against older Asians leaves big city Chinatowns on edge” (NBC News | February 2021)

“The US Is Seeing a Massive Spike in Anti-Asian Hate Crimes” (The Cut | February 2021)

“Anti-Asian hate crime jumps 1,900 percent” (Queens Chronicle | September 2020)

Study

Stop AAPI Hate Reports

Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism, Xenophobia, and Intolerance Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States (The White House | January 2021)

U.N. document on anti-Asian incidents in the U.S. (August 2020)

Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

China News | Uyghur

Revelations of surveillance regimes in China detail wide range of repressive projects

  • An investigation of a database used by the Ürümqi City Public Security Bureau and the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau reveals elements of the internment regime, the use of informants, and the monitoring of phone, financial, medical, and online records of Uyghur residents.
  • The investigation follows recent revelations of the development of facial recognition technologies designed to identify ethnicity and flag individuals for authorities.
  • Officials routinely detain Uyghur individuals as “preventative” security measures, often using trumped up accusations of religious extremism that effectively criminalize religious activities and other cultural practices.

Read

“Revealed: Massive Chinese Police Database” (The Intercept | January 2021)

Patenting Uyghur Tracking – Huawei, Megvii, More (IPVM | January 2021)

“Huawei tested AI software that could recognize Uighur minorities and alert police, report says” (The Washington Post | December 2020)