Trump Order Aimed at Palestine Solidarity, Not Antisemitism
Gregory Shupak | fair.org | 2020-01-04
by Gregory Shupak Antisemitism is a very real problem–which Donald Trump is exploiting to advance an anti-Palestinian agenda. | President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month to deny funding to post-secondary schools that violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against Jewish people. The order notes that such bigotry is rooted in antisemitism, and says that it will determine whether discrimination has occurred by using the non-legally binding working definition of antisemiti…
fair.org/home/trump-order-aimed-at-palestine-solidarity-not-antisemitism/

Assange and Manning: The Slow Execution of the Voices of Freedom
Massoud Nayeri | globalresearch.ca | 2020-01-03
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning have exposed corrupt officials and criminal politicians | Assange and Manning are prisoners of conscience | How to free Assange and Manning? | Be the Voice of Assange and Manning in your community by any needs necessary. | ***…
globalresearch.ca/the-slow-execution-of-the-voices-of-freedom/5699292

America's War for Global Domination
Prof Michel Chossudovsky | globalresearch.ca | 2020-01-03
The following is the text of Michel Chossudovsky's public lecture at the Society for the Defense of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), Berlin, 10-11 December, 2003 and Humboldt University, Berlin, 12 December 2003. | This timely article written 16 years | …
globalresearch.ca/america-war-global-domination/5699466

America's War for Global Domination
Prof Michel Chossudovsky | globalresearch.ca | 2020-01-03
The following is the background text of Michel Chossudovsky's public lecture at the Society for the Defense of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), Berlin, 10-11 December, 2003 and Humboldt University, Berlin, 12 December 2003. This text written 16 years | …
globalresearch.ca/america-war-global-domination/5699466

Brussels Court Suspends Extradition of Catalan Leader Puigdemont
telesurenglish.net | 2020-01-03
A Brussels court has suspended the extradition of former Catalan pro-independence leader Carles Puigdemont, his lawyer said on Thursday. | RELATED: | EU Parliament President Lifts Ban on Top Catalan Politicians | Puigdemont cheered the suspension on Twitter and called on Spain to free Junqueras from prison. | "Spain must act in the same way as Belgium has done and respect the law," he said in a tweet. | Paul Beckaert told Reuters that the Belgian judge in charge of the case…
telesurenglish.net/news/Brussels-Court-Suspends-Extradition-of-Catalan-Leader-Puigdemont-20200102-0027.html

Florida: James Dailey faces execution based on testimony of a serial jailhouse informant
wsws.org | 2020-01-03
Dailey has consistently maintained his innocence in the 1985 murder of Shelly Boggio. By the prosecution's own admission, no eyewitnesses or forensic evidence connected him to the crime.
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/03/flor-j03.html

America Is a Democracy in Name Only
Amy Goodman | truthdig.com | 2020-01-03
One hundred years ago, women won the right to vote in the United States. The women's suffrage movement took decades of organizing to achieve success, from the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, to mass civil disobedience and protest leading up to the adoption and ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Now, a century later, the right to vote is on perilous ground, with aggressive and systematic efforts to disenfranchise voters in states across the country. | Voter suppression has long been a central strategy of the Republican party. In 1980, Paul Weyrich, a conservative Republican activist who founded right-win…
truthdig.com/articles/america-is-a-democracy-in-name-only/

Immigration and the Prison Industrial Complex
Andrew Moss | zcomm.org | 2020-01-03
The Prison Industrial Complex can help pinpoint major areas where corporate interests and government overlap. These include detention, surveillance, consulting services, and border wall construction…
zcomm.org/znetarticle/immigration-and-the-prison-industrial-complex/

African Migrants in Egypt Face Increasingly Violent Racism
telesurenglish.net | 2020-01-02
Sub-Saharan African migrants who flee war, violence, and poverty in their homelands face huge racial harassment and discrimination in Egypt, an Associated Press investigation revealed Thursday. | RELATED: | Libya Militias Divert EU Funds for Migrants, Exploit Them: Report | In Egypt's capital Cairo, reporters have been visiting migrant communities, where at least two dozen sub-Saharan Africans, including four children, recounted the racist insults, sexual harassment, and othe…
telesurenglish.net/news/African-Migrants-in-Egypt-Face-Increasingly-Violent-Racism-20200102-0016.html

