Month: January 2024

German news outlet backtracks on story that sparked mass protests

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German non-profit news group Correctiv has apparently backtracked on its report about a “conspiratorial” Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) meeting where a number of politicians and others allegedly discussed the deportation of two million migrants from Germany.

Correctiv‘s “revelation” of the seemingly clandestine gathering in November, picked up across national media, led to the eruption of mass protests all over the country over the weekend of January 19-21.

Anette Dowideit, the deputy editor-in-chief of Correctiv, said on January 28 that pivotal accusations regarding the issue did not occur as generally reported.

She said the event was not “secretive” as such and no participant ever referred to deportations or to the Wannsee Conference, the plan by high-ranking Nazi officials during the Second World War to deport and murder Jewish people.

Such terms were “an interpretation” by the wider media, Dowideit claimed.

According to her, it was other outlets that used the word “deportations”. Dowideit made the claim in a debate with journalist Sabine Rennefanz, who criticised politicians for calling the AfD “Nazis” and thus, according to her, trivialised “real” National Socialism.

“I think that was also a problem that some people had with Correctiv‘s reporting, that it was then placed right in the vicinity of the Wannsee Conference in 1942, where the mass killing of Jews was decided,” Rennefanz said.

Dowideit interrupted her. “But we didn’t write that, did we?” adding there had never been any talk of “deportation”.

That seemed to go against what appears on the Correctiv website, where in the English version of the introduction, the text reads: “Their agenda? Nothing less than the fine tuning of a plan for the forced deportations of millions of people currently living in Germany.”

It then states the meeting was attended by “two dozen of them, a mix of AfD members” and others.

Further down the page, anti-migration activist Martin Sellner’s plans are apparently compared with the Nazis’ plans in 1940 to “deport” four million Jews to Madagascar, under the subheading “A Nazi Utopia”.

It claims the gathering took place in a “countryside hotel near Potsdam”.

Collectiv adds: “Perhaps it is also a coincidence that the organisers chose this villa for their conspiratorial meeting: Less than eight kilometres away from the hotel is the house of the Wannsee Conference, where the Nazis co-ordinated the systematic extermination of the Jews.”

The report goes on: “It is unclear whether Sellner had this historical parallel in mind when devising his plan.”

It is claimed AfD and other political party members met with right-wing activists alongside Sellner, the former leader of the Identitarian Movement in Austria.

He said the group’s discussion was about “remigration” and insisted stories claiming “deportations” were talked about are not true.

Still, “remigration” is considered by most to be a term that relates to the forcible return of “migrants” to their countries of origin.

Sellner, who referred to the entire media issue as “a left-wing conspiracy theory”, claimed the event was more about considering “regime change”.

He has been banned by most social media platforms and Berlin has now imposed an entry block on the Austrian and he will be barred if he attempts to cross the border into Germany.

Sellner said that is against the law and claimed he is one of the few foreigners forbidden to enter Germany, unlike, he said, many criminals and terrorists.

https://brusselssignal.eu/2024/01/german-news-outlet-backtracks-on-story-that-sparked-mass-protests/

Labour MP Suspended for Claiming ‘Genocide’ in Gaza Should Be Honoured on Holocaust Memorial Day

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Gaza over Israel’s war against the Islamist Hamas terror group responsible for the barbaric October 7th terror attacks.

An acolyte of septuagenarian socialist ex-Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn — who was ousted from the party over a series of antisemitism scandals — Kate Osamor MP has had the whip suspended from her after likening the war in Gaza to the Holocaust and other genocides.

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, the London MP sent out a message to party members in which she said that it was an “international duty” to honour Holocaust victims, but that other “more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and now Gaza” should be remembered on the day, The Guardian reports.

The claim promoted by the far-left in Britain that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza by seeking to eliminate the Hamas terror network that has controlled the region directly contradicts the position of Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer, who said Israel has the “right to defend itself” after Islamist terrorists killed around 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and took around 250 hostages from Israel on October 7th.

