Florida Democratic Congressmember Maxwell Frost joins us to discuss how he observed horrific conditions in Florida’s new immigration detention jail in the Everglades, known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” when he joined other lawmakers in a visit. “I saw myself in those cages. It was a lot of people my age that looked like me,” says Frost. “The administration is essentially trying to ethnically cleanse the country.” We also speak with a reporter at the Miami Herald, which reports hundreds of detainees at the Everglades immigration prison have no criminal records or charges, contradicting claims by the Trump administration. The newspaper recently published a list of people detained or believed to be detained at the facility, helping families locate their loved ones.

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

“The most important thing that we have to do right now is hold the Republicans that voted for this bill accountable for the devastation that they are causing and the lives that will be impacted.” Democratic Congressmember Yassamin Ansari of Arizona explains how Trump’s new federal budget, which introduces major cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, housing and education, will worsen wealth inequality and the health disparities, while actually increasing the U.S. deficit by trillions of dollars and supercharging spending for immigration and border enforcement. The congressmember shares her recent experience visiting a detention center outside of Phoenix, calling some of the conditions there the most “dehumanizing” she has ever seen. Ansari, the first Iranian American Democrat to serve as a member of Congress, also condemns the Trump administration’s strikes on Iran in June. “I do not believe that the president of the United States should be conducting unilateral military action without authorization from Congress,” she says.

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

Telemundo Atlanta reported on Monday morning that the activist group Indivisible had scheduled a protest for 6 p.m. that day at the jail.

“We are dismayed that immigration officials have decided to ignore a federal immigration court order last week granting bail to journalist Mario Guevara,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “Guevara is currently the only jailed journalist in the United States who was arrested in relation to his work. Immigration authorities must respect the law and release him on bail instead of bouncing him from one jurisdiction to another.”

The journalist, who was initially arrested while covering a June 14 “No Kings” protest in the Atlanta metro area and charged with three misdemeanors, which local officials declined to prosecute due to insufficient evidence. A local judge ordered Guevara to be released on bond, but he remained in custody after ICE opened a detainer against him.

The Department of Homeland Security headquarters and the department’s Atlanta field office did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

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

In an effort to fulfill the Trump administration’s daily immigration arrest “quotas,” federal agents and deputized local law enforcement are racially profiling and snatching people off the streets without due process. These arrests, carried out by armed and masked agents, are sowing terror and confusion in communities across the United States. Stephano Medina, a lawyer with the California Center for Movement Legal Services, shares how ICE regularly denies that it has taken people into custody, leading to family members scrambling for information about their loved ones. “It’s arrest now, ask questions later,” adds Dominique Boubion, an attorney representing Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen who was taken by ICE last month in what Velez has since described as a “kidnapping.”

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

Deep in the Florida Everglades, at an abandoned airfield surrounded by barren swampland, local law enforcement authorities are opening the doors to a huge tent facility that hopes to lock up immigrants swept up in the Trump administration’s mass deportation machine. Republicans have branded the still-unapproved facility “Alligator Alcatraz,” with Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier boasting that the state can afford to keep staff and safety costs low because the wild animals of the swamp will provide security and prevent escapes. Immigrant rights advocates warn that the cramped facility will further isolate immigrants who are being rounded up indiscriminately and detained without charge, and could lead to life-threatening overheating and overcrowding. We speak to Nery Lopez of Detention Watch Network and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council for more about the “inhumane” proposed detention camp.

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

In a closed-door trial on Monday, columnist and peace activist Bahruz Samadov was sentenced by a court in the capital Baku to 15 years in prison for treason, after going on a hunger strike and attempting suicide the previous week.

On Friday, six journalists from Abzas Media, widely regarded as Azerbaijan’s most prominent anticorruption investigative outlet, were found guilty of acting as an organized group to commit multiple financial crimes, including currency smuggling, money laundering, and tax evasion, linked to alleged receipt of illegal Western donor funding:

• director Ulvi Hasanli, editor-in-chief Sevinj Vagifgizi (Abbasova), journalist Hafiz Babali – sentenced to 9 years
• reporters Nargiz Absalamova and Elnara Gasimova – sentenced to 8 years
• project coordinator Mahammad Kekalov – sentenced to 7 ½ years

In addition, journalist Farid Mehralizada from U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Azerbaijani service received a 9-year sentence as part of the same trial.

“The heavy sentences meted out to seven journalists in the Abzas Media case and to columnist Bahruz Samadov signal Azerbaijani authorities’ intent to wipe out what remains of independent coverage,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Reports that Samadov has attempted suicide are particularly concerning. Authorities should ensure Samadov’s wellbeing and immediately release all wrongly jailed journalists.”

Abzas Media told CPJ in a statement that the charges against their staff were “absurd and fabricated” and their “only ‘offense’ was exposing corruption, abuse of power, and informing the public of inconvenient truths.”

RFE/RL condemned Mehralizada’s sentence as a “sham” and “unnecessarily cruel.”

Treason case shrouded in secrecy

More than 20 leading Azerbaijani journalists have been jailed on charges of receiving funds from Western donors since late 2023, amid a decline in relations with the West and a surge in authoritarianism following Azerbaijan’s recapture of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, ending decades of separatist Armenian rule. 

Azerbaijan was the world’s 10th worst jailer with 13 journalists behind bars in CPJ’s latest annual prison census on December 1, 2024.

Full details of the charges against Samadov, who contributes to Georgia-based OC Media and U.S.-based Eurasianet and was detained by state security officers while visiting his family in Azerbaijan in 2024, have not been made public. Authorities classified as secret the case against Samadov, a prominent advocate for peace with neighboring Armenia and a doctoral student in the Czech Republic.

Pro-government media, which receive regular “recommendations” from authorities on what to publish, have denounced Samadov for writing “subversive” articles for the “anti-Azerbaijan” Eurasianet. His reporting, reviewed by CPJ, focuses on growing Azerbaijani militarism and authoritarianism.

‘Absurd’ charges in reprisal for corruption reporting

As the June 20 verdicts were read out, Abzas Media journalists turned their backs on the judges and held up posters of the outlet’s corruption investigations into senior officials, including the president’s family.

President Ilham Aliyev took over from his father in 2003 and won a fifth consecutive term in 2024.

Abzas Media continues to operate from exile.

Western-funded ‘spies’

Amid a major state media campaign against Western-funded “spies,” police raided Abzas Media’s office in November 2023 and said they found 40,000 euros (US$45,900), accusing U.S., French, and German embassies of funding the outlet illegally.

Police arrested the six journalists over the following three months. In 2024, Mehralizada was also detained, though he and Abzas Media denied that he worked for the outlet.

Azerbaijani law requires civil society groups to obtain state approval for foreign grants, which authorities accuse Abzas Media of failing to do.

Defense arguments, reviewed by CPJ, said that such an omission was punishable by fines, not criminal sanctions, and prosecutors did not provide evidence the journalists engaged in criminal activity. Rights advocates accuse Azerbaijan of routinely withholding permission for foreign grants and refusing to register organizations that seek them.

In February, Aziz Orujov, director of independent broadcaster Kanal 13, was sentenced to two years in prison on illegal construction charges. In December, Teymur Karimov, head of independent broadcaster Kanal 11 was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Five journalists from Toplum TV and 10 with Meydan TV face trial on similar foreign funding allegations.

Editor’s note: This text has been amended in the ninth paragraph to correct the number of journalists facing charges of receiving funds from Western donors.

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

Democracy Now! was there when Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil reunited with his family over the weekend after being released on bail by a federal judge Friday, ending his detention in a Louisiana ICE jail after more than 100 days. Khalil was seized by federal agents at his home in New York on March 8, with the Trump administration seeking to deport him even though he is a legal permanent resident with a green card and married to a U.S. citizen. Khalil’s wife Noor Abdalla was eight months pregnant at the time of the arrest and gave birth to their son while he was jailed. “I just want to go back and continue the work I was already doing, advocating for Palestinian rights,” says Khalil, who played a prominent role in the Palestine solidarity protests at Columbia University last spring. He addressed over 1,000 supporters at a rally Sunday before leading a march to the gates of the school. We feature part of Khalil’s comments and also hear from Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and members of Khalil’s legal team.

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

“We are deeply concerned about the lack of transparency in the legislative process surrounding the Zambia Institute of Journalism Bill, which would place alarmingly restrictive controls on the media,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “We call on the government to ensure that this bill, which was publicly disavowed by President Hakainde Hichilema, does not become law.”

The bill would require journalists to obtain an annual license from a regulatory institute, which could be rescinded for misconduct; it has yet to be formally tabled in parliament. Those who impersonate journalists, work without a registration, or employ such individuals could face imprisonment of up to five years or fines of up to 200,000 Kwacha (US$8,000).

The justice ministry drafted the bill at the information ministry’s request, on behalf of the Media Liaison Committee, a media industry body, according to Modern Muyembe, media development director at the ministry of information. It was approved for legislative committee review in March.

The MLC’s acting chairperson, Felistus Chipako, did not respond to CPJ’s email requesting comment but was quoted by The Editor Zambia as saying that the bill sought to uphold professionalism and empower journalists.

Following an outcry from media rights and news organizations, Hichilema said he opposed the bill, saying it was not a government initiative, and that it risked undermining media independence.

Zambian media have been divided over regulation for many years. A similar bill was withdrawn in 2022 after a backlash. The High Court ruled in 1997 that compulsory registration was unconstitutional.

CPJ has recently expressed concern over the deterioration of press freedom in Zambia. In April, two cybersecurity laws giving the government broad surveillance powers were enacted amid concerns over Hichilema’s plans to amend the constitution ahead of next year’s elections.

Editor’s Note: Joan Chirwa, CPJ’s southern Africa researcher, is the founder of the Zambia Free Press Initiative, one of the organizations opposed to statutory media regulation.

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

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has filed a federal lawsuit, after he was arrested by masked federal agents outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail in Newark. “They arrested me without any evidence,” says Baraka of his decision to sue. “They humiliated me. They cuffed me. They dragged me in the car, took me to the cell. … It was completely unwarranted.” President Trump’s Justice Department is also suing Newark over its sanctuary policies, along with three other New Jersey cities, including Jersey City, where the mayor, Steve Fulop, is running for governor. Baraka is also running for governor in the primary election this Tuesday, June 10.

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

President Donald Trump is pushing Republican senators to back his “big, beautiful bill,” which includes new funding to carry out his mass deportation agenda by hiring additional ICE officers and adding detention space. ICE has already signed new agreements with jails around the country for additional capacity, and confirmed nine deaths in custody since Trump took office. “It really feels like a paradigm-shifting moment,” says Detention Watch Network executive director Silky Shah. “People are being packed into overcrowded cells. People are not getting medical care. They’re in conditions where they’re languishing. And they’re doing everything they can to expand, expand, expand, both here in the U.S. and also seeing people be now detained in third countries abroad.”

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

Local press freedom groups said those abducted between May 21 and 23 included:

• Abduljabbar Zayad, freelance photographer
• Hassan Ziyad, journalist with London-based newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed
• Abdulaziz Al-Noum, Director of the Soorah Media Production Center,
• Walid Ali Ghalib, deputy head of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate

On May 24, the Specialized Criminal Court in the capital Sanaa sentenced well-known Yemeni journalist Mohamed Al-Miyahi to 1½ years in prison for criticizing Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi online. Al-Miyahi was also ordered to sign a pledge not to resume his journalistic work and to pay a guarantee of 5 million riyals (US$20,500), which he would forfeit if he were to resume publication of material critical of the state.

“The kidnapping of at least four Yemeni journalists and media workers and the sentence issued against Mohamed Al-Miyahi exemplify the Houthis’ escalating assault on press freedom,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “We call on Houthi authorities to immediately release all detained journalists and stop weaponizing the law and courts to legitimize their repression of independent voices.”

The Iranian-backed rebels, who control Sanaa and govern more than 70% of Yemen’s population, have been fighting a Saudi-backed coalition since 2015. The group is designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Al-Miyahi criticized the Houthis in his last article prior to his September abduction and enforced disappearance for over a month. In January, he appeared in court, accused of “publishing articles against the state.” 

Al-Miyahi’s prosecution violates Article 13 of Yemen’s press law, which protects journalists from punishment for publishing their opinions, unless these are unlawful.

CPJ has criticized the establishment of parallel justice systems by non-state groups, like the Houthis, as they are widely seen as lacking impartiality.