US Border Militia Leader Pleads Guilty to Weapons Charge
telesurenglish.net | 2020-01-02
United States leader of a far-right armed militia Larry Hopkins, 70, pleaded guilty Thursday to federal weapons charges, prosecutors and a defense lawyer informed. | RELATED: | FBI Arrests Leader of Militia Stopping Migrants in New Mexico | A U.S. Attorneys' spokeswoman said that during a hearing in federal court in New Mexico, Hopkins had admitted to being in possession of nine firearms and ammunition for those weapons at the time of his arrest in April. | Hopkins, who has fou…
telesurenglish.net/news/US-Border-Militia-Leader-Pleads-Guilty-to-Weapons-Charge-Faces-10-Years-in-Jail-20200102-0015.html

Today's Concentration Camps Go by Many Names, But They're Still Open
Staff | truthout.org | 2020-01-02
"The use of concentration camps changes the world, but going forward, the most predictable outcome of their use is a world with more camps." | Today we use a lot of euphemisms: re-education camps, internment, work camps, prison camps, camps for internally displaced people. But before world war one, these prisons were known simply as concentration camps and they started in Cuba in the 1890s to control an uprising against the Spanish colonizers. Since then, concentration camps have proliferated across the globe, and have become the…
truthout.org/audio/the-global-history-of-concentration-camps/

Fighting for Reforms Isn't Enough. It's Time We Reach for Prison Abolition
Staff | truthout.org | 2020-01-02
It's time to drastically reconsider what safety means to our communities. | Even as we fight to pass incremental reforms to the prison-industrial complex, we must do so through an unapologetic lens that rejects the idea that reformism is enough. | While we understand that these incremental reforms are the individual trees that get us closer to dismantling the system, we must be clear that the forest beyond those trees must be full-on abolition. | My experiences as a grassroots organizer have made…
truthout.org/articles/fighting-for-reforms-isnt-enough-its-time-we-reach-for-prison-abolition/

IACHR Requests Precautionary Measures for Former Ecuadorean VP
telesurenglish.net | 2020-01-02
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) requested Thursday precautionary measures in favor of former Vice President of Ecuador Jorge Glas, jailed since October 2017 after being sentenced to six years in prison as part of a case linked to the bribe plot of the Brazilian company Odebrecht which Glas denies to have taken part of. | RELATED: | Pabon: Fear and Persecution Can Hurt the Pillars of Democracy | Glas' attorney Fausto Jarrin announced it with a photograph that sho…
telesurenglish.net/news/iachr-asks-to-protect-the-life-and-integrity-of-jorge-glas-20200102-0021.html

Anglophone vs Francophone in Cameroon
J.B. Gerald | dissidentvoice.org | 2020-01-02
On an ugliness scale of one to ten, if the U.S. Guantanamo prison is 7, the French military in Algeria 8, Pinochet's controls of Chile 9, and the Inquisition 10, the severity, scale and number of Cameroon military human rights violations is possibly 4 and a half. Still, is the suffering of any victim ever …
dissidentvoice.org/2020/01/anglophone-vs-francophone-in-cameroon/

Italian organizations demand release of veteran communist Nicoletta Dosio
Peoples Dispatch | peoplesdispatch.org | 2020-01-02
The progressive sectors of Italian society have expressed shock and outrage at the arrest and imprisonment of 73- old-year veteran communist and activist Nicoletta Dosio. She was arrested and imprisoned in Turin on December 30 in relation to a 2012 protest against the Turin–Lyon high-speed railway organized by the No TAV campaign. | Various events have been organized across Italy, including in Rome, Pisa, Milan, Bologna and Florence, in solidarity with Nicoletta Dosio and calling for her immediate release. | On January 1, she wrote from prison, "I'm fine. I am happy with the choice I made because it is the…
peoplesdispatch.org/2020/01/02/italian-organizations-demand-release-of-veteran-communist-nicoletta-dosio/

