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© Adel Hana | APPalestinian artist Samah Saed, decorates a protective face mask to encourage people to wear them as a precaution against the coronavirus, at a workshop in the Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza, , April 2, 2020.
Call it a 'quarantine', a 'shelter-in-place', a 'lockdown' or a 'curfew', we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.
Personally, the first 23 years of my life were lived in virtual 'lockdown'. My father's 'quarantine' was experienced much earlier, as did his father's 'shelter-in-place' before him. They both died and were buried in Gaza's cemeteries without ever experiencing true freedom outside of their refugee camp in Gaza.
Currently in Gaza, the quarantine has a different name. We call it 'siege', also known as 'blockade'.
In fact, all of Palestine has been in a state of 'lockdown' since the late 1940s when Israel became a state and the Palestinian homeland was erased by Zionist colonialists with the support of their Western benefactors.
That lockdown intensified in 1967 when Israel, now a powerful state with a large army and strong allies, occupied the remaining parts of Palestine - East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
As the United States and the entire world become enveloped in the worst pandemic in a century, many have embraced self-isolating and sheltering in place as a basic responsibility to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. However, for many of the most vulnerable — such as children — home can be the most unsafe place due to domestic violence and abuse
Nothing is more important for the development of children into well-functioning, responsible, and healthy adults than a secure and nurturing home. But the crisis unleashed by CoViD-19 has posed an acute risk of sexual abuse to children, child advocatestold Huffington Post.
Since March, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) has noticed a sharp increase in minors reporting sexual violence, according to RAINN President Scott Berkowitz. The rise in sexual abuse coincides with the period in which most state governments implemented shelter-in-place measures.
From February 24 to March 17, Pornhub recorded a 12% increase in global traffic. We noted in mid-March, the porn site offered free premium accounts to anyone in Italy as the virus crisis intensified. By the end of March, Americans were given free access to Pornhub Premium as a way to "Help Flatten the Curve." During the month, a huge influx of coronavirus themed porn videos hit the site, as it appears amateur porn stars in quarantine had nothing else better to do.
The love lockdown, as some are calling it, also saw people panic buying sex toys. Lingerie chain Ann Summers reported that dildos sales surged 27% in the last week of March over the same period the previous year.
For the four weeks ending March 22, dollar sales for top beer companies jumped over last year's figures. With restaurants and bars closed, Americans panic hoarded beer, according to Brewbound. Over the period, beer sales from top brands erupted: Anheuser-Busch InBev recorded +11.6%, Molson Coors +10.6%, Constellation Brands +24%, Mark Anthony Brands +124%, Heineken USA +7.5%, Boston Beer +55.1%, Diageo +13.3, and Pabst +11.1%.
Comment: Many non-authoritarian Americans are already saying no to the lock-down in various ways. And there is even great pressure from within the Trump administration, including Trump himself, to get people out of their homes and back to work. So, yes, we could see some limited form of "social distancing" policies rammed through, but many will not take it sitting down. As for what people are doing with themselves at home with all their free time, we'll be on the lookout for news on how people are being constructive - which you can be darned sure is also how many are oriented.
The film will start streaming on Curzon Home Cinema on 13th April. And on the 15th April the screening will be followed by discussion with two of its main contributors - Professor Allyson Pollock and Dr John Lister at 8.30 pm.
WATCH THE TRAILER
© TWITTER / PHILLY TRANSIT RIDERS UNION
The video shows several Philadelphia police officers forcibly removing the man, who is later heard saying he was taken off the bus for not wearing a mask.
Philadelphia police responded to "calls of a disturbance" near 11th and Market Streets around 8:25 a.m. Friday after a passenger was repeatedly asked to leave the bus and refused. The passenger was not arrested or cited, according to police. The incident is under investigation.
"The police were responding to the fact that the person was asked to leave the bus and refused," Managing Director Brian Abernathy said during the city's news conference Friday. "I would expect my officers to continue to do that and support our SEPTA workers."
The RCMP said it had been asked by the Public Health Agency of Canada to help with national coordination and enforcement of the March 25 Quarantine Act Order that requires everyone arriving in Canada to stay home for 14 days.
Officers will speak to those under quarantine and advise them of the "potential consequences of non-compliance," the police force said in a statement that cautioned violators could face "significant penalties, including fines and imprisonment."
© Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), in an amicus brief, detailed various issues with New Mexico's voter rolls as the state's Supreme Court weighs whether or not to allow mail-in voting only in the midst of the Chinese coronavirus crisis.
The mail-in voting plan would potentially send ballots to 1,681 dead people on the state's voter rolls. PILF researchers say about 87 percent of these dead voters passed way in 2018 or sometime before. Some died in the early 1980s and have been on the voter rolls since.
Another 1,519 registered voters are listed as being 100-years-old and over. Specifically, there are 64 registered voters who are listed as 120-years-old. About 3,168 registered voters have been flagged over duplicate concerns and nearly 200 voter registrations are linked to commercial addresses.
"This is not a theoretical threat: An automatic all-mail election will send thousands of ballots to identified dead, duplicate, outdated, and other problematic addresses," PILF President J. Christian Adams said in a statement.
Comment: We weren't kidding when we warned readers all those years ago, immediately after 9/11, that we were headed for a global situation that would make Nazi Germany look like a mere 'trial run'...
© Anthony Harvey/Rex/ShutterstockPolice community support officer patrols the beach in Brighton.
Twenty-six of the 43 police forces in England and Wales have launched dedicated online forms allowing people to report suspected breaches of the lockdown, such as large gatherings in parks.
The Metropolitan police, the UK's biggest police force, are among those to have adopted the scheme, which asks the public to report people who "appear to be or are contravening the government advice on physical distancing and the stay at home measures" by entering a location and reporting the potential breach.
Comment: From the advice above, you could be reported for simply straying too close to someone.
Comment: When the police themselves don't even know the rules, this will not only create division but it is likely going to evoke a significant backlash:
See also: "This is what a police state is like": UK's ex-supreme court judge lambasts policing, 'collective hysteria' and the lockdown
Comment: See also: