(2021-04-16). Pandemic Discrimination Against Asian Americans Has Long Roots. popularresistance.org "I have pepper spray and I hold it every time I'm alone right now in case I see someone that is really frightening," said New York City teacher Annie Tan, who is Chinese American. | By February 2020, friends of hers had already been verbally harassed on the subway. One had been deliberately coughed on. Another was too scared to take the train anymore. | Many Asian Americans and Asian immigrants are experiencing similar incidents. | A neighbor pointed to her and said "China virus," said Ah Ying, a homecare worker in San Francisco who immigrated years ago from Taishan, China. A physical assault on an Asian American…
(2021-04-16). COVID-19 May Fade, But Will the Tracking Tools Built to Fight It? aclu.org At the start of the pandemic, technologists and policymakers touted the promise of technology to track and warn individuals of potential COVID-19 exposure and high-risk areas. But whether due to overburdened contact tracers or the lack of early and coordinated adoption, those technologies never became a central part of the public health effort against the disease. | With attention now on various schemes for "vaccine passports," a concept
(2021-04-16). Week of Action for Palestinian Prisoners: Events and Actions around the world. samidoun.net 
People and organizations around the world are preparing to mark Palestinian Prisoners' Day — April 17 — commemorated each year as a day of struggle for liberation for the Palestinian prisoners, on the front lines of confrontation, and the Palestinian people. Below are many of the actions and events taking place around the world to commemorate Palestinian Prisoners' Day 2021 and the Palestinian Prisoners' Week of Action from April 17-23! This page will be updated with further events and actions. Read the call to action from occupied Palestine in: English | Arabic | French | German | S…
(2021-04-16). Medical Examiner Accused of Covering Up Police Killing in Maryland Becomes Witness for Derek Chauvin. democracynow.org 
In the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, a key witness for the defense was the former Maryland chief medical examiner, Dr. David Fowler, who contradicted most other expert witnesses in the trial and suggested heart trouble and other issues, not the police restraint, caused George Floyd's death. The decision by Chauvin's legal team to rely on Fowler's testimony shocked many in Maryland, where he is being sued by the family of 19-year-old Anton Black, an African American teenager from Maryland who died in 2018 after he was electrocuted with a Taser, pinned in a prone position and crushed und…
(2021-04-16). Facebooking While Brown: Indigenous man in Arizona imprisoned for Social Media "shock-talk" about #BLM protest. mronline.org 
Reed has been held in federal pretrial detention without bail for ten months after a prior high school acquaintance reported him to the police for a different satirical social media post about planning a protest or 'riot' at the courthouse that never actually happened. | April 16, 2021 | Newswire…
(2021-04-16). Arabic press review: Egypt expects breakthrough for political prisoners. middleeasteye.net 
Arabic press review: Egypt expects breakthrough for political prisoners | Meanwhile, former Yemeni minister blasts Saudi Arabia, Oman seeks release of detained citizens in UAE, and Houthi attacks on Saudi soil escalate | Fri, 04/16/2021 – 14: 01 | Egypt's al-Qanatir women's prison, at the tip of the Nile delta in Qalyoubiya province (AFP) | 'Imminent breakthrough' for Egypt's political priso…
(2021-04-16). Arabic press review: Egypt expects 'breakthrough' for political prisoners. middleeasteye.net Arabic press review: Egypt expects 'breakthrough' for political prisoners | Meanwhile, former Yemeni minister blasts Saudi Arabia, Oman seeks release of detained citizens in UAE, and Houthi attacks on Saudi soil escalate | Fri, 04/16/2021 – 14: 01 | Egypt's al-Qanatir women's prison, at the tip of the Nile delta in Qalyoubiya province (AFP) | 'Imminent breakthrough' for Egypt's political pri…
(2021-04-16). Jordan: King Abdullah calls woman charged with insulting the throne. middleeasteye.net 
Jordan: King Abdullah calls woman charged with insulting the throne | Jordanian authorities rescinded Athar al-Dabbas's one year prison sentence following a social media campaign
| Fri, 04/16/2021 – 12: 01 | Women walk past a poster of King Abdullah II in Amman (AFP) | A Jordanian woman charged with insulting the throne has received a call pardoning her from King Abdullah, following a social media c…
(2021-04-16). US aid must not fund Israeli abuses against Palestinians, new bill says. middleeasteye.net 
US aid must not fund Israeli abuses against Palestinians, new bill says | Legislation introduced by Congresswoman Betty McCollum prohibits US assistance from contributing to detention of children, home demolitions or annexation | Fri, 04/16/2021 – 19: 10 | The Israeli military detains hundreds of Palestinian children annually (B'Tselem) | Congresswoman Betty McCollum has renewed her efforts to prohibit US taxpaye…
(2021-04-16). The US's Biggest County Jails Are Sites of Extreme Environmental Injustice. truthout.org 
This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. | For more than half a century, 441 Bauchet Street has been the address where Los Angeles' most stark social and environmental inequalities converge. It's the location of L.A.'s Men's Central Jail, the largest facility in the most populated county jail system in the country. On any given day, about 5,000 people are incarcerated there. | A block south from the jail is the 101…
(2021-04-16). Daunte Wright Should Never Have Been Stopped. aclu.org The story of 20-year-old Daunte Wright, shot and killed by Brooklyn Center, Minnesota police after being pulled over for minor traffic violations on Sunday, is heartbreakingly familiar. It is so familiar, in fact, that protests are happening just 10 miles from the courtroom where Derek Chauvin is on trial for the death of George Floyd. Police interactions with citizens shouldn't end in death, and yet hundreds die at the hands of police every year. In order to protect and serve Black Americans, we need immediate solutions. | What do these solutions look like? To Paige Fernandez, the ACLU's policing policy advi…
(2021-04-16). Mountain View–Rising Up Against Anti-Asian Discrimination. indybay.org Chanting "Stop the Violence–No More Silence," more than 500 demonstrators marched from the vicinity of the historic Caltrain Station at the end of Castro Street to rally in the Mountain View City Hall Plaza on April 11.
(2021-04-16). Self-Emancipation Continues To Rise At The St. Louis City Justice Center. popularresistance.org In the early morning hours of April 4, 2021, a day that many Christians recognized as Resurrection Sunday, detainees, at the St. Louis City Justice Center moved in the spirit of insurrection to challenge their oppressors and well documented repression at the jail. After the first major rebellion at the jail grabbed national attention on February 6, 2021, government bureaucrats in collaboration with "activists" of the social justice state scrambled to mystify what is really happening to detainees at the city's jails through sham reports and pseudo-independent investigations. | The attempt to paper over the status…
(2021-04-16). Lawsuit filed after police fracture elderly woman's arm on video. nationofchange.org "This is not community policing. This is community terrorism."
(2021-04-16). Media Once Again Trolling US Withdrawal From Afghanistan. popularresistance.org I don't write much about the specific individuals who drive the oligarchic empire because individuals are not the problem, the system is. Right-wing conspiracy analysts prefer to focus on specific corrupt elites because they like to think if you just got rid of them, capitalism would work fine. And it just wouldn't. If you rounded up and executed all the sociopathic ruling elites today but left our current systems intact they'd just be replaced tomorrow. A competition-based model where war, corruption, oppression and exploitation remain profitable guarantees this. | A lot of right-wing conspiracy analysis today u…
(2021-04-15). In prison, today's pandemic and shades of yesterday's: What the fight against COVID can learn from the one against AIDS. mronline.org 
The infamous Tuskegee syphilis study on Black men is but the best known of the plethora of medical experiments on Black and Brown people in and out of prisons, and other vulnerable populations. | April 15, 2021 | Newswire…
(2021-04-15). Boycott Israeli Dates — Stand with Palestine, Boycott Apartheid! samidoun.net 
Boycott Israeli Dates!: | Thousands of Palestinian prisoners are marking Ramadan inside Israeli prisons, deprived of their families and loved ones, while their communities and loved ones are kept from these strugglers for freedom by iron bars and prison walls of the occupation. Millions more Palestinians mark the holiday facing home demolitions, land confiscation, systematic racism and apartheid, a killer siege, extrajudicial executions, military occupation, and settler colonialisn. For 72 years, Palestinian refugees have been denied their right to return to their homes, lands and properties by the Zionis…
(2021-04-15). Protesting Ongoing Israeli Army Arrests, Detention of University Students in Occupied Palestine. juancole.com By Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association. To: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Minister of Education Yoav Galant, Minister of Higher Education Ze'ev Elkin, Minister of Justice Avi Nissenkorn, Brigadier General Rasan Alian, Head of Civil Administration in the West Bank, Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Chief Clerk Init …
(2021-04-15). From The South: Mumia Abu-Jamal To Undergo Heart Surgery. telesurenglish.net Mumia Abu-Jamal, the internationally celebrated black writer and radio journalist, had previously been diagnosed with heart failure, diabetes, liver cirrhosis and recently, COVID-19, leading to supporters calling for his freedom after having spent nearly 40 years in prison without a fair hearing.
(2021-04-15). Civil rights tsunami in D.C. over statehood, reparations and Justice Dept. peoplesworld.org 
WASHINGTON — Civil rights issues hit Capitol Hill in a big way on April 14. As might be expected, congressional Republicans were on the wrong side of all of them. One House panel approved statehood for D.C. Another considered statehood for Puerto Rico. A third voted late at night for a bill to study reparations …
(2021-04-15). 'The OK Legislature Wants Us Dead': Rights Defenders Decry Advancement of Anti-Protest Bills. commondreams.org The head of the state's ACLU accused Oklahoma lawmakers of "attempting to silence the voices of their constituents and criminalize vital calls for accountability and racial justice." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_special_coverage/public/headline/thumbs/charlottesville_0.jpg …
(2021-04-15). Black Lives Matter: Teacher disciplined for displaying BLM flag sues Florida school district for discriminatory treatment. splcenter.org  …
(2021-04-15). Black Lives matter protests draw wide support. greenleft.org.au Large and angry protests were held in several cities across the country to mark 30 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody handed down its findings, reports Isaac Nellist.
(2021-04-15). In honor of William Ramsey Clark. fightbacknews.org I wish to convey my sincerest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of my friend and legal counsel William Ramsey Clark who passed away last April 9, 2021. I have the highest regard for him as a champion of human rights, a staunch defender of the people's right to national and social liberation, a fierce advocate of just peace and a resolute opponent to the imperialist policies and wars of aggression of the US. | While he was US Attorney General under the Johnson administration, he was well known for standing up for civil liberties and civil rights, fighting against racial segregation and discriminati…
(2021-04-15). Fourth officer charged in excessive force case. nationofchange.org The maximum penalty for the deprivation-of-rights offenses is 10 years of imprisonment and the maximum penalty for false report offenses is 20 years of imprisonment.
(2021-04-15). United States: Major League Baseball moves All-Star game to protest voter suppression. greenleft.org.au Major League Baseball has taken a stand against racism and moved its All-Star game to protest voter suppression, reports David Zirin.