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

Local press freedom groups said those abducted between May 21 and 23 included:

• Abduljabbar Zayad, freelance photographer
• Hassan Ziyad, journalist with London-based newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed
• Abdulaziz Al-Noum, Director of the Soorah Media Production Center,
• Walid Ali Ghalib, deputy head of the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate

On May 24, the Specialized Criminal Court in the capital Sanaa sentenced well-known Yemeni journalist Mohamed Al-Miyahi to 1½ years in prison for criticizing Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi online. Al-Miyahi was also ordered to sign a pledge not to resume his journalistic work and to pay a guarantee of 5 million riyals (US$20,500), which he would forfeit if he were to resume publication of material critical of the state.

“The kidnapping of at least four Yemeni journalists and media workers and the sentence issued against Mohamed Al-Miyahi exemplify the Houthis’ escalating assault on press freedom,” said CPJ Regional Director Sara Qudah. “We call on Houthi authorities to immediately release all detained journalists and stop weaponizing the law and courts to legitimize their repression of independent voices.”

The Iranian-backed rebels, who control Sanaa and govern more than 70% of Yemen’s population, have been fighting a Saudi-backed coalition since 2015. The group is designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

Al-Miyahi criticized the Houthis in his last article prior to his September abduction and enforced disappearance for over a month. In January, he appeared in court, accused of “publishing articles against the state.” 

Al-Miyahi’s prosecution violates Article 13 of Yemen’s press law, which protects journalists from punishment for publishing their opinions, unless these are unlawful.

CPJ has criticized the establishment of parallel justice systems by non-state groups, like the Houthis, as they are widely seen as lacking impartiality.

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

We speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa after she got extraordinary access to an ICE detention center in Colorado, where she interviewed the immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra. The undocumented mother of four was arrested by federal agents in Denver in March after she successfully fought multiple deportation efforts since 2009, including when she took sanctuary in a Denver church with her children in 2017. She received a stay of removal but returned to sanctuary in 2019 when it expired, then received additional stays under the Biden administration that also expired. She now finds herself in the sights of the Trump administration as it seeks to fulfill its goal of mass deportations of immigrants. “I am a political prisoner,” Vizguerra told Hinojosa. She “believes that she is not being held in immigrant detention because of her immigration status, but rather she is being held because of her words and because of her activism,” says Hinojosa.

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

The post Inmate Pregnancy Losses Under-reported in Ohio Jail and by Establishment Press appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

In his first live interview since his release from ICE detention, Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi recounts the traumatic experience of his arrest and incarceration. Mahdawi, a green card holder who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, was arrested in Vermont on April 14 when he appeared for what he was told would be a citizenship interview, and spent more than two weeks in U.S. immigration custody, where he was held in retaliation for his speech in support of Palestinian rights. Mahdawi’s detention has led him to reflect on the “interconnectedness between injustices,” as multiple members of his family in Palestine have been “unjustly” incarcerated in Israeli jails. “Now I can feel their pain,” says Mahdawi. Despite the U.S. government and pro-Israel groups’ attempts to silence his calls for an end to genocide in Gaza, he adds, “I share my pain with the world.”

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

Adem Karadag and Yusufu Mieraili, both handcuffed and shackled, appeared Thursday at a Bangkok criminal court for a fresh arraignment aimed at speeding up proceedings in the politically sensitive case.

“I still have hope for freedom,” Karadag told Radio Free Asia through a courtroom interpreter. “I want to go anywhere but not to be sent back to China like others.”

Both men smiled and hugged their Thai lawyer and Uyghur interpreter.

“I exercised. I can eat well,” Mieraili said in Thai.

Both men deny they triggered the Erawan Shrine bomb in the Aug. 17, 2015 attack that was apparent retaliation for Thailand’s repatriation of dozens of Uyghur migrants to China, where they face high risk of persecution.

Twenty people died in the bombing of the Hindu shrine in downtown Bangkok and more than 120 more injured.

The trial has languished due to jurisdiction changing between civilian and military courts amid regime changes in Thailand. Lack of qualified courtroom interpreters also has caused delays.

The criminal court on Thursday cut the number of prosecution witnesses to 20 from 55 to shorten the trial. It has set 11 court dates from September to December. The pair are charged with first-degree murder and could face execution if found guilty.

Police arrested Karadag and Mieraili shortly after the bombing based on CCTV footage, but failed to find dozens of other alleged perpetrators.

The trial is expected to finish next year, said Chuchart Gunpai, a lawyer for the defendants.

Uyghur exodus through Southeast Asia

Uyghurs are Turkic-speaking Muslims who mostly live in the Xinjiang region of China but are also spread across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey. They have been fleeing China in large numbers to escape what they describe as persecution and repression by Chinese authorities – allegations that Beijing denies.

Before the bombing, nearly 400 Uyghurs who fled China were arrested in Thailand in 2014, according to the Thai foreign ministry. The fleeing Uyghurs were hoping for resettlement in Turkey via Malaysia, right advocates and other lawyers said. Others likely slipped through the Thai-Malaysian border without detection by authorities.

In June 2015, Thailand allowed 172 Uyghur women and children to leave for Turkey, but two weeks later appeared to bow to pressure from Beijing and put 109 Uyghur men, blindfolded, on a plane back to China, provoking international condemnation.

The Thai foreign ministry said at that time the men “have been verified as Chinese and evidence of their involvement in criminal activities has been sent by the Government of China.”

The decision drew condemnation from the World Uyghur Congress, an exiled Uyghur group, which claimed 25 Uyghurs were killed resisting the forced deportation. Thailand denied any deaths.

“Had Thailand followed the principle of not sending people into harm’s way, these mishaps could have been avoided,” Chalida Tarjaroensuk, the director of the People’s Empowerment Foundation, who assisted the Uyghurs, told RFA.

Poor conditions

Following the deportations and the arrests of Karadag and Mieraili in 2015, more than 50 Uyghurs remained in Thai immigration prison until earlier this year.

Some said they were denied proper lawyer visits and kept in cramped unhygienic cells without adequate medical care. Thai officials said three detainees died during their imprisonment.

Some 40 of the imprisoned Uyghurs were deported to China in the dead of night on Feb. 27. Reporters who traveled with Thai officials to China to check on conditions for the deported men said they were subjected to Chinese surveillance.

Another three Uyghur men, who held Kyrgyzstan passports, were resettled in Canada.

Five Uyghurs are continuing to serve sentences for jailbreaking, according to Chalida, who fears they will also face deportation to China after their release in the next year or two.

Edited by Stephen Wright and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

We speak with Congressmember Bonnie Watson Coleman, one of three Democratic lawmakers the Department of Homeland Security has threatened to arrest after they went Friday to inspect a newly reopened private ICE jail. They are accused of assaulting ICE officers. This comes after federal agents arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka on trespassing charges after he joined their congressional delegation. The response of Trump officials has been to “lie and to deflect and to try to create legitimacy for illegitimate things that they are doing,” says Watson Coleman.

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

Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, New Jersey, was arrested and detained by masked federal immigration police Friday when he joined three Democratic congressmembers set to tour a newly reopened 1,000-bed Immigration and Customs Enforcement jail run by GEO Group, which advocates say lacks proper permits. Baraka says he was asked to leave the premises and left the secure area to join a group of protesters in a public area outside the gate — when he was seized by officers in a chaotic scene. “This is completely insane, and it’s a scary moment in the history of this country as we watch democracy slip between our fingers,” Baraka tells Democracy Now!

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

As the cases of international students and activists facing deportation begin to play out in the courts, Georgetown professor Nader Hashemi visited an ICE jail in Texas to speak with his colleague Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown professor who was snatched by the Trump administration back in March. Suri is married to a U.S. citizen of Palestinian background. Once Hashemi arrived at the prison, he was shocked to learn that Suri had been designated a high-security prisoner and only granted two hours of fresh air a week.

“Badar Khan Suri was very adamant that the suffering and the pain that he has faced and that his family has been subjected to will be worth it, if it helps expose, number one, the naked authoritarianism the Trump administration, and, number two, if his incarceration keeps the spotlight on the genocide on Gaza,” says Hashemi.

A federal immigration judge will rule on Suri’s case in the coming days. “Dr. Suri was picked up because he had spoken out for peace,” says Mary Bauer, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia. “He was arrested very clearly because of his political view and family association.”

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

Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi has been released on bail by a Vermont judge after more than two weeks in U.S. immigration custody. “I am saying it clear and loud to President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you,” he told supporters as he left a Vermont courthouse. Despite being a legal permanent resident, Mahdawi was arrested by immigration enforcement last month at what he was told would be a citizenship interview, and accused by the State Department of posing a threat to national security over his pro-Palestine campus activism. We get an update from Shezza Abboushi Dallal, part of Mahdawi’s legal team, who says his release was facilitated by the prior blocking of his transfer to a jurisdiction more favorable to the Trump administration. Mahdawi will now be able to attend his graduation from Columbia University this month.

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

• Israel’s renewed military actions in Gaza has killed nearly a thousand Palestinians since March 18, according to Gaza health officials
• UN officials say Democratic Republic of Congo conflicts are devastating civilians, causing food crisis
• Audit of Santa Rita Jail shows continuing failures in medical care, as county’s health provider contract comes up for renewal
• Environmentalists say LA is endangering Mono Lake by diverting too much water
• Yale professor who studies fascism moves to Canadian university, saying US is “tilting towards a fascist dictatorship”

The post 1,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza since March 18; Santa Rita Jail audit shows continuing failures in medical care – March 27, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Mhlanga, who works with the privately owned broadcaster Heart and Soul TV, was arrested on February 24 and charged with incitement for covering war veterans who called for the resignation of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and opposed proposals to extend his term. If found guilty, he could be jailed for up to five years and fined up to US$700 under the 2021 Cyber and Data Protection Act.

Mhlanga remains in pretrial detention at the capital’s Harare Remand Prison, an overcrowded facility with harsh conditions considered “not fit for animals.”

Chris Mhike, the journalist’s lawyer, told CPJ that Mhlanga’s imprisonment has affected his health, with the journalist looking frail and suffering body aches. “There’s no running away from the fact that he has suffered terribly from this episode. His part-time studies are disrupted,” Mhike told CPJ, adding, “after these painful weeks in prison, his health has notably deteriorated.”

“What is happening is actually an attempt to try and make sure that we silence all journalists who are doing their work,” said Perfect Mswathi Hlongwane, secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, in an interview about Mhlanga’s detention. “This is bad for the profession, this is bad for the country.”

Sanctions for people who ‘demonize’ the president

Zanu-PF, the ruling party since independence in 1980, is facing internal tensions. The party last year adopted a motion to try to amend the constitution to extend Mnangagwa’s time in office beyond the 2028 completion of his second, final term.

Amid the intraparty strife, government officials have sought to tamp down on rhetoric they view as insufficiently loyal to Mnangagwa, whether from politicians or the media. Home Affairs Minister Kazembe Kazembe recently threatened criminal sanctions against people who “insult and demonise the Office of the President,” while Information Minister Jenfan Muswere warned broadcasters against advocating for the government’s overthrow.

A war veteran that Mhlanga interviewed, Blessed Geza, was among Zanu-PF members who sharply opposed the extension. Geza was expelled from the party earlier in March and has been calling for protests. Mnangagwa says he will leave office at the end of his current term.

In its attempt to silence the press, the government is employing the tried and tested strategies of jailing independent journalists and introducing laws to restrict freedom of expression.

Prominent journalist Hopewell Chin’ono faced repeated harassment and was arrested several times in 2020 and 2021. He was initially denied bail during his latest detention, in January 2021, until Zimbabwe’s High Court freed him after three weeks in prison. Journalist Jeffrey Moyo, whose work has appeared in The New York Times and other foreign media, was also arrested and initially denied bail in 2021. After spending more than a year in prison, Moyo was convicted of breaking the country’s immigration laws and given a two-year suspended sentence.

On March 12, Muswere announced plans for new social media legislation, citing the need to regulate unethical journalism and govern “ghost accounts operated by individuals seeking to demonise their own country.”

Muswere has also sponsored the Broadcasting Services Amendment Bill, which the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, passed on March 4. The bill, awaiting Senate approval, would entrench Mnangagwa’s control over broadcasting by removing requirements that the president consider recommendations from a parliamentary committee in appointing Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe board members.

‘I feel unsafe’

Even when threats don’t come from the government, failure to address press freedom violations can leave journalists fearful.

Three days after journalist Dumisani Mawere published a February 9 report on his local WhatsApp group accusing a private security employee of sexual misconduct with a minor, two of the company’s staff threatened him by phone before seeking him out at his home in the northern town of Kariba. When Mawere complained to the police, they summoned the alleged offenders, who returned to threaten the journalist, he said.