Federal judge blocks NC's voter id law, citing state's 'sordid history' of racist voter suppression
Julia Conley | nationofchange.org | 2020-01-02
Judge Loretta Biggs said the law's provision preventing voters from showing public assistance ID cards to vote was "particularly suspect."
nationofchange.org/2020/01/02/federal-judge-blocks-ncs-voter-id-law-citing-states-sordid-history-of-racist-voter-suppression/

Chelsea Manning Says She Is 'Never Backing Down' in Face of US Detention Meant to Break Her
Eoin Higgins, staff writer | commondreams.org | 2020-01-02
"My long-standing objection to the immoral practice of throwing people in jail without charge or trial, for the sole purpose of forcing them to testify before a secret, government-run investigative panel, remains strong." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/chelsea.jpeg …
commondreams.org/news/2020/01/02/chelsea-manning-says-she-never-backing-down-face-us-detention-meant-break-her?cd-origin=rss

Palestinian administrative detainee Ahmad Zahran has been on hunger strike for 100 days
Peoples Dispatch | peoplesdispatch.org | 2020-01-01
Israeli authorities had earlier committed to not renewing his period of administrative detention once it expired in October but failed to honor their promise. This led Ahmad Zahran to once again launch a hunger strike…
peoplesdispatch.org/2020/01/01/palestinian-administrative-detainee-ahmad-zahran-has-been-on-hunger-strike-for-100-days/

Assange Said, "I'm slowly dying here"
RT | dissidentvoice.org | 2019-12-31
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims he's 'slowly dying' in a UK jail and is often tranquilized and kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. He made the disturbing revelations in a phone call to his friend Vaughan Smith on Christmas Eve. | Read more: on.rt.com/a85u…
dissidentvoice.org/2019/12/assange-said-im-slowly-dying-here/

Headlines for December 31, 2019
Staff | democracynow.org | 2019-12-31
Protests Rage Outside U.S. Embassy in Iraq After U.S. Airstrikes Kill 24, Hate Crime Charges Filed Against Suspect in Hanukkah Stabbing in NY, Texas Church Shooter Had Long Criminal History, NYT: Top Officials Failed to Convince Trump to Release Withheld Ukraine Aid, Death Toll from Crackdown on Protests in India Rises to 27, Five Kashmiri Political Leaders Released from Detention, Sudanese Court Sentences 29 to Death for Killing Teacher in Anti-Protest Crackdown, Thousands Flee to the Ocean to Escape Australia Wildfires, Former Nissan Head Flees Japan to Lebanon to Escape Trial on Financial Crimes, New York Sett…
www.democracynow.org/2019/12/31/headlines

Headlines for December 31, 2019
Staff | democracynow.org | 2019-12-31
Protests Rage Outside U.S. Embassy in Iraq After U.S. Airstrikes Kill 24, Hate Crime Charges Filed Against Suspect in Hanukkah Stabbing in NY, Texas Church Shooter Had Long Criminal History, NYT: Top Officials Failed to Convince Trump to Release Withheld Ukraine Aid, Death Toll from Crackdown on Protests in India Rises to 27, Five Kashmiri Political Leaders Released from Detention, Sudanese Court Sentences 29 to Death for Killing Teacher in Anti-Protest Crackdown, Thousands Flee to the Ocean to Escape Australia Wildfires, Former Nissan Head Flees Japan to Lebanon to Escape Trial on Financial Crimes, New York Sett…
www.democracynow.org/2019/12/31/headlines

All West Virginia prison guard trainees pictured giving NAZI salute on viral photo SACKED after review
rt.com | 2019-12-30
Three staff members and all of the West Virginia corrections cadets, who posed for a photo making a hand gesture resembling a Nazi salute, have been sacked after an inquiry found the class instructor encouraged the practice. | All 34 would-be prison guards and three West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation Academy employees have been fired after an in-depth investigation into the viral photo showing the trainees giving a Nazi salute in a class photo accompanied by the words "HAIL BYRD!" | "As I said from the beginning, I condemn the photo of Basic Training Class 18 in the strongest possible ter…
rt.com/usa/477151-nazi-cadets-salut-fired/

