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Fear, Repression & Brain Drain: U.S. Campuses Reeling as Trump Freezes, Revokes Student Visas

Democracy Now! — Thu, 29 May 2025 14:42:08 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Fear, Repression & Brain Drain: U.S. Campuses Reeling as Trump Freezes, Revokes Student Visas

Democracy Now! — Thu, 29 May 2025 12:14:40 +0000

The Trump administration is escalating its campaign against international students at U.S. colleges and universities, announcing that it will begin “aggressively” revoking the visas of Chinese students, in addition to freezing visa processing for all foreign-born students as it prepares to require additional social media vetting for every applicant. “It’s really just difficult for me to think of any conceivable theory on which this is going to help the United States,” says Jameel Jaffer, noting that international students pay a disproportionate share of tuition costs on U.S. campuses. Jaffer is the director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, which has previously sued the government over its social media vetting policy for visa applications. The policy, which began as a pilot program during the Obama administration, “is ineffective at identifying national security threats, but it is very effective at chilling free speech,” says Jaffer.

Jaffer also comments on the high-profile immigration detention of former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil and Harvard graduate researcher Kseniia Petrova, as well as a case brought by the Knight Institute challenging the constitutionality of the Trump administration’s crackdown on campus pro-Palestine protest.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

“They Don’t Care About Civil Rights”: Trump’s Shuttering of DHS Oversight Arm Freezes 600 Cases, Imperils Human Rights

by J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 17:25:00 +0000

by J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

On Feb. 10, more than a dozen Department of Homeland Security officials joined a video conference to discuss an obscure, sparsely funded program overseen by its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The office, charged with investigating when the national security agency is accused of violating the rights of both immigrants and U.S. citizens, had found itself in the crosshairs of Elon Musk’s secretive Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

It began as a typical briefing, with Homeland Security officials explaining to DOGE a program many describe as a win-win. It had provided some $20 million in recent years to local organizations that provide case workers to keep people in immigration proceedings showing up to court, staff explained, without expensive detentions and ankle monitors.

DOGE leader Kyle Schutt, a technology executive who developed a GOP online fundraising platform, interrupted. He wanted Joseph Mazzara, DHS’s acting general counsel, to weigh in. Mazzara was recently appointed to the post after working for Ken Paxton as both an assistant solicitor general and member of the Texas attorney general’s defense team that beat back public corruption charges.

Schutt had a different interpretation of the program, according to people who attended or were briefed on the meeting.

“This whole program sounds like money laundering,” he said.

Mazzara went further. His facial expressions, his use of profanity and the way he combed his fingers through his hair made clear he was annoyed.

“We should look into civil RICO charges,” Mazzara said.

DHS staff was stunned. The program had been mandated by Congress, yet Homeland Security’s top lawyer was saying it could be investigated under a law reserved for organized crime syndicates.

“I took it as a threat,” one attendee said. “It was traumatizing.”

For many in the office, known internally as CRCL, that moment was a dark forecast of the future. Several said they scrambled to try to fend off the mass firings they were seeing across the rest of President Donald Trump’s administration. They policed language that Trump’s appointees might not like. They hesitated to open complaints on hot-button cases. They reframed their work as less about protecting civil rights and more about keeping the department out of legal trouble.

None of it worked. On March 21, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem shut down the office and fired most of the 150-person staff. As a result, about 600 civil rights abuse investigations were frozen.

“All the oversight in DHS was eliminated today,” one worker texted after the announcement that they’d been fired.

Eight former CRCL officials spoke with ProPublica about the dismantling of the office on the condition of anonymity because they feared retribution. Their accounts come at a time when the new administration’s move to weaken oversight of federal agencies has faced legal challenges in the federal courts. In defending its move to shut CRCL, the administration said it was streamlining operations, as it has done elsewhere. “DHS remains committed to civil rights protections but must streamline oversight to remove roadblocks to enforcement,” said DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

CRCL staff “often functioned as internal adversaries to slow down operations,” McLaughlin added. She did not address questions from ProPublica about the February meeting. Mazzara and Schutt did not reply to requests for comment.

The office’s closure strips Homeland Security of a key internal check and balance, analysts and former staff say, as the Trump administration morphs the agency into a mass-deportation machine. The civil rights team served as a deterrent to border patrol and immigration agents who didn’t want the hassle and paperwork of an investigation, staff said, and its closure signals that rights violations, including those against U.S. citizens, could go unchecked.

The office processed more than 3,000 complaints in fiscal year 2023 — on everything from disabled detainees being unable to access medical care to abuses of power at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and reports of rape at its detention centers. For instance, following reports that ICE had performed facial recognition searches on millions of Maryland drivers, a CRCL investigation led the agency to agree to new oversight; case details have been removed from the DHS website but are available in the internet archive. The office also reported to Congress that it had investigated and confirmed allegations that a child, a U.S. citizen traveling without her parents between Mexico and California, had been sexually abused by Customs and Border Protection agents during a strip search.

