Who gets to use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope? Astronomers work to fight bias

2022/01/12 Leave a comment

Really neat example of how to reduce bias through blind approval processes:

The scientists who eventually get to peer out at the universe with NASA’s powerful new James Webb Space Telescope will be the lucky ones whose research proposals made it through a highly competitive selection process.

But those that didn’t make the cut this time can at least know that they got a fair shot, thanks to lessons learned from another famous NASA observatory.

Webb’s selection process was carefully designed to reduce the effect of unconscious biases or prejudices, by forcing decision-makers to focus on the scientific merit of a proposal rather than who submitted it.

“They assess every one of those proposals. They read them. They don’t know who wrote them,” explains Heidi Hammel, an interdisciplinary scientist with the James Webb Space Telescope. “These proposals are evaluated in a dual-anonymous way, so that all you can see is the science.”

This is a recent innovation in doling out observing time on space telescopes. And it’s a change that only came about after years of hard work done by astronomers who were concerned that not everyone who wanted to use the Hubble Space Telescope was getting equal consideration.

A bias emerges in who wins telescope time

One of their first clues came when Iain Neill Reid went looking for signs of any possible gender bias in the acceptance rate for Hubble proposals. He’s the associate director of science at the Space Telescope Science Institute, the science operations center for both Hubble and now Webb.

His results, published in 2014, were startling. Proposals that were led by women had a lower acceptance rate than proposals led by men. This discrepancy remained constant for more than a dozen years, the entire period of time he analyzed.

“I was surprised at how consistent it was,” says Reid. “There was a systematic effect.”

To try to fix this, he and his colleagues eventually developed the “blinded” proposal review process that’s now being used for Hubble, Webb, and NASA’s other major space telescopes. So far, the evidence suggests that this is working to level the playing field — even though the measure was initially opposed by a lot of the astronomy community

Since any telescope in space is a rare, precious resource, NASA wants to devote its time to the most-promising science. Anyone in the world can submit a proposal for where to point a space telescope, and there’s so much demand that the majority of ideas have to be rejected.

Even before the James Webb Space Telescope was launched, for example, the first call-out for proposals drew 1,173 ideas that would require 24,500 hours of prime observing time. But only 6,000 hours were available.

“It was a cutthroat competition. We rejected three-quarters of all the accepted proposals, and we’re taking the top ranked quarter,” says Jane Rigby, an astrophysicist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who serves as the operations project scientist for the new telescope.

And even though Hubble launched more than 30 years ago, astronomers still clamor to use it. Every year they submit 1,000 or more proposals.

“Only the top 20% of those proposals will actually make it through to the telescope to get time,” says Reid.

Focusing on the science, not the scientists

After his study showing a gender discrepancy in acceptance rates for Hubble proposals, Reid and his colleagues tried different solutions. First, instead of having the lead scientist’s name on the front page of a proposal, they tried putting it on the second page. Then, they tried just using initials. Nothing worked.

“Then we got sensible and we said, ‘Let’s actually talk to some experts in social sciences,’ because they can understand this better than we do,” says Reid.

They reached out to Stefanie Johnsonof the University of Colorado and her then-student, Jessica Kirk, now at the University of Memphis. The pair sat in on the meetings that evaluated and ranked proposals. And they noticed that a lot of the time, the discussion centered on who had submitted the proposal, rather than scientific considerations.

“There might be a question about it, like, ‘Oh, you know, this seems really good but can they actually do this?'” recalls Johnson. “A lot of times, there’s someone who will speak up in the room and say, ‘I know this person … they will figure it out, because that’s who they are.'”

“There is this evaluation not just of the science and the research, but of the researchers,” adds Kirk.

This means astronomers who were already established and well-known got an extra leg up.

“They were getting a pass,” says Reid. “They had a lower bar, in some ways, to overcome, than the scientists who were coming into the field completely fresh with no track record.”

Johnson and her colleagues recommended making the review process completely blinded and anonymous. Not only would the evaluation committees not get to see any names, all proposals would be required to be written in a way that made it totally impossible to know who the proposal was from.

Some doubted this new system would work

The institute surveyed the astronomy community to see what it thought of this potential change.

“You can imagine, the knee-jerk reaction was actually pretty polar,” says Lou Strolger, deputy head of the instruments division at the Space Telescope Science Institute and chair of its working group on anonymous proposing.

He says about half of those who responded favored the idea — and those tended to be women or people who were relatively young.

“They thought that this would be a good way to make it not only more fair but to encourage new people to participate,” he says.

But lots of astronomers had objections.

“They ranged from ‘This will totally upset how good science is done’ to ‘You’ll basically fool yourself into giving time to people who don’t know what they are doing’ — all sorts of things,” recalls Strolger.

Still, the institute’s director gave the go-ahead, and they plowed forward. In 2018, astronomers did their first truly anonymous review for Hubble proposals. Priya Natarajan, a theoretical astrophysicist at Yale University, was there and chaired the process. She says occasionally someone would try to guess who had submitted a proposal.

“But the buy-in from the community was so tremendous,” she says, “that there would be other people on the panels who would say, ‘Oh no, no, come on, let’s stick to the science.'”

“I was stunned”

And sticking to the science had a real impact. That year, for the first time ever, the acceptance rate for proposals led by women was higher than the acceptance rate for proposals led by men. The gender difference had flipped.

“I was stunned,” says Natarajan. “There was an effect right away.”

And when members of the selection committees were finally allowed to see who had submitted a proposal that they had just deemed worthy of telescope time, Strolger says that they never objected that the person wasn’t up to the job, although they were often surprised.

“There were a lot of, ‘Oh, that was not at all who I thought it was’ kind of reactions,” says Strolger.

Data from the last few years suggests that this process continues to help close the gap between men and women in acceptance rates for Hubble proposals, and it may have improved fairness in other ways, too.

