Berks County Antifascist Action

On this day, 27 October 1940, Japanese planes dropped grain over Ningbo, China during World War II. Two days later, bubonic plague broke out in the city killing... 97 people. After the war Japanese military officials confirmed that they had carried out a biological attack, under the supervision of Unit 731. Unit 731 was one of several biological warfare teams which carried out many attacks on China, killing tens of thousands. Some aircraft sprayed bubonic plague, while others dropped ceramic containers full of plague-infested fleas. Elsewhere, reservoirs, wells, livestock and agricultural land were deliberately infected with pathogens including cholera, dysentery, typhoid and anthrax. These continued to kill after the war ended up to 30,000 in 1947 alone. In addition to aerial attacks, they conducted horrific human experiments, mostly on Chinese communists and partisans, but also on some Russians and other Westerners. Subjects were infected with diseases, frozen alive, dismembered, gassed, raped and more. Hundreds were killed each year after the unit was set up in 1932. Its scientists even published papers publicly in peer-reviewed journals, claiming that the experiments discussed were on non-human primates. Towards the end of the war, all the prisoners and Chinese labourers in the unit were murdered, and Japanese troops tried to destroy all evidence by blowing up the base. Officers and scientists who were captured by the USSR were put on trial for war crimes and sentenced to periods of 2 to 25 years imprisonment in Siberian gulags. However, the US claimed the trials were "communist propaganda," and gave immunity to scientists in exchange for their data, including the sadistic head of Unit 731, Shiro Ishii. The USSR also soon established a biological weapons facility using research from the Unit. Some of the Unit's scientists given immunity continued experimenting on Japanese civilians without their consent, deliberately infecting patients with typhus for example. See more

Seamos claros: el día de las elecciones es el 2 de noviembre y la fecha límite para devolver sus boletas es el 2 de noviembre a las 8 pm. Esta información errón...ea de los comisionados de Berks es inaceptable y es especialmente dañina para el 69% de los residentes de Reading que son latinos y que tienen derecho a votar como cualquier otra persona. https://www.mcall.com//mc-nws-pa-spanish-mail-in-ballot-in See more

We are waiting on more information and next steps with Shut Down Berks Interfaith Witness. Stay tuned ========= "As of last week there had been about 20 people... housed in the center from seven or eight families, said Bridget Cambria, a Reading immigration-rights advocate and lawyer representing detainees in the center. Those detainee's families were notified Thursday evening or Friday morning that they'd be released, she said. They have since all arrived safely with their families in California, Texas, Virginia and elsewhere as they await asylum hearings, she said. Cambria still considers the facility an active detention center until ICE announces otherwise, she said. She will watch to see whether others are detained there, and is hoping that the facility is used for a different purpose, she said. But she said she was surprised and happy to hear about the families being released. "I don't know what the future holds but it's a step," she said. Cambria helped the released families Friday, either driving them to the airport or to her office where families could pick them up, and she said they were grateful for their release." See more

Ummmmm, I refuse to believe this was accidental...

TODAY, Call Governor Wolf and demand he take action to end family detention in PA. Governor Tom Wolf (717-787-2500) Lt. Gov. Fetterman (717-787-3300) PA DHS Sec...retary Miller (717-787-2600) We Could Have Ended Family Detention in Pennsylvania in 2016, Why Is It Allowed To Continue? Governor Tom Wolf, Lt. Governor John Fetterman and Secretary Teresa Miller have the power to issue an Emergency Removal Order on the Berks County Detention Center, an action that would ensure the facility can no longer be used as a prison by ICE. This is an action the state has been asked to do, repeatedly, since 2016. It is not only their moral obligation to keep families out of jail but their legal responsibility, family detention is breaking state law. All the while, more families keep being brought to the prison, despite the pandemic getting worse. #ShutDownBerks

In case you haven't heard...