Mick Hartley

UN Watch:

Despite its abysmal record on women’s rights, Saudi Arabia is now chairing the UN’s top women’s rights body, presiding until March 21st at a gathering of global leaders that is supposed to address gender equality amid a reported backlash against women’s rights, at the 69th annual session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

“It’s surreal. Electing Saudi Arabia to head the world body for protecting women’s rights is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based independent human rights group.

“As chair, Saudi Arabia is now in a key position to influence the planning and decisions of the world’s top women’s right body. Yet despite cosmetic reforms, Saudi Arabia continues to subject women to legal discrimination, where they are effectively enslaved under a male guardianship system that was enshrined into law three years ago, ironically on international women’s day,” said Neuer….

“One of the world’s most patriarchal and misogynistic regimes now chairs the Commission on the Status of Women, which is touted on the UN website as the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.”

Some of those involved in last November's "Jew-hunt" in Amsterdam, when fans of visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv were targeted by a violent mob, are currently on trial in Holland. You won't read about it here, but still…it matters, as an insight into the vicious antisemitism now commonplace in many European cities. Brendan O'Neill at Spiked:

They called their rampage a ‘Jew hunt’. They incited each other to violence, saying ‘[we] may never get this chance [again] to beat up some fucking Jews’. They called for a city-wide ‘rage’ against ‘cancer Jews’ and ‘cancer Zionists’. They damned the Jews as a ‘cowardly’ people. They shared information about the arrival of a ‘train full of Jews’ and said everyone should be there to greet it, because ‘we have to make those cancer Jews feel what they did to our brothers’. The train could be late, one of them joked, because it might be a ‘special train’ laid on by Hitler, ‘with gas for [the Jews]’.

Where were these racist obscenities uttered? Where was this violent hunt for Jews carried out? Germany in 1938, perhaps? No, it was in Amsterdam, last year. This was the jodenjacht of November 2024 when visiting Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv were ‘hunted’ by mobs of mostly Arab men in the streets of Amsterdam. More details about this pogrom emerged during the latest court cases last week, and they heap yet further shame on the pogrom deniers of the Western left who insisted these were just street clashes, not a Jew hunt.

Much of the reporting here blamed the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, of course. Football fans and Jews: the perfect villains.

Western leftists devoted the same amount of moral energy to denying the truth of the Amsterdam pogrom as they normally devote to uncovering racism absolutely everywhere. The same people who for years decried everything from white women wearing their hair in cornrows to the scuffing of a page in the Koran as ‘racism’ were now shrugging their shoulders over a literal Jew hunt. ‘Maybe the Maccabi fans brought it on themselves’, they essentially said.

To the rational observer, it was clear from the start that what happened in Amsterdam was a pogrom. The first ‘trial of the Jew hunters’ took place in December. Five men were convicted of violence. One had boasted in the WhatsApp group about joining the ‘Jew hunt’ – his words. He later kicked Maccabi fans and grabbed one by the throat. Another described his victims as ‘cowardly [Jews]’. The men, along with around 900 others, were part of the virtual chat which, the court heard, had shared information for the purposes of ‘violence against people of Jewish descent and / or supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv’. Four of the five men were jailed, one was given a community order….

And yet still leftists said it wasn’t a pogrom. Still we saw headlines like ‘The pogrom in Amsterdam that wasn’t’. Still we were told that the Maccabi fans had it coming because they yelled offensive slogans and tore down a Palestine flag. These fans brought the ‘spirit of Israeli fascism’ to the Netherlands, one observer said, and folk in Amsterdam just fought back. It was victim-blaming on steroids, as grotesque as when anti-Semites said the Jews of Germany brought Kristallnacht on themselves by being such economic disruptors. Nothing better sums up the turbo-smug racial paternalism of the modern left than the fact that gangs of men said ‘We carried out a Jew hunt!’ and these people essentially replied: ‘No you didn’t. You were just protesting. Bless.’ They don’t only know better than Jews, you see – they know better than Arabs, too.