Those cases would have gone nowhere without CRCL, its former staffers said.

“Nobody knows where to go without CRCL, and that’s the point,” a senior official said. Speaking of the administration, the official went on, “They don’t want oversight. They don’t care about civil rights and civil liberties.”

The CRCL staff, most of them lawyers, emphasized that their work is not politically motivated, nor is it limited to immigration issues. For instance, sources said the office was investigating allegations that disaster aid workers with the Federal Emergency Management Agency had skipped over houses that displayed signs supporting Trump during the 2024 election.

“The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties touches on everyone,” one fired employee said. “There’s this perception that we’re only focused on immigrants, and that’s just not true.”

Uncertainty and Panic

The final days of the civil rights office unfolded in a cloud of uncertainty and panic, as with other federal offices getting “RIF’d,” the Beltway verb for the government’s “reduction in force.”

Staff members described the weeks before the shutdown as a whittling away of their work. Dozens of investigative memos posted online in a transparency initiative? Deleted from the site. The eight-person team on racial equity issues? Immediately placed on leave. Travel funds to check conditions at detention centers? Reduced to $1.

As fear intensified that the civil rights office would be dismantled, staff tried to lie low. Leaders told staff to stop launching investigations that came from media reports, previously a common avenue for inquiries. Now, only official complaints from the public would be considered.

Staff was particularly frustrated that under this new mandate it couldn’t open an official investigation into the case of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and legal resident who was arrested for participating in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

CRCL staff was unable to open an investigation into Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest after they were told to stop launching investigations that came from media reports. (Bing Guan/The New York Times/Redux)

With dozens of employees spread across branches or working remotely, many civil rights staffers had never met their colleagues — until the Trump administration’s return-to-office order forced them to come in five days a week. By early March, when reality had sunk in that their jobs were likely to be eliminated, they began quietly organizing, setting up encrypted Signal chat groups and sharing updates on lawsuits filed by government workers in other agencies.

“It’s inspiring how federal employees are pushing back and connecting,” one worker said.

Beyond Trump’s mandate to remove all references to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, leaders told staff to omit from memos words such as “however,” which might sound combative, or “stakeholders,” which came across as too warm and fuzzy.

“Daily life was one miserable assignment after the next,” a staffer said. The orders coming down from Trump appointees were intended to “basically tell us how to undo your office.”

In what would be the last days of the office, the atmosphere was “chilling” and “intimidating.” Some personnel froze, too afraid to make recommendations, while others risked filing new investigations in final acts of defiance.

When the news came on a Friday that they were all being fired, civil rights staff were told they couldn’t issue any out-of-office reply, one former senior official said.

They are still technically employees, on paid leave until May 23. Many have banded together and are exploring legal remedies to get their jobs back. In the interim, if complaints are coming in, none of the professionals trained to receive them are around.

What’s Been Lost

Days after the meeting in which allegations of money laundering and organized crime were loosely thrown at CRCL employees, the program in question was shut down. That effort had essentially earmarked money to local charities to provide nonviolent immigrants with case workers who connect them to services such as human trafficking screening and information on U.S. law. Created by Congress in 2021, the goal was to keep immigrants showing up to court.

Now, Trump’s DHS is suggesting the case worker program is somehow involved in human smuggling. Erol Kekic, a spokesperson for the charity the federal government hired to administer funds in that program, said Church World Services received a “weirdly worded letter” that baffled the organization’s attorneys.

“They said there could be potential human trafficking,” he said, referring to DHS. “But they didn’t accuse us directly of it.”

The nonprofit is working on its response, he said.

Elsewhere, the absence of Homeland Security’s civil rights oversight is already reverberating.

With their office closed, CRCL staff now fear the hypotheticals: At ports of entry, Americans’ Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizure are relaxed; if CBP abuses its power to root through phones and laptops, who will investigate? And if DHS began arresting U.S. citizens for First Amendment protected speech? Their office would have been the first line of defense.

As an example of cases falling through the cracks, CRCL staff told ProPublica they had recommended an investigation into the deportation of a Lebanese professor at Brown University who was in the country on a valid work visa. Federal prosecutors said in court she was detained at an airport in Boston in connection with “sympathetic photos and videos” on her phone of leaders of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Reuters reported she told border authorities she did not support Hezbollah but admired the group’s deceased leader Hassan Nasrallah for religious reasons.

Staff also wanted to look into the case of a 10-year-old girl recovering from brain cancer who, despite being a U.S. citizen, was deported to Mexico along with her parents when they hit an immigration checkpoint as they rushed to an emergency medical visit.

In Colorado, immigration attorney Laura Lunn routinely filed complaints with CRCL, saying pleas with ICE officials at its Aurora detention center were often ignored. Those complaints to CRCL have stopped her clients from being illegally deported, she said, or gotten emergency gynecological care for a woman who had been raped just before being detained.