There’s been a dramatic rise in approvals for astronomers who have never used Hubble before, says Strolger. “It went from something like a dozen per year, to 50 per year.”

What’s more, data from the first round of proposals for Webb shows hints of similar results, with “a much closer gap in male and female acceptance rates,” says Strolger.

“This seems to be working, and it seems to be working as we anticipated it would.”

What other biases could affect telescope users?

Still, anonymizing everything doesn’t solve all the problems in making sure everyone has equal access, says Johnson, who notes that unconscious bias can affect who in astronomy gets advantages like mentors and job opportunities.

“It’s not perfect. It doesn’t wipe out systemic bias, and I don’t know of the impact that the dual-anonymization has in terms of creating greater racial equity,” she says. “But it did seem to lift some of the gender bias.”

Trying to track equity issues is complicated by the fact that the Space Telescope Science Institute has historically not gathered demographic information about those who submit research proposals.

“Partly by policy and partly by federal law, we’re not permitted to collect that information,” explains Strolger.

That’s why, when Reid did his initial study looking at gender and Hubble, the best he could do was to make assumptions about gender based on the lead scientist’s name or his knowledge of people in the field.

The researchers are now looking for ways to learn more about submitters, perhaps by allowing people to voluntarily or anonymously submit information about themselves to a third party.

“We hope that by providing ways in which we can get access to more demographic data,” says Strolger, “we can begin to see where other biases may lie.”

Source: Who gets to use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope? Astronomers work to fight bias

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Safe places [Safe Third Country Agreement Supreme Court case]

2022/01/12 Leave a comment

Bit unbalanced in terms of experts interviewed. Would be useful to have a dissenting view for contrast as there is room for debate on the SFCA:

The Safe Third Country Agreement with our Southern neighbour that compels would-be refugees to cross into Canada at unofficial border crossings was bound to end up before our Supreme Court at some point. Last month, the top court finally granted leave to review its constitutionality. The Federal Court initially ruled in 2020 that the agreement violated refugee claimants’ Charter rights by deporting those who arrived from the U.S. and had filed a claim in Canada in contravention of the STCA. The declaration of invalidity was suspended to give the government time to take action, and then the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the decision.

There are several key questions the Supreme Court must address now, says Janet Dench, executive director for the Canadian Council for Refugees, who brought the challenge along with several asylum claimants. She calls the Federal Court of Appeal ruling “disturbing,” having “left us with a sense that there is no real recourse for violations of refugees’ rights.”

She also expresses concern that a broader application of the Federal Court of Appeal’s ruling could affect other Section 15 Charter claims.

Indeed, part of the Council’s case hinges on the failure of the U.S. to adequately protect people fleeing gender-based persecution, which it says was exacerbated under former President Donald Trump’s administration. The Federal Court rendered its judgment based on Section 7 arguments, and did not consider Section 15 claims. Having overturned the Section 7 argument, the Federal Court of Appeal also did not need to look at Section 15.

Another issue is that the Federal Court of Appeal held that the plaintiffs were wrong to challenge the designation of the U.S. as a safe third country. Instead, it’s up to cabinet to regularly review the designation, and therefore it is cabinet’s decision that must be challenged.

“If this decision and analysis was to stand, then lawyers would constantly be asking what they are challenging,” says Dench. “Are they challenging that a regulation was put into force that disadvantages or violates certain people’s rights, or should they be challenging the fact that regulation hasn’t subsequently been set aside,” says Dench.

Jamie Chai Yun Liew, professor at the University of Ottawa, who has previously represented the Canadian Council for Refugees but is not involved in this matter, notes that the focus of the Federal Court decision was on the impact of the decision-making by those at the border implementing the STCA.

“There was a lot of social science, affidavit and first instance evidence presented to the court of the experiences of migrants who have been turned away at the border and their experiences,” Liew says. “One of the things that the [Federal Court] focused on was the immediate detention of people who were turned away at the border, and the risk of them not even having their refugee claim assessed at all by either country.”

Liew notes that the Federal Court of Appeal focused instead on “safety valves” that allowed for claimants to access a different assessment or protection before the decision leading to the harm that the applicants described, including federal review of the STCA.

“During the discovery process, the government was very resistant in sharing any information about the internal political system of how the Safe Third Country was reviewed, so there’s very little evidence on that,” Liew adds. “What evidence there is, publicly, doesn’t show that the government has done a very deep review of these kinds of things, despite increasing evidence that the United States is a hostile place for refugees, especially during the Trump administration.”

Despite the evidence of harms, Liew notes, the government’s unwillingness to come forward with information during the discovery process means the Supreme Court will be limited in its ability to examine what actually happened.

“It will be interesting to see how those on the bench absorb the evidence and what angles they take,” Liew says.

Liew hopes that the court ensures that Charter rights aren’t being trampled under the pretext that the so-called “safety valves” are available to refugee claimants. She notes that past ruling on immigration by the Supreme Court have raised questions around alternative remedies. On paper there are mechanisms, such as pre-removal risk assessments, whereby a person can apply to remain in Canada if they are at risk of physical harm in the event they get deported to their country. In reality, however, people have difficulty accessing these measures.

Audrey Macklin, professor and the Rebecca Cook Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Toronto, says that Canada can neither directly violate the Charter rights of those seeing refugee protection, or indirectly, by returning them to a country that will violate fundamental human rights.

“We’re talking about arbitrary detention, separation of families, detention of children, substantive doctrines that deny women fleeing gender persecution, and so on,” says Macklin. “Procedurally, there is also an issue about the failure of the Canadian government to regularly monitor the United States for compliance with those fundamental human rights obligations.”