“They charged at me, pointed fingers at me, clenched their fists, and issued direct death threats — explicitly reminding me that ‘Kariba is very small,’ implying that I could easily be killed,” Mawere, a journalist with Kasambabezi community radio station, told CPJ, adding that he was frustrated that the police let the suspects go. “Right now, I feel unsafe and vulnerable in my work as a journalist.”

CPJ’s phone calls and messages to national police spokesperson Paul Nyathi, National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Angelina Munyeriwa, and government spokesperson Nick Mangwana went unanswered.

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

What else would I abolish? Well, a list might start with war, fossil fuels, militaries, prisons, nuclear energy, police, nuclear weaponry, campaign bribery, health insurance companies, the death penalty, the livestock industry, Wall Street, borders, poverty, the NSA, the CIA, the United States Senate, Fox News, MSNBC, the Star Spangled Banner, the cyber truck. I could go on. Lists will vary around the world.

By abolitionism I mean,  primarily, persuading masses of people of the superiority of a new way of doing things, and effecting the political changes to create that new way of doing things. You can’t get rid of police or prisons or wars or Fox News by blowing up a building or zeroing out a budget, if people are all left believing that they need or want those institutions. The darn things will quickly be back stronger than before.

Persuading people that there is a better way than police or nukes or oil is a major project. Persuading them of several of these things at once may sound dramatically and senselessly more difficult. On the other hand, many of the same arguments that apply to one topic apply to several others. The survival of life on Earth actually requires a sort of panabolitionism. And if we were ever to combine the energies of all the people who each want one destructive, counterproductive institution abolished, together we’d have a lot of power.

The new books I have in mind are Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World Is Possible by Sonali Kolhatkar; Skyscraper Jails: The Abolitionist Fight Against Jail Expansion in New York City by Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti; and No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement by Micah Herskind, Mariah Parker, and Kamau Franklin. These books are not the persuasive case for abolition, so much as accounts of the struggles of activists who work for abolition or for steps toward abolition. There are such things as partial steps toward abolition, just as there are such things as false steps that do not lead in that direction (even if they pretend to).

In Talking About Abolition, Cat Brooks is quoted as saying that “the data and the logic” establish that housing, mental health support, living-wage jobs, healthcare, and education reduce violent crime more than police and prisons do. But of course that doesn’t strike some people as “logic” at all. So the data becomes very important, including international and regional comparisons. One good source of data — here — establishes overwhelmingly that moving at least part of what gets spent on prisons and police into other programs would accomplish more, not less, of what prisons and police claim to be for, namely reducing violent crime — programs such as trauma assistance, hospital case workers, mentoring, training, jobs, courses on preventing sexual violence, and such as summer jobs, financial support, sports, positive parenting, early childcare, etc. The reason why it’s “logical” that general investment in better lives reduces crime more than police and prisons do, is in part because so many crimes arise out of misery, and in part because places that have made those investments tend to have less violent crime than places that have invested instead in police and prisons.

This is not a new discovery, or a truth that simply sets us free. There are a couple of major longstanding hurdles. First, U.S. city budgets often devote a huge percentage to police, and the primary reason seems to be antidemocratic corruption by profiteers, moneyed interests, and police unions. All of this is, of course, a perfect parallel to a national government’s war spending and its causes.

Second, just as when someone hears about war abolition they want to know what to do when Hitler comes to get them, when someone hears about police abolition, they want to know whom they should call in an emergency. Cat Brooks’ answer that you should deal with it yourself or “hush” is not likely to persuade everyone.

As with war, so with police, a major part of the answer will strike the skeptic as evasive. If you demilitarize the world, if you establish the rule of law, if you create nonviolent conflict resolution mechanisms, if you set up populations with training in unarmed civilian defense, if you get rid of the weapons, etc., life on Earth might survive and even prosper with the redirection of resources, and Hitler (long since dead, by the way) won’t get you. If you eliminate poverty, create universal public healthcare, provide free quality education from preschool to college, and ensure safe and stable lives for all, not to mention — and, surprisingly, it is hardly ever mentioned in abolish-police books — getting rid of the hundreds of millions of guns in the United States alone, the kind of emergency in which you’d want to call the police won’t come up.

But what if it does? Even if it’s as rare as lightning? What if it does and I have nightmares about it until it does? That’s where unarmed civilian defense, and nonviolent interrupters and de-escalators come in. There are, in fact, other ways to non-destructively prepare to confront that which may no longer need confronting. And these other methods will become both more understandable and less needed as partial steps toward abolition are taken.

In fact, one of the successes underway by police abolitionists is the establishment — already achieved in a number of U.S. cities — of alternative numbers to dial in emergencies, at which you can reach skilled providers of assistance with mental health, de-escalation, and other needs, and to which you can specify what kind of assistance you do or do not want. Other paths to success would seem clear if we had democracy. As with the federal budget and the Pentagon, so with local budgets and the police: when you show people what budgets look like, the majority of people want to move money out of the police and the Pentagon into useful things. The trick lies in building the power to make that majority will into governmental action.

While Talking About Abolition provides inciteful interviews with a dozen remarkable activists and academics, Skyscraper Jails and No Cop City each focuses on a particular campaign, respectively the efforts to close the jail on Rikers Island in New York City and to prevent the construction of the Cop City militarized police training facility outside Atlanta. The two campaigns have faced fierce opposition. To grossly oversimplify, the New York opposition has been slicker, slimier, more dishonest, and more successful. An astroturf campaign has been created in New York, not to oppose prison closures or abolition, but to claim the title of Abolitionist, even while pushing for new multi-billion-dollar jails in skyscrapers to “replace” Rikers, even while not closing Rikers at all, even while maintaining that these are all steps toward eliminating prisons. As you might have guessed, not everyone has fallen for that sales pitch, and a good deal of corrupt anti-democratic action has been required as well.

Nonetheless, the project of building a New York skyline of humans in animal cages stacked into the clouds has generally operated under the banner of “Close Rikers,” generating — it is my impression — less indignation around the country and world than has been merited and than has been gained by the resistance of the forest defenders opposing the creation of Cop City.

False steps that lead not toward abolition but often toward the strengthening of a destructive institution sometimes rely on distinguishing good prisons or wars or whatever from bad. In the case of wars this habit is strong even among passionate opponents of wars.

The problem with Rikers is not that it is an improper prison — though who wouldn’t choose a prison in Scandinavia if they had a choice? — just as the problem with Gaza is not that it is an improper war — though you might take your chances in Yemen if forced to pick. The problem with Rikers is not that it’s on an island or that it lacks some new technology. The problem is that Rikers puts people, some convicted of crimes and many (83% in 2023) not, in cages to dehumanize and brutalize them to no useful purpose. As Rikers began as a humane reform of an older prison, skyscraper prisons are now marketed as a humane reform of Rikers. But the whole system is incapable of humaneness.

One of the best features of Skyscraper Jails is that it quotes some of the powerful comments residents of New York City submitted to public officials who were required to pretend to seek public input but listened not a bit. Now we can listen for them.

One of the worst features of Skyscraper Jails is near the end of the book, where the authors claim that “there will be no peaceful transition” and “strife” will be required “equaling at least that of the French Revolution, guillotines and all — just as the abolition of slavery and realization of formal equality for Black people required a great, bloody, civil war.”

Fun times ahead, folks! At least for propagandistic nonsense. Some three-quarters of the world rid itself of slavery and serfdom within a century, much of it without a “great, bloody, civil war” which most certainly did not bring the degree of formal or informal equality brought by the Civil Rights movement. We should look to the wisdom and coherence of Ray Acheson’s book Abolishing State Violence: A World Beyond Bombs, Borders, and Cages, in which war is one of the institutions to be abolished.

It’s disconcerting to read that what needs opposing is “organized violence” but not war, or to see incarceration defined as “warfare,” but, you know, warfare not opposed as warfare. This pattern may provide a clue to the absence of the guns from these books. No Cop City, No Cop World is explicit about its support for property destruction, while hinting at openness to supporting serious violence, but never bringing up guillotines or civil wars. This topic, which I suggest is critically important, is, however a very small part of these excellent books. One of the reasons it is important is the need to build larger movements through bringing in large numbers of people who are mostly opposed to violence. Another reason is the need to grow stronger by combining the movements that oppose wars, prisons, police, etc. They have much to learn from each other in addition to creating larger numbers through joining together.

No Cop City gives us a rich understanding of the history, context, and players in the struggle in and outside Atlanta, as well as lessons that could prove very valuable for similar struggles in numerous other places. Cop City is not a national project but a model for a militarized war rehearsal ground coming soon to a metropolitan area near you. The book also makes clear the connections to war, the training of police by the Israeli military, the military equipment and language and thinking. Atlanta is our most unequal and most surveilled U.S. city with one of the deepest traditions of racism. But as it does, so others will follow.

And as the inspiring opponents of Cop City go, others should follow as well. While I question acceptance of all tactics, no matter how counterproductive, as the supreme activist value, I cannot help but marvel at the tremendously broad coalition (lawyers and children and campers and voters and protesters and saboteurs and a native American nation and environmentalists and peace activists and Central Americans, etc.) and variety of approaches that have taken on Cop City and at least partially and temporarily stopped it in its tank tracks. This is a movement — in the tradition of Occupy — with direct democracy, consensus, and a modeling of a better society on a smaller scale — a life-changing experience in multiple senses.

Imagine a world of growing numbers of encampments dedicated to creating a life without poverty, cruelty, or violence — with no exceptions, no exceptions for certain types of victims, no exceptions for violence on a large enough scale, no exceptions for structural violence hidden in systems of denial of healthcare or a safe environment, no exceptions for people labeled “felon” or “enemy” or “foreigner.” Does abolition sound like a “negative” idea? Think of the world it could give birth too and just try not to smile.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by David Swanson.

Badar Khan Suri is one of the many pro-Palestine scholars being targeted by the Trump administration. Suri, originally from India, is a Georgetown University professor and postdoctoral scholar on religion and peace processes in the Middle East and South Asia. Last Monday evening, Suri was ambushed by masked federal agents with the Homeland Security Department as he and his family returned to their home in Rosslyn, Virginia, after attending an iftar gathering for Ramadan. Suri was taken into custody without being charged with or accused of any crime. He was told the federal government had revoked his visa. Over the next 72 hours, Suri was transferred to multiple immigration detention centers, and he is currently jailed at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, separated from his wife, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent, and his three children. Unlike Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate facing deportation, Suri “is not a political activist,” says Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University. “He was just a very serious young academic focusing on his teaching and his research.”

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

We get an update on legal efforts to stop the Trump administration from deporting Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who has been detained for two weeks despite being a legal resident with a green card. The Trump administration has explicitly said it is targeting Khalil because of his pro-Palestinian advocacy during protests at Columbia University last year, invoking a rarely used provision of immigration law to claim he could undermine U.S. foreign policy. Federal Judge Jesse Furman recently ordered the case to be moved to New Jersey, even though Khalil himself remains locked up in an ICE jail in Louisiana. “In doing so, Judge Furman acknowledged that the right court to hear this is here, in the area where all of these events played out, where Mahmoud’s family is, his eight-month-pregnant wife is, his community is and his lawyers are,” says Shezza Abboushi Dallal, a member of Khalil’s legal team.

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

“The decision to return journalist José Rubén Zamora to prison is a blatant act of judicial persecution. This case represents a dangerous escalation in the repression of independent journalism,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “We call on authorities to release him immediately, stop using the justice system to silence critical journalism, and to respect press freedom and due process.”

Zamora’s return to jail on money laundering charges that have been widely condemned as politically motivated was ordered by Judge Erick García, who had initially granted Zamora house arrest on Oct. 18, 2024. García said during Monday’s hearing that he and his staff had been threatened and intimidated by unknown individuals, according to a report by Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre.

Zamora, 67, was first arrested on July 29, 2022, and spent more than 800 days in pretrial detention before being placed under house arrest. A pioneering investigative journalist, Zamora has faced decades of harassment and persecution for his work, which CPJ has extensively documented. He received CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in 1995 for his commitment to independent journalism. His newspaper, elPeriódico, was forced to shut down in 2023.

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

“The decision to return journalist José Rubén Zamora to prison is a blatant act of judicial persecution. This case represents a dangerous escalation in the repression of independent journalism,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America program coordinator, in São Paulo. “We call on authorities to release him immediately, stop using the justice system to silence critical journalism, and to respect press freedom and due process.”

Zamora’s return to jail on money laundering charges that have been widely condemned as politically motivated was ordered by Judge Erick García, who had initially granted Zamora house arrest on Oct. 18, 2024. García said during Monday’s hearing that he and his staff had been threatened and intimidated by unknown individuals, according to a report by Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre.

