2020-04-23: News Headlines

Susie Day (2020-04-23). Puerto Rico, Protest, Prison: Johanna Fernández and Jose Saldaña Talk About The Young Lords. counterpunch.org Johanna Fernández, child of immigrants from the Dominican Republic and professor at New York's Baruch College, has just published The Young Lords: A Radical History, a book about the 1960s Puerto Rican activist group. The Young Lords began as a Chicago street gang; then, inspired by the Black Panther Party, morphed into a militant rights

SCOTT A HUMINSKI (2020-04-23). Sean Hannity and Rick Scott's best sheriff friend under DOJ and Fl DOH investigation. indybay.org The Justice Department and Florida Department of Health are investigating Sheriff Carmine Marceno for civil rights abuses, human rights abuses, ADA violations and felony abuse of disabled adults.

Jesse Jackson (2020-04-23). Incarceration is Now a Potential Death Sentence. counterpunch.org This week, the New York Times featured the story of how the coronavirus savaged the Federal Correctional Complex in Oakdale, Louisiana. On March 28, Patrick Jones, 49, serving a 27-year sentence for possession of crack cocaine with the intent to distribute, became the first federal inmate to die of the virus. Barely three weeks later,

The Canary (2020-04-23). UN chief warns that coronavirus pandemic is becoming a 'human rights crisis'. thecanary.co UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has said the coronavirus pandemic is "a human crisis that is fast becoming a human rights crisis".The UN chief issued a video message warning there is discrimination in the delivery of public services to tackle coronavirus (Covid-19) and there are "structural inequalities that impede access to them".He said the pandemic has also seen "disproportionate effects on certain communities, the rise of hate speech, the targeting of vulnerable groups, and the risks of heavy-handed security responses undermining the health response".He warned that with "rising ethno-nationalism, populi…

Dr. Rudolf Hà§nsel (2020-04-23). Psychological Remarks on "Authority Obedience". Say No! globalresearch.ca What is happening in front of all our eyes at the moment is a huge scary dizziness. "Corona" is a geopolitical operation by the "global elite" and their "depopulation agenda" is real. Isolation imprisonment makes people sick and kills …

Labor Video Project (2020-04-23). The Fight For PPE On The Docks, The War On Workers & May Day 2020 With ILWU. indybay.org WorkWeek interviews ILWU Local 10 president Trent Willis and ILWU president Keith Shanklin about the struggle protect longshore workers from being contaminated by Covid-19 and the war against working people. They also discuss May Day and the fight of the over 500 seafarers on the Grand Princess who are being kept as prisoners on the ship.

WSWS (2020-04-23). Australian court ruling means continued imprisonment for Tamil refugees from Biloela. wsws.org The people of Biloela are continuing a national campaign, entitled "Home to Bilo," demanding the release of the family and return home to Biloela.

Davide Mastracci (2020-04-23). Blame the Covid-19 failure on your governments, not on China. indybay.org The anti-Chinese narrative is based on false statements and serves to distract people from the failure of neoliberalism. Build hospitals and make health care universal! Cut military spending in half! Testing, not imprisonment, abuse and neglect!

Fight Back (2020-04-22). Car caravan to free Gerald Reed, prisoners facing pandemic. fightbacknews.org Chicago, IL – 100 cars surrounded the Thompson Center in Chicago's Loop, April 20, during Governor J.B. Pritzker's daily press briefing on COVID-19. The caravan protest was held to demand Pritzker free police torture survivor Gerald Reed and all vulnerable prisoners at Cook County Jail, Illinois Department of Corrections prisons and ICE detention centers in Illinois – especially those over 60, those with medical conditions, and those who the governor's own Torture Commission has already confirmed are victims of police torture and therefore wrongfully convicted. | In the lead car of the caravan, Frank Chapman of t…

Udi Ofer (2020-04-22). New Model Shows Reducing Jail Population will Lower COVID-19 Death Toll for All of Us. aclu.org The Trump administration optimistically projects that "substantially under" 100,000 people will die from COVID-19 in the United States. Horrific as that statistic is,

IMEMC News (2020-04-22). Palestinian Detainee Dies In Israeli Prison. imemc.org The Palestinian Prisoners' Society (PPS) has reported that a detainee died, on Tuesday at night, in the Negev Desert Detention Camp, after fainting in the shower, and Israeli soldiers failed to provide him with any medical aid for more than thirty minutes. The PPS stated that the detainee, Nour Jaber …

splcenter (2020-04-22). First person to die in Alabama's prisons with COVID-19 spent more than four decades behind bars. splcenter.org

Staff (2020-04-21). Death Trap Jail: Pepper-Sprayed, Otay Mesa Detainees Demand Release as COVID-19 Spreads Inside. democracynow.org We look at the mounting number of COVID-19 cases inside immigration jails across the country and one of the largest outbreaks at the Otay Mesa Detention Center near San Diego, run by private prison company CoreCivic. Prisoners were told to sign contracts, written only in English, in exchange for receiving face masks. When some refused to sign, guards pepper-sprayed them. This comes as activists say hundreds imprisoned in detention centers in California are on hunger strike. We get an update from Ruth Mendez, community activist and volunteer with Otay Mesa Detention Resistance.

