Elon Musk confirms major tweak for Twitter

 

A phone screen displays a photo of Elon Musk with the Twitter logo shown in the background, on October 4, 2022, in Washington, DC. © OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP

Source: RT

The current character limit will be increased significantly, the platform's CEO has indicated.

The character limit for Twitter posts will increase from 280 to 4,000, the platform's boss Elon Musk confirmed on Sunday, without providing any further details.

When asked by one user whether it is “true that Twitter is set to increase the characters from 280 to 4,000?” Musk replied, “yes.”

The billionaire has voiced similar plans before. In late November, he said the expansion of the character limit to 1,000 was on his “to-do list.” Around the same time, he described a user plea to put the threshold at 420 as “a good idea.”

The brevity of Twitter posts is considered to be one the platform’s signature features, with heated discussions raging among social media users on whether it should be changed.

At the time of its inception in 2006, Twitter’s character limit amounted only to 140 characters for one post, with another 20 reserved for the username.

In November 2017, the social media giant began allowing 280 characters per message, citing a disparity in tweet length between different languages. It also admitted that the restriction curbed users’ ability to express their thoughts.

Since Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of Twitter in late October, he has embarked on a flurry of reforms to reshape the social media platform. In recent months, the billionaire, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist,” has unbanned several high-profile figures, including former US President Donald Trump. In late November, Twitter also rolled back its policies that sought to tackle misinformation linked to Covid-19.

More recently, Musk released the so-called ‘Twitter Files’ detailing the company’s censorship efforts. The first batch of documents showed how the social media giant made its decision to restrict the New York Post’s reporting on a trove of data from the laptop of Hunter Biden, the son of the incumbent US president.

The second release showcased concerted efforts by the platform to reduce the “visibility” of some users and limit their reach. Following the revelation, Musk promised that users would eventually be able to see their “shadowban” status.
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RELATED:

[01] Twitters Secret Blacklists Exposed
[02] Twitter Reveals How it Banned Trump

[03] Twitter Files (Part 4) – The Removal of Donald Trump

[04] Twitter Files reveal blitz to contain Trump

[05] American Coup 2021

World News and Current Events 2018

The following post contains video playlists of "Alternative News and Opinion" which is missing from the North American and European News stations. I have included them here so that others may discover a different point of view without having to rely on biased narratives from the Western mainstream media which is owned and driven by an economic cartel.

Here is the other side of the story to help you connect the dots and figure out what is happening in the world, The only way democracy can survive, is for its people to be well informed and given the opportunity to investigate for themselves. Question everything. ~ Stewart Brennan

Russia Today (Live)

World News 2018

South Front Military Review 2018

Debate on Global Issues 2018

Important Information 2018

US News 2018

Syria News 2018

Yemen News 2018

Iran News 2018

Iraq News 2018

Palestine News Israeli Crimes 2018

The Russian Perspective 2017 – 2018

Ukraine News 2016 – 2018

Turkey News 2017 – 2018

Viewpoints Discussion and Opinion 2017 – 2018

Global Economic News 2017 – 2018

Current Affairs Important Interviews 2017 – 2018

Egypt News 2016 – 2018

Bahrain News 2016 – 2018

Libya News 2016 – 2018

Important Documentaries

Abby Martin – The Empire Files

George Galloway Comment and Opinion

New Age Weather

Space News

English FA Cup 2017 – 2018

Revolution Music

Pakistan’s anti-drone campaigner Imran Khan removed from US airline for interrogation

 

Pakistani politician Imran Khan (AFP Photo / A Majeed)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/us-immigration-drone-strikes-398/

US immigration authorities have taken Pakistan’s former cricket superstar-turned-politician Imran Khan off a flight to New York and interrogated. Khan is known for his anti-drone campaigning.

Khan, who is now a popular political figure in Pakistan and ahead of the Pakistan Movement for Justice party (PTI), was removed from an American Airlines flight heading from Canada to New York and interrogated. Immigration officials asked him whether he was planning to protest in the US, as well as demanding to know his views on drone strikes and jihad.