Starmer, however, has recently called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and has criticised the “intolerable” casualties occurring in Gaza in an apparent nod to the far-left and Muslim bases of the party, who have been deeply critical of Starmer’s position on Israel.

The British government has also rejected the notion that genocide is being committed by Israel and has criticised South Africa for launching a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague calling for the war to be classified as such.

“Our view is that Israel’s actions in Gaza cannot be described as genocide, which is why we thought South Africa’s decision to bring the case was wrong and provocative,” a Foreign Offices spokesman said on Saturday.

Following her suspension, Osamor posted on X: “Holocaust Memorial Day is a day to remember the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust and the genocides that have occurred since. I apologise for any offence caused by my reference to the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Gaza as part of that period of remembrance.”

The Labour Party’s shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said that Osamor has met with the chief whip of the party and will meet with other Labour officials this week.

“What is happening in Gaza is clearly a humanitarian catastrophe that is recognised,” Reynolds said. “But there are specific reasons why the Holocaust is considered as it is. It’s important on Holocaust Remembrance Day to remember that.

“And I understand Kate has apologised. There’s been a conversation with the chief whip. There’ll be further conversations next week, but of course we take anything in this space extremely seriously.”

The leftist grassroots Labour network Momentum was deeply critical of the suspension, saying that it was an “outrageous decision [that] further damages Labour’s reputation for anti-racism under Keir Starmer and should be immediately reversed”.

Osamor was not the only European politician to draw controversy on this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, with German EU Council President Ursula von der Leyen being blasted by Poland after posting a video that falsely referred to the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz as having been “Polish”. While the camp was located in the geographic area of Poland at the time of the Second World War the country was under Nazi occupation.

The German politician later deleted the video and reposted an edited version that correctly referred to Auschwitz as a “German Nazi extermination camp”.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/01/29/labour-mp-suspended-for-claiming-genocide-in-gaza-should-be-honoured-on-holocaust-memorial-day/

WEF Totalitarians Seek to Euthanize the West

Image: Klaus Schwab.  Credit: World Economic Forum via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

By J.B. Shurk

Totalitarianism is the warm bath in which civilization slits its wrists.  It envelops the people with petty rules, strange dogmas, immoral duties, and forced sacrifices.  It warms its victims with intoxicating promises of the government’s false love.  It leaves the citizen naked — stripped first of his free will, then the thoughts in his head, and finally anything he once called his own.  It slowly dispossesses each person of his personhood, until the population withers into frail, colorless facsimiles of the bleak, omnipresent State.  Without the courage to act, the desire to think, the wisdom to pray, or the conscience to object, human purpose disappears.  Society is exsanguinated of its vitality, creativity, spirituality, and mirth — until it slips beneath the water and stops breathing.

This was the story of Lenin’s Soviet Union and the imprisoned nations trapped behind Stalin’s Iron Curtain.  It was the story of Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Mao’s China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia.  It has been the story of Kim’s North Korea, Castro’s Cuba, Chávez’s Venezuela, and the ayatollahs’ Iran.  For over a century, humanity has endured one form of barbarous totalitarianism after the next.  It slithers into unsuspecting countries — often hiding behind the mask of democratic elections.  It misrepresents itself as just one political party of many before announcing itself as the only party for all.  It seeks to eliminate opponents in stages: first it proselytizes, then it intimidates, and finally it murders.  With a couple hundred million victims over the last century alone, it is a governing philosophy that specializes in mass executions, dank prison cells, killing fields, and concentration camps.  Totalitarianism infiltrates society with lies and builds nothing but the machinery of death.

With the Earth still wet from so much blood, Western governments now seek to turn the twenty-first century into the twentieth century’s even bloodier reflection.  It is humbling to realize that we humans repeat so many mistakes through the course of history.  It is infuriating, however, to watch today’s political leaders push humanity down the exact same paths that led to such monstrous tragedies in the recent past.  When will the lesson be learned that censorship of opposing points of view leads to irreparable social division?  When will governments grasp that coercion only intensifies the human desire to be free?  When will courts realize that two-tiered justice and political persecution ensure the rule of law’s demise?  How many more lives must be lost before those who exercise power understand that tyranny always leads to terror?