Zamora, 67, was first arrested on July 29, 2022, and spent more than 800 days in pretrial detention before being placed under house arrest. A pioneering investigative journalist, Zamora has faced decades of harassment and persecution for his work, which CPJ has extensively documented. He received CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award in 1995 for his commitment to independent journalism. His newspaper, elPeriódico, was forced to shut down in 2023.

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

In a March 4 pretrial hearing, Georgia’s western Batumi City Court rejected motions to release Amaghlobeli, director of independent news outlets Netgazeti and Batumelebi, and to dismiss the charge against her of assaulting a police officer. If convicted, Amaghlobeli faces a minimum four-year prison sentence, in a case that is widely seen as disproportionate and in retaliation for her journalism.

“Georgian authorities’ prosecution of media manager Mzia Amaghlobeli is clearly punitive and is all the more jarring given rampant impunity for brutal police attacks on journalists,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should release Amaghlobeli immediately.”

The trial is due to begin on March 18, local journalist Irma Dimitradze told CPJ.

Amaghlobeli has been behind bars since her January 11 arrest, when she began a hunger strike that lasted 38 days.

Amaghlobeli was not covering the protests when she was arrested, but human rights groups calling for her release believe she is being punished for her outlets’ reporting on alleged abuses by authorities, including the police. 

The journalist’s lawyer Juba Katamadze told CPJ that Amaghlobeli had been unlawfully detained earlier that evening for putting up a poster on a police station wall to protest her friend’s detention, and that her slapping of Batumi police chief Irakli Dgebuadze did not warrant prosecution under the serious charge of assaulting an officer. 

Amaghlobeli’s case comes amid a sharp decline in press freedom in Georgia. Dozens of journalists covering anti-government protests have been violently obstructed or beaten by police. Last week, the government proposed to introduce prison terms for non-compliance with an amended “foreign agent” law and to tighten control over broadcasters.

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

The U.S. military transported 17 new immigrant detainees to the Guantánamo Bay military base on Sunday, just before efforts to jail an anticipated 30,000 immigrants in tent camps at the base were halted over concerns the makeshift facilities don’t meet ICE’s detention standards. Now the private federal contractor behind the Guantánamo detention site is under renewed scrutiny. Investigative journalist José Olivares shares what we know about Akima Infrastructure Protection, an Alaska Native corporation that counts among its myriad federal contracts immigration detention facilities across the United States, including some that are currently under investigation for human rights abuses. The lack of transparency when it comes to the company’s practices and the expansion of migrant detention at a high-security location like Guantánamo means that questions remain over current conditions and even the exact number of people who have been incarcerated there, explains Olivares.

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

The Trump administration claims an order to withhold funds from hospitals that offer gender-affirming care to transgender youth is “already having its intended effect” as hospitals announce a halt to gender-affirming care for trans patients. The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and others filed a lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of transgender youth who say the order is depriving them of medical care “solely on the basis of their sex and transgender status.” ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio says the situation is “catastrophic for transgender people of all ages, particularly transgender youth,” and notes Trump’s near-daily attacks are targeting a community that makes up less than 1% of the U.S. population. “We need to see people standing up.” We are also joined by pediatrician Dr. Jeffrey Birnbaum, who has vowed to keep working with transgender youth patients in New York. “Keep politics out of science,” says Dr. Birnbaum.

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

Sun Chanthy, the president of the Nation Power Party, said that an appeal would “be a loss of time” and not worth the effort.

“I know clearly that the present court is not independent, unjust, gravely corrupted, and does anything according to the order of the government to suppress opposition activists, human rights defenders, unionists, environmental activists, land dispute victims, and independent media,” he wrote from Pursat Provincial Prison.

The two-page letter was dated January 2025, with no specific date. Radio Free Asia confirmed its authenticity with Rong Chhun, an adviser to the party and a longtime labor activist.

Sun Chanthy was arrested in May at Phnom Penh International Airport after returning from meeting Cambodian overseas workers in Japan.

Charges against him stemmed from critical comments he made on social media about the government’s policy on issuing “poverty cards” for the poor to receive free medical treatment or subsidies.

The government said he had “twisted information” to suggest that the cards would only be distributed to those who join the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, or CPP.

Sun Chanthy was sentenced by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Dec. 24 to two years in prison for inciting social disorder. He was also hit with a 4 million riel (US$1,000) fine to be paid to the plaintiff –- the government –- and was banned from participating in politics for the rest of his life.

‘Obliterate’ the opposition

The Nation Power Party and Sun Chanthy’s wife condemned the conviction and sentence as politically motivated. His lawyer, Choung Chou Ngy, told reporters just after the sentence was announced that the case lacked strong evidence, adding that he would talk to Sun Chanthy about filing an appeal.

But Sun Chanthy in his letter said that the court was “gravely corrupted” and targeted him because the CPP-led government “wants to obliterate the genuine opposition voice from Cambodia.”

“I am not dispirited since I have already been prepared mentally and physically, and I knew in advance that grave dangers would happen to me since I first entered political struggles for the sake of genuine freedom, justice and democracy in Cambodia, which will not be covered by fresh roses,” he wrote.

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Choung Chou Ngy confirmed to RFA on Tuesday that an appeal won’t be filed.

Neither government spokesperson Pen Bona nor Justice Ministry spokesperson Chin Malin could be reached for comment on Tuesday.

The Nation Power Party was formed in 2023 after the main opposition Candlelight Party was prevented from competing in that year’s general election.

Just days before Sun Chanthy’s conviction in December, the party was forced to move out of its Phnom Penh headquarters after the landlord was threatened by local authorities.

Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Khmer.

A Tibetan writer and former elementary school teacher, imprisoned for having contact with Tibetans living abroad and making a prayer offering to the Dalai Lama, has been placed under strict surveillance following his release from jail in November 2024.

Palgon, 32, and who goes by only one name, was arrested at his home in Pema county in the Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai province in August 2022, and served more than two years in jail.

Since his release, he has been prohibited from contacting others, the sources told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

“Details about where he was detained over the past two years as well as his current health condition remain unknown, due to tight restrictions imposed by authorities,” the first source told RFA.

The Chinese government frequently arrests Tibetans for praying for the Dalai Lama and for possessing photos of him, limiting religious freedom in Tibet and controlling all aspects of Tibetan Buddhism.

The government also restricts Tibetans inside Tibet from communicating with those living abroad, saying it undermines national unity.

Tibetans, in turn, have decried surveillance by Beijing, saying Chinese authorities are violating their human rights and trying to eradicate their religious, linguistic and cultural identity.

Sources also said Palgon — a graduate of the prominent vocational Tibetan private school Gangjong Sherig Norling, which was shut down by the Chinese government in July 2024 — wrote many literary pieces on various social media platforms and audio chat groups before his arrest.

However, his writings and posts have since been deleted and remain inaccessible online, and his social media accounts have been blocked, they said.

Human Rights Watch noted in its “World Report 2025″ that authorities arbitrarily arrested Tibetans in Tibet in 2024 for posting unapproved content online or having online contact with Tibetans outside the region.

RFA reported in early September 2024 that Chinese authorities arrested four Tibetans from Ngaba county in Sichuan province accusing one monk from Kirti Monastery of making dedication prayer offerings outside Tibet and two laypersons for maintaining contact with Tibetans outside the region.

Translated by RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Tibetan.

This article was produced by Mississippi Today, which was a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in 2023-24. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Last year, Mississippi passed a new law aimed at decreasing the number of people being jailed solely because they need mental health treatment. Officials say it has led to fewer people with serious mental illness detained in jails.

But the data submitted by different entities is contradictory and incomplete, making it impossible to know if the numbers are really going down.

“It’s been inconsistent. It’s been sometimes just absent in different parts of the state,” said Rep. Sam Creekmore IV, a Republican from New Albany who chairs the Public Health and Human Services Committee and who sponsored legislation related to civil commitment during the last two sessions. “And so it’s really hard for us to evaluate how well or how bad we’re doing when the numbers aren’t consistent.”

The Legislature approved changes to the state’s civil commitment law last year after reporting by Mississippi Today and ProPublica revealed that hundreds of people with no criminal charges were held in Mississippi jails each year as they awaited involuntary mental health evaluation and treatment. They frequently received no mental health care in jail and were treated like criminal defendants. The investigation found that since 2006, at least 17 people have died after being jailed during this process; and a nationwide survey as part of that series found that Mississippi is unique among states in its heavy use of jails for people who are civilly committed.

Under the new law, which went into effect in July, a person cannot be held in jail unless all other options for care have been exhausted and unless they are “actively violent”; and they can never be held for more than 48 hours. The new law also requires that people in crisis see mental health professionals first, who can recommend commitment or suggest voluntary treatment options that are more suitable, avoiding the civil commitment process entirely.

In the first three months that the law was in effect, more than 1,300 people were screened statewide for possible civil commitment, and over 500 were diverted to a less-restrictive treatment option, according to community mental health center reports. But during the same period, from July to September 2024, a state agency, counties and community mental health centers all reported vastly different numbers of people who spent time in jail during the process.

Community mental health centers reported that 43 people were jailed in that period, less than half the number the Department of Mental Health reported: 102 people. And the department’s figure is likely an undercount because it only includes people who were admitted to a state hospital after their time in jail. Department of Mental Health spokesperson Adam Moore told Mississippi Today he couldn’t explain the discrepancy.

And only 43 of Mississippi’s 82 chancery court clerks submitted data during the same period, despite a law from 2023 that required the courts to report psychiatric commitment data to the state. Those counties reported a total of 25 people being held in jail from July to September 2024 while in the civil commitment process.

Creekmore said he plans to propose a bill this year that would ensure more counties submit mandatory data.

“It really makes it impossible to legislate changes to (the new civil commitment laws) when our data is not complete,” he said.

Last year, Creekmore said the Department of Mental Health would “police” counties to ensure compliance. But the agency itself said something different: Moore told Mississippi Today and ProPublica that it would educate county officials and mental health workers on the new law but wouldn’t enforce it.

The Department of Mental Health sends quarterly reminders to clerks about reporting deadlines, has provided access to training videos and written instructions, and established a help desk for technical questions, Moore said.

Most states do not regularly hold people in jail without charges during the psychiatric civil commitment process. At least 12 states and the District of Columbia prohibit the practice entirely. And only one Mississippi jail was certified by the state to house people awaiting court-ordered psychiatric treatment in 2023.

Sheriffs, who have long decried the burden of housing people with mental health concerns in jails as inappropriate and unsafe, have been largely supportive of changes to the law.

“It’s fantastic for the sheriffs, because the sheriffs don’t want people that are sick in the jail,” said Will Allen, the attorney for the Mississippi Sheriffs’ Association. “They certainly don’t want people who have not committed a crime in the jail.”

But implementing the law has proved challenging for areas of the state with limited resources, particularly those without nearby crisis stabilization units, which provide short-term treatment to people in psychiatric crises.

And even in well-resourced areas, limited crisis beds can force counties to transport patients or house them in a nearby private treatment facility at the counties’ expense.

The restrictions on housing people in jail have proved to be a “nightmare” for Calhoun County, which is more than 30 miles away from the nearest crisis stabilization unit, Chancery Clerk Kathy Poynor said.

“We don’t have anywhere else to put them,” she said. “We can’t afford a psychiatric cell. Rural counties just can’t meet the financial obligations.”

Some advocates say the law’s stipulations should be more stringently supervised by the state.

Greta Martin, the litigation director for Disability Rights Mississippi, said the lack of oversight in the law is concerning.

“If you are enacting legislation with a 48-hour cap on people being held in county jail and you do not provide any oversight ensuring that county jails are adhering to that, what’s the point of the legislation?” she said.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Gwen Dilworth, Mississippi Today.

Tunisia has reached a troubling milestone, with at least five journalists behind bars in CPJ’s December 1, 2024, prison census, the highest number since the organization began keeping track in 1992. Once hailed as a beacon of freedom in the Arab world after the 2011 revolution that sparked the Arab Spring, Tunisia is now erasing the gains it made as it stifles dissent and hampers the work of the press.

The government’s main tool against the media is Decree 54, a cybercrime law introduced by President Kais Saied in 2022 following his 2021 power grab in which he dissolved parliament, took control of the judiciary, and gave himself powers to rule by decree. The law makes it illegal to “to produce, spread, disseminate, send or write false news with the aim of infringing the rights of others, harming public safety or national defense or sowing terror among the population.” Today, four out of the five journalists imprisoned in Tunisia were convicted of violating the decree over their social media posts or commentary.

