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The Epstein files are a psyop

A class analysis of the Epstein files and their release


28/03/2026

Protestors at the Good Trouble Protest in DC in 2025 celebrating the spirit of John Lewis, civil rights activist dating back to the 60s. One person holds up a huge banner with the words "Release the Jeffrey Epstein files NOW. Republicans support pedophiles." Another, in the foreground holds a small sign saying "This is not a left or right moment. It's a right or wrong moment."

CW: This piece includes passing references to the concept of child rape along with other disturbing topics found in the Epstein files.

I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone, and have written about the ontology of conspiracies before. At their core, they reflect an utter disillusionment with society’s institutions, and what better example than this? Q-anon and Pizza Gate walked so the actual Epstein files could run. 

So as my algorithm led me down increasingly conspiratorial rabbit holes, all of this had me wondering: What are we as leftists to make of the way the files have been released? What about their sudden virality and the inundation of commentary on platforms known for their censorship in line with the ruling class?

The release of the Epstein files

In case you missed it, on 30 January, the US Dept of Justice released 3.5 million files related to the investigation of convicted pedophile and child sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. Many are heavily redacted and reports abound of them suspiciously disappearing from the database. They contain details of heinous acts of the rich and powerful—from princes to politicians to academics and all sorts of other public figures. The acts, which legal experts say constitute crimes against humanity, are ineffably horrifying, including rape, torture, and child slavery. Yet, with each new suspected scandal and act of depravity revealed in the files, we start to become desensitized to the point that pedophilia and sex trafficking are no longer enough to shock or inspire outrage.

Notably, my feed has also been flooded with online pontificators basically just free-associating that every unsolved mystery and crisis of the 21st century—from 9/11 to the 2008 recession—was singlehandedly caused by Epstein himself. We each get caught in our own siloed rabbit holes dissecting the files, while nothing is being done and no one is being punished. It can even leave you with a sense that those featured in the files don’t care—or are even proud of their heinous crimes. In emails riddled with typos they glibly quip about pizza and grape soda (many speculate to be code for child rape), and videos have been circulating of Bill Clinton laughing during a deposition hearing as he looks through incriminating photos of him and his buddies in the Epstein files as if he’s flipping through a scrapbook. 

The anatomy of a psyop

The combined proliferation of horrifying content in the files and lack of public action are worth noting. This is particularly so when we examine some of the hallmarks of psychological influence operations, as disseminated on the internet and social media. (Read more about recent examples like the propagation of online culture wars in the US and Pentagon-backed influence operations).

There is no single definition of such operations, but they are generally implemented with the objective of shaping the attitudes, emotions, beliefs, and behaviors of a target population. You can find some of their core characteristics as follows:

  • Emotional flooding: Content that elicits disgust, rage, or fear instantly when you see it.
  • Narrative compression: Simplifying the narrative so that it fits neatly into an easily-digestible story format.
  • Authority fog: Lack of informational transparency and a proliferation of theories that are difficult to trace.
  • Time pressure: A sense that one must act now, as access to information might be revoked.
  • Isolation language: Cultivating a sense that those engaging in the conspiracy theory are ‘awake’ while everyone else remains ‘asleep’. 

Taking these features into account, now let’s connect them to the release of the Epstein files.

The public is flooded with millions of documents containing extremely distressing content. The fact that many keep getting removed from the database produces a sense of urgency to inundate oneself with disturbing emails, videos, and images before they are gone. We reach a point where nothing surprises us anymore, and it’s easier to become conditioned to any number of outlandish conspiracies as a way of making sense of things. (Was Michael Jackson really a noble defender of children, and the Epstein crew conspired to kill him? Is the Jim Carrey we see now actually a clone because Epstein had him killed for speaking out? Who can say for sure!) Well-meaning people who have immersed themselves in trying to analyze the files slowly become isolated and detached from reality. What’s more, all of this produces a sense that every crisis and unsolved mystery can be traced back to a handful of particularly bad guys.

Class analysis of the file release

The ruling class has pretty well-developed techniques for propagandizing and narrative control through mass media. As Gramsci puts it, 

…crisis creates situations which are dangerous in the short run, since the various strata of the population are not all capable of orienting themselves equally swiftly, or of reorganizing with the same rhythm. The traditional ruling class, which has numerous trained cadres, changes men and programmes and, with greater speed than is achieved by the subordinate classes, reabsorbs the control that was slipping from its grasp.

In other words, if the ruling classes can no longer contain scandals that might produce catastrophic levels public outcry, they can weaponize them to keep us down instead by making us feel desensitized, distracted, and powerless to change anything. On behalf of Trump and his cronies, it appears that the Department of Justice has repeatedly violated the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The DOJ has repeatedly kept victims’ names unredacted while simultaneously covering up key information that would incriminate powerful people.

