middle east

101 years ago today, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered for their political beliefs. On January 15th 1919, paramilitaries burst into an apartment in Berlin and seized the two communist revolutionaries. Although neither had a current arrest warrant against them, they were both taken prisoner. Luxemburg was tortured, killed and her body dumped in the Landwehr Canal in Kreuzberg. Her corpse was discovered months later. Liebknecht was taken to the Tiergarten park in the west of the city, where he was executed with a bullet to his head.

Extra-judicial killing (also known as extra-judicial execution) is the murder of a person by governmental authorities or individuals without the sanction of any judicial proceeding or legal process.

Can you think of other examples of extra-judicial murder, perhaps from the past fortnight? Now, Qassim Suleimani was very different from Luxemburg and Liebknecht, but the principle remains. These executions were violations of democracy and human rights. In time, they undermine the abusers as much as they do their enemies.

This article outlines the history of Western interference in the Middle East, with inevitable consequences for state terrorism countered by terrorism, countered by state terrorism … . How can this destructive cycle end?

Regardless of security imperatives or commerical interest, no democratically elected government should employ, or fail to criticize their allies’ use of, extra-judicial execution.

If you agree, please sign this petition

Predictably, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab claims that Britain is “on the same page” as the US regarding their war-mongering execution of Qassim Suleimani. This from a man with qualifications in International Law. Raab doesn’t speak for me. This government is not my government. I refuse to ‘unite’ in order to legitimize their lies, deceits and venality.

Today I shall remember Rosa.

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