K Goonewardena

!!! Wow.

Top economists incl. @JosephEStiglitz @PikettyWIL @Jayati1609 @yanisvaroufakis @StephanieKelton @jasonhickel @kateraworth @FadhelKaboub call for halt to Sri Lanka debt repayments after Cyclone Ditwah. @YukthiSL @IMFNews @debtjustice @eurodad @AFRODAD2011 theguardian.com/business/2025/…

“6.3 million people are now skipping meals”. What the IMF is doing to Sri Lanka is actually barbarism. aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/…

Sally Rooney: “I too support Palestine Action. If this makes me a “supporter of terror” under UK law, so be it. My books, at least for now, are still published in Britain, and are widely available … I want to be clear that I intend to use these proceeds of my work, as well as my public platform generally, to go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can.”

No Sports Washing of Genocide, War Crimes and Apartheid: No Team Israel at the @DavisCup @TennisCanada actionnetwork.org/letters/no-spo…

Divestment victory! Yesterday, with a record turnout for the vote, UofT faculty and librarians passed an historic divestment motion. The membership of the University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) called on the University Pension Plan (UPP) to divest from the manufacture of weapons used to commit or facilitate war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Sudan, and all other contexts of crimes against humanity, illegal occupation, and other serious violations of international law. The UTFA is the 20th faculty or academic association to endorse boycotting or divesting from Israeli war crimes in Palestine over the last two years. BDS works! cjpme.org/who_supports_b…

True! instagram.com/reel/DGXthPrsN…

Important, insightful and informed perspective on the #debtcrisis in #SriLanka by Kanchana Ruwanpura @knr21_cam! Open access!

- Yves Engler Has Been Arrested - This morning, @YvesEngler spoke to media before turning himself in to Montreal police on politically motivated charges that he supposedly harassed a Zionist activist/media personality by responding to her tweets and publishing an article. When he publicized his scheduled arrest police promised new charges of “harassing” police and “obstructing” their work. #YvesEngler #FreeSpeech #Montreal #Gaza #Israel #Palestine

Celtic fans waved the flag of Palestine and revealed this banner during their Champions League playoff tie against Bayern Munich. "Show Zionism the red card". #FCBCEL

You can’t make this up. Initially the Montreal police accused me of harassing an anti-Palestinian media personality because I posted about Israel’s genocide. Now they are charging me for harassing the police for writing about the charges levelled against me. At 9:30 AM tomorrow the Montreal police are set to arrest me. Today an officer told me they will detain me overnight or until I’m brought before a judge. On Tuesday police investigator Crivello said they were charging me at the behest of anti-Palestinian activist Dahlia Kurtz. The police officer said I had described Kurtz as a “genocide” supporter and “fascist” on Twitter, which is true. I promptly wrote about the charges and the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute organized an email letter campaign, which saw 2,500 outraged people call on the cops to drop the Kurtz-sponsored charges. Angry at receiving emails and my article — the police were seeking release conditions barring me from discussing the charges levelled against me — the police are now claiming I’m victimizing them. Today a new investigator called to say investigator Crivello feels threatened by my writing about the charges levelled against me. The Montreal police will be charging me with intimidation, harassment, harassing communication and “entrave” (interference) towards Crivello. The police investigator also announced that they will be holding me overnight out of fear that I may “recidive” (relapse). In other words, I might once again write about the absurd charges levelled against me. Guilty as charged. Over the past 24 hours I’ve received multiple messages about frivolous cases brought against others for opposing genocide. The abuse of police and legal system to target opponents of genocide is a greater problem than I realized. I’m trying to make sense of Kurtz’s bizarre bid not to block me on X but claim I am harassing her. Perhaps she is trying to monetize her status as a victim of hate. On her site Kurtz writes: “If you want to help save Canada from hate and extremism please donate by e-transfer to: [email]. After years of working for media outlets, I am now independent, so I can say the truth. This also means my personal security is under constant threat. You can make a difference. My work is funded solely by your support.” A lawyer is looking into pursuing legal action against Kurtz. But it’s the police that really need to be held accountable. The initial charges were an abuse of state authority and adding new charges for criticizing them is beyond absurd. The Montreal police apparently have no qualms about acting in service of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza. More than 100,000 have been killed and almost everyone has been displaced. About 70% of buildings are destroyed and most agricultural land damaged. The police targeting opposition to Israel’s crimes is an embarrassment. The particular charges are ridiculous. The notion that someone can publicly attack Palestinians, repeatedly call Canada’s prime minister an antisemite and a supporter of terror, engage a Conservative Party candidate as a lawyer to convince police to lay charges and authorities go along with it — simply incredible. Then for the police to claim they are being victimized by emails critical of the ridiculous charges — I’m at a loss for words. What parallel universe have we slipped into? Please email the Montreal mayor and police chief to demand they drop the charges against Yves Engler. If you are in Montréal some people will be accompanying me (9:30am, 980, rue Guy St.) when I will be detained by police yvesengler.com/2025/02/19/pol…

Berlin police broke up pro-Palestine protests for chanting and singing in Arabic after banning Arabic at demonstrations.