Totalitarian control over each citizen’s life was the driving force behind the outbreak of WWII and the prolonged isolation of closed societies surviving under the blanket of communism during the Cold War.  Germans uniquely possess the social memories of both totalitarian perpetrator and victim — first driving the Nazi ideology across the European continent and then suffering through a half-century of bifurcation and Soviet oppression in the East.  They experienced the temporary euphoria of trading their individual lives for the greater glory of the German State and the torturous agony of submitting to an occupying force that required absolute obedience.  If any nation of people should have learned the harsh repercussions of totalitarianism, it is Germany.  

Instead, today’s German leaders seek to ban opposition political parties and silence dissent.  They micromanage economic activity under the dangerous propaganda campaign of “climate change.”  They disrupt social cohesion and cultural unity by opening Germany’s borders to illegal aliens from unassimilable civilizations.  They use the horrors of their own past to slander political protesters as “fascists.”  Nearly a century ago, German Nazis rose to power by dehumanizing much of Europe.  Now their ideological descendants dehumanize those who oppose growing German totalitarianism by ironically branding them as Nazis.  And in this strange milieu of historical contradiction, the German Klaus Schwab has built the World Economic Forum as an engine for making oppressive government universal.  Even after the devastation of WWII and the Iron Curtain, it seems Western leaders still have no “vaccine” for the totalitarian disease.

It is a strange sight to see Western nations send their parliamentary leaders, foreign ministers, military generals, and prominent business executives to Schwab’s WEF powwows, where they may organize how best to dominate and manipulate their respective national populations without even the pretense of a democratic mandate or constitutional legitimacy.  This time around, totalitarianism returns to the West not on the heels of invasion and annexation but rather with light bacchanal celebrations in the crisp air of the Swiss Alps.  It seems that the only thing aspiring Western tyrants learned from the twentieth century’s carnage is that would-be totalitarians should not waste resources fighting one another when their common enemy has always been the people.  During the age of monarchies and empires, the easiest way to conquer foreign lands was to purchase their nobles.  That is what the World Economic Forum and its cabal of globalist conquerors do today.

Perhaps the most pungent indicator that Western totalitarianism has returned with a vengeance is the World Economic Forum’s Orwellian insistence that its members are working to combat “threats to our democracy.”  Financial and political oligarchs pretending to protect the people’s will is indistinguishable from a fox entrusted to guard the henhouse: the vulnerable always end up dead.

There is nothing “democratic” about labeling dissent as “disinformation.”  There is nothing “democratic” about conspiring with tech companies to censor public debate as “hate speech.”  There is nothing “democratic” about imposing top-down “climate change” regulations that do nothing other than strip private property rights and centralize economic control.  There is nothing “democratic” about mandating what farmers may grow, what meats may be eaten, what people may own, what words can be said, or what experimental “vaccines” are required to work.  There is nothing “democratic” about using central banks’ manipulation of digital monies to control the public’s behavior.  The World Economic Forum is a totalitarian machine that undermines the democratic will of all Western peoples and an existential threat to human rights.  As one astute commenter sardonically advised: “I say we nuke the WEF from orbit.  It’s the only way to be sure.”  It is certainly true that neither global war nor the proliferation of Iron Curtain police states around the world sufficed to eradicate tyrannical fantasies in the minds of brutal men or bury the miseries of totalitarianism for good.

Fundamentally, the WEF’s totalitarians misunderstand history.  They believe that easily manipulated people are governed by lies when, in fact, people are desperate for authentic truth.  WEF-ers such as Bill Gates, Al Gore, and John Kerry think so little of ordinary people that they terrorize them with scientifically fraudulent warnings of a looming “climate change” apocalypse built around the preposterous notion that poor and middle-class communities can be saved only if they hand over their private property, live in tiny cubicle apartments in fifteen-minute cities, abandon any fondness for personal freedom, and subsist on a diet of bugs.