Thus, we must take a critical view of how the files have been released, as conspiracies serve the function of diverting people from reaching class consciousness. They take those who are so close to the point—to being radicalized—and divert their focus to specific, moloch-worshipping cannibals, rather than a ruling class upheld through the specific material relations of capitalism. It’s easier to imagine a few wicked ghouls are behind everything than to question the system that allowed them to accumulate the power to act with impunity. In truth, reality is even scarier than conspiracy. 

In addition to being brazen forms of patriarchal violence, these crimes are acts of class warfare through the rape and torture of poor and working class children on a mass scale. In fact, participating in such acts seems to be the price of entry to the inner circles of the elites: enacting the most depraved crimes against our own—the most innocent and vulnerable among us at that. As if these horrific acts are ways of asserting they don’t abide by the most basic norms of decency practiced by us lowly plebians, and that they are powerful enough to get away with anything. Along with live-streamed genocide and ever-expanding levels of authoritarian repression, this is what they have decided will be normal.

In short, we don’t need conspiracies to explain away the horrors perpetrated by the elites because they are baked into the system that enables them. To return to Gramsci, now is the time of monsters: the barbarous excesses of capitalism itself.

Migrantifa now!

Part one of our interview with Migrantifa Berlin about the racist murders in Hanau, the group’s founding and the necessity of migrant antifascism

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This article is the sixth piece in the series Neo-Nazis and Anti-Fascism in Germany since the 1990s. The rest of the series can be found here. It is also the first part in a two-part interview with Migrantifa Berlin, the second part will come out soon.

TLB: Can you tell us how and why Migrantifa Berlin was founded? 

Sam: We were founded after Hanau. After the attack, different migrant and antiracist groups in Berlin called for meetings, and Migrantifa was a working group that formed there. It emerged out of a very strong need to simply talk about what had happened and to break out of this sense of isolation. I think many of us felt that in Germany, after racist attacks, it’s often not a topic of interest  for the majority of society. For example, Carnival celebrations went on right afterwards. 

Mala: We more or less developed as a group over the course of that first year. There were also, I think, two other specific  frustrations that brought people into this group. One was experiences within a predominantly white German Antifa scene. These were people who had been politically socialized on the left, often from Berlin or that had lived in Berlin for a few years, but who were mostly active in majority-white spaces. And there, they very often experienced that racism as a category of analysis was almost absent, or at least not sufficiently taken into account.

On the other hand, there was frustration with a more liberal, anti-racist environment. We noticed it especially during the summer of 2020, when the majority of society was engaging with Black Lives Matter for the first time. In the group it became clear that many people that were part of those liberal anti-racist spaces brought similar frustrations, just in a different direction. I think people from both of these experiences wanted to move beyond isolation and were looking for a new form of organizing,a new kind of analysis.

Sam: And I’d say we started with a bit of a bang – with the “Day of Rage” on May 8th. We organized a demonstration on the day in 1945 when Nazi Germany lost the war, with the idea to highlight those continuities. Then, we organised demonstrations in Hanau for the six-months and the one-year anniversaries of the attack, and we took part in May Day. And through that, we kind of became the group we are today: an anti-racist group with a revolutionary standpoint and a class analysis. At the time, this filled a big gap in Berlin.

TLB: Could you also tell us in a bit more detail what happened in Hanau?

Mala: A racist went into a shisha bar and a Kiosk on the evening of February 19, 2020, and shot 9 of our siblings. The shisha bar as a place in Germany is often a place where police raids happen. In Hanau, during one of those raids – or afterward – the emergency exit was locked by the police. Because of that, people there couldn’t escape.

People called the police emergency line and no one answered. To this day it’s unclear why. Immediately after the attack, instead of receiving emergency medical care, injured people were asked for their ID. Politicians later made statements like, “Next time we’ll do better.” This shows that there is a system behind these cases, not just a crazy person picking up a weapon in a vacuum. Basically, every generation of migrants has its own Hanau. For some it’s Rostock, Mölln or Solingen. For others, it’s the NSU or Hanau.

Sam: Every time new information about the incident came out, it was because the research was initiated or demanded by the relatives and survivors themselves. There was essentially no real investigation by the authorities.

For many, that was a key turning point in understanding that the way we interpret Hanau can’t be based on saying, for example, that the police or authorities failed to prevent the attack. Because they did exactly what they have always done. I think naming and framing this structural dimension differently became very clear through Hanau.

TLB: I remember that at the first rally in Hanau after the racist murders, one speech called for “Migrantifa Jetzt!” and then groups like yours formed in different cities. How are these groups connected?

Sam: We always say that Migrantifa is a movement, and we are one group that emerged from this movement. The term itself existed long before Hanau, but I think the concrete impulse after Hanau – across the whole country – was Migrantifa as self-defense. Many different groups, forms, and local initiatives started gathering under that label in response to that call.

Over the years it became clear that in some cities, such as ours, it developed into a more concrete group. In other places, it remained more of an umbrella term. We’re not part of a single unified structure. Instead, we’re independent, decentralized groups who cooperate,  and new groups keep appearing in different cities across Germany and the German-speaking parts of Europe – even six years after Hanau.

TLB: How do you connect your work and organizing to migrant antifascist organizing in the 1990s? What do you see as your lineage of organizing?

Mala: That’s actually very important to us. Often, people become politicized and feel like they need to do something, and think they’re the first ones doing this – like the first antiracist group with a revolutionary perspective. That’s obviously nonsense. But those of us who aren’t part of the official historical narrative have to preserve and dig up this history ourselves and talk about it.

One of the first things we did was organize a reading group on Antifa Gençlik. That’s one of the groups we refer to – a group active in Kreuzberg in the 1990s. KÖXÜZ was another group that published a magazine in the 90s. Café Morgenland was also an antifascist group that did a lot of organizing. Of course, we might have ideological disagreements, but these are migrant-shaped antifascist groups in Germany that we refer to and learn from.

TLB: Could you give an example of something they did that’s important for you today – or something important for you not to repeat?

Sam: A big point was migrant self-defense. That was actually one of the reasons that one of the older groups eventually dissolved – because of a Nazi who didn’t get back up, let’s say. But another key point is analysis: asking why all of this is happening and what exactly is happening.

For example, Café Morgenland observed in the 1990s that things got drastically worse after German reunification – during what people call the Baseballschlägerjahre [this period was also covered in this series]. One comrade said something like: “We moved from trying to prevent racist attacks to a point where it’s already considered a success just to name them after they happen.”  It’s important to consider this shift.

Mala: In terms of concrete struggles: the refugee movement, not just Oranienplatz but also earlier self-organized movements in the 1990s, or migrant labour strikes at Ford and Pierburg. In Kreuzberg in the 1980s, migrant women occupied buildings and said: “We need childcare here.” Many of us were born, raised and socialised in Germany, and there was this realisation that here – whenever there has been right-wing or racist violence – there have always been forms of resistance. All of these things are struggles we refer to. They’re important for building a combative sense of self; to see that the people before us weren’t passive. There was always struggle.

TLB: Why, in your perspective, are specifically migrant antifascist groups necessary? 

Sam: For me, a lot of it is about being able not just to make connections between issues but also to develop practice out of those connections. In the German antifascist tradition there’s often a very strong understanding of things like research, dealing with repression, and the practical “craft” of Antifa work. But connections between struggles often weren’t built.

For example, the huge lack of solidarity from many Antifa structures with Palestine solidarity in recent years is something that simply couldn’t happen in our group – because those connections are our starting point. The question isn’t whether we label ourselves “internationalist,” but whether we develop an internationalist position because of the experiences and political traditions we come from. 

Mala: I’ll answer on a more basic level. It’s a bit tricky to talk about this, because it can quickly sound like we’re organizing purely along identity lines, something which we see as reactionary. We organize along political analysis. But we also say, “come if you are affected by racism.”

We also don’t sit in a circle sharing experiences of racism, but we start from a relatively high level of shared understanding [of racism]. In groups that don’t focus on racism and where people aren’t directly affected, you often have to start from the very basics. That work is also important though, and we do it with such groups every day. 

TLB: What is your relationship with majority-white German left groups?

Mala: A lot of cooperation, actually. We simply see whether we can come together along political lines. For example, we’re based in a space called the Rote Lilly in Neukölln, organized by the Stadtteilkomittee Neukölln. We’re also part of alliances with mixed groups. Our main criterion is whether there’s a left revolutionary perspective.

Sam: Exactly. And that applies equally when we work with non-white groups. Political analysis is central – not identity alone. Sometimes that actually creates more friction than working with white groups. 

TLB: Some of our readership might find this surprising, that it’s possible to work with majority white German left groups. 

Sam: In that case it’s maybe worth emphasizing that despite all criticisms and contradictions with white left structures, we also have to insist on where we are organizing. The threat of fascisation in this country doesn’t come from white leftists. Historically, Germany has been an important site of leftist thought and struggle. And we shouldn’t forget the massive destruction of left and communist organisations in the 20th century – that rupture still shapes things today. There isn’t a huge tradition of experienced older comrades. That rupture matters. 

Mala: We have a slogan: “Migrantifa means class struggle.” With that, we mean the entire working class. We also explicitly claim the history of German communists as part of our own history. We are in this country and we relate to that history. The Rote Lilly is named after a revolutionary woman from Neukölln. Maybe that’s something that distinguishes us from traditional Antifa groups. They do very important work: fighting Nazis by all means necessary is correct and important. But because of the work they do and often their analysis, Antifa groups have tended to isolate themselves from society. We explicitly try not to do that, because we want to be a movement.

The refugee integration crisis in Europe: it is not culture, it is the state 

A left-wing critical reading in the context of rising anti-immigrant right-wing discourse


25/03/2026

A line of Syrian refugees crossing the border of Hungary and Austria on their way to Germany. Hungary, Central Europe, 6 September 2015.

In the midst of the current European political landscape, the question of refugees and integration dominates public debate across many countries, from Germany and France to Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden. Most political parties, including some centre and centre-left parties, tend to explain the success or failure of integration through cultural, religious or ethnic factors, as though these were the decisive determinants of the matter. There is no doubt that religious and cultural factors play a role in certain aspects of integration, yet this role remains limited and insufficient to explain the phenomenon at its core.

The debate across most of Europe, particularly within right-wing and far-right parties and occasionally in some circles that consider themselves part of the left, revolves around language, dress, religious values and what is called “culture”. This narrow focus deliberately or inadvertently conceals the deeper social, economic and political factors, reducing a profoundly complex issue to a simplified electoral slogan that serves the agenda of voter mobilisation more than it seeks to understand the problem or offer realistic and just solutions.

Rather than approaching integration as a complex social and historical process in which structural, psychological and economic factors intertwine, it is reduced to simplified cultural and religious slogans deployed to stoke fear and mobilise voters. Some of this discourse goes beyond the rights-based values enshrined in European constitutions and international human rights instruments, effectively treating European citizens of immigrant origin—particularly those from majority-Muslim countries—as though they were suspects required to continuously prove their innocence, despite the fact that the vast majority of them work, contribute and integrate actively into their societies.

Yet a deeper question is rarely raised in public debate: what does the state mean to those who have spent a large part of their lives under a state that represses and plunders? And how does this deeply ingrained experience shape their relationship with any other state? The matter is not confined to the first generation alone, as this image of the state may pass indirectly to the second generation through the everyday language of the home and the way institutions, authority and law are spoken about. A child who grows up in an environment that views the state with suspicion and fear may inherit that outlook before having any personal experience of it, making the addressing of this psychological and historical dimension a necessity that touches generations, not merely individuals.

The state as they knew it: an apparatus of repression, not a public institution

Many refugees from the Middle East and parts of Asia and Africa have spent most of their lives under corrupt authoritarian states. For them, the state was not a public institution serving society and protecting the rights of its members. In their daily experience, it was a repressive power apparatus working in the interests of a narrow elite at the expense of broader society, bound up with systematic corruption, bribery, security services dominating public life, and bureaucracy unaccountable to the people. It was in most cases an unelected authority or one that resorted to sham elections serving as nothing more than a facade of legitimacy for an already entrenched rule, treating people as submissive subjects rather than citizens with rights.

This deeply rooted experience with falsified elections—or their complete absence—explains an important part of the lower electoral participation rates among European citizens of foreign origin compared to native-born citizens, something researchers observe across many countries. Electoral participation is not an innate behaviour; it is an acquired practice built on a firm conviction that one’s vote makes a real difference. Those who have known nothing in their lives but ballot boxes that change nothing or are used to falsify the popular will need time and tangible experience to be convinced that things are different here.

More importantly, these states in many cases did not arise in a vacuum. They took shape and consolidated power through a close alliance between political rulers and local and global capitalist elites. These were states that frequently received political, military and financial support from Western international powers under the pretext of regional stability and combating extremism, while simultaneously crushing civil society and preventing any form of independent democratic or trade union organisation. The Western societies that today ask why integration is so difficult bear at the same time a considerable degree of historical responsibility for sustaining the regimes that produced these refugees and created within them this deep relationship of suspicion and fear toward the state.

In such repressive and corrupt systems, it becomes entirely natural for people to try to circumvent the state rather than cooperate with it. They avoid official procedures, find ways around laws and avoid paying taxes, and rely on personal and family networks rather than public institutions that no one trusts. This is not an inherited cultural trait in any simple essentialist sense. It is in most cases the logical outcome of a long historical experience with a state that made a practice of repressing and plundering society rather than serving it.

A model born of class struggle

When these refugees arrive in Western Europe, they find themselves confronted with a model entirely different from anything they have known. Although the modern state remains part of a class-based social structure within the capitalist system, most Western European states rest on democratic institutions, free elections, relative institutional transparency and legal rules applied to a large degree equally to all.

Yet this model did not emerge spontaneously, nor was it a gift from the state or the ruling bourgeois class. It is the product of a long and arduous history of class struggles by the labour movement, trade unions, and left-wing and social movements that managed, through collective organisation and sustained political work, to gradually impose a wide-ranging system of social rights. Free public education, universal healthcare, the social security system and workers’ protection laws were not born with the modern European state. They were wrested away through decades of struggle between labour and capital.

Yet these gains are not permanently secured. They are always vulnerable to erosion and circumvention whenever the left and trade union movements weaken and their presence in the public sphere recedes. The history of capitalism demonstrates that capital does not voluntarily surrender what has been taken from it, and that every retreat in the power of collective organisation opens a window for rolling back these rights under ever-renewed pretexts. This is what makes the preservation and development of these gains dependent, in every generation, on the vigilance of progressive movements and the continuity of their organisation and active political participation.

These states also rest on a legal framework grounded in human rights principles, including legal equality between women and men, the separation of religion and state, the protection of children’s rights, and the right of all citizens and residents to education, healthcare and human dignity. For many refugees coming from societies where these rights do not enjoy adequate legal protection, absorbing these rules and understanding their logic is not merely cultural adaptation. It is an essential part of understanding the nature of the secular democratic state itself.

The vast majority of refugees gradually adapt to this model. They learn to trust public institutions, enter the labour market, pay taxes and participate in community life. Yet there remains a small minority that stays captive to the old experience of the state, engaging with the European system through the logic of what they knew in their previous country—working outside the formal framework, circumventing legal procedures, or relying on personal networks rather than public institutions. Among the manifestations of this is also the persistence of certain patterns of patriarchal authoritarian thinking in the management of family affairs, a pattern produced not by culture alone but nurtured by decades of the absence of laws protecting women and the dominance of the logic of force in societies that never knew a state of citizenship.

Integration policies and the problem of understanding the state

The integration difficulties of this minority are most often interpreted as a deep cultural or religious problem requiring more restrictions, tests and conditions. The more precise explanation is that the issue in many cases is a difficult transition from a deeply ingrained conception of the state as an apparatus of repression and corruption to a fundamentally different conception that sees it as an institution of social solidarity worthy of trust and participation.

Current European integration policies do not adequately address this essential dimension. Rather than focusing on explaining the nature of state institutions, how they function and the history of struggle that produced them, integration policies have accumulated under growing pressure from the right and far-right, shifting toward tightening laws, expanding value-based tests and imposing increasing restrictions on residency and social rights. These are policies that proceed from a prior assumption that the refugee is a problem to be contained, not a human being carrying a complex historical experience that needs to be understood.

This approach does not merely fail to achieve integration. It may reinforce in some refugees the old image of the state as a hostile entity lying in wait for them—precisely the opposite of what declared integration policies claim to seek.

What genuine integration requires is a clear explanation of how state institutions grounded in the principle of citizenship actually function, the organic relationship between taxes and public services, and the role of trade unions and labour laws in protecting workers. Learning the language is undoubtedly necessary, but it is not sufficient on its own to understand society.

Genuine integration: a social experience and a shared responsibility

Integration policies can incorporate practical and concrete examples: explaining how schools and hospitals are funded through taxes and how workers obtain their rights through formal employment contracts and trade unions. This understanding can be further reinforced by encouraging refugee participation in political, civic and trade union life and in local associations.

When people see how democratic institutions function in daily life and how labour and trade union movements have wrested broad social rights through collective organisation, integration becomes a genuine social process rather than a mere administrative obligation or a values examination.

Integration also rests on a shared responsibility involving multiple parties. The host society and its institutions bear a responsibility to explain the nature of the state and its history of struggle. The media bears a responsibility to focus on the many positive aspects of the integration journey rather than amplifying certain wrongful practices that remain exceptions rather than the rule.

For their part, the minority that still views the state through the lens of previous experiences is in genuine need of reconsideration. The state in Western Europe, despite its shortcomings and class contradictions, is not an apparatus of daily corruption and repression as many knew it in their previous countries. It is to a significant degree a public institution that guarantees basic rights, provides extensive social services and upholds the law for all.

Respecting laws, registering work, paying taxes and engaging transparently with public institutions are not merely legal obligations. They are a form of genuine participation in a social solidarity system shaped over long decades of struggle by blue-collar and intellectual workers alike and by trade union and social movements.

Political participation: a democratic duty and an act of solidarity

From this very standpoint, participation in political life in all its forms—from joining trade unions and civil associations to taking part in protests and social campaigns, through to voting in elections—becomes an inseparable part of genuine integration in societies whose achievements were built on collective struggle. The electoral vote in a democratic society is a tool of real influence over decisions that affect everyone’s daily life, from the level of health and education services to labour laws and housing policies. European citizens of foreign origin who hold back from this participation due to an inherited distrust of political engagement leave the field open for voices that shape policies at their expense.

In the face of the rising right and far-right across Europe, a clear stake is on the line: preserving and developing the social gains wrested by the historical left, or allowing the ongoing process of their gradual erosion to continue. In this context, the social and environmental left forces that reject racist discourse toward migrants and demand integration policies grounded in equality and human dignity represent the political framework closest to the principles of social justice that produced the European model itself.

There is a question that cannot be bypassed in this context: how do we call on the migrant to integrate into a society we simultaneously describe as a capitalist class society? The answer is that this society, despite its class character, is not a homogeneous bloc. It is a terrain of struggle in which the left and labour movements have, across generations, wrested real and substantial social rights. The integration intended here is not submission to the existing order but active engagement in that very struggle. The migrant who pays their taxes, joins their trade union and participates in political life acquires the tools of collective struggle and becomes a partner in the ongoing effort to transform society, not merely a beneficiary of its achievements.

And those who have long lived under a state that stole their votes and criminalised their political work now have a real opportunity: for their political participation in all its forms to become part of safeguarding and strengthening this model. Integration and the struggle for a more just society are two sides of the same coin.

Trump’s thirst for dominance

The administration’s threat to “take Cuba”


24/03/2026

The United States has economically and diplomatically isolated communist Cuba for longer than any other country.  Following Castro’s revolution in 1959, the Caribbean island has suffered a constant embargo, experiencing recurrent phases of deep crises, for instance during the “Special Period” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. During Obama’s administration, diplomatic and economic ties between the two countries were partially restored, in an effort from Washington to repair bilateral relations with Havana. The election of Trump and the death of Castro in 2016, however, marked a renewed deterioration in relations between the two countries. Trump began reversing Obama’s policies on Cuba, increasing travel and financial restrictions on the island. The situation did not change significantly with Biden, who corrected some of Trump’s measures without lifting the embargo. 

The situation escalated significantly as on the 29th of January this year Trump signed an executive order that authorises tariffs on goods on countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, imposing a de facto naval blockade. In fact, after the successful kidnapping of Maduro, Trump has now turned his attention to the government of Havana, whose supposed “malign influence” he is determined to counter. In an escalation of threats and hostile statements, Trump said last week that he’ll have “the honor of taking Cuba” soon and that he can “do whatever he wants” with the country. The president has not articulated what this would entail, but Washington appears likely to be planning its umpteenth regime change operation.

As we juggle with Trump’s — apparent — erraticism, let us now focus on the current naval blockade. In March, Cuba saw a total collapse of the supply of oil, food, and other goods, with no foreign tankers arriving in Cuba and only three container ships from China, India, and the Netherlands listing the island as their final destination. The temporary easing of sanctions on Russian oil by the Trump administration, aimed at increasing global oil supply amid skyrocketing prices due to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, does not apply to Cuba. However, the country is now expecting two vessels — one sanctioned by the U.S. and carrying 730,000 barrels of fuel — to arrive in the coming days with Russian fuel. Additionally, 650 delegates from 33 countries and 120 organizations began arriving in Cuba on Friday, the 20th, aboard a flotilla called Nuestra América Convoy, carrying over 20 tons of food, medicine, solar panels, and other supplies. 

While we hope to see more oil-carrying tankers reaching the country and humanitarian efforts increasing in the coming weeks, the naval blockade is, at the moment, tragically affecting every aspect of 11 million Cubans’ lives. The country, one of the most oil-dependent in the world for electricity generation, produces barely 40% of the oil it needs to meet its energy needs. Not having electricity means no water reaching homes, as many water systems depend on electricity to operate their pumps. Cubans also started relying on wood-burning stoves for cooking due to the absence of liquefied gas. 

Cuba’s healthcare system, which, despite leading in medical innovation and international health solidarity, was already in a constant state of stress due to the embargo-induced lack of supplies and staff, is now on the brink of collapse. Without fuel, ambulances cannot respond to emergencies, and vital supplies do not reach the Island as airplanes are not able to refuel at its airports. For all the 5 million Cubans who live with chronic illnesses – including 16,000 cancer patients requiring radiotherapy and 12,400 needing chemotherapy  – this means that their treatments will be severely affected.  Another dramatic statistic underscores the gravity of the situation: until 2020, the survival rate for children with cancer was 76%; today, it has dropped to 60%. More than 32,880 pregnant women and their babies are similarly at risk: care for extremely severe maternal morbidity and critical neonates is lacking, children do not receive their vaccines on time, and home ventilation, mechanical aspiration, and air conditioning are critically lacking.  This is just a small glimpse of the embargo’s impact on the country, which is also affecting the education system, one of Cuba’s most famous prides. Since January 3, schools have been operating on reduced schedules, while the university system has been reorganized, and science programs, which require supplies, equipment, and electricity, are now struggling to continue with their daily work.

