This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Apr. 25, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

Federal agents arrested a sitting Wisconsin judge on Friday, accusing her of helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest after he appeared in her courtroom last week, FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media.

In a since-deleted post, Patel said the FBI arrested 65-year-old Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan “on charges of obstruction.”

“We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse… allowing the subject—an illegal alien—to evade arrest,” Patel wrote. “Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public.”

It is unclear why Patel deleted the post. U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson Brady McCarron and multiple Milwaukee County judges confirmed Dugan’s arrest, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. McCarron said Dugan is facing two federal felony counts: obstruction and concealing an individual.

The Journal Sentinel reported that Dugan “appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries during a brief hearing in a packed courtroom at the federal courthouse” and “made no public comments during the brief hearing.”

Dugan’s attorney, Craig Mastantuono, told the court that “Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest,” which “was not made in the interest of public safety.”

The FBI had reportedly been investigating allegations that Dugan helped the undocumented man avoid arrest by letting him hide in her chambers.

Wisconsin state Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-19) said in a statement Wednesday that “several witnesses report that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] did not present a warrant before entering the courtroom and it is not clear whether ICE ever possessed or presented a judicial warrant, generally required for agents to access non-public spaces like Judge Dugan’s chambers.”

Clancy continued:

I commend Judge Hannah Dugan’s defense of due process by preventing ICE from shamefully using her courtroom as an ad hoc holding area for deportations. We cannot have a functional legal system if people are justifiably afraid to show up for legal proceedings, especially when ICE agents have already repeatedly grabbed people off the street in retaliation for speech and free association, without even obtaining the proper warrants.

While the facts in this case are still unfolding, it’s clear that actions like Judge Dugan’s are what is required for democracy to survive the Trump regime. She used her position of power and privilege to protect someone from an agency that has repeatedly, flagrantly abused its own power. If enough of us act similarly, and strategically, we can stand with our neighbors and build a better world together.

Prominent Milwaukee defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Franklyn Gimbel called Dugan’s arrest “very, very outrageous.”

“First and foremost, I know—as a former federal prosecutor and as a defense lawyer for decades—that a person who is a judge, who has a residence who has no problem being found, should not be arrested, if you will, like some common criminal,” Gimbel told the Journal Sentinel.

“And I’m shocked and surprised that the U.S. Attorney’s office or the FBI would not have invited her to show up and accept process if they’re going to charge her with a crime,” he added.

Julius Kim, another former prosecutor-turned defense lawyer, said on the social media site X that “practicing in Milwaukee, I know Judge Hannah Dugan well. She’s a good judge, and this entire situation demonstrates how the Trump administration’s policies are heading for a direct collision course with the judiciary.”

“That being said, given the FBI director’s tweet (since deleted), they are going to try to politicize this situation to the max,” Kim added. “That sounds an awful lot like weaponizing the DOJ, doesn’t it?”

The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) was among the groups that condemned Dugan’s arrest.

“This arrest is an escalation in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to dismantle the rule of law and consolidate power,” NWLC director of nominations and democracy Alison Gill said in a statement. “These aggressive attacks on judges are dangerous.”

“President [Donald] Trump has repeatedly shown contempt for the courts and our Constitution, refusing to accept their authority, defying court orders, and encouraging public criticism of due process,” Gill added. “The FBI’s apparent decision to make an example of Judge Dugan is part of a broader and deeply alarming agenda to silence dissent, incite fear, and erode the very institutions that protect our rights. The Trump administration’s lawlessness is a threat to everyone in this country.”

Responding to Dugan’s arrest, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said on the social media site Bluesky: “The Trump admin has arrested a judge in Milwaukee. This is a red alert moment. We must all rise up against it.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Mar. 20, 2025. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

As U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to sign an executive order Thursday directing officials to shut down the Department of Education, Democratic politicians, teachers and communities across the nation are vowing legal and other challenges to the move.

Trump is set to check off a longtime Republican wish list item by signing a directive ordering Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the states.”

Shutting down the department—which was created in 1979 to ensure equitable access to public education and employs more than 4,000 people—will require an act of Congress, both houses of which are controlled by Republicans.

Thursday’s expected order follows the department’s announcement earlier this month that it would fire half of its workforce. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and more than three dozen Democratic senators condemned the move and Trump’s impending Department of Education shutdown as “a national disgrace.”

Abolishing the Department of Education is one of the top goals of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led roadmap for a far-right takeover and gutting of the federal government closely linked to Trump, despite his unconvincing efforts to distance himself from the highly controversial plan.

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) called Trump’s bid to abolish the Department of Education “more bullshit” and vowed to fight the president’s “illegal behavior until the cows come home.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on social media: “Trump and his Cabinet of billionaires are trying to destroy the Department of Education so they can privatize more schools. The result: making it even harder to ensure that ALL students have access to a quality education. Another outrageous, illegal scam. We will fight this.”

It's the billionaires vs. the kids of America.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk side with the billionaires.

I'm siding with our kids and our teachers every time. https://t.co/CIaNw4G4BG

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 20, 2025

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat, warned that “ending the U.S. Department of Education will decimate our education system and devastate families across the country.”

“Support for students with special needs and those in rural and urban schools will be gone,” he added. “We will stop at nothing to protect N.J. and fight this reckless action.”

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA)—the nation’s largest labor union—said in a statement Thursday that “Donald Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America, by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires.”

Musk—the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—is the world’s richest person. Trump and McMahon are also billionaires.

“If successful, Trump’s continued actions will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections,” Pringle warned.

“This morning, in hundreds of communities across the nation, thousands of families, educators, students, and community leaders joined together outside of neighborhood public schools to rally against taking away resources and support for our students,” she continued. “And, we are just getting started. Every day we are growing our movement to protect our students and public schools.”

“We won’t be silent as anti-public education politicians try to steal opportunities from our students, our families, and our communities to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,” Pringle added. “Together with parents and allies, we will continue to organize, advocate, and mobilize so that all students have well-resourced schools that allow every student to grow into their full brilliance.”

Yolanda, a special ed assistant, is on the frontlines of Trump’s attack on public education. His latest move to eliminate the Department of Education threatens her job & the students she supports—along with school aides, bus drivers, custodians & educators who keep our schools… pic.twitter.com/rTiCULim8A

— SEIU (@SEIU) March 20, 2025

National Parents Union president Keri Rodrigues said that closing the Department of Education would disproportionately affect the most vulnerable students and communities.

“Let’s be clear: Before federal oversight, millions of children—particularly those with disabilities and those from our most vulnerable communities—were denied the opportunities they deserved,” Rodrigues said in a statement. “The Department of Education was created to ensure that every child, regardless of background or ZIP code, has access to a public education that prepares them for their future. Eliminating it would roll back decades of progress, leaving countless children behind in an education system that has historically failed the most marginalized.”

The ACLU is circulating a petition calling on Congress to “save the Department of Education.”

“The Department of Education has an enormous effect on the day-to-day lives of students across the country,” the petition states. “They are tasked with protecting civil rights on campus and ensuring that every student—regardless of where they live; their family’s income; or their race, sex, gender identity, or disability—has equal access to education.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, responded to Trump’s looming order in four words: “See you in court.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Oct. 22, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

Israel Defense Forces troops recently forced their way into a United Nations peacekeeper base in southern Lebanon and fired white phosphorus munitions in close enough proximity to injure 15 U.N. personnel, according to a report published Tuesday.

The Financial Times reviewed “a confidential report outlining a dozen recent incidents in which the IDF attacked international troops in Lebanon.” The newspaper said the report was prepared by a country contributing troops to the 10,000-strong U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

UNIFIL forces and facilities have been repeatedly attacked by Israeli troops since the IDF launched a ground invasion of Lebanon earlier this month amid heavy aerial bombardment that has killed or wounded thousands of Lebanese. UNIFIL has condemned attacks on its positions and personnel as a “flagrant violation of international law.”

According to the confidential report, Israeli forces began directly firing on UNIFIL bases on October 8. Two days later, two Indonesian peacekeepers were injured when an IDF tank fired on an observation tower.

In a separate incident that same day, IDF troops opened fire on a UNIFIL bunker where Italian peacekeepers sought refuge.

“This was not a mistake and not an accident,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said following the incident. “It could constitute a war crime and represented a very serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

On October 13, UNIFIL said two IDF tanks crashed through the main gate of one of its bases and fired on a watchtower, destroying cameras and damaging the structure. The tanks left the base after about 45 minutes, following complaints by UNIFIL officials.

However, the report states that within an hour, IDF troops fired what UNIFIL believes were white phosphorus rounds approximately 100 meters, or 328 feet, north of the base, injuring 15 people.

Israel denies deliberately targeting UNIFIL troops and claims without evidence that U.N. peacekeepers are being used as human shields by Hezbollah, which has launched nearly relentless volleys of rockets and other projectiles at Israel in solidarity with Gaza. Israel has demanded the U.N. evacuate its peacekeepers from southern Lebanon. UNIFIL and countries contributing troops to the mission have steadfastly refused.

“Despite the pressure being exerted on the mission and our troop-contributing countries, peacekeepers remain in all positions,” UNIFIL said on Sunday. “We will continue to undertake our mandated tasks to monitor and report.”

White phosphorus is banned for use in civilian areas but is commonly deployed on battlegrounds as a smokescreen or to smoke out enemy forces. It burns as hot as 1,500°F. Water does not extinguish it. Upon contact, white phosphorus burns thermally and chemically straight through to the bone.