Mandatory reading and study sessions, and now mandatory group singing. It's a wonder they have any time for work.

The South Hwanghae provincial party committee has made weekly “song dissemination” sessions mandatory at all workplaces, leaving many North Koreans frustrated as they’re forced to sing propaganda songs amid difficult living conditions.

According to a Daily NK source, the provincial party committee issued an order on Feb. 15 requiring all workplaces to conduct these weekly sessions. Employees must now participate in group singing before their mandatory reading and study sessions.

“These song sessions used to happen only when a new song appeared in the Rodong Sinmun or when the party specifically ordered certain songs to be sung. Now we have to sing together once a week at work,” the source explained.

Party cell secretaries at each workplace select the songs, with options ranging from revolutionary music dating back to the anti-Japanese struggle era to the latest propaganda tunes.

“All music in North Korea serves regime propaganda, so it doesn’t really matter who picks the songs,” the source noted. “But having the party cell secretary make the selections is considered ‘party policy’ – a rule that can’t be broken.”

The provincial authorities have made clear that these sessions aim to instill loyalty to the party, leader, and revolutionary spirit by having citizens memorize the lyrics. Workplaces are required to organize regular question-and-answer sessions about the songs, forcing employees to rehearse repeatedly until they’ve memorized all the words….

North Korea has long used music as a key tool for promoting official ideology and regime cohesion. Since founder Kim Il Sung’s era, songs have been used to cultivate public loyalty under the slogan “Where there’s a revolution, there are songs” – a practice that continued through Kim Jong Il’s and Kim Jong Un’s leadership.

Yet as economic conditions worsen and people struggle to feed their families, these propaganda songs have lost their effectiveness.

“Songs might have worked for ideological control in the past, but now, as people face harsher realities, they ignore them no matter how much they’re forced to sing,” the source said. “Plus, with more outside information getting in, people are less influenced by propaganda.”

“People openly say that singing songs won’t make rice appear or improve their lives when they can barely make ends meet,” the source added. “Ultimately, this coercive approach of forcing people to memorize and sing songs will only increase public distrust of the regime.”

Let's hope so.

1909. "View toward Campus Martius from Detroit Opera House."

[Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]

Astonishing. The memos about Sandie Peggie and NHS Fife, or the Darlington nurses, or the general turning of the tide on gender ideology, don't seem to have arrived at Guy’s and St Thomas’s:

A London hospital trust has told trans employees they can use the lavatories and changing rooms of their choice in a challenge to Wes Streeting.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ trust’s new transgender equality policy tells all staff they must refer to everyone with the pronoun of their choice, even if they do not believe in gender ideology.

It also advises managers not to disclose the trans status of a doctor or a nurse to patients, which campaigners fear could mean patients not being guaranteed intimate care by someone of the same sex….

Fiona McAnena, the director of campaigns at women’s rights charity Sex Matters, said: “With the Darlington nurses and Sandie Peggie cases under way, it’s inexplicable that Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust has just produced a new policy stating that staff who identify as transgender can access the facilities of the ‘gender’ they identify as.

“The leadership of Guy’s and St Thomas’ needs to get a grip, pull this new policy and start again if the trust is to avoid becoming the latest NHS trust to face costly legal action because of reality-denying absurd policies and practices.”

The trust’s transgender policy, seen by The Telegraph, was drawn up by equalities officers and LGBT members of staff.

Controversially, it recognises “non-binary” identities, which are not recognised in law.

It sets an aim for all NHS staff in the two hospitals to be trained on “non-binary staff and gender non-conforming identities”.

The trust also said it would collect data on the gender that staff identify as, but not their biological sex, in defiance of the Government.

On toilets and changing rooms, the guidance states: “Facilities: provide access to gender-appropriate facilities. Gender-neutral options will also be made available where possible.