“Decree 54 has now turned every journalist into a suspect. It treats every journalist as if they are conditionally released from jail pending investigation, because they can be summoned for questioning at any time over anything they post online,” Ziad Debbar, president of local trade union the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), told CPJ.

Local journalists believe that authorities are using Decree 54 to quash investigative and critical journalism, and that many in the media are reverting to self-censorship.

“Decree 54 has been excessively applied to journalists, bloggers, and political commentators in the media,” Lofti Hajji, a founding member of SNJT, told CPJ. “This has led to a huge decline in political television and radio programs that once in abundance offered in-depth analysis of current political issues.” He said that journalists are loath to cover or speak out about the law, for fear that they will be charged under it.

Tunisian authorities stepped up prosecutions of journalists under the law ahead of last year’s October 6 elections, which Saied won by a landslide after jailing his opponents. On May 11, Tunisian authorities made three high profile media arrests. Sonia Dahmani, a lawyer and political commentator, was arrested when masked police officers raided the Tunisian bar association, where she had sought refuge after she sarcastically called Tunisia an “extraordinary country” attracting migrants on a television program. Dahmani was sentenced to one year in prison on false news charges under Decree 54. The sentence was later reduced to eight months on appeal, but she was subsequently sentenced to an additional two years in a separate conviction under the decree.

Dahmani’s colleagues, IFM radio journalists Mourad Zghidi and Borhen Bsaies, were arrested the same day last May. Bsaies was imprisoned under Decree 54 in connection with his television and radio commentary critical of the president and Zghidi over his social media posts in solidarity with journalist Mohamed Boughaleb. Both were sentenced to one year in prison after they were convicted of defamation and false news. Authorities have continued to pile on charges, investigating Zghidi and Bsaies for money laundering.

Prior to Saied’s 2021 power grab, journalists in Tunisia were protected by the press law, Decree 115, which abolished prison sentences for defamation and insult and enshrined protection of journalistic sources, and the 2014 constitution, which ensured freedom of expression. Local journalists say that journalists are vulnerable in new ways since the press law is no longer enforced and the freedom of expression clause of the constitution is not respected. Tunisia’s media regulator, the Independent High Authority for Audiovisual Communication, was hailed for its promotion of media independence, but  Saied’s government forced the authority’s president, Nouri Lajmi, into retirement and suspended its activities in 2023.

Without a media regulator, the Tunisian election monitor, the Independent High Authority for Elections has stepped into its place, hampering the work of the press seeking to cover politics. In August, the monitor revoked the press accreditation of journalist Khaoula Boukrim, editor-in-chief of independent news website Tumedia, over her online coverage of the elections. As of early 2025, Boukrim’s press accreditation was still revoked. The monitor also filed dozens of legal complaints against media organizations and bloggers, and prevented some journalists from covering a press conference in September announcing the final presidential candidates in the 2024 race.

“The [election monitor] functioning as a media regulator during the elections was just utter nonsense,” said Debbar. He said the monitor “referred many journalists [to authorities] to be prosecuted under Decree 54 to punish them for their coverage of the elections.”

In 2025, Tunisian journalists are having a hard time envisioning a future of press freedom under Saied’s new term. Zghidi’s sister, Mariam Zghidi, told CPJ that when she visited her brother in prison that he defended his work – even though it had come at an extraordinary price.

“During my first visit to Mourad in prison, he said to me; ‘I am not a political activist, I am a journalist. And my job entails that I will show public support regarding some topics, but it also entails that I will be critical regarding others, which is my right as a journalist’,” said Mariam. “This is why he is in prison, because he was doing his job.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program.

Arvind Kejriwal was on March 21, 2024 detained in the Delhi liquor scam and sent to Tihar jail on April 1, 2024. He was granted bail on September 13, 2024. The picture is being shared on social media in this context.

BJP supporter Jitendra Pratap Singh (@jpsin1) shared the picture on X. The tweet said that a banner was seen in front of the gate of Tihar Jail reading “Kejriwal will come again”. 

तिहाड जेल के बाहर बैनर देखा गया है ज़िसमें लिखा हुआ है..!

“फिर आयेंगे केजरीवाल..!!” pic.twitter.com/YUrEni3kpT

— Jitendra pratap singh (@jpsin1) January 6, 2025

Readers should note that Alt News has debunked misinformation shared by Jitendra Pratap Singh on numerous occasions. 

Another X user, Exclusive Minds (@Exclusive_Minds), which claims to be a ‘citizens’ collective fighting against misinformation and misleading content on social media’, shared a similar post.

केजरीवाल आयेंगे pic.twitter.com/BCpUyVBusI

— Exclusive Minds (@Exclusive_Minds) January 8, 2025

This user shared the photo on its Instagram handle as well.

An X user named Mukul Dekhane (@dekhane_mukul), too, shared the photo.

तिहाड जेल के बाहर बैनर टंगा हुआ है…

pic.twitter.com/SyRvretuLp

— Mukul Dekhane (@dekhane_mukul) January 9, 2025

Several other social media users have shared the image and made similar claims.  

Fact Check

Photo 1

A reverse search image led us to several pictures of the Tihar Jail gate from the same perspective in various news reports (1, 2, 3). There is no Kejriwal banner present in any of the photos. 

We found a news report by India News, where the credit for the original picture is given to news agency Press Trust of India (PTI).

Photo 2

A reverse search image on the picture led us to the original picture in the stock photos of Getty Images, where the India Today Group has been given credit for the photo. Just like the above photo, there is no Kejriwal banner in this one as well.

While comparing the original picture with the viral photo, we noticed that the banner and the pole along with the blue clear sky with clouds are not present in the original picture. They have been added to the original photo. The person on the scooter and the policeman outside the gate of the original picture have been digitally removed from the picture. So has been the Getty Images watermark.

A closer look into the two pictures shows that the other minute details in the picture remain the same, for example, a man riding a motor bike inside the premises can be located through the bars of the gate. Even the pedestrians inside the gate are the same.

Additionally, it is worth noting that the AAP launched the campaign “Kejriwal Aayenge” in August 2024. Hoardings with Kejriwal’s photo and the slogan were put up across Delhi. Below is an Instagram post from the party’s official handle from August 22, 2024. 

 

在 Instagram 查看这篇帖子

 

Aam Aadmi Party | AAP (@aamaadmiparty) 分享的帖子

To sum up, the viral photos of ‘Kejriwal Aayenge’ hoardingsat the gate of Tihar Central Jail gate are doctored.

The post Viral images of ‘Kejriwal Ayenge’ hoardings at Tihar Jail are fake appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

Zamora, 67, spent 813 days in prison, accused of money laundering, until he was granted house arrest on October 18, 2024. The following month, a Guatemalan appeals court ordered Zamora back to jail, but he has remained in house arrest until his appeal is heard.

“It’s inhumane what the Guatemalan judicial system is doing to journalist José Rubén Zamora,” said CPJ’s Latin American program coordinator, Cristina Zahar. “His presumption of innocence was shattered for more than two years when he was arbitrarily detained. He must be immediately released.”

In June 2023, Zamora was sentenced to six years imprisonment on money laundering charges, which were criticized as politically motivated.

CPJ has repeatedly urged the Guatemalan government to end Zamora’s prosecution and the harassment of his family and his journalist colleagues.

CPJ called the Supreme Court but didn’t get an immediate response.

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

The four fishermen were detained on Nov. 30 along with 27 crewmen from Myanmar, after a Myanmar navy boat had opened fire on several Thai boats near the neighbors’ common border in the Andaman Sea. One fisherman drowned after he jumped off a Thai boat during the shooting and two were injured.

Thai navy officials cited their Myanmar counterparts as saying the Thai boats had intruded up to 5.7 miles (9 kilometers) into Myanmar waters.

Thailand and Myanmar have several areas of dispute on their long land border as well as on their maritime border off the southern tip of Myanmar and southwest Thailand, and disagreements occasionally flare up.

Thai foreign ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura said on Dec. 5 that the four Thais had been released and were being processed at the immigration checkpoint in the Myanmar town of Kawthoung. But they never showed up in the Thai town of Ranong on the other side of a border inlet.

Thailand’s Khaosod newspaper reported on Monday that a Kawthoung court had sentenced the boat’s captain to five years in prison for illegal fishing in Myanmar waters and another year for illegal entry. It did not provide a source for its report.

The three other Thais were each sentenced to three years in prison for illegal fishing in Myanmar waters and an additional one year for illegal entry, the newspaper reported.

The court had shown mercy after the boat’s captain confessed to fishing for mackerel in Myanmar waters and their prison sentences were suspended “to maintain good international relations,” the newspaper reported

“All four Thai crew members will be released back to Thailand during the upcoming New Year 2025 festive holiday,” the newspaper said.

Radio Free Asia was unable to contact the court in Kawthoung for comment. Spokesmen for Myanmar’s ruling military were also unavailable for comment.

The Thai foreign ministry spokesman declined to comment on the Khaosod report about the suspended sentences, merely saying in a release: “The actions taken by the Myanmar side are based on Myanmar law regarding foreign fishing vessels and Myanmar immigration law.”

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A pardon?

But Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said on Monday evening that the four Thais would be pardoned and released.

“It is typical in a justice system to hand down such rulings, to be followed by a pardon,” Paetongtarn told reporters.

“We have talked about and discussed this,” she said, referring to the Myanmar side, adding that the four could be freed after the New Year.

The 27 Myanmar crew members on the detained Thai boat, the Sor Charoenchai 8, have been sentenced to four years in prison with a fine of 200,000 kyat (US$95), said Ye Thwe, president of the Fishers Rights Network.

Ye Thwe said it was the responsibility of Thai authorities and a system known as Port-In Port-Out, or PIPO, to monitor fishing and ensure it is done legally. The fishermen themselves should not be blamed, he said.

Activist groups have long criticized PIPO authorities for what the groups see as the failure to crack down on debt bondage and other labor abuses on board vessels.

Ye Thwe said the Thai boat owner or Thai authorities should help the relatives of detained fishermen.

“Especially the families, they’re saying that it’s not fair,” he said. “Without the fishermen … they have no income. That’s why the boat owner or the Thai government should respond on this.”

It was not the first incident in the contested area in recent years.

In 2020, Myanmar detained a Thai fishing boat carrying 20 Thai and Chinese tourists, saying it had entered Myanmar waters illegally. Myanmar held the tourists for a month before their release following negotiations.

Editing by RFA Staff

Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok contributed to this story.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kiana Duncan for RFA and Nontarat Phaicharoen for BenarNews.

“Journalist Volha Radzivonava’s four-year prison sentence is yet another example of the Belarusian authorities’ continued persecution of members of the press,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “Authorities should immediately release Radzivonava, along with all imprisoned journalists.”

Authorities detained Radzivonava, a freelance journalist, on March 7, 2024. During her pretrial detention, she was sent to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation in Novinki, in the Minsk region, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and press trade group operating from exile.

Radzivonava’s trial  started in Minsk on November 16, according to the banned human rights group Viasna. 

There is no information regarding the grounds for the charges against Radzivonava but BAJ believes she was prosecuted in connection with her work. 

CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the country’s law enforcement agency responsible for investigating crimes, for comment but did not receive a reply.

Belarus is the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.

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

Pro-independence Kanak leader Christian Téin will remain in a mainland French jail for the time being, a Court of Appeal has ruled in Nouméa.

This followed an earlier ruling on October 22 from the Court of Cassation, which is tasked to rule on possible procedural mistakes in earlier judgments.

The Court of Cassation found some flaws in the procedure that justified the case being heard again by a Court of Appeal.

• READ MORE:  Kanak leader Christian Tein’s jailing in France overturned in new legal twist
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• Mixed reactions to Tjibaou’s election to key Kanak pro-independence party
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Téin’s lawyer, Pierre Ortet, confirmed his client’s detention in a mainland prison (Mulhouse jail, north-eastern France) has been maintained as a result of the latest Court of Appeal hearing behind closed doors in Nouméa on Friday.

But he also told local media he now intends to bring the case to the European Court of Human Rights, as well as United Nations’ human rights mechanisms — especially on the circumstances that surrounded Téin’s transfer to France on 23 June 2024 on board a specially-chartered plane four days after his arrest in Nouméa on June 19.

Nouméa Public Prosecutor Yves Dupas told local media in an interview on Friday that in this case the next step should happen “some time in January”, when a criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation is expected to deliver another ruling.

