2021-01-08: News Headlines

Iliana Hagenah (2021-01-08). White Rioters Are Treated Differently than BLM Protesters. progressive.org On January 6, MAGA insurrectionists overtook the Capitol. Meanwhile, states are criminalizing nonviolent Black Lives Matter protests.

Sara Flounders (2021-01-08). Hunger strikes at three New Jersey prisons. workers.org The filthy conditions, indefinite incarceration and escalating COVID infections have touched off desperate hunger strikes at three New Jersey county jails. Each jail operates as a prison-for-profit, renting space at $120 a day for ICE to jail out-of-state migrant detainees. The N.J. counties use the contracts to generate tens of . . . |

Staff (2021-01-08). Battleground Baltimore, Jan. 8. therealnews.com Local leaders react to the insurrection that happened just 45 minutes away in Washington. D.C.; why a move to end home detention fees might not go far enough; and a "spy plane" that has been flying in Baltimore (ostensibly to solve crime) is headed for St. Louis.

Ria Tabacco Mar (2021-01-08). Requiring Men but not Women to Register for the Draft is Sex Discrimination. aclu.org The requirement that only men — but not women — register for the draft is one of the last examples of overt sex discrimination written into our federal law. Today, we joined two young men and the National Coalition For Men (NCFM) to

ACLU (2021-01-08). For Muslims, Even Prayers Aren't Private. aclu.org We generate droves of personal data every time we use the apps on our phones, make a call, or make an online purchase. While we might hope that our data is kept private, hidden away from people or entities that may want to surveil our usage or capitalize on these private choices, it often isn't., , In November, news reports revealed that the federal government had purchased location data mined from apps used by Muslims. One of those apps is Muslim Pro, a GPS-reliant app that signals prayer times to its users, which has been downloaded by millions. It's not yet clear exactly how the data is being used, bu…

_____ (2021-01-07). Police Reform Advocates Press Minnesota Legislature For More. popularresistance.org Civil rights organizers were back at Minnesota's Capitol as a new legislative session got underway Tuesday, ready to mount another push for changes to police accountability laws less than a week after another fatal police shooting in Minneapolis. | "We know that George Floyd is not an anomaly," said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "George Floyd represents the history of state violence against people of color in this country and particularly against Black people." | Floyd's death last May in the custody of Minneapolis police officers made M…

commondreams (2021-01-07). National Lawyers' Committee Board Co-Chairs Scheindlin, Sager and West on Kristen Clarke's Nomination as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. commondreams.org ______________________________…

_____ (2021-01-07). Police Arrest Several People Near Court After Assange's Bail Denied. popularresistance.org London – The police arrested several supporters of Assange who did not have press IDs and refused to disperse as the city is currently under a lockdown and public gatherings prohibited. Among the detained are several women and an elderly man. | Journalists with proper identifications were allowed to continue their work. Earlier in the day, Westminster Magistrates Court refused to release Assange on bail, leaving him incarcerated while a US appeal against the decision not to extradite him to the United States is considered. | Assange was arrested in London in April 2019 and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jump…

Kevin Gosztola (2021-01-07). British Judge Keeps Assange in Prison, Despite Ruling Against Extradition. globalresearch.ca A British district judge denied bail for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after a hearing in which the prosecution argued he had helped NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden "flee justice" and would abscond if released from the Belmarsh high-security prison. | "As far …

Binoy Kampmark (2021-01-07). Proxy Jailor: Denying Assange Bail. dissidentvoice.org History, while not always a telling guide, can be useful. But in moments of flushed confidence, it is not consulted and Cleo is forgotten. A crisp new dawn can negate a glance to the past. Having received the unexpected news that Julian Assange's extradition to the United States for charges of breaching the Espionage Act …

Workers World Party (2021-01-07). PDF of January 7 issue. workers.org Download the 12-page PDF. Alabama prisons: ON STRIKE! 'Relief' bill offers little; Outrage at year's end; Workers as 'contractors'; Massive hack; Historic postal strike; Editorial: COVID unpreparedness. GLOBAL: Cuban and Haitian revolutions; Brexit crisis; Long live DPRK; Argentina: abortion rights victory. TEAR DOWN THE WALLS: Exonerate Mumia! Letter from Pennsylvania . . . |

Eds. (2021-01-07). "Too late to be pessimist! Ecosocialism or collapse" mronline.org From the analysis of the struggle between the great powers for a lesser dependence on fossil fuels (which can shape their rivalries or push towards convergence between them), to the reminder of the need for every subject of oppression to develop its own ecological reflection. Daniel Tanuro gives us illuminating and pedagogical tools to confront …

teleSUR (2021-01-07). Chile To Condemn Murderers of Indigenous Mapuche Catrillanca. telesurenglish.net A Court in Angol city on Thursday is set to hand over its verdict on the murder of the Indigenous Mapuche community member Camilo Catrillanca, aged 24, who was killed by Special Police Operations Group officers (GOPE) in 2018. | RELATED: | The Prosecutor's Office asked for a 19-year in prison sentence for former GOPER sergeant Carlos Alarcon who was accused of both Catrillanca's assassination and the attempted m…

teleSUR (2021-01-07). Guatemala: Former Military Charged for Indigenous Leader Murder. telesurenglish.net A Guatemalan court sentenced on Wednesday the former head of security at Central America's largest nickel mine, Mynor Padilla González, to two years in prison for the murder of indigenous leader Adolfo Ich Chamán, committed in 2009. | RELATED: | Adolfo Ich, a Maya Q'eqchi' teacher, and community leader, was killed during violent evictions in the Las Nubes community. The evictions would give space for the operations of…