It can also enter the bloodstream and cause organ failure. Dressed injuries can reignite when bandages are removed and the wounds are reexposed to oxygen. Relatively mild white phosphorus burns are often fatal. Survivors often suffer various physical disabilities.

Israeli forces have used white phosphorus in Gaza and Lebanon since last October, when Israel retaliated for the deadliest-ever attack on its soil by obliterating the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave in a war for which it is now on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Israel has also used white phosphorus in past wars, including during the 2006 invasion of Lebanon and at a United Nations school during the 2008-09 Operation Cast Lead invasion of Gaza. Responding to a 2013 petition to Israel’s High Court of Justice filed by human rights groups including Human Rights Watch, the IDF said it would no longer use white phosphorus in populated areas, with “very narrow exceptions” that it would not disclose.

Other nations also use white phosphorus, including the United States, whose forces fired munitions containing the chemical agent during the invasion of Iraq and elsewhere across the region during the post-9/11 so-called “War on Terrorism.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sept 18, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

A trio of human rights groups on Wednesday announced a new interactive initiative exposing what the coalition is calling a “Genocide Gentry” of weapons company executives and board members and “54 museums, cultural organizations, universities, and colleges that currently host these individuals on their boards or in other prominent roles.”

The coalition—which consists of the Adalah Justice Project, LittleSis, and Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE)—published a map and database detailing the “educational and cultural ties to board members of six defense corporations” amid Israel’s ongoing annihilation of Gaza, for which the U.S.-backed country is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

“Israel has destroyed every university in Gaza and nearly 200 cultural heritage sites since October 2023, using bombs and weapons manufactured by the companies included in the Genocide Gentry research,” the coalition said. “As of April, these attacks have killed more than 5,479 students and 261 teachers and destroyed or critically damaged nearly 90% of all school buildings in Gaza.”

“Universities across the country including the likes of Columbia University, Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and New York University have remained largely silent on Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza,” the groups added. “Behind closed doors, these same universities are hosting executives and board members of the companies manufacturing the weapons used in these attacks as board members, trustees, and fellows.”

Members of the Genocide Gentry include:

• Jeh Johnson, Lockheed Martin board of directors: Johnson is currently a Columbia University trustee, and sits on the board of directors at MetLife and U.S. Steel. Columbia University notably shut down student protests demanding divestment from weapons companies like Lockheed Martin.
• Brian C. Rogers, RTX board of directors: Rogers is currently a trustee of the Harvard Management Company, tasked with managing the $50 billion endowment. Notably Harvard administrators have cracked down on students demanding divestment from weapons companies like RTX, formerly Raytheon.
• Catherine B. Reynolds, General Dynamics board of directors: Reynolds is a trustee of the Kennedy Center and sponsors a fellowship at New York University, which has also cracked down on anti-genocide protests and recently enacted a policy equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

“Students on university campuses across the country have not only been demanding divestment, but transparency,” said Sandra Tamari, executive director of the Adalah Justice Project. “Transparency about their institutions’ investments, partnerships, donors, and decision-makers, and their connections to individuals and companies directly enabling and profiting off war and genocide.”

“This research helps provide some of this transparency by illuminating just how embedded the interests of the weapons industry are within our institutions, so we can begin chipping away at the power and influence that they wield,” she added.

ACRE campaign director Ramah Kudaimi noted that “as part of its genocide since October 2023, Israel has targeted universities and cultural centers across Gaza, destroying campuses, museums, libraries, and more.”

“That this is all backed by the United States means U.S. educational and cultural institutions have a responsibility to consider what their role is in helping end these war crimes, and that starts with reconsidering their connections with the weapons companies profiting from the destruction,” Kudaimi said.

Munira Lokhandwala, director of the Tech and Training program at LittleSis, said: “This research provides a view into just how embedded the corporate, profit-fueled war machine is in our higher education and cultural institutions. Through this research, we show how the defense industry shapes and influences our civic and cultural institutions, and as a result, their silence around war and genocide.”

“We must ask our institutions: What role are you playing in whitewashing war and destruction by inviting those who profit from manufacturing weapons onto your boards and into your galas?” she added.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on June 11, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

In what case litigants are calling the first time an American jury has held a U.S. corporation legally liable for atrocities abroad, federal jurors in Florida on Monday found that Chiquita Brands International financed a Colombian paramilitary death squad that murdered, tortured, and terrorized workers in a bid to crush labor unrest in the 1990s and 2000s.

The federal jury in West Palm Beach, Florida found the banana giant responsible for funding the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and awarded eight families whose members were murdered by the right-wing paramilitary group $38.3 million in damages.

EarthRights International, which first filed the case—Doe v. Chiquita—in 2007, called the verdict “a milestone for justice.”

“The jury’s decision reaffirms what we have long asserted: Chiquita knowingly financed the AUC, a designated terrorist organization, in pursuit of profit, despite the AUC’s egregious human rights abuses,” the group said.

“By providing over $1.7 million in illegal funding to the AUC from 1997 to 2004, Chiquita contributed to untold suffering and loss in the Colombian regions of Urabá and Magdalena, including the brutal murders of innocent civilians,” EarthRights added. “This historic verdict also means some of the victims and families who suffered as a direct result of Chiquita’s actions will finally be compensated.”

One of the plaintiffs in the case called the verdict the “triumph of a process that has been going on for almost 17 years, for all of us who have suffered so much during these years.”

Plaintiffs’ attorney Agnieszka Fryszman said that “the verdict does not bring back the husbands and sons who were killed, but it sets the record straight and places accountability for funding terrorism where it belongs: at Chiquita’s doorstep.”

The U.S. labor reporting site More Perfect Union called the verdict “an unprecedented win against corporate violence, which could [be] the first of many.”

A Chiquita spokesperson told Fruitnet that the company plans to appeal the verdict.

The AUC was formed in 1997 via the union of right-wing paramilitary groups battling leftist guerrillas—mainly the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN)—in the South American nation’s civil war. Closely linked to Colombia’s U.S.-backed military, the AUC—some of whose members were trained by Israelis—was designated a terrorist organization in 2001 by the U.S. State Department, which cited its “massacres, kidnappings of civilians, and participation in the trafficking of narcotics.”

In 2007, Chiquita pleaded guilty in federal court to funding the AUC and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. The company admitted to paying the AUC via its wholly owned Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, which was also its most profitable operation. Chiquita recorded these transactions as “security payments” or payments for “security” or “security services” in its corporate records.

Chiquita said that it began making the payments after Carlos Castaño, who led the AUC at the time, implied that Banadex’s employees and property could be harmed. However, despite—critics say because of—the payments, AUC members brutally targeted Banadex workers in what victims and their advocates say was an effort to suppress labor unrest.

An earlier lawsuit described the fate of one victim, who is identified by the pseudonym “Pablo Pérez”:

In the early morning hours of November 1, 1997, a group of heavily armed paramilitaries dressed in camouflaged uniforms stormed Pablo Pérez’s home in the village of Guacamayal, in the banana zone of Magdalena, while he was sleeping. The paramilitaries broke down the door to the home, found and seized him, tied him up, and forced him to accompany them at gunpoint, beating him as they kidnapped him. His corpse was found the following morning with signs of torture and two gunshots, one to the head and one to the body.

According to plaintiffs in that case, in 2001 a ship carrying 3,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 5 million rounds of ammunition left Nicaragua and, instead of heading to its declared destination in Panama, dropped off the arms at a Banadex-run port in Turbo, Colombia. Castaño called the procurement “the greatest achievement by the AUC so far.”

The earlier lawsuit states that in addition to using the money provided by Chiquita to “drive the leftist guerrillas out of the Santa Marta and Uraba banana-growing regions,” AUC militants would “resolve complaints and problems with banana workers and labor unions.”

“Among other things, when individual banana workers became ‘security problems,’ Chiquita notified the AUC, which responded to the company’s instructions by executing the individual,” the document states. “According to AUC leaders, a large number of people were executed on Chiquita’s instructions in the Santa Marta region.”

Chiquita has a long history of deadly repression against workers. Formerly the United Fruit Company (UFC)—the infamous “Octopus”—the New Orleans-based behemoth monopolized land and markets throughout Latin America in the 20th century. Through slick marketing campaigns, UFC introduced the previously unknown banana to consumers in North America and beyond. The company propped up so-called “banana republics”—extraction economies characterized by state repression, severely stratified social classes, and compliant local plutocracies—throughout the region.

UFC stopped at nothing, including participation in U.S.-backed coups, to protect its property and profits. By the 1930s, UFC controlled around 90% of the U.S. banana import business. It owned or controlled nearly half of Guatemala’s land in the 1940s.

In Colombia, where UFC workers earned the approximate equivalent of $1 per month, UFC refused to negotiate with workers who went on strike in 1928 in Ciénaga, near Santa Marta. U.S. and UFC officials falsely portrayed the strike as communist subversion and Colombia’s right-wing government deployed 700 troops to crush the labor action. The U.S. Embassy subsequently informed then-Secretary of State Frank Kellogg that “I have the honor to report… that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded 1,000.”

Violence against Colombian banana workers continued into the 21st century, often with impunity for the perpetrators. Litigants in Doe v. Chiquita said Monday’s jury decision marked the beginning of a new era of accountability.

“This verdict sends a powerful message to corporations everywhere: profiting from human rights abuses will not go unpunished,” EarthRights International general counsel Marco Simons said in a statement. “These families, victimized by armed groups and corporations, asserted their power and prevailed in the judicial process.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Apr. 10, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said his administration is weighing the Australian government’s requests to drop charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been deprived of his freedom since 2010 and is currently jailed in London’s notorious Belmarsh Prison while fighting extradition to the United States.