The fear-inducing power of such malevolent lies does not tend to last.  It is why Central and Eastern Europeans rebelled against Soviet communism and collapsed the Iron Curtain.  It is why the Chinese Communist Party is so desperate to legitimize its totalitarianism with the pretext that it divinely operates under a “Mandate of Heaven.”  It is why the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” confronted Justin Trudeau’s tyranny.  It is why Dutch, Polish, German, Romanian, Irish, and French farmers are fighting back against insane “green” policies today.

Because Klaus Schwab’s evil club has effectively disenfranchised the people, there is now a growing popular revolt throughout the West that could easily combust into an anti-Establishment “Reign of Terror.”  The WEF desires the West’s suicide.  Let us band together and choose life instead.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/wef_totalitarians_seek_to_euthanize_the_west.html

German farmers’ protests are not some neo-fascist movement

Hinnerk11 / wikimedia commons (CC BY SA 4.0)

The German farmers are revolting against the centrally planned injustice they face. The social-democratic-liberal-green government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz wants to cut their fuel subsidies and impose taxes on them. They say, up there in the capital, that the central budget has a big deficit, and that to make up for it, they should abolish the farmers’ benefits, along with others. This would save a few hundred million euros. At the same time, however, billions are planned for so-called aid to Ukraine.

German farmers, if nothing else, are rightly incensed by this disproportionality. Thousands of tractors have set off for Berlin and everywhere else across the country. The crowds of demonstrators were visited by the relevant leaders, and some of the Green ministers wanted to address them. They failed and were booed.

Until the end of last week, only the usual baleful whispering tried to break the farmers’ unity, but by Saturday, politics responded to the protests according to another, equally familiar scenario. Until then, the tractor marches had been explained by the fact that the extreme right-wing party Alternative for Germany was organizing the demonstrations from behind the scenes. They had already reached as far as touching on Nazism. Then came the familiar line from earlier, the claim, particularly offensive to sensitivities in Germany, that the AfD is anti-Semitic.

Left-wing people in the big cities took to the streets in Frankfurt, Hanover, Dortmund, and Nuremberg, waving their “Fascism is not an alternative” signs. It is interesting to note the reason for the sudden anti-fascist upsurge: In November, a meeting in Potsdam attended personally by AfD and CDU affiliates also addressed, among other issues, the issue of remigration, and more specifically the expulsion of immigrants and minorities.

The brave anti-fascist protesters probably don’t know that they are part of a rather transparent diversionary operation. Their organizers and leaders are trying to pigeonhole the AfD as a dangerous Nazi party and claim that their special forces are the German peasants with green tractors. Let’s hope that the urban people, fooled by anti-fascist slogans, will see through this charade.

The growing masses of Germans, however, are not to be fooled. After all, the AfD is now the second most powerful party in the country. Not a bit Nazi, by the way, just more sober than the warriors of the left-green madness.

https://rmx.news/economy/german-farmers-protests-are-not-some-neo-fascist-movement/

The Islamic State claims a deadly attack on an Istanbul church (VIDEO)

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The jihadist group Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a Catholic church in Istanbul, although there are doubts about the authorship and motivation of the attack, which Turkish authorities are investigating. Two individuals with their faces covered by balaclavas entered the temple during Sunday mass and opened fire in the air and at a specific person, who died shortly after in a hospital to which he had been transferred. The minister has announced the arrest of the two alleged attackers.

In a statement that was distributed on social networks, the Amaq agency, linked to the jihadist group, states that “two Islamic State fighters carried out an attack on a Christian church” in “response to calls from the leaders of the Islamic State of attack Jews and Christians anywhere.” However, the way in which the statement is expressed – different from previous texts in which it claims other attacks – and the fact that it includes information that was published shortly after the attack occurred, but was later denied, raises doubts about the authorship and whether It is an attack directly linked to the jihadist organization, inspired by its ideas or, simply, the group tries to take advantage of the incident by taking credit for it opportunistically. It is also not ruled out that it is an attack carried out by a criminal group.