Prison gave me a greater will to fight
Luiz ignacio lula Da silva | zcomm.org | 2019-12-28
Interview on the reality that Brazil is experiencing and the social protests that have occurred in several Latin American countries…
zcomm.org/zvideo/prison-gave-me-a-greater-will-to-fight/

Wikileaks Still Holding Powerful to Account as Founder Julian Assange "Slowly Dies" in Prison
Alan Macleod | mintpressnews.com | 2019-12-27
Julian Assange is dying inside Belmarsh Prison in London. Those are his own words, relayed through English journalist Vaughan Smith, who revealed that the Wikileaks founder called him on Christmas Eve to share his greetings. Smith also divulged that Assange told him he is kept in solitary confinement 23 hours per day and is often sedated. | His treatment has elicited protests around the world, from journalists, news organizations, human rights groups and celebrities. Last week a group of Australian doctors asked Foreign Minister Marise Pay…
mintpressnews.com/wikileaks-publishing-state-secrets-julian-assange-slowly-dies-prison/263775/

William Barr's Police-Fueled War on Civil Rights
Joshua Clark Davis | thenation.com | 2019-12-27
The attorney general's obsession with protecting the police is a throwback to the crackdown on protesters in the 1960s.
thenation.com/article/barr-police-civil-rights/

Pro-Coup Venezuelan Soldiers Who Fled to the US Now Locked Up in ICE Detention Center
Alan Macleod | mintpressnews.com | 2019-12-27
In an ironic twist worthy of an Alanis Morissette song, participants in U.S.-backed coup are now in an ICE detention camp.
mintpressnews.com/pro-coup-venezuelan-soldiers-defected-to-us-locked-ice-prisons/263764/

Headlines for December 27, 2019
Staff | democracynow.org | 2019-12-27
In Confidential Videos, Navy SEALs Say Gallagher Was "Toxic" & "Freaking Evil", Hospitals & Health Clinics Shuttered by Heavy Bombing in Idlib, Syria, Japan to Deploy Destroyer to Middle East Amid Rising Tensions in Gulf of Oman, Nigerian-American Journalist Omoyele Sowore Released from Prison, In India, Protests Rage Against "Anti-Muslim" Citizenship Law, Netanyahu Staves Off Party Leadership Challenge Ahead of General Election, Mexico to Bring Complaint Against Bolivia's Interim Government to ICJ, Congolese Asylum Seeker Died in Border Patrol Custody on Christmas Day, Los Angeles Prosecutors Consider Filing Cri…
www.democracynow.org/2019/12/27/headlines

"Bedlam": Film Shows How Decades of Healthcare Underfunding Made Jails "De Facto Mental Asylums"
Staff | democracynow.org | 2019-12-27
Are prisons and jails America's "new asylums"? A new documentary looks at how a disproportionate number of underserved people facing mental health challenges have been swept into the criminal justice system, where they lack adequate treatment. Nearly 15% of men and more than 30% of women in jails have a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder. For many of them, jail is their first point of entry into mental health treatment. The documentary "Bedlam" was filmed over five years in Los Angeles County's overwhelmed and vastly under-resourced Emergency Psychiatry Services, a…
www.democracynow.org/2019/12/27/bedlam_documentary_mental_health_criminal_justice

"Bedlam": Film Shows How Decades of Healthcare Underfunding Made Jails "De Facto Mental Asylums"
Staff | democracynow.org | 2019-12-27
Are prisons and jails America's "new asylums"? A new documentary looks at how a disproportionate number of underserved people facing mental health challenges have been swept into the criminal justice system, where they lack adequate treatment. Nearly 15% of men and more than 30% of women in jails have a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder. For many of them, jail is their first point of entry into mental health treatment. The documentary "Bedlam" was filmed over five years in Los Angeles County's overwhelmed and vastly under-resourced Emergency Psychiatry Services, a…
www.democracynow.org/2019/12/27/bedlam_documentary_mental_health_criminal_justice