Earlier this month, the former cricket star led thousands of Pakistani protesters, together with some US anti-war advocates, on a march from Islamabad to the tribal region of South Waziristan in opposition to US drone strikes. About 15,000 of his supporters joined him in the high-profile march, which focused attention on the strikes that have killed large numbers of civilians. Islamabad recently said that 80 percent of drone-related deaths were civilians.

“I was taken off the plane and interrogated by US Immigration in Canada on my views on drones. My stance is known. Drone attacks must stop,” Khan wrote in a tweet after being questioned on Friday. Khan had been on his way to the US to give a speech and attend a fundraiser organized by his political party, which the delay caused him to miss.

“Missed flight and sad to miss the fundraising lunch in NY but nothing will change my stance,” he tweeted.

Furthermore, Khan said the official who was questioning him did not seem to understand drone warfare himself. He also expressed confusion over why he was granted a visa to visit the US given if his stance on drones was a problem.

Khan heads a political party that was founded in 1996 and ignored for years. The PTI was called “Pakistan’s one-man party” by the US Department of State. Today, it is rapidly growing, with electable officials joining. The Pakistani leader believes the War on Terror “has been devastating for Pakistan,” he said in an interview with Julian Assange in June.

“Basically, our army was killing our own people,” he said.

He is an avid opponent to US presence on Pakistani soil – even when it came down to the killing of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011. The US mission to kill the former terrorist leader in Pakistan shows that “our ally did not trust us,” the politician said.

Rather than employ Pakistan as “a hired gun, being paid to kill America’s enemies,” Khan believes the US should trust that there will not be terrorism coming out of Pakistan.

Several Canadian commentators have suggested that groups protesting Khan’s entrance to the US may have influenced Immigration to pull him off the flight. The American Islamic Leadership Coalition last week requested that Hilary Clinton attempt to revoke his visa due to what they believe are sympathetic views towards the Taliban.

“The US Embassy made a significant error in granting this Islamist leader a visa,” the group said in a statement reported by the Sun. “Granting individuals like Khan access to the US to fundraise is against the interest of the people of Pakistan and the national security interests of the US.”

Ali Zaidi, a senior PTI party leader, demanded an apology from the US government for removing Khan from the plane. So far, no apologies have been made, and Immigration officials have only restated their policies.

“Our dual mission is to facilitate travel in the United States while we secure our borders, our people, and our visitors from those that would do us harm like terrorists and terrorist weapons, criminals, and contraband,” Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Joanne Ferreira told the Toronto Sun.

Clashes erupt near besieged Bahrain village

 

Bahrainis shout anti-government slogans during a march on the outskirts of Manama, October 19, 2012.

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/10/22/268091/clashes-erupt-near-besieged-bahrain-village/

Clashes have erupted between Saudi-backed regime forces and protesters trying to enter a besieged village in eastern Bahrain, Press TV reports.

Activists say security forces on Sunday fired tear gas to disperse people heading to the village of al-Eker which is under clampdown since late Thursday when a policeman was killed in a bomb blast there.

Some reports say at least three human rights activists including Zainab al-Khawaja were arrested by security forces during the protest rally that started from the island town of Sitra, south of the capital Manama.

Khawaja, the daughter of a jailed opposition leader Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, said earlier that the protesters were carrying food and medical supplies for the residents of the besieged village.

Authorities have detained seven people in relation to the deadly blast.

On Saturday, several protesters were also arrested during a demonstration in Eker.

Bahrain’s revolution began in mid-February 2011, when the people, inspired by the popular revolutions that toppled the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, started holding massive demonstrations.

The Bahraini government promptly launched a brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces from neighboring Persian Gulf states to help crack down on the demonstrations

Olympic police state lingers in UK

 

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/09/13/261312/olympic-police-state-lingers-in-uk/

There were speculations before the Olympics that the British government is using the games as an excuse to impose a police state in London that would be otherwise impossible; now that seems to have come true as the ‘un-free zones’ remain after the sports event.

British councils and police retain powers to single out public spaces and suspend certain freedoms, including handing out leaflets and protesting there that means one will be punished in those zones for doing a perfectly legal thing.

