Well the thing is, this isn’t just a thing in Spain, or just a thing in Germany, or just a thing in France, or just a thin in Italy, or Croatio, or Hungary, or Austria, the Netherlands, or Belgium or Poland…

It is a specifically european problem in the context of the EU, as opposed to just a problem in a single member state.

That doesn’t deny that it is also a problem on other continents.

It is very limited though. I would consider Germany more on the decriminalized side.

You are allowed to own a small amount. You are allowed to grow up to three plants at home. It is illegal to buy, sell, or import.

There is rules for having cannabis social clubs similiar to Spain, but the rules around them are quite complex and a lot of it remains unclear, until the law will have been interpreted in court decisions.

Some German states have already announced that they will make life hell for anyone smoking weed in legal public spaces or operating a legal cannabis social club. Also the level of permittable THC for driving is still undecided.

Currently any level of blood THC is considered a DUI and can not only get you a fine, but also a suspension of your drivers licencse with an extensive “medical psychological check up” if you want to regain your licencse. That “check up” is run by private businesses who also sell courses on which answers are right and which are wrong. Basically anything beyond “this was the only time i swear, i was in a bad place and i should have never done it and i am so sorry, and i will never do it again” is a wrong answer.

Now we had an expert proposal for a higher level of permittable blood THC. The proposed level has yet to pass but it would effectively be fine for occasional users, but still a problem for regular users, as it is close to the baseline THC level that they have.

So all in all it is a great step forward, especially considering how the “debate” from the political right and fascists was run around 1970s war on drug prohibition and cultural deprevation talking points. However it still creates many aspects to watch out for and it should be noted, that the political right wants to do everything to reverse the laws, when they likely win the elections next year. The problem with that is also that the center right social democrats are still internally devided, with many of them still thinking of weed as the devils lettuce.

I recommend everyone to read up a bit on the Algerian war for independence

In total the estimates for Algerians killed, mostly murdered by the French opression range from 400.000-1.500.000.

The French massacred Civilians, used torture and rape, unlawful detentions, food deprivation and other inhumane tactics to supress and murder the people struggling to live in self determination on their own land.

Meanwhile of course the independance fighters were branded as terrorists and barbarians to delegitimise their political goals and in complete denial about the terror imposed by the French police and army.

Finally the French lost as their population stopped supporting the murder, torture and rape. It also lead to the collapse of the fourth republic, after which the war was lost soon after.

The military tried to coup twice. First to bring de Gaulle into power and maintain the brutal opression of Algeria and a second time to coup de Gaulle out, as he was realising the war to be lost and seeking a political resolution.

For decades after there was no recognition of the French, that a war took place. They refered to it as a police operation and the topic was banned from schools.

In the muslim and arab world what happens in Gaza and the Westbank is often seen in parallel to the Algerian war of independence. In Europe many countries gloss over or just dont teach about the Algerian war for independence or other independance movements in the former colonies at all.

[…].
The polarisation created by the agreement thus has the potential to seep into wider society. Indeed, 2023 was also a year of increased riots and protests in Mauritania due in large part to the police killing of human rights activist al-Soufi Ould al-Chine in February and a young Afro-Mauritanian man, Oumar Diop, in May.

The latter instance in particular compounded a sense of racialised exclusion felt by many within the Afro-Mauritanian community. Indeed, it is not uncommon for Afro-Mauritanians to be suspected of being “illegal immigrants” by security forces, given the difficulties many face in obtaining civil registry documentation. In such a context, the EU incentivising national security forces to crack down on “irregular migration” carries acute risks for those already on the margins in Mauritania.

The migration deal, therefore, risks inflaming racial tensions and social polarisation in Mauritania while it is also unlikely to achieve its stated aim of preventing “irregular migration”. Such an outcome would foremost be detrimental to the country itself, and it would also undermine the EU’s own framing of Mauritania as a beacon of stability in a troubled region.
[…]

Thats bullshit. It is particularly heinous that in Germany Germans think they get to decide who is a “real jew” and who isnt. Denying jewish ethnic or cultural heritage based on political positions is antisemtic bullshit.