The events occurred at 11:40 this Sunday (two hours less in mainland Spain) when two individuals entered the church of Santa María, located in the northern district of Sariyer, very close to the Bosphorus Strait. At that time, Sunday Mass was being celebrated, attended by, among other regular members of the parish, the Consul General of Poland in Istanbul, Witold Lesniak, and his family.

In a recording from the security camera inside the church, which was broadcast by several Turkish media before a court imposed a ban on publishing it, a white-haired man is seen entering the church in the middle of the ceremony, and Immediately behind him, two individuals covered in balaclavas arrive. A shot is fired towards the roof of the temple, after which the faithful crouch for protection behind benches and chairs. Then, one of the attackers goes after the white-haired man, whom he shoots at point-blank range. Subsequently, they aim in several directions, apparently without firing other shots, and, after checking the exit, escape on foot.

The man, who was seriously injured and died in hospital, has been identified as Tuncer Cihan, 52 years old and of Turkish nationality. Two of his relatives have explained to local media that he was a “simple and good” person, “without enemies,” “not involved in politics” and that he suffered from a “slight intellectual disability.” He had begun to attend Sunday masses with his paternal uncle and the faithful saw him “from Sunday to Sunday,” when he attended mass and then stayed for coffee, according to one of the attendees.

The Minister of the Interior, Ali Yerlikaya, announced late on Sunday that the “two suspected perpetrators” of the attack in Santa Maria have been arrested, although he did not add more details about what paths the investigation is taking. During the afternoon he had been informed of the arrest of a person in alleged connection with the attack. The Turkish president, the Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has telephoned the priest in charge of the church and the Polish consul to convey his condolences and has condemned the attack, in addition to promising a prompt resolution of the case.

In the past, attacks against temples, religious and members of the small Christian community in Turkey have occurred in Turkey, such as the murder of Father Andrea Santoro in 2006 and the beheading of three people linked to a missionary community in 2007, cases whose ultimate motivations were not completely clarified.

The Islamic State claims a deadly attack on an Istanbul church although there are doubts about the authorship | West Observer

Farmer Revolution: Blockade of Paris Announced as Farmers Reject Government’s ‘Concessions’

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Calls for revolution are in the air of France once again as farmers have vowed to continue their tractor protests against the globalist green agenda with a planned blockade of Paris after rejecting “concessions” from the government.

After a week of shutting down motorways across the country, forcing politicians of all stripes to come to meet them on their turf, the farmer uprising is set to descend upon the French capital as they were unimpressed by the compromises proposed by newly-installed Prime Minister Gabriel Attall.

With their demands not being met, farmers have decided to ramp up the pressure on the metropolitan liberal elites who vote for green agenda policies without feeling the consequences and allowing the rural population to suffer.

What is being dubbed as the “siege of Paris”, farmers are planning on shutting down at least seven critical entry points to the city and have hinted at enacting a blockade of the Rungis Market, the second largest wholesale food market in the world which serves as the main hub for food deliveries into Paris.

Nosta Lgia

“The idea is that there are no trucks that can serve the capital, to ensure that no product enters Paris, to make Parisians understand that they need farmers to live. I say to our friends in the capital region: it’s going to be a long week,” the head of the Young Farmers Union Maxime Buizard said per Le Figaro.

In response, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin called on police to enact a “defensive system in order to prevent any blockage” of the Rungis market, Paris airports, and to prevent “all entry” of tractors into the city proper.

The planned blockade of Paris comes as farmers groups have shot down a series of “concessions” offered up by Gabriel Attal, who became France’s youngest prime minister after being installed in the post by President Emmanuel Macron earlier this month in an attempt to revive his fledgling government.

The neophyte PM offered to scrap some planned tax hikes on agricultural diesel, reduce regulations and unnecessary paperwork, and introduce new subsidies for organic farming and for bovine medical bills. Attal also said that the government would oppose the planned free trade deal between the European Union and the South American ‘Mercosur’ nations of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, which farmers fear will further undercut prices of French agriculture.