Macklin adds that the STCA is predicated on the notion that the U.S. is safe for people to seek refugee protection. Even if it was not when the agreement was signed and implemented, circumstances can change. The problem is that Canada has no procedure to scrutinize whether the U.S. continued to be a safe country, she says.

What’s more, Canada routinely evaluates the safety of other countries as part of refugee determination itself. It would hardly be an overstep for Canada to do the same with the U.S. Besides, there are provisions in the STCA allowing either country to suspend it for two six-month periods, or to terminate it with one year’s notice. “There’s nothing untoward about Canada doing that,” says Macklin.

Liew doesn’t think the court will strike down the whole Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. It’s not the legislation that is problematic so much as the Safe Third Country Agreement, which flows from provisions in the Act.

“My suspicion would be that they would suspend or ask the government to terminate the agreement that flows from the provision, and it wouldn’t be striking a provision from the legislation per se,” Liew says. “Or they could give the government that six-month window, as the Federal Court did, to get their act together and either review it or amend it, and that might be a way for the government to save face.”

Or the Supreme Court might find the violation so glaring that it suspends it right away, she says. But its history with immigration decisions shows a pattern of moving more cautiously.

Dench notes that because the situation in the United States can change from year to year, there isn’t an expectation that the Supreme Court will make findings of fact. Instead, it could provide a pathway for these kinds of matters to be brought to the courts for evaluation.

Dench also disputes that the situation in the U.S. is solely attributable to Trump’s policies. Since he left office, it’s not like there’s been a complete reversal of his border policies.

“We don’t expect an impartial analysis to say that all of the existing problems have been solved,” Dench says.

Ultimately, says Liew, the agreement has failed to live up to its promise. It hasn’t stopped people from coming to the border, though it has made it harder to do so safely. There are countless stories of claimants who lost fingers from frostbite at irregular crossings or at the quasi-official crossing facility at Roxham Road in Quebec.

Therefore, she would advise the government “to look at how people can access our official ports of entry and process them in a way that is humane and fits with our international law obligations.”

Macklin notes that the STCA was struck at the behest of Canada, given that we only have one border. And though it is a mechanism to put breaks on the flow of people who can reach Canada and make refugee claims, she also disputes the notion that it is intended to combat “asylum shopping.”

“In absolute and relative terms, the number of asylum seekers that Canada receives is trivial,” says Macklin. “If you were seeking refugee protection and you had a child with you, and you knew that the United States would rip you away from your child, do we call it asylum shopping because you say I can get to Canada, please let me do that?”

Source: Safe places

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Galon: The inherent evil of Israel’s Citizenship Law

2022/01/12 Leave a comment

Of note:

The government has informed the High Court of Justice that Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked plans to pass a new citizenship law within a month – and that it will preserve the racist clauses that were included in the original law. The government was responding to a petition submitted by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel; Hamoked: The Center for the Defense of the Individual; Physicians for Human Rights and several Palestinian petitioners.

Shaked has continued to refuse family reunification for Palestinians, and has done so without any legal authority. Since the Knesset revoked the original Citizenship and Entry Into Israel Law, 1,680 requests have been submitted, and under Shaked’s instructions the Interior Ministry has refused to discuss these requests, continuing to operate as though the law were still in effect.

The background: At the start of the second intifada the Knesset passed a law designed to prevent Palestinians living in Israel from marrying Palestinians from the territories. The Knesset understood at the time that it was a law whose constitutionality was in doubt, and which undermines the right to family life and equality, and therefore declared it a temporary “emergency provision.”

That was the excuse for the High Court: Look, this law isn’t permanent, we will discuss it on an annual basis depending on the situation. And of course, since 2003 the Knesset has approved it year after year. An “emergency provision” turned into a permanent law. And the High Court? It sighed, but didn’t rule on the matter. The justices said that the law raises difficult constitutional questions, but refrained from invalidating it. Why would they need this headache?

Six months ago the coalition was unable to garner a majority and the law was revoked. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett promised the Meretz party – which supported the racist law – that he would change the law. And what did Shaked do? She announced that she doesn’t care, and that she forbids family reunification even if she has no legal authority to do so. Instead of the State Prosecutor’s Office ordering her to return to the situation prior to the passing of the law – in other words, an individual examination of every request for reunification – Gil Limon, the deputy attorney general, declared that he supports the law.

Hold on a moment, my friend Limon. It is now 2022. The law that was passed 20 years ago originated in the days of the second intifada and the security situation that ensued from it. But that was over 17 years ago. How can you pretend, 17 years later, that the security situation in 2002 is still relevant today? The law that you are approving – wouldn’t it be preferable for it to suit the actual security situation?

Excuse me for the bad joke. The Citizenship and Entry Into Israel Law was always justified with security excuses, but it has no real connection with security. Justice Edmond Levy mocked this claim during my petitions and those of human rights organizations, and noted that Israel permits Palestinian workers to enter its jurisdiction.

And here precisely is the crux of the matter: The law does not protect Israel’s security, and was never designed to do so. It is designed to allay the demographic fears of Israeli Jews. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said so at the time, and half a year ago Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid repeated his words: “We don’t have to hide from the essence of the citizenship law, it is designed to ensure a Jewish majority in the country.”

The significance of Lapid’s words is that Israel is not a democracy. It has a large, native-born minority whose rights will always be inferior to those of the majority. This native-born minority won’t be able to realize its family-related rights or aspire to happiness. One of the advantages of this government is that Israeli Arabs are participating in it. If Shaked throws the Arab community to the dogs, Bennett, Lapid and their comrades should be aware that they won’t have another government after the election. Perhaps this utilitarian argument will succeed in overcoming the law’s built-in evil.