But now, she asks, “Who do I even go to when there are illegal things happening?”

Lunn’s group, the Rocky Mountain Immigration Advocacy Network, has also joined in large group complaints about inadequate medical care, COVID-19 isolation policies and access to medical care for a pod of transgender inmates.

She’s among those trying to find clients who were housed in the Aurora facility but have mysteriously disappeared. Her clients had pending proceedings, she said, yet were summarily removed, something she’d never seen in 15 years of immigration law.

“Ordinarily, I would file a CRCL complaint. At this moment, we don’t have anyone to file a complaint to,” Lunn said.

That sort of mass deportation is something CRCL would have inspected. In fact, staff members said they had just launched a review into Trump’s increased use of Guantanamo Bay to detain migrants, an inquiry which now appears to have vanished.

A new camp site where the Trump administration plans to house thousands of undocumented migrants at Guantánamo Bay, seen in February 2025. A recent CRCL review of the administration’s use of Guantanamo Bay has vanished. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Redux)

In New Mexico, immigration lawyer Sophia Genovese said she’s filed more than 100 CRCL complaints, helping her secure medical care and other services for sick and disabled people.

She said she has several pending complaints, including one about a detainee who has stomach cancer but can’t get medication stronger than ibuprofen and another involving an HIV-positive patient who hasn’t been able to see a doctor.

“CRCL was one of the very few tools we had to check ICE, to hold ICE accountable,” Genovese said. “Now you see them speeding to complete authoritarianism.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam.

How the federal funding and hiring freezes are leaving communities vulnerable to wildfire

Mark Olalde, ProPublica — Mon, 17 Feb 2025 14:00:00 +0000

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to shrink the federal government, launched as the deadly Palisades and Eaton fires burned across Los Angeles, have left the country’s wildland firefighting force unprepared for the rapidly approaching wildfire season.

The administration has frozen funds, including money appropriated by Congress, and issued a deluge of orders eliminating federal employees, which has thrown agencies tasked with battling blazes into disarray as individual offices and managers struggle to interpret the directives. The uncertainty has limited training and postponed work to reduce flammable vegetation in areas vulnerable to wildfire. It has also left some firefighters with little choice but to leave the force, their colleagues said.

ProPublica spoke to a dozen firefighters and others who assist with the federal wildfire response across the country and across agencies. They described a range of immediate impacts on a workforce that was already stressed by budgetary woes predating the Trump administration. Hiring of some seasonal workers has stalled. Money for partner nonprofits that assist with fuel-reduction projects has been frozen. And crews that had traveled to support prescribed burns in Florida were turned back, while those assisting with wildfire cleanup in California faced confusion over how long they would be allowed to do that work.

“Uncertainty is at an all-time high. Morale is at an all-time low,” one federal wildland firefighter said. Multiple federal employees asked not to be named because of their fear of retribution from the White House.

In two separate lawsuits, judges issued temporary restraining orders against aspects of the White House’s broad freeze of federal spending, although the administration continues arguing that it has the authority to halt the flow of money. Some funding freezes appear to be thawing, but projects and hiring have already been severely impacted.

‘It’s always cheaper to do a prescribed burn’

The threat of wildfire is year-round in the Southeast and spreads west and north as snow melts and temperatures rise. In the West, fire season generally starts in the spring, although climate change has extended the season by more than two months over the past few decades, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Preparations for fire season begin each year in the Southeast, where mild winters allow crews to carry out prescribed burns while snow blankets the West. In a typical year, crews fly in from across the country to assist in containing the planned fires and to train for battling wildfires. The Southeast typically accounts for two-thirds of the acreage treated with federal prescribed burns annually, according to data from the Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils and the National Association of State Foresters.

‘They still don’t have the budget under control’

Even before Trump’s second inauguration, the federal firefighting force faced severe challenges.

The Government Accountability Office, in a 2023 study, found that low pay, which “does not reflect the risk or physical demands of the work,” made hiring and retaining firefighters difficult. The study also pointed to well-documented mental health and work-life balance issues across the Forest Service and the four agencies within the U.S. Department of the Interior that constitute the then-18,700-person strong force.

Then came the Forest Service’s attempts last year to close a budget shortfall worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The agency stopped hiring seasonal workers outside the fire program.

“The reality’s setting in — they still don’t have the budget under control,” one Forest Service firefighter said. Even though firefighting positions were exempted, personnel who do other jobs often assist with fires. And a lack of support staff could force firefighters to do additional work such as maintaining recreational trails, taking them away from fire-related duties.

Much of the force is hired seasonally or switches between crews and agencies at different times of the year. But the increased uncertainty has prompted once-reliable seasonal hires to take other jobs that offer more stability.

“We’re the only ones left,” the Forest Service firefighter said of the hiring freezes.

(In early February, Senator Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican, and Senator Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, introduced legislation to create a new, unified firefighting agency.)