According to a map published on September 11 by Manifesto Club freedom campaign group, there are a dizzying 435 such zones in London that cover almost half of the whole area of the city, mostly in its central parts.

Citizens can be fined or prosecuted in the restricted zones, now also imposed on some other cities, for leafleting, walking a dog, using alcohol, just being there, and in London, for protesting.

There are 110 leafleting zones in London where you should have a license if you want to hand out leaflets -- that is you will not be free to even campaign for a human rights or relief cause unless the government sees it fit.

There are also 32 active “dispersal zones” as well as many inactive ones in the British capital.

In a dispersal zone you must leave the area if a police officer orders you to do so for a specified time, and you are not allowed to return to that area before the time designated by the officer or you face the consequences.

The euphemism of a dispersal zone in effect authorizes the security forces to impose a curfew in a region without openly announcing it for a particular group of people if the officers have “reasonable grounds for believing that [the group’s] presence or behavior has resulted, or is likely to result, in a member of the public being harassed, intimidated, alarmed or distressed.”

London is also decorated with a special restricted protest zone around the parliament buildings, where demonstrators, or even a single demonstrator, should also gain authorization if they want to hold a rally.

People are banned from making a speech without written permits, while the Westminster Council has approved a new bylaw that expands the ban to a larger area in the vicinity of the parliament square.

The five restriction zones provide the government with greater room to further squeeze civil liberties as the powers to implement them are open-ended, meaning officers can decide on where and how to use them at their own discretion, effectively giving them the power to make law in the restricted areas.

The government can also crack down on the undesirables that possibly include certain race groups or people with certain beliefs.

Officials made it clear before the Olympics that in the newly-introduced “exclusion zones” protesters face police with enhanced powers, including the right to use force to enter private properties and seize political posters.

There were fears that London will follow suit on other Olympic hosts, including Athens, which did not remove the new restrictions after the games.

Now such fears have partly materialized and the government can easily justify the continuation of the draconian measures, saying Britain faces threats from unwanted elements lurked inside its own cities and increasingly bigger surveillance would be needed to predict and contain such threats

 

US Congress approves extension of secret surveillance under FISA

 

U.S. Capitol.(AFP Photo / Win McNamee)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/usa/news/congress-surveillance-act-fisa-980/

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to extend the government’s power to warrantlessly wiretap Americans for another five years by reauthorizing the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Lawmakers in the House agreed from Washington, DC on Wednesday afternoon to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA), a polarizing legislation that has been challenged by privacy advocates and civil liberties organizations alike around the country. The extension was approved by a vote of 301 to 118.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was first signed into law in 1978 by President Jimmy Carter, but amendments added two decades later under the George W Bush administration provide for the government to conduct widespread and blanketing snooping of emails and phone calls of Americans. The FISA Amendments added in 2008, specifically section 702, specify that the government can eavesdrop on emails and phone calls sent from US citizens to persons reasonably suspected to be located abroad without ever requiring intelligence officials to receive a court order.

If the US Senate echoes the House’s extension of the act, the FAA will carry through for another five years until 2017, ensuring the federal intelligence community that they will be able to conduct surveillance on the correspondence of the country’s own citizens well into the future. If no action is taken, the FAA is slated to expire at the end of 2012.

Earlier this year, a plea from two US senators to see how many times the FAA has been used was refused by the National Security Administration. Last month, San Francisco’s Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit against the US Justice Department for failing to adhere to Freedom of Information Act requests for documents pertaining to the program.

“The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008 gave the NSA expansive power to spy on Americans' international email and telephone calls,” the EFF explained in an official statement made after the suit was filed. “However, last month, in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, a government official publicly disclosed that the NSA's surveillance had gone even further than what the law permits, with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) issuing at least one ruling calling the NSA's actions unconstitutional.”

Sen. Wyden, a Democratic lawmaker from Oregon who has also sit on the Senate intelligence committee for several years, originally asked for Senate to place a hold on the vote this past June. This week, Sen. Wyden tells Reuters, "My hold is on and it will stay on," although that plea does not apply to the House, however, where lawmakers appeared eager on Wednesday to power through the vote.