Reacting to recent comments made by pro-independence party Union Calédonienne, which maintains Téin is a political prisoner, Dupas said Téin and others facing similar charges “are still presumed innocent”, but “are not political prisoners, they have not been held in relation to a political motive”.

Alleged crimes
The alleged crimes, he said, were “crimes and delicts related to organised crime”.

The seven charges include complicity as part of murder attempts, theft involving the use of weapons and conspiracy in view of the preparation of acts of organised crimes.

Téin’s defence maintains it was never his client’s intention to commit such crimes.

Christian Téin is the head of a “Field Action Coordinating Cell” (CCAT), a group created late in 2023 by the largest and oldest pro-independence party Union Calédonienne.

From October 2023 onward, the CCAT organised marches and demonstrations that later degenerated — starting May 13 — into insurrectional riots, arson and looting, causing 13 deaths and an estimated 2.2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion) in material damage, mainly in the Greater Nouméa area.

“The judicial inquiry aims at establishing every responsibility, especially at the level of ‘order givers’,” Dupas told local Radio Rythme Bleu on Friday.

He confirmed six persons were still being detained in several jails of mainland France, including Téin.

3 released under ‘judicial control’
Three others have been released under judiciary control with an obligation to remain in mainland France.

“You see, the manifestation of truth requires time. Justice requires serenity, it’s very important”, he commented.

Late August, Téin was also chosen as president of the pro-independence umbrella FLNKS at its congress.

The August 2024 Congress was also marked by the non-attendance of two other main pillars of the movement, UPM and PALIKA, which have since confirmed their intention to distance themselves from FLNKS.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Dong, 62, a columnist for the state-run newspaper Guangming Daily, was arrested in Beijing in February 2022 while having lunch with a Japanese diplomat, who was also briefly detained. Dong’s work has been published in the Chinese editions of The New York Times and the Financial Times, and he won a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 2006-2007.

“Interacting with diplomats is part of a journalist’s job. Jailing journalists on bogus and vicious charges like espionage is a travesty of justice,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi. “We condemn this unjust verdict and call on the Chinese authorities to protect the right of journalists to work freely and safely in China. Dong Yuyu must be reunited with his family.”

There was heavy police presence and journalists were asked to leave the court area in the capital Beijing where the sentence was handed down, according to Reuters.

China is the world’s leading jailer of journalists, which had 44 journalists behind bars as of December 1, 2023, according to CPJ’s most recent annual prison census.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for a comment on Dong’s sentencing.

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

A new carbon credit trading deal reached in the final hours of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, has been criticised as a free pass for countries to slack off on efforts to reduce emissions at home.

The deal, sealed at the annual UN climate talks nearly a decade after it was first put forward, will allow countries to buy carbon credits from others to bring down their own balance sheet.

New Zealand had set its targets under the Paris Agreement on the assumption that it would be able to meet some of it through international cooperation — “so getting this up and running is really important”, Compass Climate head Christina Hood said.

• READ MORE: Fractious COP29 lands $300bn climate finance goal, dashing hopes of the poorest
• Other COP29 climate crisis reports

“It’s a tool, it’s neither good nor bad, but there’s going to have to be a lot of scrutiny on whether the government is taking a high-ambition, high-integrity path, or just trying to do the minimum possible.”

The plan had taken nine years to go through because countries determined to do it right had been holding out for a process with the right checks and balances in place, she said.

As it stood, countries would have to report yearly to the UN on their trading activities, but it was up to society and other countries to scrutinise behaviour.

Cindy Baxter, a COP veteran who has been at all but seven of the conferences, said it was in-line with the way Aotearoa New Zealand wanted to go about reducing its emissions.

‘We’re not alone, but . . .’
“We’re not alone, Switzerland is similar and Japan as well, but certainly New Zealand is aiming to meet by far the largest proportion of our climate target, [out of] anywhere in the OECD, through carbon trading.”

The new scheme fell under Article six of the Paris Agreement, and a statement from COP29 said it was expected to reduce the cost of implementing countries’ national climate plans by up to US$250 billion (NZ$428.5b) per year.

COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev said “climate change is a transnational challenge and Article six will enable transnational solutions. Because the atmosphere does not care where emissions savings are made.”

But Baxter said there was not enough transparency in the scheme, and plenty of loopholes. One of the issues was ensuring projects resulting in carbon credits continued to reduce emissions after the credits were traded.

“For example, if you’re trying to save some mangroves in Fiji, you give Fiji a whole bunch of money and say this is going to offset this amount of carbon, but what if those mangroves are destroyed by a drought, or a great big cyclone?”

Countries should be cutting emissions at home, she said.

“And that is something New Zealand is not very good at doing, has a really bad reputation for doing. We’ve either planted trees, or now we’re trying to throw money at offset.”

Greenpeace spokesperson Amanda Larsson said she, too, was concerned it would take the onus off big polluters to make reductions at home, calling it a “get out of jail free card”.

‘Lot of junk credits’
“Ultimately, we really need to see significant cuts in climate pollution,” she said. “And there’s no such thing as high-integrity voluntary carbon markets, and a history of a lot of junk credits being sold.”

Countries with the means to make meaningful change at home should not be relying on other countries stepping up, she said

The Green Party foreign affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said there was strong potential in the proposal, but it was “imperative to ensure the framework is robust, and protects the rights of indigenous peoples at the same time as incentivising carbon sequestration”.

It should be a wake-up call to change New Zealand’s over-reliance on risky pine plantations and instead support permanent native afforestation, he said.

“This proposal emphasises how solving the climate crisis requires global collaboration on the most difficult issues. That requires building trust and confidence, by meeting commitments countries make to each other.

“Backing out of these by, for instance, restarting oil and gas exploration directly against the wishes of our Pacific relatives, is not the way do to that.”

Conference overall ‘disappointing and frustrating’
Baxter said it had been “very difficult being forced to have another COP in a petro-state”, where the host state did not have much to gain by making big progress.

“What that means is that there is not that impetus to bang heads together and get really strong agreement,” she said.

But the blame could not be placed entirely on the leadership.

“The COP process is set up to work if governments bring their A-games, and they don’t,” she said.

“People should be bringing their really strong new climate targets [and] very few are doing that.”

Another deal was clinched in overtime of the two-week conference, promising US$300 billion (NZ$514 billion) each year by 2035 for developing nations to tackle climate emissions.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The decision is a new blow to press freedom in Guatemala. Zamora, president of the now defunct elPeriódico newspaper, had already spent 813 days in jail and experienced years of government harassment after his reporting challenged the country’s political elite. 

Zamora was sentenced to six years imprisonment in June 2023 on money laundering charges, which were widely criticized as politically motivated. An appeals court overturned his conviction in October 2023; the retrial has been delayed by ongoing procedural hurdles.

CPJ has repeatedly urged the Guatemalan government, especially President Bernardo Arévalo, to end Zamora’s prosecution and the harassment of his family and the journalistic community. 

In an interview with CPJ before the overturning of his house arrest, Zamora discussed the personal toll of these charges, his unyielding commitment to press freedom, and the growing threats faced by journalists in Guatemala’s increasingly repressive environment.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is it like to return home after more than 800 days in prison?

Returning home has been an experience full of intense emotions and unexpected moments. When I arrived home, my friends who had supported me throughout the entire process came with me to my house — 10 people who, during my imprisonment, brought me food and visited me once a week. After spending the night with them, I only slept for a few hours. 

When I woke up, I found out that the directors of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), who were gathered in Córdoba, Argentina, wanted to speak with me. And from there, calls and interviews began, one after another.

Diplomats and media from all over the world want to speak with me, and when I go for my daily walk — about 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] a day — people stop to greet me, take photos, and offer their support. 

I appreciate the affection, but sometimes I feel overwhelmed. I wasn’t prepared for so much attention. I’m a shy person; I feel more comfortable writing than speaking in public, and this has been a big change. I also have health issues that I need to attend to, but I am here, trying to adapt.

I’m prepared, knowing they could come to take me back at any moment. And I’m ready here for when they come, to go back again. And I will come out again, and the time will come when they have to let me go free. 

How was your experience in the Mariscal Zavala prison, located at a military base in northern Guatemala City? 

Mariscal Zavala was a shock. They took me [in July 2022], with 18 armed men, and put me in a cell without any explanation.

I spent 14 days without sleep, with purple lights, and unable to communicate with my lawyers. During that time, they put insects in my cell that left wounds on my arms and legs. I also got poisoned by an insecticide that I managed to obtain to control the pests. Despite all this, my conditions improved when the new government changed: I was given better conditions, with light, heating, and more dignity.

The prosecutor’s office says it does not pursue you as a journalist but as a business owner. How do you respond to these statements?

For me, it is hard to conceive that José Rubén Zamora is not a journalist, as I have dedicated my entire life to this profession. They persecuted me and tried to imprison me just for doing my job. And when you add that they were seeking sentences for up to 20 years — the same maximum sentence given for crimes like money laundering or extortion — and they show as evidence my opinion columns, the argument that they are after me as a businessman loses all credibility.

Who is behind this, and why are they pursuing you?

What we’ve lived through in Guatemala has been a sinister metamorphosis of our democracy. Every four years, we elect a president who, rather than being a legitimate leader, is a thief, and he governs with the support of high-ranking military structures, organized crime, and monopolies. They’ve always been bothered by the fact that our newspaper did not align with their interests, that we were independent and denounced corruption and drug trafficking, which are part of that system.

Since 2007, a criminal structure has consolidated its power. It’s a web of interests that has taken over the country and is indifferent to the people’s problems. This is a power alliance that, although it has succeeded in persecuting me, has paid a high price. I think it would have been better for them if I had continued with my newspaper because, in the end, exposing their corruption was less damaging than my imprisonment.

​​This is not the first time you’ve found yourself in a dangerous situation because of your reporting. How has this affected you and your family?

My children never gave up. Despite the damage to their lives, they were always relentless. They worked tirelessly for my liberation and didn’t feel ashamed. The youngest one aimed to be an academic, was building a solid career and had to leave with her mother because they were after him. They even sent people to arrest him, but they were able to leave the country first. Now, he’s without a job, without documents, and his future is uncertain. It has been very tough for them and me, but they keep moving forward with strength.

In 2023, the Court of Appeals annulled your sentence on money laundering charges. What does this mean for you legally and personally?

I still don’t know the final impact. I have requested that we return to the hearing for the presentation of evidence, and I hope to present the testimonies of experts and the person who made the transaction with me. Additionally, I trust that the case regarding the travel receipts and the obstruction charge, which I consider ridiculous, will be dismissed at the intermediate hearing. The case has been intentionally delayed, but sooner or later, it will have to be resolved. If that happens, it will allow my wife to return.

What is the current status of the legal cases you are facing?

The trial that will be repeated is the most important, and I hope to present my evidence at that time. For this, the first hearing for the charges of money laundering and extortion is scheduled for September 25, 2025; there, they will set up a second hearing, likely in 2026. The case has no foundation, as the prosecutor’s office is setting up an extortion case, but they have no people to testify against either for that or for money laundering.

At one point, I was offered the possibility of going home if I accepted the charges and apologized to [former president Alejandro] Giammattei, his associate Miguel Martínez, and the press for my “immoralities.” When I refused, they began to create a second case to persecute my wife and my young son with charges of document falsification. The prosecutor’s office claims the signatures were fake, but those travel documents were legally issued by immigration.

Also, all of this happened in a unilateral hearing where I was not informed of the charges nor allowed to defend myself. This case has no evidence, but what the prosecutor’s office does is that every time there is a hearing, the judge is denounced, and the prosecutors do not show up, which leaves the case stalled.

What has the freezing of your accounts and seizure of all assets meant for you? How did the closure of the newspaper impact you?

It was devastating. Before the pandemic, I had no debts, but now I have obligations with the banks that I can’t even cover since my accounts have been frozen for two years. It’s a constant pressure.

Now elPeriódico is closed. How did you experience that process?

It was a solitary process. I witnessed the collapse of everything without being able to do anything. 

I came to believe that no matter who defended me — whether the best lawyer in the world or someone without experience — the result was going to be the same. That acceptance gave me a deep sense of serenity because I understood that I no longer had control over anything. It was a moment where I decided to just go with the flow, let myself be carried by the current, and I even thought that I might spend the rest of my life in prison. 

If it weren’t for organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), who not only helped me get out but also gave me solidarity and support I never expected, I don’t know how I would have been able to continue.

What impact do you think elPeriódico’s closure had on Guatemala and its press?

Guatemala lost one of its most belligerent and irreverent voices. Although the country still has several media outlets, our newspaper stood out for being against abuses of power, state terrorism, impunity, and corruption. We fought for democracy, freedom, and equality of opportunities. We were probably the most uncomfortable and bothersome media for the powerful. 

