Protest laws move UK towards paramilitary policing, says former chief
The Guardian newspaper reports today that “A former police chief has warned that new protest laws move Britain dangerously in the direction of “paramilitary policing” and that UK ministers are “flexing their muscles via their police forces” like repressive regimes around the world.” (The Guardian, 2021) For further details see: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/28/protest-laws-move-uk-towards-paramilitary-policing-says-former-chief
Saving books amid the Syrian civil war
In Syria, an activist group have been saving and safeguarding books amid the civil war, running the danger of preserving censored literature and factual books: ‘In a town under siege from Assad’s regime, a small group of revolutionaries found a new mission: to build a library from books rescued from the rubble. For those stranded…
Threat to freedom of protest under threat in UK
The ‘Police, crime, sentencing and courts bill’ 2021, is currently being passed through UK parliament, granting greater powers of enforcement and threatening to severely limit freedom to protest in the UK, see: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/16/bill-that-curtails-ability-to-protest-in-uk-passes-its-second-reading
Internet Control in China – blocking of the ‘Signal’ messaging app 17/03/2021
‘The encrypted messaging app Signal appears to have been blocked in mainland China, the latest foreign social media service to cease working in a country where the government tightly controls the flow of information. As of Tuesday, users of the app within China had to connect to a virtual private network (VPN) that allows them…
Threat of redundancy to 47 academics in the University of Liverpool’s Faculty of Life Sciences
There is currently a threat of redundancy to 47 academics in the University of Liverpool’s Faculty of Life Sciences. Many of these staff are involved in current ‘Stop Covid’ research within Liverpool. The decision to select them for redundancy follows a restructure within the Faculty (Project SHAPE). The University of Liverpool University and College Union…
Information for Social Change Issue 39 (and call for papers)
The current journal of Information for Social Change, Issue 39 (Winter 2020/21) is now available online, for the full issue and outline of papers, see https://informationforsocialchange.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/ Also see individual papers on DOAJ. ISC 39 issue editors: Dr Paul Catherall and Martyn Lowe Contents: Open Access publishing tools for re-imagining ISC. Looking to decolonize your public…
NHS GP practice operator with 500,000 patients passes into hands of US health insurer
The Guardian newspaper today reports on the transfer of GP health services by the North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group to control of a US corporation (Centene Corp). This transfer will see half a million London patients switched from direct NHS care to the hands of this US-based health insurance company. For the full details…
Information for Social Change Journal and Blog Re-Lauched
The Journal of Information for Social Change blog and digital presence has been re-launched following the deprecation of Libr.org, our previous Web host, we are still in the process of re-building content, archives and other media, but for now please update your bookmarks etc. to the following – ISC back-issues on Archive.org (all ISC and…
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