So determined were some lawmakers to proceed, in fact, that the rules of the debates preceding Wednesday’s vote called for no more than one hour of discussion before ballots were cast. Several congressmen, including lawmakers that planned to vote yes on the FAA extension regardless, proposed a two year extension as a compromise, but no new amendments were allowed to be tacked on before Wednesday’s vote.

Despite opposition on and off the Hill, the FAA has received praise from some of Washington’s most elite members of the government, including Attorney General Eric Holder and long-standing lawmaker Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the sponsor of the FAA renewal who also infamously urged Congress to approve the since-defeated Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, a broad and dangerous Internet legislation that threatened to reshape the Web as we know it.

In his address at Northwestern University School of Law this past March, Mr. Holder said section 702 of the FAA “ensures that the government has the flexibility and agility it needs to identify and to respond to terrorist and other foreign threats to our security,” but emphasized the fact that only persons thought to be outside the US — not Americans — can be targeted. When Sens. Wyden and Udall asked to know how often that snooping involved Americans at all, however, they were told by the NSA’s Inspector General that a “review of the sort suggested would itself violate the privacy of US persons.”

On his part, Sen. Wyden has written, “that if no one has even estimated how many Americans have had their communications collected under the FISA Amendments Act . . . Then it is possible that this number could be quite large.”

“Since all of the communications collected by the government under section 702 are collected without individual warrants, I believe that there should be clear rules prohibiting the government from searching through these communications in an effort to find the phone calls or emails of a particular American, unless the government has obtained a warrant or emergency authorization permitting surveillance of that American,” the lawmaker wrote in an official press release earlier this year.

Rep. Smith, the sponsor of both this bill and SOPA, has said, “We have a duty to ensure the intelligence community can gather the intelligence they need to protect our country.”

On Thursday, Rep. Smith claimed, “Foreign nations continue to spy on America to plot cyber-attacks and attempt to steal sensitive information from our military and private sector industries,” and that Congress has “a solemn responsibility to ensure that the intelligence community can gather the information” necessary to hinder these attempts.

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-California) added on Wednesday from the Hill that reauthorizing the FAA is “critical to the protection of the American people,” claiming that the United States, “as a nation had not done enough to connect the dots to warn us sufficiently to protect” against another terrorist attack on par with the ones that devastated America on September 11, 2001.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, a Republican congressman from South Carolina, also used the attack on the Twin Towers to justify the necessity of extending the FAA.

“If we could come together to remember 9/11, surely we can come together to prevent another one,”

said Rep. Gowdy.

Opponents of the act, however, say that the attempts to do as such come at a cost too great for civil liberties.

“We’ve been told that we can’t even tell how many people are being subjected to this process located in the United States, and that we don’t know and they can’t tell us,” Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan ) pleaded earlier this year in opposition to the act. “I think we can get a little bit closer. There can be some reasonableness. It’s this kind of vagueness that creates in those of us in the Congress, suspicions that are negative rather than suspicions that are positive.”

“Why can't we know how many people are affected by FISA amendment act in the US?” Rep Conyers asked. “This kind of vagueness creates suspicions.”

Former Democratic presidential hopeful Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said on his own part that those suspicions are even more validated since the Justice Department has declined to adhere to a Freedom of Information Act request for information on the FAA, explaining on Wednesday, “Everyone becomes suspect when big brother is listening.”

Rep Hank Johnson (D-GA) also threw his weight behind efforts to reject the act on Wednesday, saying it the FISA amendments allow for “illegal surveillance of an untold number of American citizens” with absolutely no oversight.

“Not even the NSA knows the extent to which FISA amendment acts have potentially been approved,” Rep Earl Blumenhauser (D-Oregon) added from the House floor before the vote.

The American Civil Liberties Union reports that, every day, the NSA intercepts and stores around 1.7 billion emails, phone calls, text and other electronic communications thanks to laws like FISA. To put it into perspective, they add, “that’s equivalent to 138 million books, every 24 hours.”