Source: The inherent evil of Israel’s Citizenship Law

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In Egypt, some are forced to trade citizenship for freedom

2022/01/12 Leave a comment

Of note:

On January 8, Egyptian-Palestinian activist Ramy Shaath arrived in Paris after Egyptian authorities released him from prison and deported him after over 900 days in remand detention. He walkedout of Charles de Gaulle Airport with his wife Celine Lebrun-Shaath to a cheering crowd of supporters. Yet the conditions of his release were no cause for celebration — Shaath was forced to renounce his Egyptian citizenship in exchange for his freedom.

In a statement announcing his release, Shaath’s family said: “No one should have to choose between their freedom and their citizenship. Ramy was born Egyptian, raised as an Egyptian, and Egypt has always been and will always be his homeland; no coerced renunciation of citizenship under duress will ever change that.”

Throughout the two and a half years of Shaath’s imprisonment, his wife Celine Lebrun-Shaath, a French national who was deported from Egypt upon his arrest, led a longstanding public campaign for his release. French President Emmanuel Macron also made a direct demand for Shaath to be released during a December 2020 press conference alongside President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, held after bilateral talks at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

Over the last six months, the National Security Agency had been communicating with Shaath’s family to begin the process of his citizenship renunciation, and to arrange for his deportation, according to a source informed of discussions around his release, who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. Those procedures came to a head on January 1, when Shaath’s lawyer submitted an official document to the Supreme Administrative Court saying that he would drop his Egyptian citizenship, the source added.

Shaath was released on January 6, according to the family, and handed over to a representative of the Palestinian Authority at Cairo International Airport, where he boarded a flight to the Jordanian capital, Amman. He then traveled on to Paris.

The controversial practice is based on a decree — known as Law 140 — issued by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in November 2014 that allows the repatriation of foreign prisoners to their home countries, at the president’s discretion, to serve their time or be retried there.

The decree was issued five months after three Al-Jazeera journalists — Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamed — were sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison on terrorism charges in a high profile case that sparked international condemnation and was criticized by human rights groups, Western governments and the United Nations. According to lawyer Negad al-Borai, who represented Fahmy in the case, Law 140 was issued to allow for the release and deportation of Greste to his native Australia. Less than three months after the decree was issued, Greste was indeeddeported.

Around that time, Fahmy renounced his Egyptian citizenship in the hope of being deported to Canada. Fahmy told Mada Masr at the time that senior officials had visited him in detention and told him that renouncing Egyptian citizenship was his “only way out.” Fahmy refused at first, but said he felt pressured and wanted to get out of prison. The move did not work and he was only released, along with Baher Mohamed, after they received presidential pardons in September 2015 following a retrial. Fahmy has since regained his Egyptian citizenship.

Months earlier, in May 2015, Mohamed Soltan, an Egyptian-American activist imprisoned for over 640 days, was forced to relinquish his citizenship in order to be released from prison and deported to the United States after direct appeals from the Obama administration.

Soltan’s case included an additional twist. During a visit to Capitol Hill in July 2021, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel insisted to US officials that Washington had promised in 2015 that if Egypt released Soltan he would serve out the rest of his life sentence in a US prison, according to Politico. Kamel even handed congressional staffers what appeared to be a signed agreement between Egyptian and American officials laying out such an arrangement. Sources told Politico that a State Department employee signed the document when it was pushed on them at the airport at the last minute, as U.S. officials were trying to get Soltan out of the country, and that the document was not legally enforceable.

In any case, forcing Egyptians to renounce their citizenship in order to be deported remains a highly controversial, and arguably illegal, practice.

Lawyer Gamal Eid of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information says that Law 140 is unconstitutional, as it creates a privilege for non-Egyptians. “The idea was to cower to foreign governments and polish the regime’s image, but the decree breaches the principle that all are equal before the law, which is a supra-constitutional principle.” Eid says he is not condoning the continued imprisonment of dissidents, rather, he says they should all be released, not just the foreign nationals.

While the decree doesn’t force anyone to drop their nationality, the choice between citizenship and freedom is not really a choice. Hussein Baoumi, an Egypt researcher at Amnesty International told Mada Masr it is more accurate to say that Shaath and Soltan were forced to cede their Egyptian citizenship, which he says is unconstitutional.

“This practice we are now seeing in Egypt of trading citizenship for freedom is against the constitution and the citizenship law, and is also a blatant breach of the stipulations of international law about rescinding one’s citizenship. It circumvents the provisions of the law regulating such a measure,” Baoumi says.

The 1975 citizenship law stipulates that a number of conditions be met before the state can rescind citizenship from an Egyptian national. Yet, this law does not apply in Shaath or Soltan’s case because they technically relinquished their citizenship themselves. However, both Soltan and Shaath contend they had no choice in the matter.

Following Shaath’s release, Soltan tweeted: “To be given a choice between your freedom and your citizenship is easy, for freedom always and forever comes first, and this doesn’t take away from your belonging to your country because that is in the heart. As for a regime that conditions enjoying your most basic citizenship rights of freedom and life upon your dropping your nationality, it is a regime that is reinforcing its repressive philosophy: to be a citizen necessarily means not to be free.”

Source: In Egypt, some are forced to trade citizenship for freedom

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Most support workplace diversity but not if it’s a job qualification: national survey

2022/01/12 Leave a comment

Not that surprising as there is often a difference between what people support in principle compared to when it has the potential to affect them:

Most people in a new Canada-wide survey say equal representation in government is important, but they don’t support employers taking demographic characteristics into account in hiring and promotion decisions. 

The survey by the Canadian Hub for Applied and Social Research at the University of Saskatchewan was done by phone between Dec. 1 and Dec. 24. It asked 1,000 people about equality, diversity and inclusion in workplaces and government. 

The majority of respondents said they support various minority groups being in government, including women (89 per cent), Indigenous people (86 per cent), persons with disabilities (83 per cent), visible minorities (81 per cent) and members of the LGBTQ community (68 per cent).

The survey also asked if employers should only consider qualified candidates or if they should also take into account demographic characteristics when hiring. 

About 60 per cent of those surveyed said employers should only consider how qualified a candidate is, even if it results in less diversity. 

“It’s the inverse of what folks were saying in the previous battery of questions, saying it’s important that these groups be represented,” research director Jason Disano told The Canadian Press in a phone interview from Saskatoon. 

“Folks like the idea in theory, but when it comes to real-world implications or potential ramifications on them as an individual, that’s when they say, ‘Wait a minute, maybe let’s take a step back from this. I support the idea, but I don’t support specific actions to do it.'”

About one-quarter of those surveyed, and most between the ages of 35 and 54, also said they missed a career opportunity or they know someone who missed a career opportunity because of a decision to increase workplace diversity.

“It’s surprising but also makes a lot of sense from the perspective that (equity, diversity and inclusion) initiatives really only started coming into being in the last 10 to 20 years,” Disano said. 

“Those who are 55 years of age and up are settled in their career, and the younger individuals — especially with these COVID-19 times — may have had fewer opportunities to actually be potentially impacted by some of these initiatives.” 

Disano said the survey also indicated, across the board, that women were more likely than men to support diversity in workplaces.

Those surveyed were also asked about the importance of elected officials speaking French. 

Most respondents said politicians should be fluent in both official languages. About 83 per cent said it’s important for the prime minister to speak French, while 65 per cent said it’s important for members of provincial governments and 64 per cent said it’s important for premiers.

Those in Quebec, more than in other jurisdictions, said elected officials should be fluent in both official languages. 

Disano said it’s important to ask questions about diversity, representation and language because it shows there’s a need to have a broader conversation about workplace diversity among governments, workplaces and other organizations.

“The issue is really in terms of convincing people why it’s important and how they make an overall difference,” Disano said.

The survey was reliable to within plus or minus 3.1 per cent, with a 95 per cent confidence level. 

Source: https://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2022/01/10/most-support-workplace-diversity-but-not-if-its-a-job-qualification-national-survey/#.YdwSCMnMKUl

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China mounts anti-US campaign in Xinjiang universities amid genocide declarations

2022/01/10 Leave a comment

Not surprising.

The Chinese government has begun a large-scale propaganda campaign in its far-western Xinjiang region directed at Western countries led by the United States over their condemnation of Beijing’s human rights violations and genocidal policies targeting the Uyghur minority.

In mid-December, authorities began mobilizing instructors and students from universities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, home to about 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs, to participate in the propaganda efforts, according to China’s state-run media. They included faculty and students from Xinjiang University, Xinjiang Medical University, Xinjiang Normal University, and Kashgar University.

Authorities are trying to make sure that charges of genocide and the use of forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang are rejected in meetings and discussions at the universities, the media reports said. Western countries, under the direction of the U.S., and international human rights organizations have been branded “anti-China forces” and attacked.

Instructors and students who have provided testimony have said in their speeches that the U.S. has led other Western powers in fabricating false accusations of genocide and forced labor, according to the media reports. They also say that peoples of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang enjoy equal work opportunities under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and are living “happily.”

The U.S. and legislatures of some European nations have declared that China’s abuses against the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang amount to genocide and crimes against humanity. They have also imposed targeted sanctions on those deemed responsible for the repression.

This propaganda campaign targeting Western democratic countries led by the U.S. has grown stronger following these designations, said analysts and Uyghur rights advocates.

The recent passage of the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act with near-unanimous support from lawmakers has forced the Chinese government to undertake the large-scale propaganda campaign in an attempt to claim innocence, they said.

The impact of propaganda

The Chinese government’s goal is to confuse the international community by publicizing that it has the support of the Chinese people for its policies toward Uyghurs,” said Hu Ping, a China analyst based in the U.S.

“Even more to the point, this is about them trying to convince people domestically that their policies are right,” he said.

“In the eyes of the Chinese government, if they can force intellectuals and cultural leaders from among Uyghurs in Xinjiang to do propaganda like this, the impact of the propaganda to convince will be even greater than propaganda done by Han or by Communist leaders,” said Hu.

Forcing intellectuals, particularly professors and students, to testify against the U.S. whenever the Chinese government is on the defensive is a propaganda tactic held over from the Mao Zedong era, he said.

During the decade following Mao’s death in 1976, China’s notion that the U.S. was an enemy lessened as a relatively open environment took shape. But Beijing’s anti-American propaganda began anew following the violent suppression of student protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, he said.

China’s criticism of Western democratic countries has grown in the era of increased assertiveness and authoritarianism under Xi Jinping, who has served as president since 2012, gathering steam with mounting accusations of genocidal policies in Xinjiang, Hu said. As a result, propaganda about the “American enemy,” with its roots in Chinese nationalism, has reached new heights in China.

But Hu believes that the latest propaganda campaign using professors and students at universities in Xinjiang will backfire.

“Given that the outside world has a good understanding of the latest developments in Xinjiang, it will be impossible for scholars and cultural figures to play the roles expected of them by the Chinese government,” he said.

China’s credibility is ‘zero’

Because Western democratic countries, including the U.S. and United Kingdom, have taken tangible measures against China in response to its repression of the Uyghurs, the Chinese government is now increasing its propaganda attacks against them, said Rushan Abbas, executive director of the U.S.-based Campaign for Uyghurs.

An independent Uyghur Tribunal in London found in December China committed genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang region and that Xi Jinping shared primary responsibility for the atrocities. The people’s tribunal, which had no state backing, based its findings on testimony from dozens of witnesses, including formerly jailed Uyghurs and legal and academic experts on China’s actions in Xinjiang. Beijing angrily denounced the panel and its determination.

The recent passage of the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act with wide support from lawmakers made the Chinese government deeply uncomfortable, Abbas said. For this reason, it has further increased propaganda about the U.S. as the enemy and made universities in Xinjiang the front lines in its propaganda war.