Many of the 140 demands issued by the farmers were not addressed by Attal on Friday, with much of the green regulations being imposed on them by Brussels rather than Paris. However, the government of Emmanuel Macron has been a chief supporter of the green agenda at the EU, and therefore will have a difficult time trying to distance themselves from the implications of the climate alarmist regulations of the bloc.

The head of the nation’s largest farming union FNSEA, Arnaud Rousseau immediately called for “continued mobilisation” after Attal announced his plans, adding: “What was said this evening doesn’t calm the anger, we need to go further”.

The failure to come to an agreement with the farmers has ramped up the political pressure on the government in Paris, with the leader of the centre-right Les Republicains party, Éric Ciotti calling for a “revolution” in how agriculture is done in France.

“It was Mr. Macron and his friends who decided to increase agricultural fuel,” Ciotti said. “The “Restoration of Nature” Law which provides for agricultural decline was supported in Brussels by Renaissance elected officials. Emmanuel Macron is an arsonist firefighter who started the fire himself.”

Ciotti called for a minimum salary for farmers of 1,500 euros, for the government to “remove crippling standards” on farming and to “put an end to free trade agreements which threaten agriculture”.

Trade has become a major issue for farmers across Europe over the past two years following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, after which Brussels decided to open up tariff-free agricultural imports into its market from the former Soviet state, flooding markets with cheaper produce and undercutting local farmers.

Former presidential candidate and current leader of the National Rally (RN) in the French parliament, Marine Le Pen blamed “Macron’s Europe” for the current plight of the farmers, saying that the President’s representatives at the European Parliament backed “all of the free trade agreements”.

“How can they now declare that they want to fight against unfair competition?” the populist leader questioned while visiting farmers in Radinghem-en-Weppes.

They’ve been in power for seven years, how long are we supposed to act naive?”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/01/28/farmer-revolution-blockade-of-paris-announced-as-farmers-reject-governments-concessions/

#BoycottRipCurl Trends For TWO DAYS After Iconic Australian Surf Brand Boots Female Surfer For Trans-Identified Male

An Australian brand that specializes in swimwear for surfers has come under fire after bringing on a trans-identified male as one of their “female” brand ambassadors. Rip Curl’s controversial move comes just months after dropped Bethany Hamilton, a shark attack victim, for voicing her opposition to trans-identified males competing in female sporting competitions.

Rip Curl cut ties with Hamilton in November 2023, despite her status as one of the most celebrated female surfers in Australia and abroad. The decision came after Hamilton publicly opposed gender ideology policies which permit males to compete against women.

Last February, Hamilton shared two videos to her Instagram account questioning October 2022 guidelines adopted by the World Surf League, in accordance with the International Surfing Association, which granted males who claim a transgender status permission to compete against female athletes.

“Is a hormone level an honest and accurate depiction that someone indeed is a male or female? Is it as simple as this?” she asked. In her follow up video, she questioned the policy again. “Am I just a hormone number? Is it as simple as that?”

In her reaction to the new guidelines, Hamilton had also threatened to boycott the World Surf League, and has been outspoken in support of fairness in women’s sports on social media since.

On January 24, Rip Curl posted a video on their women-focused Instagram page, Rip Curl Women, which featured Sasha Jane Lowerson, a trans-identified male surfer.

In the description of the video, Rip Curl described Lowerson, 44, as “a West Australian waterwoman who loves the freedom found in surfing, disconnecting from the mainstream, and the feeling of dancing on constantly changing waves.”

Seemingly anticipating a flood of negative responses, Rip Curl locked their Instagram comments in an effort to limit discussion on their new ambassador.

Lowerson competed successfully in men’s surfing competitions prior to identifying as a “woman.”

“With a commitment to maintaining a positive space for all, we have disabled our comments. Thank you for your understanding,” the sportswear company added.

Lowerson drew criticism in 2022 after taking first in both the Open Women’s Longboard and Open Women’s Logger events at the West Coast Suspensions state championships. Just three years prior to competing in the women’s category, Lowerson, competing under the name Ryan Egan, had taken a top position in the men’s category.