“After four years, you’d hope that some basic information or parameters of such a massive spying program would be divulged to the public, or at least your rank-and-file member of Congress, but they haven’t,” says Michelle Richardson, a counsel at the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office. “Only a small handful of members have either personally attended classified briefings or have staff with high enough clearances to attend for them.Sen. Ron Wyden — who has been on the Senate Intelligence Committee for years—has even been stonewalled by the Obama administration for a year and a half in his attempts to learn basic information about the program, such as the number of Americans who have had their communications intercepted under the FAA.”

“Can you believe that 435 members of Congress who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are about to vote on a sweeping intelligence gathering law without this basic information?” she asks.

Journalists arrested by order of House Republicans

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/224378.html

In a stunning break with First Amendment policy, House Republicans directed Capitol Hill police to detain a highly regarded documentary crew that was attempting to film a Wednesday hearing on a controversial natural gas procurement practice.

Republicans also denied the entrance of a credentialed ABC News news team that was attempting to film the event.

Josh Fox, director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary "Gasland" was taken into custody by Capitol Hill police this morning, along with his crew, after Republicans objected to their presence, according to Democratic sources present at the hearing. The meeting of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment had been taking place in room 2318 of the Rayburn building.

Approximately 16 officers entered the hearing room and handcuffed Fox amid audible discussions of "disorderly conduct" charges, according to Democratic sources present at the arrest.

"Gasland" received strong critical acclaim and takes a critical eye toward the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," a process in which several tons of highly pressurized water and chemicals are injected into the ground, allowing valuable natural gas to escape. The practice is decried by ecological experts for destroying ecosystems and polluting groundwater. The energy industry keeps the actual content of fracking chemicals secret.

Fox had hoped to film Wednesday's hearing for a follow-up to "Gasland." A colleague of Fox's at his production company was unable to comment on the morning's events, but HuffPost expects a statement soon.

Fox did not have formal Capitol Hill credentials, but such formalities are rarely enforced against high-profile journalists. Temporary passes are easy to obtain, and if Republicans had objected on procedural grounds, they could have simply sent the crew to the front desk, rather than ordering police to arrest journalists. The right to a free press is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Documentary crews are almost never denied access to public meetings of elected government officials.

A separate ABC News crew, which did have official Capitol Hill credentials, was also denied access to the public hearing. Huffington Post

FACTS & FIGURES

The targeting of journalists covering the Occupy Wall Street movement has caused the United States to drop precipitously in a leading survey of press freedom. Reporters Without Borders was explicit in its summary of its report, saying that "the United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests." Huffington Post

At 12:48 pm Wednesday, Sep 28, 2011, while working on a story about citizen journalism at the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York for PBS affiliate WNET Thirteen, John Farley was arrested, along with the demonstrators whose stories he was covering. bongboing.net

A reporter working for the NYT, Natasha Lennard, wrote to editors while covering #OccupyWallSt, "I'm being arrested." Lennard was arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday, October 1, 2011. storify.com

Kristen Gwynne, a staff member at AlterNet, was also arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1, 2011. storify.com

In the dark hours of November 15, the NYPD orchestrated a raid on the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park on the orders of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Journalists soon began reporting on Twitter that they were being 'prevented from reporting about the police actions - and next, reports emerged of police harassment, abuse and even arrests. Ten journalists, some from the NPR, the Associated Press and the New York Daily News, were arrested. One journalist from the New York Post was put in a choke hold. care2.com

30 journalists were arrested at the Occupy Wall Street protests on Dec. 01, 2011 including some at the police raids on Occupy LA and Occupy Philly. The arrests occurred in 10 cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chapel Hill, New York City, Oakland and Richmond. storify.com

On Dec. 01, 2011, Free Press delivered a petition with more than 40,000 signatures to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, president of the United States Conference of Mayors. The petition called on U.S. mayors to protect First Amendment rights and to protect journalists covering the Occupy movement. storify.com

Protest shuts San Francisco stations

A man climbs on top of a commuter train during a protest at the Civic Center BART station in San Francisco, Monday, July 11. BART shut down cell service on August 11 to prevent a similar protest.