“Transgender people are accommodated according to the gender they identify with, rather than sex registered at birth, regardless of where they are on the transition journey.”

It's a step back in time. Well, it's a step back in everything. In every sense.

The fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as with the fighting in Sudan, barely if ever makes the news. Still, you'd think this might be worth a mention somewhere, but today's the first I've heard of it (via). It happened some three weeks ago. 

Around 70 bodies, including those of women, children and elderly people, were discovered on Feb. 15 in a church building in the village of Maiba, in Lubero territory in North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Civil services say these people – who were found, bound and decapitated – were killed with knives. No armed group has claimed responsibility for the killing, but there is growing suspicion that the massacre was carried out by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) – a militia allied to the Islamic State.

International Christian Concern quotes local sources as revealing that the people were all Christians.

It says members of the militia detained many Christian villagers before tying them up in a local protestant church and decapitating them with machetes.

Pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need reports that the ADF operates both in Uganda and the DRC , and has been terrorizing the local population for more than a decade.

“Islamist groups have stepped up attacks and assaults on isolated villages, already killing thousands of Congolese civilians,” it stated.

Even Aid to the Church in Need are playing it down:

The latest massacre of 70 Christians might seem like persecution, but Maria Lozano, Director of ACN International Press and Media Department, says there needs to be a more careful analysis to determine the motives.

“We cannot speak of persecution across the entire country, as most of the violence occurring in the DRC has no religious connection. It is important to be cautious and avoid oversimplifying or misleading people in our analysis,” she told Crux.

She explained that the recent massacre is likely to result from “a mixed of reasons.”

“One of them is that these victims were unable to resist or endure the forced march. When the rebels take hostages, they force them to travel with them, either as reinforcements for their group or as forced labor for their war effort. When there’s loot, they need people to carry it. If you get tired on the way, you’re done. I believe that’s what happened to these 70 people. The church was the best place to get rid of them,” she told Crux.

She said the fact that the people were killed in a church doesn’t necessarily mean they were targeted in anti-Christian pogroms.

“Most of the fighting in the DRC is related to the competition for resources,” she noted.

Hmm. Seventy people, all Christians, decapitated in a church, very likely by an Islamist group – but hey, it's all about the struggle for resources. Nothing to see here.

More on the ADF:

The Allied Democratic Forces (French: Forces démocratiques alliées; abbreviated ADF) is a Ugandan Islamist rebel group based in western Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is considered a terrorist organisation by the Ugandan government and the United States. Originally based in western Uganda, it has expanded into the neighbouring Congo. Most ADF fighters are Ugandan Muslims from the Baganda and Basoga ethnic groups….

Mee-mawing and fluing gangs. Daniel Meadows’ photos of one of the last remaining steam-powered cotton weaving mills in Lancashire:

In 1975 Daniel Meadows began a two-year post as photographer-in-residence to the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire. Here, he found himself drawn to Bancroft Shed, the last remaining steam-powered cotton weaving mill in the district.

Against the backdrop of a declining industrial landscape, Meadows began documenting the life of the mill and speaking to the people who worked there. From the retired weaver Bessie Dickinson to the engineer Stanley Graham, flue cleaner Charlie Sutton and steeplejack Peter Tatham, he created a remarkable portrait of Bancroft Shed’s workers and their disappearing trades.

Shuttles, Steam and Soot was first exhibited in 1978 as part of the Half Moon Photography Workshop’s radical programme of affordable, portable touring shows. Sent from galleries to community centres, from the Shetland Islands to Germany, the exhibition was eventually lost.

Fifty years on, Meadows has been working with Four Corners gallery in east London to recreate the original touring exhibition. Shuttles, Steam and Soot: a cotton mill in Lancashire runs to March 29. Free admission, Exhibition opening hours 11am to 6pm, Wednesday to Saturday at Four Corners, 121 Roman Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 0QN.