“By targeting of intellectuals and students in universities in the region and undertaking propaganda with them, by brainwashing them, by pressuring them into speaking, the Chinese government is attempting to hide what is really happening in the Uyghur region — its crimes such as genocide and using Uyghurs as slaves,” she said.

“By forcing Uyghur elites, intellectuals, and students to speak, it is working hard to increase the convincibility of its own lies, its own false propaganda.”

China’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang have become “absolutely irrefutable,” Abbas added.

The Chinese government is trying to damage the image of the U.S. and other Western countries in the eyes of the public by forcing Uyghur intellectuals, particularly university professors and students, to speak out against them, said Memet Tohti, director of the legal committee at the World Uyghur Congress.

“People are now being mobilized to do propaganda for China,” he said. “They’re forcing people to give testimony in line with the political propaganda of the central government of China. They’re responding to the political and legislative developments connected to Uyghurs in the United States and the West.”

But these activities, like earlier propaganda campaigns by China, will ultimately end with no results, Tohti added.

“No matter what the Chinese government does to force Uyghur intellectuals to speak out, no matter what other methods it attempts to use, the most important thing is that the Chinese government’s credibility in the world has now fallen to zero,” he said.

‘No matter what they do, they will not be able to raise their credibility, so there is no value in this.”

Source: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-nl.php?story=20220107182508505

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Portugal: Is a ‘just law’ turned into a ‘golden visa’?

2022/01/10 Leave a comment

Valid question, highlighting potential abuse of such programs:

Russian-Israeli billionaire Roman Abramovich’s acquisition of Portuguese citizenship under a 2015 law that repatriates descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled during the Inquisition has reignited debate about the piece of legislation.

Data from last year shows that at least 76,000 people have applied for a Portuguese passport through the law and 23,000 of them have been approved. Spain also has passed similar legislation.
Abramovich, a businessman and the prominent owner of the popular Chelsea soccer club in London, applied for citizenship by claiming an affiliation with the Jewish Community of Porto, the Israeli news site Ynet reported last month.

Unconfirmed reports have claimed that some of Abramovich’s family have Sephardic roots.

Eastern Europe had formerly been the home of many thousands of Jews with Sephardic ancestry.
Sephardic immigrants in 1588 founded the Jewish community of Zamosc in eastern Poland, among other places.

But Abramovich’s use of the law prompted unusual scrutiny and criticism in Portugal, which is a member of the European Union and whose citizens may reside anywhere they choose within the bloc.

Portuguese radio station TSF aired and published a statement on Dec. 28 by investigative journalist Daniel Oliveira, in which he accused the Jewish Community of Porto of turning “a just law into a ‘golden visa’ by hitching a ride on our crimes from the past.”

Oliveira suggested that the ties between the Jewish Community of Porto and Abramovich are “not clear,” and said he believes that the Porto communal organization is less reliable in vetting applications than the Jewish Community of Lisbon group.

AbrilAbril published an editorial last week calling for the citizenship law to be revised, and suggesting that Abramovich and other recipients of Portuguese nationality under the law are using their influence to keep it unchanged.

The Jewish Community of Porto confirmed that it handled Abramovich’s citizenship application, for a fee of 250 euros, or about $283. The Lisbon Jewish community has had data on Abramovich’s ancestors for years, the Porto group added.

It also dismissed claims that Abramovich’s naturalization was divergent in any way from the 2015 law and its procedures.

The Porto organization told JTA that it is now witnessing “an anti-Semitic wave” on social media following the debate about Abramovich.

In 2020, Portugal’s ruling Socialist party withdrew plans to limit the law amid criticism by local Jewish groups that claimed that the proposed changes were partly motivated by anti-Semitism.

The European Jewish Congress also vocally opposed the changes.

The government has entrusted the two communal organizations in Lisbon and Porto with vetting the authenticity of citizenship applications, for which they charge hundreds of dollars in processing fees. A third community in Belmonte is attempting to also gain vetting status.

Portugal’s foreign minister, Augusto Santos Silva, said last week that Abramovich’s naturalization “was done according to the law” and called criticism of it “unjustified.”

Source: Portugal: Is a ‘just law’ turned into a ‘golden visa’?

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Owners of 30 immigration firms in Chandigarh booked

2022/01/10 Leave a comment

At one point, the Canadian consulate had a “wall of shame” of fraud examples ….

Two days after the UT police booked owners of 29 immigration consultancy companies for not providing their information to the Police Department, the owners of 30 more such companies operating from Sector 17 and 22 have been booked for the same offence.

As per the District Magistrate’s orders, the immigration consultancy companies are supposed to provide information about the company and their antecedents to the police. The list of these companies is then uploaded on the Chandigarh Police website to assist people.

A police official said a majority of the companies operating from the city had not provided information to the police following which a check was being conducted and action being taken against erring company owners.

“We advise people to choose among the consultants whose names are mentioned in the list as in case the consultant commits a fraud, the police can easily track them,” said an official.

Meanwhile, an investigation has been initiated into the cases at the Sector 17 police station.

Source: Owners of 30 immigration firms in Chandigarh booked

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Misinformation and Chinese interference in Canada’s affairs

2022/01/10 Leave a comment

Deeply concerning, and all parties should support such a registry:

The story started with a private member’s bill introduced by former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu in spring of 2021 – the Foreign Influence Registry Act (Bill C-282). Its intention was to impose “an obligation on individuals acting on behalf of a foreign principal to file a return when they undertake specific actions with respect to public office holders.” This was a potential way to expose the relationship between agents in Canada and their ties to foreign countries. It could have also exposed Canada’s susceptibility to foreign influence, making it more difficult for external states to conduct electoral interference, technological and intellectual property theft, or even surveillance and operations like the “Operation Fox Hunt” (a global covert operation conducted by Beijing to threaten and repatriate Chinese dissidents to mainland China).