Join us at the AAG preconference hosted by Geographers for Justice in Palestine in Detroit!

"Climate Finance, Debt, and Human Rights in Sri Lanka: Breaking the Cycle" -- a report published by @ipe_sl from a project funded by an Antipode Foundation "Right to the Discipline" grant ipe-sl.org/policy-perspec… antipodeonline.org/a-right-to-the…

Season 4, Episode 3 of the brilliant (and Antipode Foundation-supported!) @conjuncturepod out now: @iDialectic on "Nationalism and Imperialism in the Global South" trinitysocialjustice.com/conjuncture-po…

LIVE FROM BERLIN: “In the case of Palestine, it is overwhelmingly documented that Israel commits, intentionally, the gravest human rights offences as part of its longstanding plan to maintain control over a regime of Jewish supremacy.” —UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese

HAPPENING NOW IN BERLIN, GERMANY: “I’ve never been in a place that has received so many threats, where the police has been checking on whether I could be arrested or not.” “This is awful. And as a European, I will never forget this.” —Francesca Albanese

LIVE FROM BERLIN, GERMANY: “The land is to be returned to its [Palestinian] owners.” “And perhaps the Jewish Israelis who are there may want to rent instead of stealing, and live as Palestinians if there is a Palestinian state.” —Francesca Albanese

I’m free! I wrote this on the plane and I’m posting it just after landing at Istanbul. On Monday evening I was brought to Zurich airport in handcuffs, in a small metal cage inside a windowless prison van and led all the way to the plane by police. This is after three days and two nights in a Swiss prison cut off from communication with the outside world, in a cell 24 hours a day with one cell mate, not even permitted to contact my family. On Saturday in a police interview in the presence of my lawyer they accused me of “offending against Swiss law” without ever telling me what crime I had committed in Switzerland or listing any charges. As far as I know I have not been charged with any crime whatsoever and I was held in “administrative detention.” On Sunday morning, they took me from my cell for questioning by Swiss defense ministry intelligence agents without the presence of my lawyer, and they again refused to allow me to contact her or my family. I refused to talk to them without my lawyer and told them take me back to my cell. During my imprisonment I refused every meal and every cup of coffee or tea they offered me except the last meal, after I knew I would be going home. I accepted only water, which is the right of every human being. All of this was after I was abducted off the street around 1:30pm on Saturday while on my way to the Palestine teach-in by undercover agents, handcuffed, forced into an unmarked car and sped straight to the prison. My “crime”? Being a journalist who speaks up for Palestine and against Israel’s genocide and settler-colonial savagery and those who aid and abet it. I came to Switzerland at the invitation of Swiss citizens to talk about justice for Palestine, to talk about accountability for a genocide in which Switzerland too is complicit. But while I was hauled off to prison like a dangerous criminal before I even had a chance to say a word, the Israeli president Isaac Herzog, who declared at the start of the genocide that there are no civilians in Gaza, no innocents, received a red carpet welcome in Davos, a carpet soaked in the blood of the more than 47,000 known victims of the genocide and the thousands more still under the rubble, or who died of deliberately inflicted starvation and denial of medical care. And on this very day Netanyahu freely travels to Poland to make a mockery of the Auschwitz commemoration despite an outstanding ICC arrest warrant. That is the perverse, unjust world we live in. This ordeal lasted three days but that taste of prison was more than enough to leave me in even greater awe of the Palestinian heroes who endure months and years in the prisons of the genocidal oppressor. More than ever I know that the debt we owe them is one we can never repay and all of them must be free and they must remain our focus. The police gave me my phone back only at the gate of the plane so I’m only seeing now the extent of the overwhelming support and solidarity from all over the world. I’m deeply grateful to each and every person who stood up for me. I’m especially grateful to my lawyer Dina Raewel and her team, to our friends in Zurich who I learned afterwards demonstrated outside the prison, to my family and my colleagues at EI and so many others. I honestly had no idea what was happening outside that concrete room! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I want to tell the whole story of what happened, perhaps in an @intifada livestream in the next day or two, because I think it’s important for people to know the depths to which their Western so-called “democracies” have sunk in the abject service of genocidal Zionism. Right now I’m glad to be on my way home. I’m looking forward to hugging my mom and dad, taking a shower and sleeping in my own bed. Journalism is not a crime! Speaking out for Palestine is not a crime! Standing against racist genocidal Zionism is not a crime! Say it with me: From the River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free! ❤️🇵🇸✌️