Lowerson had previously celebrated the updated guidelines by World Surf League in February 2023 which permits men to compete in women’s swimming competitions if they reduce their testosterone below a level known to be much higher than what women naturally produce on average.

Prior to the ruling, Lowerson had been competing in women competitions. In March 2022, Lowerson placed ninth in the Noosa Festival of Surfing, becoming the first “trans woman” to compete in surfing at the professional level. Two months later, he placed first in the Open Women’s and Women’s Logger divisions at the Western Australian State Titles. 

In an interview with THEM, a pro-trans publication, Lowerson said he began surfing many years ago but didn’t begin identifying as a woman until his 40s.

“I’ve been a professional longboard surfer for many years. And in that time, I hid in the closet basically. I tried to transition at 19 and again at 29. And now, in my early 40’s, I’ve been successful.”

Reacting to Lowerson being platformed by Rip Curl, many women online expressed anger that the brand would drop a disabled female surfer, only to then work with a male surfer who competes in female competitions.

Many women called for consumers to boycott the brand.

“Sooooo….another company @ripcurl hired a MAN to advertise their women’s line, rather than an amazing female athlete. Amazing. They hate women don’t they. Don’t buy anything from these people. #BoycottRipCurl” One one said on X.

“Imagine dropping an athlete that survived a shark attack and went onto be one of the best surfers in the world for a mentally ill Man competing in women’s surfing? Seriously Ripcurl? #BoycottRipCurl” Wrote another woman on X.

#BoycottRipCurl has been trending on X for the last two days as women continue to express their outrage.

Lowerson has made his Instagram account private following the backlash. However, Reduxx was able to obtain photos from the page showing Lowerson modeled sexually suggestive outfits with captions that related to his surfing career.

Since news of Lowerson’s partnership with Rip Curl first broke, female athletes have spoken out against the brand and in support of Hamilton.

Swimming Champion, Riley Gaines called out Rip Curl on X, encouraging her followers to boycott them.

In a follow-up post, Gaines stated: “Encouraging to see so many people reply that they’re throwing out their Rip Curl apparel and pledging not to buy from them again. I didn’t know people still wore Ripcurl anyways. RIP Rip Curl.”

Gaines has been outspoken against the inclusion of male athletes in female sports after she was forced to compete against Will “Lia” Thomas in the 200 freestyle final at the NCAA Women’s Championships in 2022. Gaines and Hamilton are expected to join forces to host a story hour for children on 2nd February in Springfield, Missouri to celebrate the launch of their new books, “Happy No Snakes Day” by Gaines and “Surfing Past Fear” by Hamilton. Trans activists are expected to protest the family event.

Skateboarder Taylor Silverman also chimed in to condem Rip Curl. Silverman has also been outspoken against males competing in female sports since voicing her own experience being displaced by males participating in women’s skateboarding.

https://reduxx.info/boycottripcurl-trends-for-two-days-after-iconic-australian-surf-brand-boots-female-surfer-for-trans-identified-male/

Paris: Eco-protestors throw soup at Mona Lisa painting in latest climate stunt

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Eco-protestors have thrown soup at the Mona Lisa painting in the latest climate stunt.

The iconic painting by Leonardo da Vinci is on display at the Louvre in Paris.

It sits behind bulletproof glass so it is not believed to have been damaged.

Two protestors were filmed throwing cans of what appeared to be tomato soup towards the glass protecting the painting.

The duo then climbed under the barrier and stood in front of the defaced artwork, revealing a T-shirt with eco-group “Riposte Alimentaire” written in black letters.

The two protesters, identified as Sasha, 24, and Marie-Juliette, 63, are demanding the right to “healthy and sustainable food”, saying “our agricultural system is sick”.

They said: “What is more important? Art or the right to healthy and sustainable food.”

“Your agricultural system is sick. Our farmers are dying at work.”

In a statement, the Riposte Alimentaire group, which claimed responsibility for the attack, said people’s access to food “was under attack” and social security food collective would mean each resident would benefit from a food card worth €150.