All this comes as wildfires are growing larger and more catastrophic. The area of land burned annually over the past decade was 43 percent larger than the average since the federal government began tracking it in 1983, according to data from the National Interagency Coordination Center.

‘Long, snowballing effects’

The bureaucratic turbulence will have long-term consequences for the force and for communities in fire-prone areas, firefighters said.

One federal employee involved in training programs likened the federal funding freeze during the prime training season to a “massive sledgehammer” hitting the force. The firefighter painted a stark picture of the harm: instructors quitting, workers in the dark about whether they can travel to receive instruction, and leadership positions potentially remaining vacant as firefighters, who lack required training, are unable to qualify for promotions.

“Any pause in a training system like this can have long, snowballing effects,” they said.

Additionally, the workforce has been stressed by Trump’s executive orders calling for programs relating to the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion to be shuttered, including employee support groups and seminars on topics such as women in the wildfire community. Government websites have already been scrubbed of information lauding progress in diversifying the male-dominated federal firefighting force, ProPublica found.

Workers who deal with the aftermath of wildfires are also under pressure.

In Southern California, the Environmental Protection Agency has more than 1,500 employees and contractors working to clean up toxic pollution released by the Palisades and Eaton fires. There, too, the Trump administration’s orders have caused confusion, particularly a decree that the effort must be completed within a 30-day window.

How Trump’s Federal Funding and Hiring Freezes Are Leaving America Vulnerable to Catastrophic Wildfire

by Mark Olalde — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 10:00:00 +0000

by Mark Olalde

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

In one case, the freeze to Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act funding, combined with orders limiting travel by some federal employees, forced the National Park Service to cancel a massive prescribed burn scheduled for January and February in Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve, ProPublica has confirmed. Prescribed burns help prevent catastrophic wildfires by clearing vegetation that serves as fuel, and the meticulously planned 151,434-acre Florida fire — to cover more than six times the land area of nearby Miami — was also meant to protect a Native American reservation and improve ecological biodiversity.

“We will be more vulnerable to a catastrophic fire in the future as a result of not being able to do the prescribed burns,” a federal firefighter with direct knowledge of the situation said.

“Protecting the people and communities we serve, as well as the infrastructure, businesses, and resources they depend on to grow and thrive, remains a top priority,” the statement said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

A national firefighting leadership training program that McLane was set to attend was canceled on short notice, he said. McLane acknowledged that federal firefighting agencies need a major overhaul, noting that his crew was downsized 30% by pre-Trump administration cuts. But the current confusion could further impact public safety because of the lack of clear leadership and the disrupted preparations for wildfire season.

“Wildfire doesn’t care about our bureaucratic calendar,” McLane said.

“It’s Always Cheaper to Do a Prescribed Burn”

Any delays this time of year set preparations back, and numerous firefighters raised the alarm about the canceled burn in the Everglades.

Crews had arrived for three-week assignments to assist with the burn, which was planned alongside the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and was to remove fuel near the Miccosukee Indian Village. The goal, according to a National Park Service press release, was to “protect the Tribal Community from wildfire, enhance landscape resiliency, aid in ecosystem restoration, protect cultural values and improve firefighter and public safety.”

But some crews were told to head home early, according to a firefighter with direct knowledge of the situation. “We do not have the resources to control this burn,” the firefighter said.

A National Park Service representative confirmed the burn was canceled but did not answer questions about the reason for the cancellation.

“What do they want, more fires?” Mary Louise Knapp, a Montana resident who has worked with the department on fire resiliency in her own neighborhood, said of the Trump administration.

“They Still Don’t Have the Budget Under Control”

Even before Trump’s second inauguration, the federal firefighting force faced severe challenges.

Then came the Forest Service’s attempts last year to close a budget shortfall worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The agency stopped hiring seasonal workers outside the fire program.

“We’re the only ones left,” the Forest Service firefighter said of the hiring freezes.

(In early February, Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican, and Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, introduced legislation to create a new, unified firefighting agency.)

All this comes as wildfires are growing larger and more catastrophic. The area of land burned annually over the past decade was 43% larger than the average since the federal government began tracking it in 1983, according to data from the National Interagency Coordination Center.

“Long, Snowballing Effects”

The bureaucratic turbulence will have long-term consequences for the force and for communities in fire-prone areas, firefighters said.

One federal employee involved in training programs likened the federal funding freeze during the prime training season to a “massive sledgehammer” hitting the force. The firefighter painted a stark picture of the harm: instructors quitting, workers in the dark about whether they can travel to receive instruction and leadership positions potentially remaining vacant as firefighters, who lack required training, are unable to qualify for promotions.

“Any pause in a training system like this can have long, snowballing effects,” they said.

Additionally, the workforce has been stressed by Trump’s executive orders calling for programs relating to the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion to be shuttered, including employee support groups and seminars on topics such as women in the wildfire community. Government websites have already been scrubbed of information lauding progress in diversifying the male-dominated federal firefighting force, ProPublica found.

Workers who deal with the aftermath of wildfires are also under pressure.

As Trump has signed more executive orders aimed at shrinking the federal workforce, firefighters voiced concern about their long-term ability to do their jobs.

On Feb. 11, a Trump order demanded agencies only hire one replacement for every four people who leave the government. Firefighters in multiple divisions said they had asked whether their jobs were protected by an exemption for public safety but received no clear answer.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Mark Olalde.

Trump Administration Illegally Freezes Billions in Funding For Electric Vehicle Charging

Newswire Editor — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 21:00:48 +0000

Yesterday, the Federal Highway Administration issued a letter to state Departments of Transportation purporting to cancel states’ already-approved plans to build out America’s EV charging network through the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program and claiming to kill NEVI’s implementing policies.

NEVI is funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Congress passed in 2021.

In response, Sierra Club Clean Transportation for All Director Katherine García released the following statement:

“Freezing these EV charging funds is yet another one of the Trump administration’s unsound and illegal moves. This is an attack on bipartisan funding that Congress approved years ago and is driving investment and innovation in every state, with Texas as the largest beneficiary. Throwing out states’ plans, which were carefully built together with business, utilities, and communities, only hurts America’s growing clean energy economy."

“The NEVI Program has helped the U.S. build out the infrastructure needed to support our nation’s necessary transition to pollution-free vehicles. More electric vehicle charging means better public health, reduced climate emissions, good-paying green jobs, and healthier communities.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Complete Chaos”: Medicaid, Meals on Wheels & More on Chopping Block as Trump Freezes Trillions

Democracy Now! — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 13:14:00 +0000

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has temporarily halted President Trump’s attempt to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, including university and nonprofit funding, food assistance, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits and more. The Trump administration said the shocking move was a part of its assessment of whether various government programs align with its agenda. Since assuming office, Trump and his allies have launched a highly publicized purge of initiatives aimed at tackling historical and structural inequality within the federal government. “It’s just been complete chaos” and “completely illegal,” says our guest Sam Bagenstos, who explains that the policy is an attempt to raise a challenge to Congress’s power of the purse and nullify “all the limitations that have been placed on the president’s power.” Bagenstos previously served as general counsel to the Office of Management and Budget, the agency that announced the freeze Monday night.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Trump freezes refugee resettlement

Democracy Now! — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 21:15:03 +0000

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Zimbabwe’s The NewsHawks freezes military story over fears for journalists’ safety

Committee to Protect Journalists — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 18:39:02 +0000

Lusaka, February 22, 2024—Zimbabwean authorities must end the intimidation and surveillance of journalists working for The NewsHawks online newspaper and ensure they can report safely about the military, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Friday.

The NewsHawks, a privately owned investigative online newspaper, announced on Tuesday that it had halted further reporting on its February 12 story that three army generals were dismissed following allegations of corruption, citing fears for the safety of its journalists, according to news reports and The NewsHawks’ managing editor Dumisani Muleya, who spoke with CPJ.

The NewsHawks said in a statement that reporters had been removed from the story with immediate effect, it would not publish follow-ups, and stories would be pulled out of Tuesday’s latest edition.

“Zimbabwean authorities must guarantee the safety of journalists and take action against state officials whose threats and intimidation have forced The NewsHawks staff to censor their reporting on allegations of military corruption,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program in New York.

“Zimbabwe’s defense force should not be above press scrutiny, particularly when senior military officers are implicated in allegations of public sector corruption involving taxpayers’ funds. They must be barred from spying on journalists to uncover the identity of their confidential sources.”

Following publication of the article, The NewsHawks’ news editor and reporters were threatened and intimidated, including through physical surveillance and call monitoring to identify their sources, Muleya said, declining to provide further details for publication.

“There was pressure from all over…so we had to make a decision to stop following this story up. There’s no point in endangering the lives of reporters in pursuit of a story,” Muleya told CPJ.

In a February 16 statement that The NewsHawks published on social media, a spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) confirmed that three general officers were under investigation. It also noted “with great concern attempts by The NewsHawks and other media outlets to peddle falsehoods.”

On Tuesday, presidential spokesperson George Charamba told the Zimbabwean press to exercise “care and sensitivity” when reporting on “security structures,” local media reported.

“The ZDF has got its own internal processes to investigate any allegation against any of its members and it is always prudent for the media to follow, rather than seek to lead such a process. Leading through advocacy muddies the water and may invite some responses, which may not be that palatable,” Charamba was quoted as saying by Zimbabwean outlets.

Also on Tuesday, The NewsHawks said in a statement: “We are not being silenced, but forced to make some strategic decisions or choices to secure the safety of our reporters. Self-censorship and silence are not an option in investigative journalism, yet necessary if only to ensure journalists’ safety and wellbeing, at least for the time being.”

CPJ’s texts and emails to Charamba and ZDF spokesperson Colonel Alphios Makotore requesting comment on the case did not receive any replies.

The NewsHawks’ journalist Bernard Mpofu was also threatened and forced to go into hiding in 2021 after publishing several articles, including an exclusive about an emergency landing of Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s helicopter, the outlet reported.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Pashinian Says Armenia Freezes Membership In Russian-Led Security Alliance

News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 11:00:42 +0000

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says NATO allies are committed to doing more to ensure that Ukraine "prevails" in its battle to repel invading Russian forces, with the alliance having "significantly changed" its stance on providing more advanced weapons to Kyiv.

Speaking in an interview with RFE/RL to mark the second anniversary of Russia launching its full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the NATO chief said solidarity with Ukraine was not only correct, it's also "in our own security interests."

"We can expect that the NATO allies will do more to ensure that Ukraine prevails, because this has been so clearly stated by NATO allies," Stoltenberg said.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

"I always stress that this is not charity. This is an investment in our own security and and that our support makes a difference on the battlefield every day," he added.

Ukraine is in desperate need of financial and military assistance amid signs of political fatigue in the West as the war kicked off by Russia's unprovoked invasion nears the two-year mark on February 24.

In excerpts from the interview released earlier in the week, Stoltenberg said the death of Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and the first Russian gains on the battlefield in months should help focus the attention of NATO and its allies on the urgent need to support Ukraine.

The death of Navalny in an Arctic prison on February 16 under suspicious circumstances -- authorities say it will be another two weeks before the body may be released to the family -- adds to the need to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin's authoritarian rule does not go unchecked.

"I strongly believe that the best way to honor the memory of Aleksei Navalny is to ensure that President Putin doesn't win on the battlefield, but that Ukraine prevails," Stoltenberg said.

Stoltenberg said the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the city of Avdiyivka last week after months of intense fighting demonstrated the need for more military aid, "to ensure that Russia doesn't make further gains."

"We don't believe that the fact that the Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from Avdiyivka in in itself will significantly change the strategic situation," he said.

"But it reminds us of that Russia is willing to sacrifice a lot of soldiers. It also just makes minor territorial gains and also that Russia has received significant military support supplies from Iran, from North Korea and have been able to ramp up their own production."

Ukraine's allies have been focused on a $61 billion U.S. military aid package, but while that remains stalled in the House of Representatives, other countries, including Sweden, Canada, and Japan, have stepped up their aid.

"Of course, we are focused on the United States, but we also see how other allies are really stepping up and delivering significant support to Ukraine," Stoltenberg said in the interview.

On the question of when Ukraine will be able to deploy F-16 fighter jets, Stoltenberg said it was not possible to say. He reiterated that Ukraine's allies all want them to be there as early as possible but said the effect of the F-16s will be stronger if pilots are well trained and maintenance crews and other support personnel are well-prepared.

"So, I think we have to listen to the military experts exactly when we will be ready to or when allies will be ready to start sending and to delivering the F-16s," he said. "The sooner the better."

Ukraine has actively sought U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets to help it counter Russian air superiority. The United States in August approved sending F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands as soon as pilot training is completed.

It will be up to each ally to decide whether to deliver F-16s to Ukraine, and allies have different policies, Stoltenberg said. But at the same time the war in Ukraine is a war of aggression, and Ukraine has the right to self-defense, including striking legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine.

Asked about the prospect of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House, Stoltenberg said that regardless of the outcome of the U.S. elections this year, the United States will remain a committed NATO ally because it is in the security interest of the United States.

Trump, the current front-runner in the race to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee, drew sharp rebukes from President Joe Biden, European leaders, and NATO after suggesting at a campaign rally on February 10 that the United States might not defend alliance members from a potential Russian invasion if they don’t pay enough toward their own defense.

Stoltenberg said the United States was safer and stronger together with more than 30 allies -- something that neither China nor Russia has.

The criticism of NATO has been aimed at allies underspending on defense, he said.

But Stoltenberg said new data shows that more and more NATO allies are meeting the target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, and this demonstrates that the alliance has come a long way since it pledged in 2014 to meet the target.

At that time three members of NATO spent 2 percent of GDP on defense. Now it’s 18, he said.

"If you add together what all European allies do and compare that to the GDP in total in Europe, it's actually 2 percent today," he said. "That's good, but it's not enough because we want [each NATO member] to spend 2 percent. And we also make sure that 2 percent is a minimum."

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Bangladesh bank freezes accounts belonging to U.S.-sanctioned Myanmar banks

By Reyad Hossain for BenarNews — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 20:49:57 +0000

Bangladesh’s Sonali Bank has frozen accounts of two Myanmar state-owned banks due to U.S. sanctions against them, its chief executive officer said Wednesday.

Confirmation of the action came after the United States Embassy in Dhaka sent a letter to the government requesting that Bangladesh comply with such sanctions, which was then forwarded to the Bangladeshi state-owned bank, according to documents seen by BenarNews.