However, the purposes of the bill, which did not pass, became the target of a misinformation campaign. How misinformation on the Foreign Influence Registry Act was spread can be used as a case study for the simple, yet effective tactics commonly deployed in the making of “fake news.”

Examining the disinformation tactics – why are they effective?

Fake news is widely spread in diaspora Chinese communities via social media such as WeChat and WhatsApp. Research indicates that people tend to accept misinformation as fact if it comes from a credible and trustworthy source, and so-called “trust” can also be based on “feelings of familiarity.”

Research indicates we are more likely to believe in our friends and family, or even acquaintances, than complete strangers. And that familiarity does not necessarily have to be based on previous face-to-face interaction, but can also come in the form of internet communication, especially in the new era of technological advancement. So, when fake news is tailored to the Chinese community and disseminated through its communication channels, particularly via its own social network, it increases the acceptance rate of disinformation.

In addition, according to the principle of social proof theory, people tend to endorse a belief that is generally agreed on among the majority of their community, even if they may not believe in such ideology or information in the first place. This may be due to a need to seek social recognition or to prevent being an outcast in the community, especially in an overseas diaspora group. As well, despite the fact that some Chinese immigrants would like to verify the truthfulness of the news, they may not have access to other mainstream, Western media because of a language barrier.

The reliance on internet information often results in the creation of an “echo chamber” that is further exacerbated by the filter effect of the online algorithm. Applications such as the “WeChat Moment,” a feature in WeChat, which is widely used by the Chinese community, similar to Facebook and Instagram, allow individuals to view others’ stories. Thus, the Chinese community is being trapped in the vicious cycle of reinforced information consumption patterns.

Repeated exposure to the same fake news increases its chances of being considered true. Thus, when a person encounters the same piece of news, regardless of its integrity and credibility, this “increase[s] perceptions of honesty and sincerity as well as agreement with what the person says.” The phenomenon is often called the “illusion truth effect” in psychology. In other words, even though one may not believe the fake news, reinforced disinformation increases one’s susceptibility to it.

Combatting a state-sponsored disinformation campaign is never an easy task. Multidisciplinary approaches – including international co-operation and exchange of information between liberal democracies, establishment of an integrated institution that oversees all cybersecurity intelligence and analysis, planning and executing efforts to counter disinformation, as well as education and training to increase critical thinking by the public ─ are vital to improve our resilience and defend our core values against foreign interference and disinformation.

The danger – state-sponsored disinformation campaigns 

The case of Bill C-282 is indeed a salient example of how fake news is tailored and disseminated in a particular target group. However, another common tactic is state-sponsored disinformation. This is difficult to disprove because it has direct linkages with the central authority, which then denies responsibility for releasing the misinformation.

Because he was an outspoken politician who advocated for Hong Kong and democracy and heavily criticized Beijing’s violation on human rights, Chiu was sanctioned by the Chinese government against returning to his birthplace, Hong Kong. Moreover, due to his role on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights (SDIR), and previous work urging the Canadian government to impose sanctions on China, as a parliamentarian he was viewed unfavourably by the Beijing government.

Therefore, when the disinformation around Bill C-282 was deployed, Chiu’s pro-democracy and “anti-Chinese communist party background” were being used as justification for the accusation and argument that the proposed Foreign influence Registry Act was indeed racial discrimination against the Chinese, and that the bill’s prime objective was to “suppress pro-China opinion, as well as to operate surveillance on organizations and individuals” in the overseas Chinese community.

In addition, heavy criticism and attacks were not only focused on Chiu, but also on the Conservative party and leader Erin O’Toole, well-known for their hawkish stance against Beijing’s policies. Now that the 2021 federal election is over, it is indeed logical to infer that whoever was responsible for disseminating the fake news had a clear motive in reshaping the narratives in favour of Beijing’s interests.

In spite of the fact that the Chiu incident made only ripples in the recent federal election (he lost his seat as MP), such disinformation campaigns and their potential to manipulate diaspora communities (via psychology and social connections) could generate waves that would drown Canada’s democracy in the future.

Taking a stand against a decision by the Chinese Communist Party does not make the Conservatives or Canada anti-China. The assumption that it does has driven this general belief in the Chinese community, especially for those who have weak critical thinking skills and no prior training or experience in dealing with disinformation.

Perhaps more alarming is the fact that these tactics could be deployed against any group in an information and psychological warfare campaign. In short, it has a high potential for interference in Canada’s electoral process by foreign state actors and thus severely threatens the country’s liberal democracy.

Canada remains vulnerable to the security risk constituted by foreign interference. As a liberal country that vows to uphold its values in freedom and democracy, specific countermeasures such as Chiu’s proposed act and laws like the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act should be implemented.

At the third-party entities and civilian levels, one countermeasure could be a “foreign influence transparency scheme” similar to the one suggested in the news campaign Can Xi Not, introduced by Alliance Canada Hong Kong. This may be particularly important for both traditional and new media, which often have the power to shape public debates. In other words, media would retain their freedom of press, but would be required to disclose their foreign sponsorship, if there is any. Last but not least, other approaches to increase citizens’ resilience, as well as the nation’s capability to deter state-sponsored disinformation, should be thoroughly considered and enforced.

Source: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2022/misinformation-and-chinese-interference-in-canadas-affairs/?mc_cid=9caa3573a1&mc_eid=86cabdc518

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Palestinians seek Israeli citizenship in Jerusalem

2022/01/10 Leave a comment

Of interest, particularly given the various issues at play:

A number of Palestinians in Jerusalem are seeking to obtain Israeli citizenship, in the hope of living in stability amid the prevalent difficult economic and living situation in Jerusalem. Obtaining Israeli citizenship has its advantages, such as health insurance, social security and freedom of movement.