This increasingly untenable situation has brought people to the streets to protest against the government, something which rarely occurs in Cuba. While these protests stem from the immediate hardship caused by the lack of essential goods, they appear to be taking on an increasingly political dimension. Last week, protesters attacked and tried to set the headquarters of the Cuban Communist Party in the municipality of Morón on fire. While it is true that some people are attributing the responsibility for the current situation to the government, especially among younger generations, others tie it to the current naval blockade, and many look at a possible US military intervention with fear and opposition.  Be that as it may, authorities are slowly undertaking initiatives to ease the island’s economic dire straits. Cuba’s president Díaz-Canel has recently called for “the most urgent and necessary transformations to the economic and social model”, primarily regarding “business autonomy” and “the resizing of the state apparatus”. For instance, while residents were significantly limited from starting private businesses until 2021, the government is now planning to allow members of the Cuban diaspora, including those living in the U.S., to invest in the island.  

Acknowledging the Cuban people’s resentment, or the current government’s willingness to partially reduce state control over the economy, does not imply that the country will accept whatever diktats Washington might impose on its political system. On Monday 16 the New York Times reported that talks appear to be underway between Washington and Havana aimed at removing the country’s elected president.  However, on Friday, Cuba rejected the idea that its government, president, or institutions were up for negotiation. Contrary to the Trump administration’s assumptions, Cuba is not Venezuela; you can’t arrive overnight, kidnap the president, and expect everyone else to fall in line. The country’s revolutionary process has been ongoing for 77 years, profoundly transforming people’s consciousness and institutions. Without delegitimising the current protests, Cuba’s achievements in many sectors cannot be denied: Cuba’s education, healthcare, and civilian production systems have, for decades, and despite the hardships caused by the U.S. embargo, rivaled those of the world’s largest countries. President Díaz-Canel, in a social media post published in January, has made it perfectly clear that they will not give up their political and economic sovereignty to please Trump’s thirst for dominance: “Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign state—nobody dictates what we do,” he said, further stating that “Cuba does not attack; we have been the victims of U.S. attacks for 66 years, and we will prepare ourselves to defend the homeland with our last drop of blood.” 

All eyes on the Ulm 5

Lawyers, families and investigators call for scrutiny on the case of the five activists who remain in pre-trial detention and face up to five years in prison after targeting an arms manufacturer linked to Israel


Siblings and Elders,

We are the Ulm 5, and we are currently being held in five different prisons in South Germany, awaiting trial for resisting the manufacturing of arms and military technology used in the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the military occupation of Palestine as a whole. Your solidarity has kept us waking up with a strong and steadfast spirit. So thank you for taking precious time to visit us in our cells through letters of solidarity. Thank you for breaking the repressive tool of isolation.

While Germany continues to arm and advocate for the genocidal Israeli state, let us be clear that no severity of repression can break our solidarity with our Palestinian siblings. That no severity of repression can break our solidarity with our siblings surviving occupation, colonial and neo-colonial rule all over the world. 

While protecting profit and private property connected to manufacturing genocide remains more important than preventing the greatest crime against humanity, it has been clear for all too long that “nie wieder” is an empty promise.

Germany, you have made your position very clear: international law, human rights and basic decency do not concern you, as long as you are able to secure your geopolitical and economic interests. You will not stop short of aiding barbaric military violence and unthinkable semantic violence in executing and justifying the unjustifiable – genocide.

Now it is time for conscious people of Germany and the world to make our position clear – a position we must make clear day in and day out. We shall not be complicit or satisfied in a system where every tool available is used to legitimise colonialism and occupation and their result – unbelievable suffering. It is our duty to interrupt and disrupt until the narrative is set straight and justice is served. 

To resist through anti-colonial struggle is not just justified, but necessary.

Free Palestine. ! فلسطين حرة

This is the joint statement by the Ulm 5, read at yesterday’s press conference addressing their case – five Berlin-based activists who have been in pre-trial detention for six months, following a non-violent direct action targeting Elbit Systems in Ulm, Germany. 

The press conference, chaired by Nehal Abdulla (Cage International), brought together the defence attorneys Nina Onèr and Matthias Schuster, mothers of Daniel and Zo from the Ulm 5, and investigator Andrew Feinstein (Shadow World Investigations). The speakers framed this case as part of a larger effort to crack down on political dissent in Germany and highlighted how it may be designed to make an example out of the activists.