But Md. Afzal Karim, Sonali Bank’s chief executive officer and managing director, said action had already been taken against the accounts of Myanma Foreign Trade Bank and Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank. He did not say exactly when.

“We have already frozen the accounts of the two banks due to the OFAC sanction,” Karim told BenarNews on Wednesday, referring to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, an agency under the U.S. Treasury Department that enforces sanctions.

Karim said the two Myanmar banks had total deposits of US$1.1 million in Sonali Bank.

“This money cannot be transacted [on],” he said.

“For more than a month, the accounts of the two banks [in Sonali Bank] are not being used for any transactions.”

Karim said that after Sonali Bank had frozen the accounts, the Myanmar junta had requested Bangladesh to make the accounts available for transaction.

“We were requested by Myanmar to open the account. However, it will not be possible to open until the sanction is lifted,” Karim said.

He said he was relieved that Sonali Bank did not have a large amount of funds in accounts in the two sanctioned Myanmar banks.

“We don’t have much money there. One bank has 17,000 euros, another has [200,000] dollars,” he said. “They have more money with us.”

In June, Washington announced its sanctions against three entities, including the two banks controlled by the Burmese military, which overthrew an elected government in February 2021.

The U.S. Treasury said the two banks “facilitate much of the foreign currency exchange within Burma and enable transactions between the military regime and foreign markets, including for the purchase and import of arms and related materiel.”

Since the military coup, the Burmese junta has cracked down on mass protests, killed nearly 4,000 people and arrested thousands more, according to human rights groups. The United Nations said more than 1.8 million people had been forced to flee their homes in Myanmar because of violence since the coup.

The United States, in a letter to the Bangladesh foreign ministry dated Aug. 3, reminded it of the sanctions on the two Myanmar banks and urged Dhaka to “take appropriate action.” The ministry then sent a letter to Sonali Bank, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Bangladesh informing them about the U.S. embassy letter.

“On June 21, we imposed sanctions on three entities in response to atrocities and other abuses that the regime committed against the people of Burma,” according to an excerpt from the embassy’s letter.

“These designations reinforced our objectives of denying the regime access to foreign currency and further preventing the regime from purchasing arms that could be used to commit atrocities and other abuses.”

BenarNews contacted the U.S. embassy in Dhaka for details but did not immediately hear back.

Bangladesh-Myanmar trade is small. The South Asian country mainly exports potatoes, biscuits and plastic products to Myanmar, and imports items such as wood, frozen fish, ginger and onions.

In fiscal year 2022, Bangladesh imported goods worth around $128.5 million from Myanmar, its next-door neighbor, and exported items worth $3.9 million to Myanmar.

The U.S. sanction on the two Myanmar banks that have accounts in Sonali Bank should not be a financial burden on Bangladesh, said Syed Mahbubur Rahman, managing director of Mutual Trust Bank.

“Since Bangladesh does not have a large amount of business with Myanmar, there will not be a significant bottleneck due to this reason,” he told BenarNews. “There is no reason to worry about it.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Reyad Hossain for BenarNews.

Canada freezes ties with China development bank

By Chris Taylor for RFA — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 05:42:36 +0000

Canada has frozen ties with China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank after the bank’s Canadian communications head resigned, explosively accusing the organization of having “one of the most toxic cultures imaginable” on his personal Twitter account.

Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s finance minister and deputy prime minister, told reporters on Wednesday, the Canadian government would “immediately halt all government-led activity at the bank,” while it reviewed the allegations and Canada’s “involvement” with the AIIB.

Bob Pickard, the Canadian director-general for communications of the Beijing-headquartered AIIB, said he flew to Tokyo on Wednesday, two days after formally resigning, out of concern for his personal security.

“I’ve been advised not to set foot in China anytime soon. From a country where the two Michaels were kidnapped by the government, we’re maybe a little more sensitive or concerned about such things,” he said in a phone call to Reuters, referring to two Canadians arbitrarily detained in China for nearly three years from 2018 to 2021.

The Party holds the cards

“The Communist Party hacks hold the cards at the Bank. They deal with some board members as useful idiots. I believe that my Government should not be a member of this PRC instrument. The reality of power in the bank is that it’s CCP from start to finish,” Pickard wrote in a tweet.

He added, “I saw with my own eyes the extent to which Communist Party hacks occupy key positions in the bank, like an in-house KGB or Gestapo or Stazi.”

The AIIB said in a statement, “Mr. Pickard’s recent public comments and characterization of the Bank are baseless and disappointing.”

The Wall Street Journal reported having seen an email by Jin Liqun, the bank’s president and a former Chinese deputy finance minister, which said to staff on Wednesday, “We acknowledge the uncertainty these comments can cause for all of us that work at AIIB. We hope that you will join us in wishing Bob well for the future.”

Jin has been busy burnishing the AIIB’s reputation, distancing the bank from the likes of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is seen by many critics as simply an extension or a tool of China’s foreign policy.