There was a new decision on Palestinians facing immediate starvation and demanding Israel to fully comply with with the prior ruling as well as working together with the UN and immediately allow unobstructed access for humantarian aid.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/icj-orders-israel-to-increase-humanitarian-aid-to-gaza-demands-report-in-30-days/

Also the court did not rule that there was no genocide in its first ruling. It said that there is a plausibility of genocide and that Israel needs to comply with the provisional measures to not increase the risk of genocide. Given that it had to not only repeat itself on that but increase the scope of demands, it certainly does not represent Israel as being sincere about the preventionof genocide.

The ICJ just ruled again, that Israel is not upholding its obligations to prevent genocide, in particular that it must finally allow for full humanitarian access and end the starvation of the people in Gaza.

I trust the highest court of the world to be more qualified to recognize genocide than some pro Israel propaganda piece.

Ireland is not comparable. As the market share of a company grow, so do the demands of customers if they get mislead by the company and the interest of competititors to have legal repercussions for illegal activities.

Ireland is different, as it works as a tax haven for these companies. They don’t care about how many customers are there. They care about how much of their profit they can declare in the country with the least tax rate.

I am not so sure about this. There used to be plenty of space for both. There was no “forced” interaction and the dog population was much smaller. So there was no genetic pressure into the wolf population, even if there were some crossovers. Now the habitation is extremely limited for wolves, getting into contact with human population is inevitable and any influx of dog genes into the wolf population has a realistic chance of forcing itself through, as seen by the hybrids making up most of the wild wolf population in many places.

In 1800 the Western European populations were at a bout half of what they are today. In Northern and Eastern Europe it was more like a quarter to a fifths of todays population. But back then there were no cars, hardly any trains, and the overall land usage was much much smaller than today.

When i checked again the statement by the group has been updated, now using the term freezing in the bold part of the statement:

Berliner Sparkasse freezes Jewish Voice account

You are right that there could be a legal confusion around the term confiscation and the statement was updated probably to reflect the point you made about the legal meaning.

In the common usage both in English and German the term is broader what i argued for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confiscation

Confiscation (from the Latin confiscatio “to consign to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury”) is a legal form of seizure by a government or other public authority. The word is also used, popularly, of spoliation under legal forms, or of any seizure of property as punishment or in enforcement of the law.

EDIT: The following is only referring to the usage in common used language. The legal distinction is as pointed out by @geissi@feddit.de and freezing in legal terms is different from confiscation.

The factual control over that property is taken away from the owner. That is confiscation (in the common used language not in legal terms). For any physical property that term is used directly in that sense. The term “freezing” for bank accounts has established in that sector but it remains valid to speak of confiscation as the factual control over that asset is seized from the owner.(in the common used language not in legal terms) For that is is irrespective of whether the recognized ownership has changed. I.e. if a police officer takes all the money out of your wallet and puts it in a safe at the police station it still has been confiscated from you, even if he gives you a letter stating it is still your money. You are denied access to it, until some decision has been reached by someone.

The only legal distinction here is that the bank is a regulated private or in this case public entity that is legally seperate from the executive, whereas the police is a direct executive organ.

You comment is a perfect example of how jewish people dissenting with the unconditional support for Israel stance are targeted using antisemitic conspiracies, insults and and propaganda attacks.

The zionist movement is not just allying with antisemites both historically and today. It itself is using the fully playbook of antisemitic tropes to attack dissenting jews.

I would say that modern zionism cannot exist without anitsemitism. Zionism relies on the same inhumane cruelty and doublethink patterns that fascist ideologies rely on.

At the time there was no news article available.