Rod Driver (2021-01-07). Brutal Human Rights Abuses — Torture, Sanctions and Our Failure to Discuss Economic Rights. zcomm.org People in advanced nations assume that their governments do not torture prisoners, but it is practized by the US, and was used by Britain in its colonies and in Northern Ireland…

Peoples Dispatch (2021-01-07). Hirak activists on hunger strike against pre-trial detention hospitalized in Algeria. peoplesdispatch.org The three Hirak activists – Mohamed Tadjadit (25), Noureddine Khimoud (25) and Abdelhak Ben Rahmani (38) – began a hunger strike on December 27 last year after they were denied bail and their pre-trial detention was extended by the authorities…

Pamela Winn (2021-01-07). Pamela Winn Fights the Shackling of Pregnant People. aclu.org Pamela Winn was sent to federal prison when she was six weeks pregnant. In prison, she fell down attempting to step into a van while shackled. She was not given prenatal care and she miscarried a little over three months later, shackled to a prison bed., , Winn, who was released from prison in 2013, is now an activist for the rights of incarcerated women. She helped enact a law to prevent the shackling of pregnant people in Georgia and is leading a mission to end prison birth altogether , But her story is not unique. There are currently thousands of pregnant people in prison. Many are not given proper medical…

Vera Eidelman (2021-01-07). Clearview's Dangerous Misreading of the First Amendment Could Spell the End of Privacy Laws. aclu.org Secretly, and without consent, a company called Clearview AI has captured billions of faceprints from people's online photos, amassing what it claims to be the world's largest face recognition database. Much like our fingerprints and DNA profiles, our faceprints rely on permanent, unique facts about our bodies — like the distance between our eyes and noses or the shape of our cheekbones — to identify us., , Using our faceprints, Clearview offers its customers the ability to secretly target and identify any of us, and then to track us — whether we're going to a protest, a religious service, a…

Pip Hinman (2021-01-06). Assange decision welcome but sullied by legal chicanery. greenleft.org.au The ruling that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the United States is welcome, but it comes after the charade in which British authorities held an unconvicted person in a top security prison and made his defence as difficult as possible, argues Stuart Rees.

news.un (2021-01-06). UN human rights expert 'cautiously' welcomes UK court's refusal to extradite Julian Assange. news.un.org An independent UN human rights expert has welcomed a British court's refusal to extradite Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to the United States on the basis that he would be exposed to oppressive conditions of imprisonment.

WSWS (2021-01-06). Medical doctors respond to Assange extradition ruling: "He must be released without delay" wsws.org "We demand that all legal proceedings be dropped and that he be released from prison, and only then will his psychological torture finally end."

A Guest Author (2021-01-06). Advocates demand action as largest women's prison experiences COVID-19 outbreak. workers.org The following press release was issued Jan. 5 by the California Coalition for Women Prisoners CHOWCHILLA, Calif. There is a life-threatening massive outbreak of COVID-19 at the Central California Women's Facility, California's largest women's prison. In the past two weeks, there have been 500 new COVID-19 cases, representing 25% . . . |

Devin C (2021-01-06). EMERGENCY TWITTER/PHONE CALL ALERT! Alabama prison hunger striker beaten. workers.org On the morning of Jan. 4, a prisoner participating in the #Alabama11 hunger strike was beaten and bloodied by a guard, Officer Landrum, at the instructions of Sgt. Williams, for his participation in the hunger strike. The prisoner's name is Ronnie Miller, #244648. He is out of the infirmary, but . . . |

news.un (2021-01-06). 'An unwanted prison sentence' for seafarers stuck at home and stranded at sea. news.un.org Hundreds of thousands of seafarers have been on board for many months longer than planned, stranded at sea due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Six months after the problem was first revealed, many of them are still struggling to cope with the ongoing uncertainty.

Helen Buyniski (2021-01-06). Civil War, Medical Discrimination, Spy Satellites and Cyborgs! How 2021 Could Make Us Yearn for 2020. globalresearch.ca People everywhere are eager to bid farewell to 2020, a year in which our lives were turned upside down by power-mad elites who seized the Covid-19 pandemic as a chance to go full police state. But be careful what you …

commondreams (2021-01-06). President and CEO of the NAACP Releases Statement on Disruption of Peaceful Transition of Power and Calls for Impeachment of President Trump. commondreams.org ______________________________…

Latosha Brown (2021-01-06). "This Is Voter Suppression" zcomm.org 198,000 Georgia Residents Were Illegally Purged from Voter Rolls…

teleSUR (2021-01-06). Ecuador: Court Lifts Ex-President Bucaram's House Arrest. telesurenglish.net Guayas' Court on Tuesday lifted the house arrest imposed on ex-President Abdala Bucaram (1996-1997) who is accused of patrimonial object trafficking, illegal possession of weapons, among other criminal charges. | RELATED: | A habeas corpus petition was filed by Bucaram who was subject to an investigation in August 2020 due to his alleged involvement in the irregular sale of medical supplies and illegal possession of pat…

Udi Ofer (2021-01-06). 50 Years Into the War on Drugs, Biden-Harris can Fix the Harm It Created. aclu.org An earlier version of this blog appeared in

_____ (2021-01-05). Minnesota Is Changing The Way It Teaches Social Studies. popularresistance.org Minnesota's K-12 social studies standards are undergoing extensive revisions in search of a more inclusive approach that teaches about people previously left out of the discussion. | A diverse committee's first draft, now open for public comment, gives greater consideration to the Dakota and Anishinaabe tribes and covers for the first time the civil rights struggles of LGBTQ people. | The draft standards, according to Doug Paulson, the state education department's academic standards director, are "more inclusive" and "culturally affirming." | Still, some committee members think the first draft doesn't go far enou…