Headlines for December 26, 2019
Staff | democracynow.org | 2019-12-26
Murkowski "Disturbed" by McConnell's "Coordination" with White House for Impeachment Trial, Trump Attacks Windmills with a Series of False Claims, The Intercept: Bloomberg Used Prison Labor to Make 2020 Campaign Calls, Thousands of Syrian Civilians Flee Government Offensive in Idlib, 35 Civilians Killed in Attack in Burkina Faso, China Calls on U.S. to Take "Concrete Steps" Toward Peace with North Korea, At Least 21 Killed as Typhoon Phanfone Slams into the Philippines, U.S. Ambassador to Zambia Recalled After Criticizing Criminalization of Homosexuality, Evo Morales Vows to Return to Bolivia by Next Christmas, H…
www.democracynow.org/2019/12/26/headlines

Across the Country Harsh Sentencing Laws are Tearing Apart Families and Communities
Nicole Zayas Fortier | aclu.org | 2019-12-24
During the holiday season, in the picturesque town of Petoskey, | Michigan, Kimiko Uyeda, and her son Marshall celebrate with an annual tradition | of selecting a new ornament to add to | their tree. Year after year, Kimko and Marshall add to their collection | of ornaments as a part of their tradition. | For years, however, they were separated from one another and | unable to enjoy this holiday tradition together. It all began in 2013 when Kimko was arrested for | filing what the local sheriff believed to be a false police report. Because of | broken sentencing laws, the prosecutor in the case was able to add…
aclu.org/news/smart-justice/across-the-country-harsh-sentencing-laws-are-tearing-apart-families-and-communities

Four Lawyers. Four Projects. One Non-Stop Year
Leila Rafei | aclu.org | 2019-12-20
It isn't news that the Trump administration has kept ACLU attorneys working at breakneck speed for the past three years. In 2019 alone, we saw historic moments and victories–from defeating the citizenship question on the 2020 census and bringing the first trans civil rights case to the Supreme Court, to blocking a wave of abortion bans and many of the administration's attempts to dismantle the asylum system. To name a few. | Here are some of our attorneys' takes on 2019 and the year ahead–what's changed for the better and for the worse, and how the outcome of the 2020 presidential election will a…
aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/four-lawyers-four-projects-one-non-stop-year

A Fair Chance at Opportunity: The U.S. Government Bans the Box
Kanya Bennett | aclu.org | 2019-12-20
When Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) reintroduced the Fair Chance Act earlier this year, he | said: "This bill would give individuals who are reentering society from prison | a fair chance at truly achieving the American dream." The Fair Chance Act would | ban the box that employers use to ask about arrest and conviction history on | job applications. It also requires that federal agencies and contr…
aclu.org/news/smart-justice/a-fair-chance-at-opportunity-the-u-s-government-bans-the-box

Public housing residents sue NYC over slum conditions
Liberation staff | liberationnews.org | 2019-12-20
In addition to demanding repairs, residents involved in this lawsuit are demanding full public funding for NYCHA.
liberationnews.org/public-housing-residents-sue-nyc-over-slum-conditions/

10 LGBTQ Moments that Defined 2019
aclu.org | 2019-12-19
1. Aimee Stephens goes to the Supreme Court: | In October, the Supreme Court heard its first trans civil rights case ever. The case was brought by our client Aimee Stephens, who was fired from her job at a funeral home solely for being transgender. That's sex discrimination and it violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. | We have yet to see whether the Supreme Court will uphold the civil rights of trans people. But no matter what, history has already been made. | "I'll never forget the feeling of coming out of the Supreme Court and seeing a crowd of trans people and allies chanting to Aim…
aclu.org/news/lgbt-rights/10-lgbtq-moments-that-defined-2019

A Secret CBP Team is Targeting and Detaining Innocent Travelers. We're Suing
Tarek Ismail | aclu.org | 2019-12-18
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is deploying secret teams that target, detain, and interrogate innocent travelers. We're suing to expose their activities. | In November 2018, three CBP officers detained Andreas | Gal, a former chief | technology officer at Mozilla Corporation and current Apple employee, at San | Francisco International Airport after he landed from a business trip to Sweden. | Andr…
aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/a-secret-cbp-team-is-targeting-and-detaining-innocent-travelers-were-suing