Asked by reporters at the White House about requests from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and members of the country’s Parliament for the U.S. and United Kingdom to drop the extradition effort and charges against Assange—an Australian citizen—Biden said that “we’re considering it.”

Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, responded to Biden’s remarks on social media. “Do the right thing,” she wrote. “Drop the charges. #FreeAssangeNOW.”

Srećko Horvat, a Croatian philosopher and co-founder of the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 pan-European progressive political party, said that “this would be the best decision Biden ever made.”

British journalist Afshin Rattansi asked, “Why has Julian Assange been put through this ordeal in the first place?”

Assange—who is 52 years old and suffers from various health problems—faces multiple U.S. charges under the Espionage Act and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for his role in publishing classified government documents, some of them revealing war crimes and other misdeeds. Among the files published by WikiLeaks are the “Collateral Murder” video—which shows a U.S. Army helicopter crew killing a group of Iraqi civilians—the Afghan and Iraq war logs.

Three U.S. administrations have pursued charges against Assange. During the administration of former President Donald Trump—who is the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee—officials including then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo allegedly plotted to assassinate Assange to avenge WikiLeaks’ publication of the “Vault 7” documents exposing CIA electronic warfare and surveillance activities. In 2010, Trump called for Assange’s execution.

The U.K. High Court ruled last month that Assange could not be immediately extradited to the U.S., where he faces up to 175 years behind bars if convicted on all counts. The tribunal gave the Biden administration until April 16 to guarantee that Assange won’t face the death penalty. Absent such assurance, Assange will be allowed to continue appealing his extradition.

Last month, Assange’s legal team denied reports that a plea deal with the U.S. government may have been in the works.

Assange has been imprisoned in Belmarsh since 2019. Before that, he spent nearly seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he had been granted political asylum under the government of leftist former President Rafael Correa.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found in 2016 that Assange had been arbitrarily deprived of his freedom since his first arrest on December 7, 2010. In 2019, Nils Melzer, then the U.N.’s special rapporteur on torture, said Assange had been subjected to “psychological torture.”

Following the High Court’s decision last month, Amnesty International legal adviser Simon Crowther said that “the U.S. must stop its politically motivated prosecution of Assange, which puts Assange and media freedom at risk worldwide.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 23, 2024. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

Amid a nearly 16-month strike by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette employees, the union representing workers at Pennsylvania’s top newspaper by circulation on Monday filed an official grievance condemning the use of artificial intelligence to create an illustration published in the previous day’s edition.

“The Post-Gazette‘s attempt to replace our labor with artificial intelligence is a serious concern to journalists not just in Pittsburgh, but all across the country,” Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh president Zack Tanner said in a statement Tuesday. “As newsroom jobs continue to disappear due to corporate greed and mismanagement, we stand firmly against any use of AI that takes work out of union members’ hands.”

Post-Gazette production, distribution, and advertising workers have been on strike since October 2022, primarily over the loss of their healthcare plan. According to union officials, Block Communications, the paper’s owner, refused to pay an additional $19 per week for each employee to keep workers’ existing coverage.

The paper’s workers have been without a contract since March 2017, when the previous collective bargaining agreement expired without a replacement.

Newspaper Guild workers are demanding:

• An end to the impasse in contract negotiations;
• Undoing the unilaterally imposed working conditions and reinstatement of terms of the expired 2014-17 newsroom contract;
• A return to the bargaining table to reach a fair deal with the journalists represented by the Newspaper Guild; and
• Meeting the healthcare demands of striking sister unions.

Block Communications has hired more than two dozen strike-breaking workers to ensure continued Post-Gazette publication during the prolonged union action. However, this is apparently the first time management has passed over human workers in favor of AI.

“AI will not scab us,” the Newspaper Guild defiantly declared, using the colloquial labor term usually reserved for human beings who cross picket lines.

Common Dreams reported last year how the AI and fake content industries pose an increasing threat to journalists’ livelihoods around the world.

“As the [Post-Gazette] resists working with us to put an end to this strike, they continue to sink to new lows in an effort to crank out whatever product they can cobble together,” Jen Kundrach, a striking illustrator at the paper, said Tuesday. “That they’ve resorted to the use of inferior, AI-generated images rather than custom art by a staff illustrator shows how little they must value the talent of their guild staff. They’d rather squander that talent and put out a subpar newspaper than come to the table and reach a fair agreement with us.”

Post-Gazette workers are buoyed by a January 2023 National Labor Relations Board ruling that found management did not negotiate in good faith, imposed illegal working conditions, and unlawfully surveilled unionizing workers. Block Communications legal representatives appealed the decision. Strikers and their supporters are slated to attend a Saturday strategy session at the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers Union Hall at 10 19th Street in the South Side Flats.

Tanner asserted that if management thinks “that this fight is over, they are dead wrong.”

“Workers on strike won’t stop fighting, because Pittsburgh deserves a newspaper created by union labor, not artificial intelligence or scab workers,” he added.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Oct. 10, 2023. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

Progressive writers and advocates around the world on Tuesday rallied behind acclaimed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy after a top New Delhi official reportedly approved her prosecution for allegedly advocating for the secession of the disputed and brutally occupied Kashmir region during a “provocative” 2010 speech.

Indian media reported that Delhi Lt. Gov. V.K. Saxena breathed new life into a 2010 criminal complaint accusing Roy—winner of the 1997 Booker Prize for her debut novel The God of Small Things—of sedition for asserting that Kashmir “has never been an integral part of India.”

Sources told The Hindu that a first information report (FIR)—a document prepared by law enforcement officials when they receive actionable information regarding alleged serious offenses—was registered in New Delhi’s Court of Metropolitan Magistrate under various sections of the Indian Penal Code. Two co-defendants in the case have since died.

Roy, who is 61 years old, has been an outspoken critic of what she calls India’s “descent… into full-blown fascism” under the ruling right-wing Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and its “Hindu supremacism.”

Earlier this month, Roy spoke at a Delhi protest following coordinated police raids on the homes of prominent reporters, condemning what she and other human rights activists called government abuse of anti-terrorism laws to oppress critical writers, journalists, and activists.

“The timing of this is not coincidence. The Modi regime is finally set to prosecute Arundhati Roy,” wrote Arjun Sethi, an activist, lawyer, and adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.

The Modi government has closely aligned itself with Israel and its illegal occupation of Palestine. Sethi warned that far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “brutal war” on the Palestinian territory Gaza, “with the approval of global powers, will embolden authoritarians across the world.”

Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, wrote on social media that it is “interesting what Indian authorities consider ‘provocative speech.'”

“They protect government supporters that incite violence and hate, and appear keen to prosecute peaceful critics,” she added.

Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of the pan-European leftist political party DiEM25 Yanis Varoufakis posted a message to Modi: “Hands off Arundhati Roy, India’s, and perhaps the world’s, finest author.”

The international advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranks India 161st out of 180 nations in press freedom, noting in its 2023 country report that “violence against journalists, the politically partisan media, and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in ‘the world’s largest democracy.'”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Aug. 4, 2023. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

A U.S. federal appellate court on Friday ruled that a Jim Crow-era Mississippi law permanently disenfranchising people with certain felony convictions is unconstitutional.

In a decision that can be appealed to the full U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel of the tribunal ruled 2-1 that Section 241 of Mississippi’s 1890 Constitution “violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.”

Last August, the 5th Circuit affirmed Section 241, with dissenting Judge James E. Graves Jr., a Black Mississippian, lamenting that when his colleagues were “handed an opportunity to right a 130-year-old wrong, the majority instead upholds it.”

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the ruling, prompting a scathing dissent from liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

“In the last 50 years, a national consensus has emerged among the state legislatures against permanently disenfranchising those who have satisfied their judicially imposed sentences and thus repaid their debts to society,” Friday’s ruling states. “Mississippi stands as an outlier among its sister states, bucking a clear national trend in our nation against permanent disenfranchisement.”

Friday’s ruling is the result of a 2018 lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and ACLU on behalf of plaintiffs including Dennis Hopkins, who has been disenfranchised since 1998 due to a grand larceny conviction.

“In school, they teach our kids that everybody’s vote counts, but no matter how I’ve lived for the past 20 years, I don’t count, not my values or my experience,” Hopkins said when the suit was filed. “I have paid Mississippi what I owe it in full, but I still can’t cast my vote for my children’s future.”

Section 241 “mandates permanent, lifetime disenfranchisement of a person convicted of a crime of any one of ‘murder, rape, bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement, or bigamy,'” according to the ruling.

As the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) notes, “Section 241 permanently disenfranchises people convicted of 10 specific crimes, eight of which were chosen by all-white delegates in 1890 and based on their belief that Black people were more likely than white people to be convicted of those crimes.”

There are currently more than 20 crimes that disenfranchise Mississippians from voting. The state—which according to the Sentencing Project is one of only 12 with lifetime disenfranchisement—added 11 more offenses to the ban list in 2005.

In contrast, everyone age 18 and up—including currently incarcerated individuals—has the right to vote in Maine and Vermont.

While Black Mississippians are 36% of Mississippi’s voting-age population, they make up 59% of its disenfranchised people.

“Section 241 is Jim Crow law, which created a deliberate and invidious scheme to disenfranchise Black people,” said LDF assistant counsel Patricia Okonta.