“We are proud of our multilateral mission and have a diverse international team representing 65 different nationalities and members at AIIB, serving our 106 members worldwide, many of whom have been with us since our formation in 2016,” the AIIB’s official statement on Pickard’s resignation said.

The allegations and the reaction by the Canadian government are likely to be an embarrassment to the AIIB, which has been representing itself as a transparent alternative to multilateral organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

It also underscores tensions between the West and China over international development lending, with China frequently being forced to deny accusations of “debt diplomacy” involving its Belt and Road initiative.

But Austin Strange, a specialist in China’s international-development finance at the University of Hong Kong, told the Wall Street Journal in a separate report that unless further member-states raise similar concerns it is unlikely there will be any major consequences for the bank.

‘Nothing but a lie’

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa told Reuters in an email: "The claim that 'AIIB is controlled by the Communist Party of China' is nothing but a lie".

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Canada said in a statement that Pickard’s comments were purely “a sensational publicity stunt.”

Meanwhile, Pickard told the Financial Times from Tokyo, “These people are like an invisible government inside the bank and this is what I can’t be part of.”

Although the response from the AIIB has been measured, Pickard claims that China’s wumao bots – state-sponsored internet commentators – have been accusing him online of variously being an “Imperialist” and a “spy,” but nobody has suggested that such messages are coming from the AIIB itself.

Zichen Wang, a senior Beijing-based reporter for Xinhua, in his widely read Pekingnology blog on Friday noted inconsistencies in Pickard’s statements about the inner workings of the AIIB, and also noted that some AIIB employees said in media reports that Pickard’s claims “came as a surprise.”

Wang further cited the fact that India is AIIB’s biggest beneficiary despite the fact that “China-India ties have dived after the unfortunate 2020 border clash, which killed 20 Indians and 4 Chinese soldiers,” as evidence of the bank’s independence from China’s foreign policy.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chris Taylor for RFA.

Kyrgyzstan freezes Radio Azattyk bank account under money laundering laws

Committee to Protect Journalists — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 20:41:09 +0000

Stockholm, November 4, 2022—Kyrgyz authorities should immediately restore access to the bank account and website of Radio Azattyk, U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s local service, and cease all attempts to obstruct the outlet’s work, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

On Monday, October 31, staff at the local offices of Turkey-based DemirBank informed Radio Azattyk that they had frozen the outlet’s account under orders of Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security (SCNS), news reports said.

Kyrgyz authorities have yet to provide any confirmation or explanation for the freeze, those reports said. However, DemirBank stated in a Facebook post and letter to Radio Azattyk on Thursday, November 3, that the account has been suspended under Article 14 of Kyrgyzstan’s law “On countering the financing of terrorist activities and the legalization (laundering) of criminal proceeds,” which allows the suspension of accounts deemed to be involved in money laundering.

The move comes after Kyrgyzstan’s ministry of culture last week ordered Radio Azattyk’s website blocked for two months under false information legislation, a decision CPJ criticized as censorship. A November 3 statement by RFE/RL described these actions as part of a series of “punitive steps” against its Kyrgyz service by authorities. Jamie Fly, RFE/RL president and CEO, called the move to freeze Radio Azattyk’s bank account an “escalation” and vowed to fight “this attempt to silence our journalists.”

“After blocking Radio Azattyk’s website, freezing the outlet’s bank account is another outrageous and apparently unlawful step taken by Kyrgyz authorities to pressure one of the country’s most important news sources. These and all other efforts to obstruct the work of Radio Azattyk must end immediately,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Kyrgyz authorities must stop treating the independent press like an enemy and allow Radio Azattyk and other independent outlets to work without harassment and impediment.”

Under Article 14 of the money laundering law, banks are required to block the accounts of any entities in a register where there is information of involvement in money laundering. The register is maintained by the country’s State Financial Intelligence Service (SFIS), which is under the Ministry of Finance and decides on additions to the register based on information received from government ministries and other sources, according to a government decree setting out the law’s operation.

This register is not currently available on SFIS’ website, in violation of that decree, and CPJ was unable to determine whether Radio Azattyk has been placed on it. DemirBank did not provide further information about why the account was frozen.

CPJ emailed RFE/RL for comment, but the broadcaster referred to its existing statements. CPJ’s emailed requests for further information to DemirBank, SFIS, and SCNS were not answered.

In a phone interview, Akmat Alagushev, media representative for local advocacy group Media Policy Institute, called the freeze “ridiculous,” saying it was equivalent to accusing the U.S. government, which funds Radio Azattyk, of money laundering. Alagushev said there was no point seeking a legal rationale behind the decision, as Kyrgyz authorities are simply “pursuing all possible methods to prevent Azattyk from working.”

The freeze can be appealed in the courts, but Alagushev said he expects SFIS to reverse the decision in the coming days as it has no legal basis.

CPJ emailed the ministry of culture for comment but did not immediately receive a reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.