Despite being small, we knew that we caused significant moral damage to the country’s big thieves, which gave us great satisfaction.

How do you view the current press freedom situation in Guatemala, especially in relation to the journalists who investigate and publish the abuses of power under this government, compared to the previous one?

This president is an exception. He is a decent man, but he lacks control over Congress and the judicial system. The prosecutor’s office is also going after him, and I am sure they will try to remove his immunity to subject him to a legal process.

It’s encouraging to see that many journalists are still working and haven’t given up, even though they face constant risks. The fight for freedom is not philosophical; it is existential. It’s a daily conquest that is achieved by rejecting the abuses of the established power.

Looking ahead, do you see yourself continuing in journalism?

I would like to continue in journalism, but my lawyers have advised me to be cautious. They imprisoned me for two reasons: for traveling too much and because I can influence the media. That’s why, until at least the next two years pass, I must avoid speaking publicly, although it is very difficult for me to stay silent. 

Despite everything, I will always keep fighting. We must maintain our patience, courage, and faith without losing hope. It’s essential to develop the ability to overcome our fears and, whenever possible, break barriers. 

In the end, freedom is the fundamental pillar of democracy.

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

Sebastien, who leads the #FreeJimmyLai campaign, last saw his father in August 2020 — weeks after Beijing imposed a national security law that led to a massive crackdown on pro-democracy advocates and journalists. Among them Lai, founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

After nearly four years in Hong Kong’s maximum-security Stanley Prison and multiple delays to his trial, the aging British citizen was due to take the stand for the first time on November 20 on charges of sedition and conspiring to collude with foreign forces, which he denies.

Lai, who has diabetes, routinely spends over 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, with only 50 minutes for restricted exercise and limited access to daylight, according to his international lawyers.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found that Lai is unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called for his release.

Responding to CPJ’s request for comment, a Hong Kong government spokesperson referred to a November 17 statement in which it said that Lai was “receiving appropriate treatment and care in prison” and that Hong Kong authorities “strongly deplore any form of interference.”

In an interview with CPJ, Sebastien spoke about Britain’s bilateral ties with China, as well as Hong Kong — a former British colony where his father arrived as a stowaway on a fishing boat at age 12, before finding jobs in a garment factory and eventually launched a clothing retail chain and his media empire.

What do you anticipate when your father takes the stand for the first time?

To be honest, I do not know. My father is a strong person, but the Hong Kong government has spent four years trying to break him. I don’t think they can break his spirit but with his treatment they are in the process of breaking his body. We will see the extent of that on the stand.

Your father turned 77 recently. How is he doing in solitary confinement?

The last time I saw my father was in August of 2020. I haven’t been able to return to my hometown since and therefore have been unable to visit him in prison. His health has declined significantly. He is now 77, and, having spent nearly four years in a maximum-security prison in solitary confinement, his treatment is inhumane. For his dedication to freedom, they have taken his away.

For his bravery in standing in defense of others, they have denied him human contact. For his strong faith in God, they have denied him Holy Communion.

We have seen governments across the political spectrum call for Jimmy Lai’s release —the U.S., the European Parliament, Australia, Canada, Germany, and Ireland, among others. What does that mean to you?

We are incredibly grateful for all the support from multiple states in calling for my father’s release. The charges against my father are sham charges. The Hong Kong government has weaponized their legal system to crack down on all who criticize them.

You met with the U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently, who said Jimmy Lai’s case remains a priority and the government will press for consular access. What would you like to see Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government do?

They have publicly stated that they want to normalize relationships with China and to increase trade. I don’t see how that can be achieved if there is a British citizen in Hong Kong in the process of being killed for standing up for the values that underpin a free nation and the rights and dignity of its citizens.

Any normalization of the relationship with China needs to be conditional on my father’s immediate release and his return to the United Kingdom.

Your father’s life story in many ways embodies Hong Kong’s ‘never-give-up’ attitude. Do you think Hong Kong journalists and pro-democracy activists will keep on fighting? What is your message to Beijing and the Hong Kong government?

I think most of the world shares his spirit. Hong Kong is unique because it’s a city of refugees. It’s a city where we were given many of the freedoms of the free world. And as a result, it flourished. We knew what we had and what we escaped from.

My message is to release my father immediately. A Hong Kong that has 1,900 political prisoners for democracy campaigning, is a Hong Kong that has no rule of law, no free press, one that disregards the welfare of its citizens. This is not a Hong Kong that will flourish.

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

Ablimit, a resident of Yopurga county in Kashgar, in western Xinjiang, was detained in 2017 during a massive crackdown on Uyghurs by Chinese authorities, said the Uyghur in Turkey, who had heard the news from other Uyghurs. It wasn’t clear when he was sentenced.

In 2014, Chinese authorities ordered Xinjiang’s 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs to turn over all books and audio-visual materials deemed “illegal” -- mostly religious texts, including the Quran, Islam’s holy book, as well as items like prayer rugs, in the name of stamping out religious extremism.

However, some people did not surrender all such books, or simply forgot where they had put them, the Uyghur in Turkey said.

In 2017, when China conducted the mass detentions on Uyghurs, a few ‘illegal’ books that survived were found when the authorities were searching residents’ houses, he said.

Ablimit appears to have been caught up in that dragnet.

A police officer in Yopurga county contacted by RFA confirmed Ablimit’s arrest and sentence for defying the call to turn over “illegal” books.

The book confiscation is but one of many ways that China has oppressed the Uyghurs.

Since 2017, Chinese authorities have rounded up an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs in concentration camps, where many have been subjected to forced labor.

Concentration camp survivor Zumrat Dawut, who now lives in the United States, said that when the 2017 crackdown began, some residents threw their ‘illegal’ books in garbage cans or cesspools in her community.

Because of this, the canal in her community in Urumqi was blocked. When it was repaired, a large number of books, including Qurans, were found in the blocked channels, she said.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Shohret Hoshur for RFA Uyghur.

Bekirov, who is an ethnic Crimean Tatar from Ukraine’s Russian-occupied region of Crimea, was a correspondent for independent Russian news website Grani and reported on Russian authorities’ raids and trials of Crimean Tatars for Crimean Solidarity’s YouTube channel before he was sentenced to 19 years in prison in March 2022.

“The harsh treatment of Remzi Bekirov in prison is indicative of the plight of jailed Crimean Tatar journalists whom Russian authorities punish with lengthy prison terms on fabricated terrorism charges in retaliation for their reporting on human rights abuses in the occupied Crimea,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Russian authorities must immediately release Remzi Bekirov and all other jailed Ukrainian journalists and ensure their safe return to their homeland.”

Bekirov is imprisoned at a penal colony in Russia’s southern Siberia region of Khakassia on charges of organizing the activities of a terrorist organization and “preparing for a violent seizure of power,” according to his lawyer, Emil Kurbedinov, who spoke to CPJ, and Crimean Solidarity, a human rights organization that reports on politically motivated cases. The IK-33 colony is located in the region’s capital, Abakan, more than 4,000 km from his home in Ukraine’s Crimea.

Bekirov “receives heightened scrutiny,” including strict monitoring of his correspondence, regular cell searches, and being placed in solitary confinement five times since his transfer to IK-33 in August 2024, Kurbedinov told CPJ, adding that Bekirov was in solitary as of September 13.

CPJ’s email to the press office of Russia’s Federal Service for the Execution of Punishments requesting verification and details about Bekirov’s treatment did not receive a response. CPJ’s call to the Crimean branch of the Russian Ministry of Interior did not go through.

Kurbedinov said Bekirov appeared particularly frightened during their recent meeting, which a prison administrator monitored. Kurbedinov said Bekirov’s detention far from Crimea is harmful and “intentional,” making visits from family and attorneys difficult.

Since Russian authorities cracked down on independent media in Crimea after annexing the peninsula in 2014, many have engaged in “citizen journalism,” particularly focused on human rights issues affecting Crimean Tatars.

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

As the climate crisis continues to accelerate, wealthy governments in the West are clamping down on climate protest. According to a new report from Climate Rights International, demonstrators around the world are being arrested, charged, prosecuted and silenced, simply for using their rights to free expression. One of those prosecuted is activist Joanna Smith, who last year applied washable school finger paint on the exterior glass case enclosing Edgar Degas’s renowned wax sculpture, Little Dancer, at the National Gallery of Art to draw attention to the urgency of the climate crisis. She was charged and later sentenced to two months in federal prison for her civil disobedience. We speak to Smith just a week after her release, and to Linda Lakhdir, the legal director of Climate Rights International. “Countries who have held themselves up as beacons of rule of law are essentially repressing peaceful protest,” says Lakhdir. Smith says the nonviolent action she took was intended to highlight the disparity between a sculpture of a child protected from the elements with a strong plexiglass case and the billions of children around the world left unsafe and vulnerable by climate change’s effects. “The crisis is here now, it’s unfolding in front of us, and our governments are failing us,” she explains.

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

The Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court also handed a three-year, six-month jail term to labor activist Wang Jianbing for the same offense. Time already served since their initial detention in September 2021 will be taken into account, according to a copy of the judgment posted to social media.

Security outside the court building was tight, with large numbers of plainclothes and uniformed police officers, as well as security volunteers in red armbands, campaigners said.

Journalists weren't allowed to approach the building, according to a campaign group working for their release.

The court also confiscated 100,000 yuan (US$13,800) in assets from Huang and 50,000 (US$6,900) yuan from Wang.

Neither Huang nor Wang has been allowed to receive visits from family members since their detention, but have been allowed legal representation within parameters set by the authorities, fellow activists said.

Huang told the court she planned to appeal the sentence and conviction, the Free Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing support group said via its X account, adding that Wang plans to consult with his lawyer before deciding whether to appeal or not.

"Tomorrow will be their 1,000th day in detention," a friend of the pair who gave only the nickname Xiao Cao for fear of reprisals told RFA Mandarin. "It would be a violation of their freedom and dignity to hold them for just one day."

The day before

Huang and Wang were detained on Sept. 19, 2021, the day before Huang had planned to leave China via Hong Kong for the United Kingdom, where she planned to embark on a master's degree in development with a prestigious Chevening Scholarship. 

Wang, who is a labor and healthcare rights activist, had planned to see her off on her journey.

They were put on trial for "incitement to subvert state power," a charge frequently used to target peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Amnesty International's China Director Sarah Brooks said neither Huang nor Wang have committed any crime.

"These malicious and totally groundless convictions show just how terrified the Chinese government is of the emerging wave of activists who dare to speak out to protect the rights of others," Brooks said in a statement on the Amnesty International website.

"The Chinese government has fabricated excuses to deem their work a threat, and to target them for educating themselves and others about social justice issues such as women’s dignity and workers’ rights," she said, calling for the pair's unconditional release.

Before being targeted by the authorities in 2019, Huang had been an outspoken member of the country's #MeToo movement, and had carried out a survey of sexual harassment and assault cases among Chinese women working in journalism.

Huang was present at a million-strong protest in Hong Kong on June 9, 2019, against plans to allow extradition to mainland China, and was detained for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" in October 2019, before being released on bail in January 2020, a status that often involves ongoing surveillance and restrictions on a person's activities.

Huang had previously assisted in the investigation and reporting of a number of high-profile sexual harassment allegations against professors at Peking University, Wuhan University of Technology, Henan University and Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou.

The case against Huang and Wang is believed to be related to their attendance at weekly gatherings with fellow activists, hosted by Wang Jianbing, the statement said.

The Chinese authorities systematically use national security charges with extremely vague provisions, such as “subverting state power” and “inciting subversion of state power,” to prosecute lawyers, scholars, journalists, activists and NGO workers.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei and Qiao Qin'en for RFA Mandarin.

Several recent polls show a majority of Americans, including Independents, want convicted felon Trump to drop out of the race. Yet here we are, with Trump still running and Biden’s approval ratings scraping the bottom of the historical barrel. Why? Merrick Garland, Biden’s Attorney General, is the worst possible choice for this critical moment in American history.

We all saw Trump and his family try to overthrow our democracy, tailgating before their violent attempted coup and setting up a war room just steps from the White House at the Willard Hotel. Yet, they’re still free, enriching themselves, and gearing up to finish the coup they started with Kremlin support back in 2016. None of this is normal. 

The cynicism is palpable. Americans expect Trump to walk free, maybe get probation, and continue his campaign for president. This absurdity erodes our faith in already crumbling institutions. The bottom line? A Russian asset should never have come near the White House in 2016. Trump’s presidency is a catastrophic failure of the FBI, CIA, Obama’s foreign policy team, and Republican leaders who shielded him during two impeachment trials. The establishment wants us to forget this because many now profit from book deals and TV appearances, even though they’re part of the problem.