“Today, Black Mississippians continue to be disproportionately harmed by this provision,” Okonta added. “While the state is home to the highest percentage of Black Americans of any state in the country, it has not elected a Black person to statewide office since 1890.”

According to the Felony Murder Elimination Project, a California-based advocacy group:

Over 215,000 people in Mississippi were disenfranchised as of 2019, representing almost 10% of the entire state population. Of this total, only 7% are incarcerated. The remaining 93% are living in the community either under probation or parole supervision, or have completed their criminal sentence. The number of African American residents disenfranchised in Mississippi numbered 127,130 in 2016 or nearly 16% of the Black electorate.

“No one disputes that Mississippi’s felon disenfranchisement law was enacted more than 100 years ago for the announced purpose of maintaining white supremacy and blocking Black citizens from voting,” ACLU national legal director David Cole said in a statement.

“Racially motivated laws don’t become valid over time,” Cole added. “It’s just as unconstitutional today as it was when it was enacted. That such a law remains on the books today is a stain on the state’s law books, and plainly unconstitutional.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 19, 2023. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

A voting rights group on Wednesday sued Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials for what it called “illegal intimidation” of voters by intentionally making it difficult for former felons to determine their voting eligibility and using “election police” to “mount an aggressive campaign” against people who did not know they were ineligible to cast ballots.

The lawsuit—filed in Miami federal court by Free and Fair Litigation Group, Arnold & Porter, and Weil Gotshal & Manges working pro bono on behalf of the Florida Rights Restoration Committee (FRRC) and individual voters—alleges that state election officials “have created such a bureaucratic system around the implementation of Amendment 4 that it prevents Florida citizens from voting.”

Amendment 4 is an FFRC-led 2018 referendum approved by nearly two-thirds of Florida voters reenfranchising 1.4 million people with past felony convictions. The stakes transcended Florida and criminal justice reform, as a botched state voter purge of purported former felons played what one federal civil rights commissioner called an “outcome determinative” role in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

“Ever since the people of Florida passed a constitutional amendment to grant people with felony convictions a new right to vote, the governor and the state have done everything in their power to prevent those 1.4 million new voters from actually voting,” Carey Dunne of the Free and Fair Litigation Group said in a statement.

Additionally, FFRC alleges that DeSantis’ deployment of statewide “election police” constitutes illegal voter intimidation under the federal Voting Rights Act.

DeSantis—who is seeking the 2024 GOP presidential nomination—has faced widespread criticism for using Florida’s Office of Election Crimes and Security to arrest 20 formerly incarcerated people who believed they were eligible to vote under Amendment 4 for alleged “voter fraud.” Most of those arrested were Black and almost all were Democrats.

The new lawsuit alleges that DeSantis and Florida election officials failed to uphold their legal responsibilities by:

• Providing inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading information to potential voters who try to determine their voting eligibility;
• Creating a byzantine process in which voter eligibility is determined by varying local practices depending on where the potential voter lives; and
• Creating, publicizing, and deploying an “election police” unit designed to arrest people for having voted, including some people encouraged to register to vote and provided a voter ID by Florida election officials.

“Florida’s failure to accept responsibility in determining voter eligibility hurts every Florida citizen,” said FFRC executive director Desmond Meade.

“This is not a Black, white, Latino, Native American, Asian, or multiracial issue or a Republican or Democrat issue; this is an everybody issue,” Meade added. “If Floridians cannot rely on the state to determine voter eligibility, then who can we rely on?”

The plaintiffs in the suit are seeking a declaration that “Florida’s implementation of Amendment 4 is unconstitutional and illegal under the Voting Rights Act.”

FRRC also requests the creation of a statewide database for prospective voters in order to determine their eligibility under Amendment 4, as well as the appointment of a federal compliance monitor.

“From the governor on down, state of Florida and local officials at every level have failed to reintegrate returning citizens who have served their time back into our democracy,” Arnold & Porter pro bono counsel John A. Freedman said in a statement. “We are proud to stand with our clients and our co-counsel in this important fight.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on June 30, 2023. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

Proponents of student debt cancellation reacted angrily Friday to what the leading activist group Debt Collective called President Joe Biden’s “horseshit” response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s invalidation of his proposal to forgive $400 billion worth of educational loan debt for tens of millions of borrowers.

In a Friday afternoon White House address, Biden vowed he was “not going to stop fighting to deliver borrowers what they need, particularly those at the bottom end of the economic scale,” and that his administration would create a “ramp repayment program” to help struggling debtors make their monthly loan payments when they resume in the autumn.

“I believe that the court’s decision to strike down our student debt relief plan is wrong,” Biden said. “But I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families.”

That, the president said, includes invoking the Higher Education Act (HEA) in order to empower the Department of Education to deliver loan relief.

Biden urged patience, saying action is “gonna take more time” and tweeting that “we’re moving as fast as we can.”

“Not fast enough,” Debt Collective co-founder Astra Taylor shot back.

“The problem is speed,” Taylor wrote on Twitter. “This plan buys time for more baseless, bad faith, billionaire-backed lawsuits to get lined up with rogue judges eager to block anything that helps working people. Under HEA you can cancel debt immediately. That’s what fighting looks like.”

“Time is of the essence,” Taylor stressed.

Debt Collective called Biden’s so-called Plan B “worse than this morning’s Supreme Court ruling.”

“He is stabbing student debtors in the back. This is a deeply cynical approach they know will fail,” the group said. “It is designed to make sure future administrations cannot cancel debt under the HEA.”

“Today Biden joined the six conservatives on SCOTUS to make sure no student debt is coming,” Debt Collective added.

Even before Biden’s Friday speech, activists warned what inaction or inadequate action by Biden could mean.

“Democrats desperately need young people to turn out in 2024 and future elections,” the youth-led progressive groups Debt Collective, Sunrise Movement, Gen Z for Change, Path to Progress, March for Our Lives, and United We Dream Action said in a joint statement published just before Biden’s speech.

“Young people believed President Biden would deliver student debt abolition—not a costly return to repayment without a penny of the promised relief. Meanwhile, our skies are choked orange with wildfire smoke, and the average monthly student debt payment is north of $400 a month,” the groups continued. “And from approving the Willow Project and the Mountain Valley Pipeline, to their cruel asylum policies, President Biden cannot afford another disappointment with young people—a vital voting bloc for Democrats.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on June 13, 2023. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

A delegation of Indigenous leaders from Brazil is in Peru this week to join forces with their counterparts there who are fighting to stop proposed legislation many critics call the “genocide bill” due to fears its passage could result in uncontacted tribes being wiped out by fossil fuel companies and other rapacious resource extractors.

Members of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA), a coalition of tribes from the Amazon region, joined the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP) and the Regional Organization of Eastern Indigenous Peoples (ORPIO) on Tuesday during a joint session of Peru’s Congress ahead of a Wednesday meeting of a congressional decentralization committee debating 3518/2022-CR, a bill that would modify a law protecting uncontatced tribes.

“For the Indigenous, there are no borders. This is an invention of the states,” UNIVAJA coordinator Bushe Matis said at the Peruvian Congress on Tuesday. “If the project were approved, it is very dangerous, as happened with my people, the Matsés, who were contacted in 1976 and caught the flu, which killed many people.”

Speaking at the same press conference, AIDESEP president Jorge Pérez said that “just as there are beneficial laws, there are also laws that can harm. In our opinion, this bill is negative.”

The proposed legislation was introduced by Peruvian Congressman Jorge Morante Figari, a member of the far-right Popular Force party run by Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former dictator Alberto Fujimori. Right-wing lawmakers are trying to push the bill through amid the deadly political chaos that followed the December 2022 ouster of former leftist leader Pedro Castillo and what opponents call a political coup by unelected U.S.-backed President Dina Boluarte.

Critics say that the 25 uncontacted and recently contacted Indigenous peoples in Peru who have been officially recognized could lose that recognition if the bill is passed, that reserves established for these people could be revoked with no prospect for the allocation of new reserves, and that Indigenous lands will be subject to further exploitation by fossil fuel, logging, and mining companies.

Peru’s Ministry of Culture says 3518/2022-CR “represents a danger to the protection of the life and territory of the Indigenous peoples.”

The proposal has sparked worldwide alarm, with the British, Canadian, and German ambassadors to Peru signing a joint letter urging the decentralization committee to shelve the legislation. More than 10,000 people have also signed a petition against the bill.

Teresa Mayo of the London-based Indigenous rights group Survival International—which calls 3518/2022-CR “a naked land grab by the oil and gas industry”—said Tuesday that “the genocide bill is the most serious attack on Peru’s uncontacted tribes in decades.”

“All the rights and protections that Peru’s Indigenous people and their allies have fought so hard for, over many years, are now at risk of being extinguished with a stroke of the pen,” Mayo continued.

“These rights are under attack in Brazil too, which is why Indigenous people have joined hands across the Peru-Brazil border to fight these genocidal plans,” she added. “It’s a moment of desperate danger—the very survival of dozens of uncontacted tribes is now at risk.”

While Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva, Brazil’s leftist president, has centered Indigenous rights during his five-month administration, the Brazilian Congress—which is controlled by right-wing lawmakers—last month voted to limit the power of a pair of ministries tasked with protecting Indigenous peoples and the environment.

Survival International reported earlier this year that 3518/2022-CR was drafted by Peruvian legislators with ties to fossil fuel corporations, including Perenco, an Anglo-French oil company operating inside uncontacted tribes’ lands. Perenco and other companies, as well as right-wing Peruvian lawmakers, are trying to block finalization of the Napo-Tigre Indigenous Reserve, which would protect five isolated communities from intrusion and exploitation of lands and resources by extractive interests.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on May 29, 2023. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

As supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at home and abroad celebrated his win of Sunday’s runoff election, human rights defenders and marginalized people including Kurds and LGBTQ+ activists voiced deep fears about how their lives will be adversely affected during the increasingly authoritarian leader’s third term.

