I’m a UCLA professor. Why didn’t the administration stop last night’s egregious violence?

The university should have anticipated Tuesday night’s chaos — but security personnel were nowhere to be found

#UCLA, the top-rated public university in the United States, experienced one of the darkest nights in its 105-year history on Tuesday. Over the course of my 33-year career at UCLA, I have never seen anything so terrifying take place.

Around 11 p.m., a group of masked counter-demonstrators made their way to the Royce Quad in the heart of campus and began to attack the encampment set up last week by demonstrators opposing the war in Gaza. They threw a firecracker into the encampment, tore down its outer walls, threw heavy objects at demonstrators and instigated direct physical confrontations. Those in the encampment were left to fend for themselves against a violent band of thugs intent on inflicting damage.

#Fascism #US #StudentProtests #Pooitics #FreeSpeech #Israel #Gaza #Ceasefire #StopIsrael #SaveGaza #SaveRafah #Genocide
https://forward.com/opinion/608479/ucla-violence-campus-protests/

#Narges_Mohammadi wrote in a short note about women's struggle against #forced_hijab from #Evin prison:

"Iranian women's struggle against the compulsory hijab is not just a struggle for the right to cover, and the government's struggle with women is not for a religious duty.

Both Iranian women and the regime of the Islamic Republic are both aware that the problem is the failure of religious tyranny.

Mandatory hijab for women is like surrendering to illegitimate government domination and usurpation, and for the government, it is a tool and possibility for the continuation of domination and the survival of power.

The wide scope and dimensions of this conflict and confrontation did not stop at the borders of women's rights, but it has targeted the power structure.

The return of guided patrols, the presence of the police force in uniform and its officers and guards and privates in the streets and the intensity of violence in public, is an action by the government to create terror and in the same proportion, the resistance of women and the increase of the government's attacks. It shows the power and authority of the protesters."
(Auto translated, not cleaned)
#Iran #womensrights #Pooitics
🟣#نرگسمحمدی در یادداشت کوتاهی درباره مبارزه زنان با #حجاباجباری از زندان اوین نوشت:

«مبارزه زنان ایران علیه حجاب اجباری، صرفا مبارزه برای حق پوشش نیست و ستیز حکومت با زنان هم برای یک فریضه دینی نیست.

هم زنان ایران و هم رژیم جمهوری اسلامی هر دو آگاهند که مساله، شکست استبداد دینی است.

حجاب اجباری برای زنان به مثابه تسلیم شدن در مقابل سلطه‌گری و استیلای حکومتی نامشروع و برای حکومت ابزار و امکانی برای تداوم سلطه‌گری و بقای قدرت است.

دامنه و ابعاد گسترده این ستیز و رویارویی در مرزهای حقوق زنان متوقف نشده بلکه ساختار قدرت را نشانه رفته است.

بازگشت دوباره گشت‌های ارشاد، حضور نیروی انتظامی با یونیفرم و درجه‌دارانش و گارد و لباس شخصی‌ها به خیابان‌ها و شدت خشونت اعمال شده در انظار عمومی، اقدامی از سوی حکومت برای ایجاد رعب و وحشت است و به همان نسبت، مقاومت زنان و افزایش برخوردهای حکومت، نشان از قدرت و اقتدار معترضان دارد.»

The sweeping investigation reveals hundreds of former military personnel have taken highly lucrative jobs with foreign governments accused of human rights abuses, with the approval of the U.S. military.

Blood stained money from Saudi Arabia is nothing they are ashamed about.

How many of them have Ukraine flag on their social media profile?
#SaudiArabia #WarProfiteering #Pooitics #Military
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/10/19/headlines/wapo_hundreds_of_former_us_military_officers_on_payroll_of_authoritarian_governments