They also said that the soup throwing marked the “start of a campaign of civil resistance with the clear demand… of the social security of sustainable food”.

The Mona Lisa, painted in the 16th century by the legendary Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci, is one of the most valuable paintings in the world.

It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest insurance valuation of $100million in 1962, which would be around $1billion nowadays.

This isn’t the first time the Mona Lisa has been targeted by vandalism.

It was first put behind safety glass in the early 1950s when it was damaged by a visitor who poured acid on it.

In 2019, the Louvre said it had installed a more transparent form of bulletproof glass to protect it.

In 2022, another climate activist attacked the painting, throwing a cake at it and urging people to “think of the Earth”.

https://www.gbnews.com/news/world/mona-lisa-painting-soup-attack-eco-protestors-climate-stunt

I’m suing David Lloyd Gyms for Failing to Provide Girls with Privacy & Dignity in Changing Rooms

On today’s #NCFWhittle we are joined by Emma Hardy, a gender critical mother who is suing David Lloyd Gyms over their policy of allowing people born male to use female changing rooms in which her daughters might also be changing. To help crowdfund in support of Emma Hardy’s law suit, please visit: https://democracythree.org/help-emma-…

Pakistan: Muslim clerics issue fatwa against women’s participation in elections; calls campaigning by them against Sharia

Momina Basit (left) is one of three female candidates in the region. (Source: Aaj English TV)

A group of religious leaders from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kohistan primarily affiliated with the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl released a fatwa (Islamic decree) on 26th January pronouncing it unlawful for women to campaign for polls. Addressing a gathering, arranged at the outfit’s central office in Kohistan’s Kamila town, JUI-F’s Mufti Gul Shahzada of Upper Kohistan district’s Kandia region proclaimed, “The women’s act of going from door to door to solicit votes is against sharia (Islamic laws).”

According to him, the statement was issued by thirty recognized religious scholars and supported by attendees at the event who included around four hundred clerics from the Kohistan area. He laid up six ordinances in front of them, all related to the upcoming generals which are scheduled to occur on 8th February in Pakistan.

For the first time in the district’s history, two female candidates supported by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Tehmina Faheem from PK-31 Kohistan-I and former lawmaker Momina Basit as well as Sanaya Sabeel, an independent from PK-33 Kolai-Palas are running for office.

The assembly was informed by Mufti Shahzada that all directives had been issued considering the circumstances at hand. He asserted that these were derived from various religious texts and based on Islamic precepts. He noted that disobeying the fatwa was sinful. Additionally, he stated that locals shouldn’t vote along ethnic lines because it is prohibited by Islamic law.

He warned, “If anybody votes against Islamic ideology, it means he is testifying to an untrue and biased statement, which is a grave sin and also against Islamic sharia.” The clergy pointed out that using the Quran as a means of forcing someone to vote is a sacrilegious act that ought never to be done. The mufti voiced, “Those casting votes on the linguistic, regional and clan grounds are also negating Islamic teachings and no such exercise should be carried out in this district.”

Interestingly, a local political leader countered that anti-feminist sentiment was not the driving force for the fatwa. Rather, its goal was to stop women in Kohistan culture from abusing their alleged position of power.

According to the fatwa, it is forbidden to bring women to voters’ houses to do canvassing. Furthermore, it stated that it was a severe sin to vote for a candidate who opposed the Islamic form of government since doing so would be equivalent to endorsing a falsehood. The edict observed that it is also against sharia to make voters swear allegiance to the Quran under oath.

It mentioned that voting based on national, regional, or racial divisions is against the Quran and Hadith and voting for financial benefit is the worst kind of bribery. The order further stipulated that it was against the ideology of the Muslim scholars to differentiate between votes for national and regional legislatures. At least eighteen religious scholars have signed the order with their names on it.

https://www.opindia.com/2024/01/pakistan-muslim-clerics-issue-fatwa-women-participation-in-elections-calls-campaigning-against-sharia/