Turkey’s Supreme Election Council confirmed Erdoğan’s victory over Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on Sunday evening. Erdoğan, the 69-year-old leader of the right-wing Justice and Development Party who has ruled the nation of 85 million people since 2014 and dominated its politics for two decades, won 52.18% of the vote. Kılıçdaroğlu, a 74-year-old social democrat who leads the left-of-center Republican People’s Party, received 47.82%.

Erdoğan—who was seen handing out cash to supporters at a polling station in an apparent violation of Turkish election law—mocked his opponent’s loss outside the president’s home in Istanbul, saying, “Bye, bye, bye, Kemal” as the winner’s supporters booed, according to Al Jazeera.

“The only winner today is Turkey,” Erdoğan declared as he prepared for a third term in which his country faces severe economic woes—inflation has soared and the lira is at a record low against the U.S. dollar—and is struggling to recover from multiple devastating earthquakes earlier this year.

However, in Turkish Kurdistan—whose voters, along with a majority of people in most of Turkey’s largest cities favored Kılıçdaroğlu—people expressed fears that the government will intensify a crackdown it has been waging for several years.

Ardelan Mese, a 26-year-old cafe owner in Diyarbakir, the country’s largest Kurdish-majority city, called Sunday’s election “a matter of life and death now.”

“I can’t imagine what he will be capable of after declaring victory,” Mese said of Erdoğan in an interview with Reuters.

After initially courting the Kurds by expanding their political and cultural rights, Erdoğan returned to the repression that has long characterized Turkey’s treatment of a people who make up one-fifth of the nation’s population, while intensifying a war against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a far-left separatist group that Turkey, the United States, and other nations consider a terrorist organization.

“Erdogan’s victory will consolidate one-man rule and pave the way for horrible practices, bringing completely dark days for all parts of society,” Tayip Temel, the deputy co-chair of Turkey’s second-largest opposition party, the center-left and pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)—which backed Kılıçdaroğlu—told Reuters.

Human rights defenders—many of whom have chosen or been forced into exile—also sounded the alarm over the prospect of a third Erdoğan term.

“If the opposition wins there will be space, even possibly limited, for discussions for a common future. With Erdoğan, there is no civic or political space for democracy and human rights,” Murat Çelikkan, a journalist who founded human rights groups including Amnesty International Turkey, said in an interview with Civil Rights Defenders just before Sunday’s runoff.

Çelikkan called Erdoğan a “very authoritarian, religious, pro-expansionist conservative.”

“Turkey, according to judicial statistics, has the largest number of terrorists in the world, because the prosecutors and judges have an inclination to use anti-terror laws arbitrarily and lavishly,” he continued. “There are tens of thousands of people who are being trialed or convicted by anti-terror laws. Thousands of people insulting the president.”

“Nowhere in Turkey you can make a peaceful demonstration and protest,” Çelikkan added. “The security forces directly attack and detain you. The minister of interior targets and criminalizes LGBTI+ people on a daily basis.”

LGBTQ+ Turks voiced fears for their future following a campaign in which Erdoğan centered homophobia in his appeals to an overwhelmingly Muslim electorate and repeatedly accused Kılıçdaroğlu and other opposition figures of being gay. During his victory speech Sunday evening, Erdoğan again lashed out at the LGBTQ+ community while excoriating Kılıçdaroğlu for his campaign pledge to “respect everyone’s beliefs, lifestyles, and identities.”

Erdoğan vowed in his speech that gays would not “infiltrate” Turkey and that “we will not let the LGBT forces win.” At one point during his address, an Al Jazeera interpreter stopped translating a 45-second portion when the president called members of the opposition gay.

Ilker Erdoğan, a 20-year-old university student and LGBTQ+ activist, told Agence France-Presse that “I feel deeply afraid.”

“Feeling so afraid is affecting my psychology terribly. I couldn’t breathe before, and now they will try to strangle my throat,” he added. “From the moment I was born, I felt that discrimination, homophobia, and hatred in my bones.”

Ameda Murat Karaguzu, a project assistant at an unnamed pro-LGBTQ+ group, told AFP that she has been “subjected to more hate speech and acts of hate than I have experienced in a long time.”

Karaguzu blamed Erdoğan’s government for the increasing hostility toward LGBTQ+ Turks, adding that bigots are keenly “aware that there will be no consequences for killing or harming us.”

Ilker Erdoğan struck a defiant tone, telling AFP that “I am also part of this nation, my identity card says Turkish citizen.”

“You cannot erase my existence,” he added, “no matter how hard you try.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on April 12, 2023. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

While Big Ag cheered Wednesday’s ruling by a federal judge in North Dakota temporarily blocking a key Biden administration clean water rule, Indigenous and environmental groups decried the decision—which critics said threatens critical protections for waterways in over two dozen affected states.

Reuters reports U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—issued a preliminary injunction against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule after 24 states sued the Biden administration.

“This ruling readily bows to the forces in this country that have been trying for years to gut the Clean Water Act, throwing science under the bus and disregarding water safeguards for downstream communities and tribes,” Janette Brimmer, an attorney for the green legal advocacy group Earthjustice who is defending the WOTUS rule on behalf of four Indigenous tribes, said in a statement.

“We will not give in to these forces; we will double down and fight along with our partners to ensure the law and science prevail and the will of the vast majority of citizens for clean water is carried out,” Brimmer added.

Last month, Texas and Idaho were granted a separate injunction against the rule by U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump.

According to Progressive Farmer, Hovland’s ruling means that the WOTUS rule—which establishes protections for wetlands and seasonal streams—is now on hold in 24 more states: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

In 2020, the Trump administration rolled back WOTUS, which originated during the tenure of former President Barack Obama. The Biden administration revived the rule and last December it was finalized by the EPA.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden vetoed legislation passed by Republicans and corporate Democrats in Congress that would have eviscerated the administration’s ability to enforce WOTUS.

Hovland stopped short of issuing the nationwide injunction against WOTUS sought by the American Farm Bureau Federation and other agriculture industry interest groups. Still, Big Ag and Republican politicians in affected states overwhelmingly welcomed the injunction against what they say is a major act of government overreach.

Indigenous leaders, however, slammed Wednesday’s ruling.

“Clean water is essential to tribal citizens’ spiritual, physical, mental well-being, and survival” Gary Harrison, traditional chief of the Chickaloon Native Village in Alaska, said in a statement. “Removing vital clean water safeguards will harm wetlands and streams that sustain tribal citizens, including myself.”

G. Anne Richardson, chief of the Rappahannock tribe in Virginia, said that “the court’s order threatens to strip vital protections from the network of waters that have been the lifeblood of the Rappahannock Tribe since time immemorial.”

“Without the Clean Water Act,” she added, “projects that would destroy important wetlands and streams could get rammed through without any opportunity for the tribe to object.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on April 9, 2023. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott drew widespread condemnation from legal experts after he said Saturday that he is “working as swiftly” as the law allows to pardon a man who was convicted the previous day of murdering a racial justice protester in 2020.

Daniel Perry, a U.S. Army sergeant, was convicted by an Austin jury on Friday of murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the fatal shooting of 28-year-old Garrett Foster, an armed Air Force veteran participating in a Black Lives Matter protest in the Texas capital following George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police.

After tweeting that he “might have to kill a few people on my way to work” as an Uber driver, Perry accelerated his car into a crowd of racial justice protesters in downtown Austin on July 25, 2020. As Foster, who was pushing his fiancée’s wheelchair, approached Perry’s vehicle carrying an AK-47 rifle in accordance with Texas law, Perry opened his window and shot Foster four times in the chest and abdomen with his .357 Magnum pistol. When asked by police if Foster had pointed his rifle at him, Perry admitted that he did not, but said that “I didn’t want to give him a chance to aim at me.”

After an eight-day trial and 17 hours of deliberation, the Austin jury rejected Perry’s claim of self-defense. However, Abbott tweeted that “Texas has one of the strongest ‘stand your ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney,” a reference to Travis County District Attorney José Garza, a Democrat.

“Unlike the president or some other states, the Texas Constitution limits the governor’s pardon authority to only act on a recommendation by the Board of Pardons and Paroles,” Abbott wrote. “Texas law does allow the governor to request the Board of Pardons and Paroles to determine if a person should be granted a pardon. I have made that request and instructed the Board to expedite its review.”

“I look forward to approving the board’s pardon recommendation as soon as it hits my desk,” he added.

Rick Cofer, a partner at the Austin law firm of Cofer & Connelly, noted that “Garrett Foster was killed protesting the killing of George Floyd,” and that “in 2022, the Texas Board of Pardons unanimously recommended that Floyd be pardoned for a drug charge, in which a crooked cop planted drugs.”

“Facing pressure, Abbott got the board to yank the recommendation,” Cofer added. “Now the man who killed Garrett Foster, while Foster protested George Floyd’s murder, will be pardoned. George Floyd’s pardon is still stuck with the Board of Pardons. If a fiction author wrote this, no one would believe it.”

David Wahlberg, a former Travis County criminal court judge, said he has never heard of a case in which a governor sought to pardon a convicted felon before their verdict was appealed.

“I think it’s outrageously presumptuous for someone to make a judgment about the verdict of 12 unanimous jurors without actually hearing the evidence in person,” Wahlberg told the Austin American-Statesman.

Wendy Davis, an attorney and former Texas state lawmaker and Fort Worth city councilmember, called Abbott’s move “nothing more than a craven political maneuver.”

“Our democracy is imperiled when any branch of government moves to usurp another,” Davis argued on Twitter. “And it’s happening all over this country on a regular basis.”

Abbott’s announcement came less than 24 hours after Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson sharply criticized the governor on his show, claiming that “there is no right of self-defense in Texas.”

The governor also faced pressure from right-wing figures including Kyle Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of murder and other charges after he shot dead two racial justice protesters and wounded a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020.

Abbott has also threatened to “exonerate” 19 Austin police officers indicted for attacking and injuring Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, asserting that “those officers should be praised for their efforts, not prosecuted.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on March 23, 2023. It is shared here with permission.

Civil and digital rights groups this week joined a trio of progressive U.S. lawmakers in opposing bipartisan proposals to ban the social media platform TikTok, arguing that such efforts are rooted in “anti-China” motives and do not adequately address the privacy concerns purportedly behind the legislation.

The ACLU argues that, if passed, legislation recently introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate “sets the stage for the government to ban TikTok,” which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance and is used by more than 1 in 3 Americans. The Senate bill would grant the U.S. Department of Commerce power to prohibit people in the United States from using apps and products made by companies “subject to the jurisdiction of China” and other “foreign adversaries.”

“The government shouldn’t be able to tell us what social media apps we can and can’t use,” the ACLU asserted via Twitter. “We have a right to free speech.”

In a Wednesday letter led by the free expression advocacy group PEN America, 16 organizations including the ACLU argued that “proposals to ban TikTok risk violating First Amendment rights and setting a dangerous global precedent for the restriction of speech.”

“More effective, rights-respecting solutions are available and provide a viable alternative to meet the serious concerns raised by TikTok,” the groups contended, pointing to a February proposal by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) to expedite a probe of the company by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States as a possible way “to mitigate security risks without denying users access to the platform.”

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) has emerged as the leading congressional voice against banning TikTok, saying Wednesday that he fears the platform is being singled out due in significant part to “xenophobic anti-China rhetoric.”

“Why the hell are we whipping ourselves into a hysteria to scapegoat TikTok?” Bowman asked in a phone interview with The New York Times while he traveled by train to Washington, D.C. to speak at a #KeepTikTok rally, where content creators, entrepreneurs, users, and activists gathered to defend the platform.

In his speech, Bowman noted that “TikTok as a platform has created a community and a space for free speech for 150 million Americans and counting,” and is a place where “5 million small businesses are selling their products and services and making a living… at a time when our economy is struggling in so many ways.”

Eva Galperin, director of cybersecurity at the San Francisco-based digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, concurred with Bowman, tweeting Thursday that “if you think the U.S. needs a TikTok ban and not a comprehensive privacy law regulating data brokers, you don’t care about privacy, you just hate that a Chinese company has built a dominant social media platform.”

Two other House Democrats—Mark Pocan of Wisconsin and California’s Robert Garcia—joined Bowman in addressing Wednesday’s rally.

In an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel before his speech, Pocan acknowledged “valid concerns when it comes to social media disinformation and all the rest.”

“But to say that a single platform is the problem largely because it’s Chinese-owned honestly, I think, borders more on xenophobia than addressing that core issue,” he stressed.

Garcia, a self-described TikTok “super-consumer,” asserted on MSNBC Thursday morning that “before we ban it, I think we should work on the privacy concerns first.”

TikTok “speaks to the next generation… LGBTQ+ folks are coming out, people are being educated on topics, I think we need to be a little more thoughtful and not ban TikTok,” the gay lawmaker added.

Wednesday’s rally came a day before TikTok CEO Zi Chew testified before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, some of whose members expressed open hostility toward the Chinese government.

“To the American people watching today, hear this: TikTok is a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party to spy on you and manipulate what you see and exploit for future generations,” said committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.).

Chew—who committed to a number of reforms including prioritizing safety for young users, firewall protection for U.S. user data, and greater corporate transparency—took exception to some of the lawmakers’ assertions.

“I don’t think ownership is the issue here,” he said. “With a lot of respect, American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security.”

“I mean, look at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica—just one example,” Chew added, referring to the British political consulting firm that harvested the data of tens of millions of U.S. Facebook users without their consent to aid 2016 Republican campaigns including former President Donald Trump’s.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on March 23, 2023. It is shared here with permission.

As Europe closed the books on its warmest year ever recorded, an exceptionally potent winter heat dome descended on much of the continent over the holiday weekend, with thousands of daily and monthly high-temperature records shattered from Spain to Russia.

“The intensity and extent of warmth in Europe right now is hard to comprehend,” meteorologist Scott Duncan told The Times of London. “There are too many records to count. Literally thousands. Overnight minimum temperatures are like summer.”

The Times reported:

Bilbao in northern Spain reached 24.9°C, the hottest temperature recorded for the city in January and more akin to a summer’s day than the start of the year. Records were broken throughout Germany, including Dresden in the east where it was 13.5°C. Temperatures in Switzerland were at 20°C. The Czech Republic recorded a January national record of 19.6°C at the town of Javornik.

The Washington Post noted that at least seven countries—Belarus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Poland—recorded their warmest January temperatures ever.

Poland’s Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) said Sunday that “the average daily temperature for Słubice was 15.3°C for the last day, and 15°C in Warsaw and Wrocław.”

“This means that we have a one-day thermal summer in the middle of winter,” IMGW added. “The thermal anomaly is over 15°C. This is an unprecedented situation in our climate.”

Climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who specializes in extreme weather, called the temperatures “totally insane” and “absolute madness.”

It’s “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology,” Herrera told the Post. “Nothing stands close to this.”

As the Post noted:

This exceptional wintertime warmth comes on the heels of the warmest 2022 in many parts of Europe, including in the U.K., Germany, and Switzerland. Extreme heat visited Europe in waves throughout the year and was intensified by a historically severe summer drought. The combination helped push the United Kingdom to 104°F (40°C) for the first time on record in July.

Climatologists said that while weather conditions caused the heat dome currently over Europe, there is a proven link between the continued burning of fossil fuels and rising global temperatures.

“The record-breaking across Europe over the new year was made more likely to happen by human-caused climate change,” Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto told The Times, “just as climate change is now making every heatwave more likely and hotter.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on December 19, 2022. It is shared here with permission.

The congressional committee probing the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Monday concluded its proceedings by unanimously voting to recommend that Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department investigate former President Donald Trump and some of his associates for four crimes in connection with the deadly insurrection.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House select committee on the January 6 attack and lead manager of Trump’s historic second impeachment after the insurrection, said during Monday’s hearing that the four alleged crimes are influencing or impeding an official proceeding of the U.S. government; conspiring to defraud the U.S.; unlawfully, knowingly, or willingly making false statements to the federal government; and assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States.

The committee’s recommendation follows more than 1,000 witness interviews and 10 public hearings examining the far-right insurrection by supporters of Trump and his “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The panel previously found that Trump disseminated lies about the election; that he was part of a plan to put forth false electors; and that he pressed Republican state officials, the DOJ, and then-Vice President Mike Pence to participate in the plot.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chairs the January 6 committee, said during his opening remarks Monday that Trump— who has already announced his campaign for the 2024 GOP nomination—”broke the faith” of U.S. elections.

“He lost the 2020 election and knew it. But he chose to try to stay in office through a multipart scheme to overturn the results and block the transfer of power,” Thomspon said. “We’ve never had a president of the United States stir up a violent attempt to block the transfer of power.”

Thompson stressed that if the U.S. “is to survive as a nation of laws and democracy, this can never happen again.”

“Evidence we’ve gathered warrants further action beyond the power of this committee or the Congress to help ensure accountability on the law,” he said. “We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice, and that the agencies and institutions responsible for ensuring justice under the law will use the information we provide to aid in their work.”

Committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said during the hearing that there was “an enormous effort led by ex-President Trump to spread baseless accusations and disinformation in an attempt to falsely convinced tens of millions of Americans that the election had been stolen from him.”

“Ex-President Trump’s decision to declare victory falsely on election night wasn’t a spontaneous decision. It was premeditated,” she continued. “The committee has evidence that the ex-president planned to declare victory, and unlawfully to call for the vote counting to stop.”

“The committee found that Mr. Trump raised hundreds of millions of dollars with false representations made to his online donors,” Lofgren noted. “The proceeds from his fundraising, we have learned, have been used in ways that we believe are concerning.”

“Donald Trump knowingly and corruptly repeated election fraud lies, which incited his supporters to violence on January 6, [and he] continues to repeat this meritless claim that the election was stolen even today,” she added. “[He] continues to erode our most cherished and shared belief in free and fair elections.”

The DOJ is not required to act on the panel’s referrals, which carry no legal weight. However, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a committee member and a lead manager of Trump’s second impeachment, stressed that “the Justice Department must apply the same standard of law to Donald Trump as they would to any citizen.” 

“That’s what Attorney General Garland promised to do,” Schiff added. “And the country will hold the department to it.”

Progressive politicians and advocacy groups renewed calls for Trump’s prosecution following the committee’s referral, with Progressive Congressional Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) calling the former president’s actions “crimes against the American people and against our very democracy.”

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington tweeted, “No one is above the law. That’s why the criminal referral the January 6 Committee may make today is so important.”

“Trump needs to be indicted for the crimes he committed trying to overturn a free and fair election and the insurrection he incited, trying to cling to power,” the group added.

Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, said in a statement that “the evidence presented by the bipartisan January 6 Committee leaves no doubt that Donald Trump engaged in conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, obstructed Congress from an official proceeding (the certification of the election), engaged in conspiracy to make false statements, and incited, assisted, and aided an insurrection.”

“The facts are in, and Trump and his allies must be held accountable,” the group added. “The select committee has completed its work. Now the DOJ must bring criminal charges, and the House Ethics Committee must do the same.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sept. 13, 2022. It is shared here under a Creative Commons license.

Indigenous water defenders and their allies on Tuesday celebrated a Minnesota court ruling protecting a Line 3 protest camp from illegal government repression.

Hubbard County District Judge Jana Austad issued a ruling shielding the Indigenous-led Giniw Collective’s Camp Namewag—where opponents organize resistance to Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline—from local law enforcement’s unlawful blockades and harassment.

The ruling follows months of litigation on behalf of Indigenous water protectors, whose legal team last year secured a temporary restraining order issued by Austad against Hubbard County, Sheriff Cory Aukes, and the local land commissioner for illegally blocking access to Camp Namewag.

“Today David beat Goliath in a legal victory for people protecting the climate from rapacious corporate destruction,” Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, director of the Center for Protest Law & Litigation at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, said in a statement.

“The outrageous blockade and repression of an Indigenous-led water protector camp were fueled by massive sums of money flowing from the Enbridge corporation to the sheriff’s department as it acted against water protectors challenging Enbridge’s destruction of Native lands,” she added.

Indigenous activist and Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska, who is a plaintiff in the case, said that “15 months ago, I was woken up at 6:00 am and walked down my driveway to a grinning sheriff holding a notice to vacate my yearslong home.”

“That day turned into 50 squad cars on a dirt road and a riot line blocking my driveway,” she recalled. “Twelve people—guests from all over who came to protect the rivers and wild rice from Line 3 tar sands—were arrested and thrown into the dirt.”

Houska continued:

Today’s ruling is a testament to the lengths Hubbard County was willing to go to criminalize and harass Native women, land defenders, and anyone associated with us—spending unknown amounts of taxpayer dollars and countless hours trying to convince the court that the driveway to Namewag camp wasn’t a driveway. It’s also a testament to steadfast commitment to resisting oppression. This is a piece in the long game and we aren’t afraid. We haven’t forgotten the harms to us and the harms to the Earth. Onward.

Winona LaDuke, co-founder and executive director of Honor the Earth and a former Green Party vice presidential candidate, stated that “we are grateful to Judge Austad for recognizing how Hubbard County exceeded its authority and violated our rights.”

“Today’s ruling shows that Hubbard County cannot repress Native people for the benefit of Enbridge by circumventing the law,” she added. “This is also an important victory for all people of the North reinforcing that a repressive police force should not be able to stop you from accessing your land upon which you hunt or live.”

EarthRights general counsel Marco Simons asserted that “the court’s ruling is a major rebuke to police efforts to unlawfully target water protectors and to interfere with their activities protesting the Line 3 pipeline.”

“Blocking access to the Namewag camp exemplifies a pattern of unlawful and discriminatory police conduct incentivized by an Enbridge-funded account from which the police can seek reimbursement for Line 3-related activities,” he continued.

“Police forces should protect the public interest, not private companies,” Simons added. “Cases like this highlight the dangers of allowing the police to act as a private security arm for pipeline companies.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Aug. 2, 2022. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons license.

Peace campaigners on Tuesday decried the Biden administration’s approval of more than $5 billion in missile sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a move that came weeks after US President Joe Biden visited the leaders of both countries despite pleas from human rights defenders.

The US Department of Defense said the US State Department approved the $3.05 billion sale of 300 Raytheon Patriot MIM-104E missiles to Saudi Arabia, as well as 96 Lockheed Martin Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles worth $2.25 billion for the UAE.

The move came just after the extension of a United Nations-brokered truce in Yemen, where a US-backed, Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE is waging a war against Houthi rebels backed by the Iranian government. The sale’s approval also comes days ahead of a virtual Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ministerial meeting.

Citing “persistent Houthi cross-border” drone and missile attacks against Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon said the proposed sales “will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a partner country that is a force for political stability and economic progress in the Gulf region.”

However, anti-war voices argued that such sales will only prolong a seven-year war in which more than 300,000 people have been killed, millions have been displaced, and millions more face hunger and disease in what’s widely considered the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Yemeni independent journalist Naseh Shaker tweeted that US professions of commitment to peace in his war-ravaged nation are belied by the Biden administration’s desire to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, who will “use them in its aggression on Yemen.”

The missile deals came weeks after US President Joe Biden made a contentious visit to Saudi Arabia, where he met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and other regional leaders despite pleas from human rights defenders who drew attention to the coalition’s alleged and documented war crimes in Yemen and the Saudi monarchy’s repressive domestic rule.

A now-infamous photo of Biden fist-bumping bin Salman stood in stark contrast with then-candidate Biden’s campaign promise to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” over the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and other human rights crimes.

After taking office, Biden temporarily froze arms sales to the country and the UAE and announced the offensive support ban. However, human rights defenders subsequently expressed disappointment when the administration approved a $650 million air-to-air missile sale to the Royal Saudi Air Force and a $500 million support services contract for Saudi military helicopters. Biden’s July trip also followed reports that his administration is considering lifting its amorphous prohibition on the sale of “offensive” US weaponry to Saudi Arabia.

Raytheon shares—which have soared more than 250% since the US launched the so-called War on Terror in September 2001—were up slightly on the news of Tuesday’s approval. Lockheed Martin stock rose over 2% on Tuesday and is up more than 800% since 9/11.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on July 28, 2022. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons license.

Workers at a Massachusetts Trader Joe’s on Thursday voted to become the first of the supermarket chain’s more than 500 locations to unionize, a historic development that comes amid a nationwide labor organizing wave.

Employees at the Trader Joe’s in Hadley, a suburb of Springfield, voted 45-31 to form a union, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

“WE WON!!! Today, Trader Joe’s Hadley became the first unionized Trader Joe’s location, ever,” the new union, Trader Joe’s United, tweeted. “This victory is historic, but not a surprise. Since the moment we announced our campaign, a majority of the crew have enthusiastically supported our union, and despite the company’s best efforts to bust us, our majority has never wavered.”

Gabrielle, who works at the Hadley store, explained that she was voting for a union because “our crew needs to be represented by an entity that is solely dedicated to our best interests.”

“Our worker-led union ensures that we are protected and properly compensated—on our terms,” she added.

Another Hadley crew member, Maeg, said she was voting “yes” because “we, the crew, are what keep this company running and profitable. It’s time for us to sit down at the negotiating table as equals with Trader Joe’s and create a contract that protects and takes care of us as workers.”

Labor unions and organizers hailed the Hadley vote, with Starbucks Workers United congratulating the store’s crew on its “incredible and groundbreaking victory.”

Wen Zhuang, a member of the NewsGuild of New York and Emergency Workplace Organizing, called Thursday’s vote “amazing.”

“Trader Joe’s has a deep history of simply atrocious union busting, firing of organizers, and lots of other shenanigans,” she tweeted. “What happened here will most definitely be replicated.”

US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was among the progressive politicians who saluted the newly unionized Trader Joe’s workers.

“Now is the time for management to recognize the union and to negotiate a fair contract with decent benefits and safe working conditions,” the two-time democratic socialist presidential candidate tweeted.

A Trader Joe’s spokesperson said the company is “prepared to immediately begin discussions with union representatives for the employees at this store to negotiate a contract.”

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) tweeted that “workers in Hadley just made history by becoming the first Trader Joe’s ever to form a union. They join a growing nationwide movement of workers standing up to demand better working conditions and fair pay.”

The Washington Post reports:

The union’s victory in western Massachusetts follows a wave of successful union drives this year at high-profile employers that have long evaded unionization, such as Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, and REI. Union victories can produce a ripple effect across employers and industries, emboldening new workers to organize. Petitions for union elections this year are on track to hit their highest level in a decade, as a hot labor market has afforded workers more leverage over their employers.

In just over six months’ time, Starbucks went from having one unionized location in Buffalo, New York to 200 stores with unionized workforces.

Other Trader Joe’s crews have taken notice of the Hadley vote, and workers from at least two other stores have already launched their own union drives. More Perfect Union has reported that Trader Joe’s is improving pay, perks, and working conditions in the face of the increased unionization activity.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on June 15, 2022. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons license.

As US President Joe Biden prepares to visit Saudi Arabia—a country he previously vowed to make a “pariah”—human rights advocates including Jamal Khashoggi’s former fiancée on Wednesday demanded that the Saudi officials responsible for thejournalist’s 2018 murder and disappearance be brought to justice.

In a statement read at Wednesday’s unveiling of Jamal Khashoggi Way outside the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, Hatice Cengiz—who was engaged to Khashoggi when he disappeared in October 2018—urged Biden to “uphold your vow to bring all the perpetrators of this brutal crime to justice.”

“President Biden, I know you have experienced the unimaginable pain of losing a loved one. But unlike your losses, the person I love was brutally murdered,” she said. “And I’ve been forced to live in a world where his murderers have not only gone unpunished but have also been rewarded.”

“As disappointing as this is, if you have to put oil over principles and expedience over values, can you at least ask, ‘Where is Jamal’s body?'” Cengiz asked. “Doesn’t he deserve a proper burial? And what happened to his killers?”

Abdullah Alaoudh, Gulf research director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the son of Saudi political prisoner Salman al-Odah, lamented that the Biden administration “wants to effectively move on from the murder of Khashoggi in order to repair ties” with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and his repressive fundamentalist government.

“They know that justice has not been served. Jamal’s body is yet to be found,” he added. “And the prisoners of conscience including my father, who Khashoggi advocated for, are still in prison.”

Khashoggi vanished while visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain documents related to his planned marriage. Turkish officials said he was attacked, suffocated to death, and dismembered with a bone saw inside the consular compound. One Turkish investigator said Khashoggi was tortured in front the Saudi consul-general and dismembered while he was still alive.

Saudi officials initially denied that Khashoggi died in the consulate but later confirmed his death, claiming it resulted from a “fistfight” gone wrong.

In 2019, a Saudi court sentenced five people to death and three others to prison terms in connection with Khashoggi’s murder. However, the death sentences were later commuted.

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on June 1, 2022. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons license.

Following years of grassroots pressure, multinational food giant General Mills announced Tuesday that after a 20-year partnership, it will sell its majority share of an Israeli company operating a plant where Pillsbury products are made on stolen Palestinian land.

In a statement, General Mills said its decision to divest its 60% stake in the Israeli firm Bodan Holdings was centered on “strategic choices about where to prioritize our resources to drive superior returns.”

Members of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)—the Quaker peace group that launched the “No Dough for the Occupation” campaign to boycott Pillsbury products two years ago—credited years of activism for the move.

“General Mills’ divestment shows that public pressure works even on the largest of corporations,” Noam Perry of AFSC’s Economic Activism program said in a statement.

The campaign targeted the Minneapolis-based company because since 2002 it has made Pillsbury products in the Atarot Industrial Zone, an illegal Israeli settler colony in the occupied West Bank in Palestine. Israel’s exclusively Jewish settlements have been condemned as a form of apartheid by United Nations human rights officials as well as international, Palestinian, and Israeli advocacy groups.

According to the Ramallah-based human rights group Al-Haq, the establishment of the industrial zone following Israel’s 1967 conquest and occupation of the West Bank and nearby East Jerusalem has had “devastating consequences” on Palestinian “individuals, communities, and the environment.”

Al-Haq says Israel “has systematically and unlawfully appropriated Palestinian public and privately owned land, exploiting Palestinian natural resources, while forcing the transfer of, and creating coercive environments to forcibly displace, the protected Palestinian population.”

Before Atarot was built, the area where it is located was largely agricultural land belonging mostly to residents of the Palestinian village of Beit Hanina, who were ethnically cleansed under pretext of building unlicensed homes or to facilitate construction of the West Bank separation barrier, commonly called Israel’s “apartheid wall.”

“No Dough for the Occupation” is endorsed by groups including the Palestinian Boycott National Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, SumOfUs, Women Against Military Madness, and others.

The campaign is also supported by several members of the Pillsbury family. In April 2021, Charlie Pillsbury published a Minneapolis Star Tribune opinion piece explaining that “we cannot support the products bearing our name when its parent company is benefiting from Israel’s war crimes.”

In a June 2021 interview with AJ+, Pillsbury noted that the General Mills facility is not only built on occupied land, “it’s also a sweatshop where the Palestinians are searched when they come in, and when they go out” and “work under armed guards all day” for “half the wages” that they would if employed in Israel. General Mills denies claims of unequal treatment.

Pillsbury’s Star Tribune article also noted that Israel is under investigation by the International Criminal Court for alleged and documented war crimes including the construction and expansion of settler colonies on land conquered both during the 1948-49 Nakba ethnic cleansing of 750,000 Palestinians and the 1967 expulsion of hundreds of thousands more.

UN Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted in December 2016, declares that “the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.”

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention also states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies,” while prohibiting “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory.”

In 2020, the UN Human Rights Office included General Mills in a database of more than 100 companies—only seven of them US-based—involved in Israel’s occupation.

“With this move, General Mills is joining many other American and European companies that have divested from Israel’s illegal occupation, including Microsoft and Unilever just in the last couple of years,” said AFSC’s Perry.

“We call on all companies to divest from Israel’s illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine,” he added, “and from the apartheid system it is part of.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on April 5, 2022. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

Reproductive rights advocates on Tuesday braced for Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma’s Republican governor, to sign what’s been described as a “worse than Texas” abortion ban that would make performing the medical procedure at any stage of pregnancy a felony punishable by up to a decade in prison.

The New York Times reports the GOP-controlled Oklahoma House of Representatives voted 70-14 to approve Senate Bill 612, which would imprison healthcare providers who perform abortions at any time “except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency” for 10 years or fine them $100,000. The measure, which was passed by the state Senate last year, heads to the desk of Stitt, who has pledged to sign “every piece of pro-life legislation” he receives.

“If allowed to take effect, SB 612 would be devastating for both Oklahomans and Texans who continue to seek care in Oklahoma,” reproductive rights groups including the ACLU of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice said in a statement.

“Nearly half of the patients Oklahoma providers are currently seeing are medical refugees from Texas,” the groups added. “Now, Oklahomans could face a future where they would have no place left in their state to go to seek this basic healthcare.”

SB 612 has been compared to SB 8, the Texas law banning abortion after around six weeks of pregnancy and incentivizing private citizens with a $10,000 reward plus legal fees for successfully suing abortion providers or anyone who “aids or abets” the procedure. The law allows no exceptions in cases of rape or incest.

However, critics say the Oklahoma bill is even more severe than the Texas ban.

“We are actually going to be worse than Texas because this bill would prohibit abortion access as soon, at conception, whereas Texas allows for a six-week abortion ban,” Tamya Cox-Toure, executive director of the ACLU of Oklahoma, told KTUL.

Cox-Toure said that “Oklahoma providers were seeing an increase of almost 2,500%” in people seeking abortions “because of Texas patients coming to Oklahoma for care.”

Myfy Jensen-Fellows of the Trust Women Foundation told KTUL that SB 612 “will make it difficult not only for people in Oklahoma, not only people in Kansas and Texas, but the entire region.”

SB 612 is one of numerous state-level attacks on reproductive rights, and comes as the constitutional right to abortion established nearly half a century ago in Roe v. Wade is imperiled by the United States Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority.

State-level abortion bans like SB 12 have spurred calls for the US Senate to pass the House-approved Women’s Health Protection Act, which would codify the right to abortion nationwide.

Responding to the Oklahoma bill, Planned Parenthood Action tweeted, “These extremist politicians are willing to turn their own constituents into medical refugees.”

“Abortion is healthcare,” the group added. “And we’ll keep fighting for your care, no matter what.”

This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on March 22, 2022. It is shared here with permission under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

US Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Tuesday deflected attacks from Republican senators who questioned her work as a defense attorney for Guantánamo Bay detainees, as well as a false allegation that she called former Bush administration officials “war criminals.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) implied that Jackson’s assigned work defending detainees held indefinitely without charge or trial in the US military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, imperiled US national security, telling her that “if you tried to do this in World War II, they’d run you out of town.”

Author and journalist Sonali Kolhatkar told Common Dreams that “it’s horrific to see Sen. Graham create twisted knots of logic to justify indefinite detention without due process.”

Kolhatkar accused Graham and other Republican senators of “trying to punish Jackson as a sort of payback to Democrats” for their questioning of Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett—who were appointed by former President Donald Trump—during their confirmation hearings.

“Graham was also childishly petulant that his favorite nominee hadn’t been picked and it was cringeworthy to watch him demand that Jackson respond to what other people had said about a completely different potential pick, Michelle Childs, as if it had any bearing on Jackson’s qualifications,” she added. “The GOP is intent on subjecting her to abuse just to whip up political points.”

Noting Jackson made clear that “representing Guantánamo detainees was entirely about the limits of executive power, not exoneration of terrorists,” Zack Ford of Alliance for Justice tweeted that “it’s work she should be applauded for, unless you’re, you know, anti-democracy.”

During his allotted time for questioning, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) wondered “why in the world” Jackson—who he called “gracious and charming”—would call former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former President George W. Bush “war criminals.”

“I don’t remember that particular reference,” Jackson replied. “I did not intend to disparage the president or the secretary of defense.”

MSNBC‘s Mehdi Hasan wrote: “I get it. She has to say that. But let’s be clear: No one should ever have to apologize for disparaging Bush or Rumsfeld.”

As Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) subsequently noted, Jackson never called Rumsfeld or Bush war criminals. What she actually did was file a habeas corpus petition on behalf of individuals subjected to torture—a war crime—during the Bush administration.

“For the record,” tweeted progressive Ohio congressional candidate Nina Turner, “Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal.”

In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Bush administration lawyers drafted memos in an attempt to legalize the torture—officially called “enhanced interrogation”—that was occurring at Guantánamo and at CIA “black sites,” US military prisons, and elsewhere. Rumsfeld approved the torture techniques.

The Bush administration’s allegedly pre-meditated 2003 invasion of Iraq under false pretenses—a war that destroyed a nation and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives—was called illegal by then-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and numerous governments and human rights groups.

Benjamin Ferencz, a chief US prosecutor at the post-World War II Nuremberg trials of leading Nazi officials, declared at the time that “a prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.”

Referring to Cornyn’s false allegation, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch tweeted: “Two things can be true at the same time… Ketanji Brown Jackson never referred to George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld as ‘war criminals.’ Also, George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were war criminals.”