Peter Tatham, steeplejack, 150 feet up atop the stack and shortly after starting the demolition process

Melfar Manufacturing Co, Colne

The engine house at James Nutter & Sons, Bancroft Shed, with Stanley Graham, mill engineer, sleeping in his armchair beside the low pressure tail slide

View from the southwest during demolition of the weaving shed and warehouse

Stanley Graham, mill engineer, with the double-acting cross compound condensing engine, made by William Roberts & Sons of Nelson and commissioned in 1919

A weaver “mee-mawing” at Queen Street Mill, Harle Syke, Burnley. Mee-mawing was a form of speech with exaggerated movements to allow lip reading employed by workers in weaving sheds in Lancashire in the 19th and 20th centuries

Jim Pollard’s drawing hook — older than his marriage

Stanley Graham, engineer, “blowing off” and “blowing down” the Lancashire boiler (emptying it) ready for fluing

Only the feet of the engineer Stanley Graham can be seen as he works on the fire bars in the Lancashire boiler

A loom sweeper at Bancroft Shed

A member of the Weldone gang from Brierfield taking off his rags

The engine house with Stanley Graham, mill engineer

An insurance company boiler inspector on top of one of the furnace tubes inside the Lancashire boiler

Charlie Sutton, boss of the Weldone fluing gang from Brierfield, taking a break
[Photos © Daniel Meadows]

Twenty North Korean soldiers who "showed dishonorable behavior" to Kim Jong-un on his visit to a special forces training site last September were arrested and sent to a military-run labour camp. They're to be transferred to an isolation zone after serving their time, instead of being sent home. Their parents, meanwhile, were told they were dead. One set of distraught parents, who happened to have good connections in Pyongyang, determined to find out what had happened – which is how the truth emerged. Then the parents disappeared. From the Daily NK:

When a couple in Sariwon, North Hwanghae province, learned about their only son’s supposed death, they resolved to discover the truth, even if it meant selling everything they owned. They reached out to contacts in Pyongyang and eventually uncovered what had happened.

The devastated couple shared the story with neighbors, expressing disbelief that this could happen to their cherished son, who had been born late in their lives. Soon, rumors spread throughout the city.

Shortly afterward, the couple vanished.

“Soldiers escorted the parents to Pyongyang on Feb. 15, and they never returned. Four days later, housing officials arrived to announce their home would be reassigned to another family. The entire neighborhood was stunned,” said the source….

The incident has created anxiety within military ranks. Officers interpret this as a warning that any violation involving Kim will face severe punishment without exception. They anticipate stricter regulations regarding the supreme leader throughout all units.

“Soldiers at the training site where the incident occurred are experiencing extreme anxiety, fearing they could lose everything while their families receive only a brief death notification,” the source concluded.

We're not told the nature of the soldiers' "dishonorable behavior" which led to their punishment, but we can be fairly sure it was something trivial: perhaps looking the other way when Kim was talking, for instance. 

A Camera UK report on BBC Arabic:

BBC Arabic is a foreign language service that broadcasts 24 hours a day from London and Cairo to the Middle East, across TV, radio and online.

It is the BBC World Service’s largest, most heavily funded and most influential foreign-language service. It is part funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and reaches a weekly audience of 38 million people across the Arab-speaking world.

Far from embedding the values of the BBC, BBC Arabic has become synonymous with toxic hostility against Israel and, at times, anti-Jewish racism. It has given a platform to murderous terrorists, presented apologists for terror as independent ‘experts’, allowed extreme views to go unchallenged in interviews and echoed the language of Hamas.

It has subjected Israeli guests to biased and hostile questioning, downplayed attacks on Israelis and failed to swiftly remove antisemitic comments posted online.

BBC Arabic staff who posted in support of the barbaric rape, murder and kidnap of innocent men, women and children on 7 October 2023 continue to work for the organisation.

This document charts four years under Tim Davie’s leadership in which senior executives and the BBC Board have failed to stamp out the extraordinary bias within BBC Arabic despite repeated demands for change.