The case

Daniel, Zo, Crow, Vi and Leandra were arrested on 8 September 2025, after participating in a direct action targeting Elbit Systems in Ulm, Germany, aimed at disrupting the flow of arms to Israel and stopping the genocide in Gaza. Ever since, the activists have been held in pre-trial detention in prisons across south-west Germany – despite this timing violating the principle of expedition in detention matters – and face a potential sentence of up to five years in prison. 

The charges against the Ulm 5 are of trespass, property damage and, most significantly, membership of a criminal organisation, under Section 129 of the German Criminal Code – which, historically, has been used as a tool of political repression. Its elements are so vast that almost any act can be interpreted as support for a criminal organisation. Previous instances where Section 129 was used “were always catalysts for infringing on the rights of the defenders”, lawyer Nina Onèr said. UN rapporteurs have previously criticised Germany for using Section 129 against climate action groups. 

This case needs to be understood in a wider context: Andrew Feinstein, director of Shadow World Investigations, stated that the large majority of genocide scholars consider Israel’s actions in Gaza to constitute violations of international law, and such military operations depend heavily on global arms supply chains. Elbit Systems is a key manufacturer in supplying military and surveillance technology, including drones and targeting systems used in Gaza and Lebanon. According to Feinstein’s team’s analysis of customs data, Germany exported substantial military-related items to Israel in 2024, with a notable share linked to the subsidiary through which Elbit Systems operates in the country. 

Faced with a legal system that fails to address such injustices, direct action and boycott play an important role, as they did in apartheid South Africa, Feinstein said. He added that “the German legal system should trade its focus on those arms companies that continue to enable and facilitate this genocide”, adding, “it is those complicit in genocide that should be on trial, not these five courageous, principled individuals. They should be released immediately”. 

The defence team is seeking to introduce this argument into court, arguing that by acting to disrupt the supply chain linked to unlawful violence against Palestinians, the Ulm 5 acted in defence of others under international law. However, establishing Elbit Systems’ direct involvement will be legally complex to prove, and the defence’s requests for the prosecution team to investigate the company’s role have gone unanswered so far. 

The trial will take place at Stammheim, a maximum-security prison in Stuttgart associated with the Red Army Faction trials in the 1970s. The defence claims this choice might indicate how this may be a “show trial” and that the prosecution is trying to paint a picture that these are “high criminal people, which we strongly oppose”, Onèr said. Besides, the state’s Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht) stated that the five were unlikely to receive a sentence at the lower end of the scale, and that any sentence was unlikely to be suspended – this before the trial even began. 

The detentions

The Ulm 5 are all being held in separate prisons across southwest Germany. According to the lawyers and families, they are facing restrictive conditions and, in some cases, violations of their human rights, such as prolonged solitary confinement of up to 23 hours a day, alongside restricted visits, restricted phone calls, restricted mail, inadequate medical care, and degrading treatment (one of the detainees was stripped naked and kept in a diaper for six hours). 

Beyond this, there have been barriers to preparing a coordinated defence. Appeals against their detention have been repeatedly rejected, and the court has yet to provide clear reasoning for dismissing the defence motions.

Nicky, one of the mothers, recounted how her child struggled to access basic healthcare in prison – or, in the “human dustbin”, as Zo baptised it. Zo’s mother shared how they took on a prison cleaning job, paid at 1,04€/hour – which translates to 15 hours of work to afford a 30-minute call. Beyond their own inhuman treatment, the activists report being traumatised by bearing witness to the treatment of other prisoners – in particular, people of colour. “These are young people who acted without violence,” one mother said, “yet they are being treated as high-level security threats before their trial has even begun.” 

What happens next 

The trial is scheduled to start on 27 April in Stuttgart. For the defence and families, the case could set an important precedent for how political activism – especially Palestine solidarity – is treated in Germany.

The proceedings will be held publicly and include two lay judges, though it remains unclear what influence they may have on the outcome. Lawyers and supporters have emphasised the importance of transparency, calling for strong public and media scrutiny as well as the presence of trial observers to ensure accountability and the protection of fundamental rights. Nehal Abdulla, in her closing remarks, described the case as “not just a legal matter, but a political one,” adding that it will serve as “a test for the integrity of legal and democratic institutions”. 

The demands for this specific case are clear: the immediate release of the Ulm 5, an investigation into Elbit Systems, and justice in the courtroom. But the stakes extend far beyond them, and it should concern and worry us all. In Nina Onèr’s words, “this specific case is a demonstration, and maybe a preview, of what we are to expect in the future from this government towards politically undesirable actors in general, and Palestine solidarity in particular”. 

As of now, court dates are scheduled from the end of April to the end of July (27 April; 4, 6, 11, 20, 22, 29 May; 15, 19, 29 June; 1, 3, 22, 24, 27, 29 July). Possibilities of arranging group transport from Berlin to the court are being discussed.

For all enquiries, write to ulm5media@proton.me.