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194270.html

A protest in San Francesco has forced the shutdown of four subway stations, as people condemned US police brutality and demanded the right for free speech.

During the demonstrations, organized by the hacker group Anonymous on Monday, the stations, including the Civic Center station, were temporarily closed during the rush hour by authorities, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

On Thursday people had taken to the streets in San Francisco to voice their anger toward the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), which had urged the Bay Area Rapid Transit commuter train service (BART) to shut down cell phone networks in some stations to prevent demonstrators from organizing a protest over the fatal shooting of a man last month by police.

Charles Hill was fatally shot on July 3 by BART police officers.

"This was a complete silencing of the people," said a protester on Monday, calling the shutting down of cell phone services "anti-free speech tactics."

Rights groups have also slammed the act saying that blocking the telecommunications service is against the US Constitution's First Amendment right which accords free speech to its citizens.

Although officers arrived in riot gears, SFPD announced that there had been no arrests during the protests.

Anonymous had asked the demonstrators to download software for short-range cell phone-to-cell phone messaging before the Monday protests in case the in-station networks were shut down again.

However, the cell phone service remained unblocked during Monday protests -- a sign of victory, as protesters said.

BART said on Thursday that a website for its users, myBART.org, had been hacked by hackers claiming civil rights motives.

Galloway prevented from entering US

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/157221.html


Ex-British Member of Parliament, George Galloway, has been denied a visa to enter the US to speak to the MLFA members and some non-Muslims in Kenner, Louisiana over human rights.

Galloway was invited to Louisiana by the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA) to deliver a speech to raise funds for the organisation and to promote awareness about ongoing injustices facing Muslims and their rights in the United States.

The audience of around 100 people, with the majority being Louisiana Muslim community members, and a handful of non-Muslims were shocked to learn that the keynote-speaker was absent because he was not given an entry visa to America, for the December 13 meeting.

Galloway addressed the crowd in Kenner via the computer program Skype, stating that it was not clear whether the decision was the result of a technical or bureaucratic glitch, or whether it was a political measure carried out in secrecy.

He explained that efforts were made to resolve the situation throughout the weekend, but that nothing came of it.

His speech to the audience mainly consisted of human rights violations carried out by the US government against Muslims all over the world.

He also talked about the rights of Palestinians and the Israeli-led violence towards women and children, which is supported by the US government.

“Nothing will stop me. Not the government of what they call Israel; not the government of Canada nor the US,” Galloway said.

“I cannot be silenced…I hope the US government understands that. We live in the age of Skype, YouTube and Face book. There will always be a way for me to speak.”

The long-time British activist, George Galloway, is known for his activities in supporting Palestine.

He is a founding member of a charitable organisation called Viva Palestina, whose mission is to break the blockade of the Gaza strip by bringing badly-needed aid.

Galloway had also been denied entry into Canada from March 2009 until October 2010. He has not, however, been officially banned from entering the United States.

French justice minister threatens Israel critics with jail

Source: PressTV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=122101&sectionid=351020202


Pro-Palestinian solidarity groups in France have been threatened by the French justice minister with legal action, after they stepped up a campaign of boycotts against Israeli goods.

On March 30, Palestinian Land Day, French activists held large rallies across the country and joined the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Campaign against Israel.

Thousands of people held a protest in Paris in solidarity with Palestinians and urged the imposition of sanctions on Israeli products

The protesters took to the streets and large supermarkets and called on shoppers to boycott Israeli products.

This prompted an outburst from the French Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who called on the judiciary to prosecute the critics of Israel on the pretext of “racial discrimination,” although many Jewish people are also active in the BDS campaign to end Israel's discriminatory policies against the Palestinians, press TV correspondent Mark Votier reported.

The justice minister's threat drew thousand people to sign a BDS petition protesting against the violation of their right to free expression and association, enshrined in various legal instruments including the European Convention on Human Rights.

“I do not wish to be arrested but if the minister considers us to be criminals and wants to arrests us, she can. We are here to show our solidarity with Palestinians and especially with the people of Gaza who are suffering terribly,” Nichole Kiil Nielsen, member of European parliament told Press TV.