A Tennessee City Banned Surgical Abortion Within the City Limits. We're Taking Them to Court
Melissa Grant | aclu.org | 2019-12-18
For 30 years, I have | worked in reproductive health care. In my current role as Chief Operating | Officer of carafem, a nonprofit with a national network of health centers, I | know the difference compassionate and comprehensive reproductive health care | makes in the lives of our clients. I have witnessed the personal impact when | people who have the legal right to have a child or to have an abortion are denied | those rights due to outrageous societal barriers. Abortion providers are used | to opposition, but we've never experienced the kind of explicit targeting we | received from politicians in the city…
aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/a-tennessee-city-banned-surgical-abortion-within-the-city-limits-were-taking-them-to-court

A Little-Known Privacy Battle Is Being Waged Over Encrypting the Nuts and Bolts of the Internet
Daniel Kahn Gillmor | aclu.org | 2019-12-18
An important fight is brewing over the nuts and bolts of the | Internet that has significant implications for the privacy and security of all Internet | users. The fight has already pitted Google and Cloudflare against American | telecommunications companies, which are lobbying | Congress | to complain about the search giant. The fight is complicated, but at its core | are questions about c…
aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/a-little-known-privacy-battle-is-being-waged-over-encrypting-the-nuts-and-bolts-of-the-internet

US Venezuelan embassy protectors denied right to fair trial
The Grayzone | thegrayzone.com | 2019-12-17
Four US activists protecting Venezuela's embassy in Washington, DC face prison time after the Trump administration illegally arrested them. And now…
thegrayzone.com/2019/12/16/venezuelan-embassy-defenders-denied-right-fair-trial/

US Venezuelan embassy protectors denied right to fair trial
The Grayzone | thegrayzone.com | 2019-12-17
Four US activists protecting Venezuela's embassy in Washington, DC face prison time after the Trump administration illegally arrested them. And now…
thegrayzone.com/2019/12/16/venezuelan-embassy-defenders-denied-right-fair-trial/

It's Clear: In Oklahoma Cash Bail is Being Used as Ransom to Keep People Who Are Poor Behind Bars
Twyla Carter | aclu.org | 2019-12-17
Imagine you are one of the 4,000 people arrested every year in Canadian County, Oklahoma, a county with less than 200,000 people. Maybe the police find marijuana in your car during a traffic stop, maybe the police have mistaken you for someone else, or perhaps you can't afford the $40 per month you owe the court from a different charge. | After you're arrested, things will go one of two ways. You may | spend an hour or two in the jail for booking and then go home until your court | date. Or, you might sit in jail for weeks or months until your court date, | eating substandard food and sleeping on a linoleum fl…
aclu.org/news/smart-justice/its-clear-in-oklahoma-cash-bail-is-being-used-as-ransom-to-keep-people-who-are-poor-behind-bars

He spent 36 years in prison because he stole $100 in cash and $4 in food stamps. Now Willie Parker is free
Will Tucker | splcenter.org | 2019-12-16
It was pouring rain the day Willie Parker left William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility after 36 years in prison.
splcenter.org/news/2019/12/17/he-spent-36-years-prison-because-he-stole-100-cash-and-4-food-stamps-now-willie-parker-free

Weekend Read: Amid Alabama's prison crisis, the voices of the people living through it should be heard
splcenter.org | 2019-12-13
For years, Alabama's prison system has been under a microscope. Harsh sentencing laws coupled with chronic underfunding have led to horrific conditions for people behind bars.
splcenter.org/news/2019/12/13/weekend-read-amid-alabamas-prison-crisis-voices-people-living-through-it-should-be-heard

SPLC lawsuit seeks to restore Mississippi citizens' right to vote
splcenter.org | 2019-12-04
When they were children, Herman Parker and his three sisters went to their grandparents' house every election day.
splcenter.org/news/2019/12/04/splc-lawsuit-seeks-restore-mississippi-citizens-right-vote