EDIT: the following only applies to the usage of the term in common language. It is not accurate in the legal sense, where the term has a distinctly different meaning from the term freezing A bank account being frozen can be referred to as confiscation though. It means that you loose the factual control over your property. When a teacher confiscates the phones of students to give them back at the end of the school day. Or when police confiscates all your electronics in a criminal investigation, only to give them back month later.

It is true that there currently is not the level of permanence that the term can also include. However it means that the organization is unable to operate and there is strong reason to believe their stance that this is done for politican reasons just shortly before they want to hold a conference.

For context, the Berliner Sparkasse is a subsidiary bank of the Landesbank Berlin. It used to be owned by the state of Berlin but has been sold to the group of Sparkassen in 2007 to deal with the states debt. It is therefore owned by a few hundred state and muncipality banks.

The bank is in full public ownership. The government of the state of Berlin can remove members of the executive board at any time if it sees the banks actions in violation of any law. There is also an advisory board that is appointed by the state government and members can be removed from the advisory board at any time, without any specified reasons in the law.

The bank is publicly owned and subject to possible direct intereference by the state government of Berlin, which has been particularly strongly cracking down on peace activists including arrests of jewish activists for peace and bans of demonstrations by jewish peace organizations such as the Jewish Voice for Peace in the first month after Hamas attacked Israel on 07. October.

Ah yes, no need to look at questions like socioeconomic causes, psychological issues or the failure of the prison system at rehabilitating people.

Just lock them up indefinetly. And then what is now considered the medium persistency group can be split into a new high persisting and a smaller medium persisting group. What to do then is obvious. You must permanently lock away the new high persistency group. Just rinse and repeat until a large part of the population is in prison and the economic and social consequences of having so many people incarcerated will cause crimerates to spike as people need to survive in a dysfunctional society. Luckily we can just lock up these people too, until the entire country is imprisonend.

Considering not even the openly neonazi AfD are classified as extremist

except in many cases they are, and except the fact that this should be ringing alarm bells when left leaning organizations are targeted by the government. Taking their tax exempt status, like it was done with the VVN is a death sentence to non profit organizations.

Also how do you want to get peer reviewed studies about something that is happening right now and in that extent and with that attention since six months?

They can and will lose their tax exempt status or have it threatened if the government argues them to believe “extremist” for which false allegations would be an indication.

Losing the tax exempt status based on broad allegations have happened to the VVN-BdA the Association of people persecuted by the nazi regime, federation of antifascists. Based on it being mentioned in the “constitution protection report” of the interior intelligence in Bavaria the finance office of Berlin has revoked its tax exempt status in 2019. The organization was targeted as “leftist extremists” as they have a decisive anti-fascist stance, given that the organization has been founded by Holocaust survivors and their descendants are organized in it.

https://taz.de/Aberkennung-der-VVN-Gemeinnuetzigkeit/!5645383/

https://taz.de/VVN-BdA-wieder-voll-gemeinnuetzig/!5768978/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest

An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questioned further and/or charged. An arrest is a procedure in a criminal justice system, sometimes it is also done after a court warrant for the arrest.

I think you might confuse it with detention, where the police would keep you in jail for a limited time.

As for who and what, from the article:

The officer who briefly removed Kalinowska from the protest told Al Jazeera that there was no formal list or any particular guidelines to follow.

“Really, I just use my intuition,” he said. “If I see something I think is bad, we go and get it.”

And this is indivative of the wider problem here. Police can harass and attack protests without having to uphold a legal standard. So even if there is no legal basis to what they do, just storming into the protest and dragging someone out is used as an intimidation and punishment without crime tactic. It is always a violent act where not only the person apprehended, but also the protestors around them are physically attacked.

Thats what they did. They claim Poland did not provide any evidence of any missile in polish airspace to them, therefore there is no reason for them to come. It is the “this is so wrong it does not warrant further attention” approach.

You are thinking too far.

The Russian position is “What missile? We never send a missile there! Did you see a missile? Where are the pictures of the missile? We didn’t see a missile!”