Ashoka Mukpo (2020-04-21). Defying Medical Experts, Lawmakers are Weaponizing COVID-19 to Restrict Abortion Access. aclu.org In the latest development in a fast-moving court case, on Monday the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals

teleSUR (2020-04-21). Jailed Saudi Princess Appeals for Help After Months of Silence. telesurenglish.net A Saudi princess, princess Basma bint Saud, who has been missing for almost a year, spoke publicly for the first time, asking her uncle, King Salman, and her cousin Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to review her case and release her from prison. | RELATED: | "I am currently arbitrarily held at Al-Ha'ir prison without criminal, or otherwise any charges against my person," read one of the tweets posted last Wed…

IMEMC & Agencies (2020-04-21). Israeli Forces Abduct Freed Prisoner in Hebron. imemc.org Israeli troops abducted, early on Tuesday, a freed Palestinian prisoner from the Beit Ummar town in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron. Local media sources reported that an Israeli army force invaded the Beit Ummar town and began invading several Palestinian-owned homes, before they abducted freed Palestinian prisoner, …

Edward Curtin (2020-04-21). Rotating on Boredom's Spit. dissidentvoice.org And all the news just repeats itself Like some forgotten dream we've both seen — John Prine, Hello in There, from his debut album entitled "John Prine", 1971 Without the ability to forget, we become imprisoned within a collective mental habit that induces us to repeat things that are as hard to escape as is …

Staff (2020-04-20). Headlines for April 20, 2020. democracynow.org U.S. Fatalities Top 40,000; Nursing Homes Hit Hard as Death Tolls Soar | , Trump and Governors at Odds over Coronavirus Testing as Uneven Reopening of States Commences, Right-Wing Groups Organize Anti-Lockdown Protests Around the Country | , New Deal on Relief for Small Businesses Could Be Imminent But May Lack Key Democratic Provisions, Immigrant Prisoners at Otay Mesa Launch Hunger Strike, Denounce Inhumane Treatment | , Michael Cohen to Be Released from Federal Detention as Prisoners Nationwide Face Mounting Coronavirus Risk, Italy Records Lowest Daily Death Toll in a Week; Spain & France Also Show Signs of Pr…

Alan Macleod (2020-04-20). Man Who Filmed Police Murder of Eric Garner Says Prison Guards Threatened to Give Him COVID-19. mintpressnews.com WeCopwatch, an activist organization dedicated to the nonviolent observation of police, says that corrections officers threatened to deliberately infect Ramsey Orta for weeks before he fell ill.

Fight Back (2020-04-20). LA May Day car caravan protest set. fightbacknews.org Los Angeles, CA – Luis Sifuentes, of the community group Cento CSO states, "Due to the pandemic and Stay At Home order in Los Angeles, Centro CSO is organizing this year's May Day as a car caravan through Boyle Heights with our demands: Jail killer cops, defend public education, and legalization for all – along with demands for hazard pay, better protections for workers in the front lines during this pandemic and expand COVID-19 testing in Black and brown communities." | The car protest will take place May 1, assembling before 4 p.m. on Chavez/Lorena at 5 Puntos, in Boyle Heights. | Event information here:…

Brian Terrell (2020-04-19). COVID-19 and the Wasting Disease of Normalcy. dissidentvoice.org "But what of the price of peace?" asked Jesuit priest and war resister Daniel Berrigan, writing from federal prison in 1969, doing time for his part in the destruction of draft records. "I think of the good, decent, peace-loving people I have known by the thousands, and I wonder. How many of them are so …

Alan Macleod (2020-04-17). ICE is Deporting COVID-19 Positive Detainees from Private Immigration Prisons. mintpressnews.com By continuing deportations of quarantined detainees during a pandemic, ICE is greatly increasing the risk of spreading the deadly virus to other countries officials and activists warn.

ACLU (2020-04-17). What it's Like in ICE Detention During a Pandemic. aclu.org As millions of people in the U.S. shelter in their homes, and millions more who aren't able to stay indoors practice social distancing or other measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19, a crisis is brewing in the facilities where immigrants are detained. Cramped conditions and inadequate access to hygiene or medical care have created what one medical expert called a "tinderbox" for the disease in a letter to Congress., , Many of those in detention are asylum seekers, who came to the U.S. to ask for protection after fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries. Many others were long-time U.S. resi…

ACLU (2020-04-17). A Tale of Two Countries: Racially Targeted Arrests in the Era of Marijuana Reform. aclu.org