Full report here.

Kemi is on the case:

Kemi Badenoch has called for “wholesale reform” of the BBC Arabic channel after a report accused it of “appalling antisemitism and anti-Israel bias”.

The Conservative leader wrote to Tim Davie, the director-general, to set out concerns about the World Service channel on Friday, weeks after warning that her party will withdraw its support for the licence fee if the BBC fails to tackle her concerns about bias….

Badenoch’s letter came after a ­report from the media watchdog the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera), which accused the channel of “anti-Israel bias, toxic antisemitism and the promotion of Hamas propaganda”.

The 33-page report covers claims spanning four years, including providing a “platform to terrorists”, presenting apologists as independent “experts” and ­allowing extreme views to go ­unchallenged in interviews. It also ­accused BBC Arabic of echoing Hamas language.

In her letter, the leader of the opposition accused the BBC of losing its grip on the World Service channel.

“A public-service broadcaster ­appears to have become a regular platform for race-hate, extremism and the endorsement of terror,” Badenoch said. “BBC Arabic is intended to provide high-quality, trusted news for the ­hundreds of millions of people who speak Arabic. It should uphold the highest standards of public-service broadcasting. Instead, it seems that the World Service may be fomenting ­extremism and misleading audiences — while funded by the taxpayer and ­licence fees. This is simply unacceptable and must stop.”

Badenoch repeated her threat, made after the documentary was shown, that the Conservative Party would withdraw its support for the licence fee “without real action” from BBC bosses.

Jonathan Sacerdoti in the Spectator – Why is the LSE hosting a Hamas book launch?

The London School of Economics’ decision to host the launch this week of Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters – a book that attempts to sanitise and fails to properly condemn a terrorist organisation responsible for the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – has rightly sparked outrage. It is a shameless attempt to rehabilitate a group that revels in the slaughter of civilians, delights in hostage-taking, and has openly vowed to repeat its crimes.

But while the LSE controversy is unsettling, it is merely a symptom of a much larger problem: the enduring failure of many in the West to grasp the true nature of Hamas. It is not, as some insist, a mere ‘resistance movement’ born out of Israeli policies. Nor is it simply a nationalist organisation with an Islamic flavour. Hamas is, and always has been, a jihadist organisation deeply rooted in the ideological soil of the Muslim Brotherhood, driven by an uncompromising religious mission to erase Israel and murder Jews. Indeed, even the broader Palestinian political identity has maximalist, antisemitic origins and aims….

If there were any lingering doubts about Hamas’ true nature, they should have been put to rest on 7 October, 2023. The group’s mass butchery of civilians – beheadings, rapes, kidnapping of babies – was not a spontaneous act of desperation. It was a calculated, ideological jihad. The hostages taken into Gaza were not merely bargaining chips; Hamas deliberately humiliated, tortured, and paraded them as trophies, demonstrating the same medieval barbarism that Isis once displayed. Yet there are those – like the authors of Understanding Hamas – who still seek to portray this organisation as a misunderstood political entity. Hamas has repeatedly stated that 7 October was not an aberration, but a blueprint. Its leaders have boasted that they will repeat such attacks again and again….

The West’s intellectual and academic class has indulged the illusion that Islamic terror groups like Hamas are products of oppression rather than theocratic, totalitarian movements. This naïveté –whether driven by ideological bias, cowardice, or wilful ignorance – has allowed jihadist ideology to flourish under the guise of “resistance.”

The simple truth is this: Hamas is not a liberation movement. It is not a political party. It is a genocidal jihadist organisation that exists solely to destroy Israel and kill Jews. It says so itself, acts on it, and has proven time and again that it will never stop until it is utterly dismantled.

And, as I've said, this refusal to see Hamas for what they are – a genocidal jihadist organisation – rather than some kind of heroic resistance movement, also governs the BBC's lamentable coverage of Gaza.