Israel, for its part, could have covert reasons for naturalizing Jerusalemites, most notably breaking their bond with the West Bank.

According to a report by the Israeli Maariv channel on Sept. 16, 2017, the Israeli government decided, back in June 1967, to amend the process of granting citizenship to residents of Jerusalem, by granting them the legal status of permanent residents, within the scope of continuous efforts to reduce their numbers as much as possible.

The Israeli residency confers to its holder the right to live and work in Israel, as well as other economic and social rights. Thus, Jerusalemites get social security allowances dubbed “national insurance benefits,” and in return they pay taxes to the Israeli authorities. Jerusalemites also have the right to vote in Israeli municipal elections and to run as candidates for membership in the Municipal Council.

According to Article 5 of the Israeli Nationality Law, Palestinian residents of Jerusalem can apply for citizenship if several conditions are met, including having some knowledge of the Hebrew language, having resided in Israel for the last three years, swearing an oath of loyalty to the State of Israel and giving up the temporary Jordanian passport. Moreover, these residents should not have harbored any animosity toward Israel.

Khalil al-Tafkaji, director of the map department at the Arab Studies Association, told Al-Monitor, “Palestinians in Jerusalem are permanent residents with the right to reside inside the State of Israel. Therefore, Israel granted them a resident document after the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967. Until 1987, they were issued Jordanian documents of identity but not the Jordanian citizenship. During 1988, the Kingdom of Jordan decided to disengage from the West Bank, after the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat declared the State of Palestine.”

After the disengagement, Jordan severed its legal and administrative relations with the West Bank in 1988, and the Jordanian documents granted by the Jordanian government to the residents of the West Bank during that period were withdrawn.

Tafkaji said, “Options have become limited and difficult for the residents of the city of Jerusalem. If anyone manages to obtain the citizenship of a foreign country, he will be expelled after three months of obtaining it. If he manages to obtain Palestinian citizenship, his property will be confiscated by the Israeli authorities. Meanwhile, obtaining Israeli citizenship enables these Jerusalemites to keep their residency and stability and move and travel anywhere around the world, specifically to countries that allow the holders of the Israeli passport to enter without obtaining a prior entry visa.”

He noted, “Around 7,000 Jerusalemites obtained Israeli citizenship in 1993. Then, the granting of Israeli citizenship followed an upward trend with numbers reaching 21,000 naturalized Jerusalemites. However, recently, Israel began imposing restrictions on applications for citizenship. This falls within the scope of the Israeli government’s efforts to expel them from the city.”

Tafkaji said that the current restrictions imposed by Israel on residents of Jerusalem seeking to obtain Israeli citizenship aim to displace 200,000 Palestinians with residency status outside the walls of the city of Jerusalem toward areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority (PA). “Israel is trying to get rid of them, after controlling 87% of the city’s surface area. Israel wants to use the Palestinian residents in Jerusalem as a pressure card in any future negotiations between Israel and the PA,” he added.

In February 2019, the Israeli Supreme Court, according to Haaretz newspaper, obliged the Ministry of Interior to expedite the examination of the applications of Jerusalemites, after a lawsuit filed by Israeli lawyers representing Jerusalemites who applied for naturalization.

Nasser al-Hadmi, head of the Jerusalem Committee for Resisting Displacement, told Al-Monitor that before former US President Donald Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of the State of Israel, there was a great Israeli desire to naturalize a large number of Jerusalem residents in order for the city to have a Jewish majority. Once the United States recognized Israel’s status, Israel reduced the number of naturalizations of Jerusalemites, and it is currently seeking to displace Jerusalemites and expel them rather than naturalize them. This is evidenced, for instance, by the evictions and displacements of a number of residents of the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods.

He said, “Around 80,000 naturalization applications have been submitted by the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem to the Israeli authorities to obtain Israeli citizenship. But Israel so far approved only a limited number of them. Recently, after Jerusalem was recognized as Israel’s capital by the US administration and some other countries, Israel no longer seems so interested in naturalizing a large number of Jerusalemites, which it sees as a minority that does reflect a civilized image of the city.”

Hadmi noted that the Israeli authorities force Jerusalemites seeking Israeli citizenship to pledge full loyalty to it, and accept to become second- or third-class citizens. “The best example is the discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied territories in 1948, who are not treated on equal footing with Israeli residents. Israel believes that citizens of Jewish origin are better than other naturalized citizens from other countries,” he said.

He added, “The Israeli authorities have, for nearly 10 years now, put expiry dates on the identity cards they give to the residents of Jerusalem in order to be able to reside in the city and move across all Palestinian areas. When Jerusalemites try to renew their identity card, Israeli authorities would blackmail them, and refuse to easily renew the identity cards of those who threaten Israel’s security. This enables Israel to reduce the number of Jerusalemites granted the Israeli nationality.

Yael Ronen, professor of law at the Academic Center for Science and Law and researcher at the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, noted in one of her articles posted on the Forum of Regional Thinking on Jan. 27, 2021, that developments may occur regarding the situation of tens of thousands of Palestinians living in Jerusalem represented in the possibility of obtaining Israeli citizenship. She noted that there are 330,000 Palestinians in the eastern part of Jerusalem and that the Population and Immigration Authority of the Israeli Ministry of Interior published a procedure to apply for citizenship under Article 4(a) of the Nationality Law.

She explained that since the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, no Israeli steps have been taken to grant citizenship to residents, in light of the lack of interest in it and the Israeli objection to it. She noted that Palestinians are refraining from submitting requests for citizenship, as this could be interpreted as recognition by them of Israel’s sovereignty over the city.

Source: Palestinians seek Israeli citizenship in Jerusalem

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