And now, to some good news! Congratulations to Mexico for electing your first female and Jewish president, Claudia Sheinbaum. This gives hope that another world is possible, one built on accountability and justice. Here’s to a better future.

Thank you to everyone who supports the show – we could not make Gaslit Nation without you! To join our community of listeners, get bonus shows, and all episodes ad free, invites to exclusive events, submit questions to our regular Q&As, and more, subscribe at the Truth-teller level or higher on Patreon.com/Gaslit!

Cult Expert Dr. Janja Lalich Live-Taping - July 11 8pm ET

• July 15th kicks off the Republican National Convention/Hitler rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. To help us cope with the mainstream media, especially the New York Times, continuing to normalize Trump and his MAGA cult, we’re producing a live taping with cult expert Dr. Janja Lalich. Bring your questions about how to navitage this perilous time of rampant disinformation and manipulation, learn the signs of cult grooming, and how to help loved ones who have fallen victim. This will be Dr. Lalich’s second time on the show. You can listen to the interview with her from April 2022 here. 

In the Shadow of Stalin Book Launch - September 

• Gaslit Nation will host a live taping at a book launch in New York City for In the Shadow of Stalin, the graphic novel adaptation of Mr. Jones. It includes scenes that didn’t make it into the final cut of the film, or it would have been three hours long! The evening will include a special meet-up just for Patreon supporters. We look forward to sharing more details as we get closer. If you want a book event/live taping of Gaslit Nation in your town or city, let us know! 

Indivisible x Gaslit Nation Phonebank Party! - June 20th 8pm ET

• Open to all, Gaslit Nation and Indivisible are kicking things off early this year, really early! When there’s such a thing as Project 2025, there’s no time to waste. Come join us for our first phone bank party of the season, as we make calls to our fellow citizens in Republican hostage states, to refuse to abandon those on the frontlines of American authoritarianism, and to plant seeds of change. We’re going in! RSVP here to join us! https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/628701/

Show Notes: 

Israel and Evangelicals https://www.patreon.com/posts/israel-and-102272065

The Voice of Harvey Milk https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/the-voice-of-harvey-milk

Clip: Harvey Milk – “Give Them Hope” Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9vol-8HYEc

Opening Clip: Outside Trump Tower in 2016 https://x.com/billyd3_/status/1795954011708735826

CLIP: Bill Maher’s All Male Panel (Breaking Points) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoSODlSKOqc

Clip: CNN - Netanyahu Undermining Ceasefire Deal https://x.com/JordanUhl/status/1797764019652370536

‘No One Could Believe It’: When Ford Pardoned Nixon Four Decades Ago https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/us/politics/nixon-ford-pardon-watergate.html

Judge orders Manafort to jail while awaiting money laundering and fraud trials https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/15/judge-orders-paul-manafort-jail-wake-new-obstruction-charges/701199002/

'No Blame?' ABC News finds 54 cases invoking 'Trump' in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news-finds-17-cases-invoking-trump/story?id=58912889

She is set to be Mexico’s first female president. But who is Claudia Sheinbaum?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Sheinbaum

Congress braces for "large" boycott, disruptions of Netanyahu speech https://www.axios.com/2024/06/04/democrats-boycott-benjamin-netanyahu-speech-congress

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Mississippi Today and co-published with the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, the Sun Herald and MLK50. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

When Sandy Jones’ 26-year-old daughter started writing on the walls of her home in Hernando, Mississippi, last year and talking angrily to the television, Sandy said, she knew two things: Her daughter Sydney needed help, and Sandy didn’t want her to be held in jail again to get it.

A year and a half earlier, during Sydney Jones’ first psychotic episode, her mother filed paperwork to have her involuntarily committed, a legal process in which a judge can order someone to receive mental health treatment. After DeSoto County sheriff’s deputies showed up at Sydney’s home and explained that they were detaining her for a mental evaluation, Sydney panicked and ran inside. Following a struggle, deputies cuffed and shackled her and drove her to the county jail, where people going through the commitment process are usually held as they await mental health treatment elsewhere.

Over nine days in jail, Sydney Jones said, she believed her tattoos were portals for spiritual forces and felt like she had been abandoned by her family. In an interview, she said that the experience was so traumatic that she became anxious when she drove, afraid she could be arrested at any moment.

The second time Sydney Jones experienced delusions, in 2023, a family member contacted the local community mental health center for help. Police officers with mental health training came and called an ambulance to take Jones to Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto, part of a large, religiously affiliated nonprofit hospital system. But because the hospital doesn’t have a psychiatric unit, after a few days it sent her to the jail to wait for eventual treatment in a publicly funded facility. Like the first time, she hadn’t been charged with a crime.

Roughly 200 people in DeSoto County were jailed annually during the civil commitment process, most without criminal charges, between 2021 and 2023. About a fifth of them were picked up at local hospitals, according to an estimate based on a review of Sheriff’s Department records by Mississippi Today and ProPublica. The overwhelming majority of those patients, according to our analysis, were at Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto, the largest in this prosperous, suburban county near Memphis.

“That would just be unthinkable here,” said Dr. Grayson Norquist, the chief of psychiatry at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, a professor at Emory University and the former chair of psychiatry at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi.

Norquist was one of 17 physicians specializing in emergency medicine or psychiatry, including leaders in their fields, who said they had never heard of a hospital sending patients to jail solely to wait for mental health treatment. Several said it violates doctors’ Hippocratic oath: to do no harm.

If you or someone you know needs help:

• Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
• Text the Crisis Text Line from anywhere in the U.S. to reach a crisis counselor: 741741

The practice appears to be unusual even in Mississippi, where lawmakers recently acted to limit when people can be jailed as they go through the civil commitment process. Sheriff’s departments in about a third of the state’s counties, including those that appear to jail such people most frequently, responded to questions from Mississippi Today and ProPublica about how they handle involuntary commitment. They said they seldom, if ever, take people who need mental health treatment from a hospital to jail. At most, said sheriffs in a few rural counties, they do it once or twice a month.

But in DeSoto County, hospital patients were jailed about 50 times a year from 2021 to 2023, according to the news outlets’ estimate, which was based on a review of Sheriff’s Department dispatch logs, incident reports and jail dockets.

At least two people have died soon after being taken from Baptist-DeSoto to a county jail during the commitment process, according to documents submitted for lawsuits filed over their deaths. One person died by suicide hours after arriving at the DeSoto County jail in 2021; the other died of multisystem organ failure after being jailed for three days in neighboring Marshall County in 2011. James Franks, an attorney who handles commitments for DeSoto County, said officials had no reason to believe that the woman who killed herself was suicidal. DeSoto County made a similar argument in a court filing in an ongoing lawsuit over that death, which didn’t name the hospital as a defendant. In lawsuits over the other death, a judge dismissed Marshall County and the sheriff as defendants, and a jury found that Baptist-DeSoto wasn’t liable.

Baptist-DeSoto officials said the hospital hands some patients over to deputies to take them to jail because those patients need dedicated treatment that the hospital can’t provide and nearby inpatient facilities are full. Most people who need inpatient treatment agree to be transferred to a behavioral health facility, according to Kim Alexander, director of public relations for Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. But in a relatively small number of cases, she wrote in an email, patients are deemed dangerous to themselves or others and don’t agree to treatment, so they need to be committed. When that happens, she said, it’s the county’s responsibility to decide where to house them.

“We discharge mental health patients with the hope they will be transferred to a mental health facility that can provide the specialized care they need,” Alexander wrote in a statement. Jailing people who need mental health care is “not the ideal option,” she wrote. “Our hearts go out to anyone who cannot access the mental health care they need because behavioral health services are not available in the area.”

But doctors elsewhere said even if psychiatric facilities are full, Baptist-DeSoto doesn’t have to send patients to jail. They said the hospital could do what hospitals elsewhere in the country do: keep patients until a treatment bed is available.

“This is a principle of emergency medicine: You care for all people, under all circumstances, at any time," said Dr. Lewis Goldfrank, who spent 50 years working in emergency medicine, including at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Sending patients to jail because of their illness, he said, "is just unethical and irresponsible."

Sandy Jones said she was in disbelief when it happened to her daughter. If Sydney has another psychotic episode, Sandy Jones said she won’t try to get help in DeSoto County. “I will tie her up until it’s over.”

Baptist, the largest and oldest hospital in DeSoto County, sits right off the interstate amid big-box stores and chain hotels in Southaven, Mississippi. It’s the first place many residents think of when they need medical help. Since 2017, it has served as the drop-off point for the county’s crisis intervention team, which was established to give law enforcement a way to help people with mental illness without bringing them to jail.

But when people show up in the emergency department needing inpatient psychiatric treatment, they don’t get it at Baptist-DeSoto. Instead, a crisis coordinator sets about finding some other place for them. If patients agree to treatment, they may be able to go to a publicly funded crisis unit, the closest of which is 50 miles away, or to a private psychiatric hospital. If they don’t, the crisis coordinator pursues commitment, which means turning patients over to the Sheriff’s Department. And because the Sheriff’s Department usually won’t transport patients over a long distance multiple times for a court hearing and eventual treatment, those patients usually go to jail.

That was the case with Sydney Jones. After she arrived at the hospital in April 2023, a psychiatrist contracted by the hospital evaluated her and concluded that she needed inpatient treatment. Jones was prescribed antipsychotic medication, admitted to the hospital, placed in her own room and monitored by a security guard.

Meanwhile, a staffer for Region IV, the local nonprofit community mental health center that works with Baptist-DeSoto to place patients who need treatment, was trying to find someplace for Jones other than the hospital. Catherine Davis, the crisis coordinator, concluded that Jones would need to be committed.

The next day, Davis contacted Jones’ cousin, who had tried to get Jones help, and asked the cousin to initiate commitment proceedings. (Region IV’s contract with Baptist-DeSoto requires it to try to get a patient’s family member or friend to file commitment paperwork before doing so itself.) The cousin refused because she knew Jones would be jailed until a bed opened up, according to Sandy Jones. (The cousin declined an interview request.)

So Davis filed the commitment paperwork herself, writing that Sydney Jones “should be taken to DeSoto County jail” while awaiting further evaluations, a court hearing and eventual treatment.

On Sydney Jones’ fourth day at Baptist-DeSoto, two sheriff’s deputies arrived. They received discharge papers from a nurse and wheeled Jones out of the hospital, according to her and an incident report. Jones, who said her delusions at the time were “like if Satan made goggles and put them on you,” was terrified that the deputies would drive her to a field, rape her and kill her.

Sandy Jones said she didn’t understand why she had no say in what was happening to her daughter, although that’s typical during the commitment process. “I felt like she was kidnapped from me,” Sandy Jones said. Her daughter spent nine days in jail before being admitted to a crisis unit, where she was treated for about two weeks.

Mississippi Today and ProPublica interviewed five other people who were discharged from Baptist to jail, including two who had been taken to the hospital because they had attempted suicide. One said that when deputies came to his room, he wondered if he had somehow committed a crime after trying to kill himself by overdosing on prescription medication. Another said he felt humiliated to be wheeled through the hospital wearing just a hospital gown. Three of the five said they were handcuffed before being taken away.

Hospital officials noted that all patients are medically stabilized before being released and that some patients are committed by family members. Dr. H. F. Mason, Baptist-DeSoto’s chief medical officer, said in an interview that he didn’t know how often patients who need behavioral health treatment might be discharged to jail, but he has no concerns about the practice. When hospital staff hand patients over to local authorities, Mason said, “we feel that they’re going to take the appropriate care of that patient.”

The jail, however, offers minimal psychiatric treatment, if any. Region IV staff members visit the jail primarily to evaluate people going through the commitment process or to check on people on suicide watch, Region IV Director Jason Ramey said. Jail officials said medical staff try to make sure inmates have access to their prescription drugs, although some people jailed during commitment proceedings have said they didn’t consistently get their medications.

Davis and county officials involved in the commitment process said sending patients to jail as they await treatment is better than allowing them to go home, which they see as the only other option. Jail is “not ideal, but we’ve got to make sure these people are safe so they’re not going to harm themselves or somebody else,” Davis said. “If they’ve had a serious suicide attempt, and they’re just adamant they’re going home, I mean — I can’t ethically let them go home. ... We do try to explore all the options before we send them there.”

Once in jail, many patients wait days or weeks to be evaluated further, to go before a judge and to be taken somewhere for treatment, according to a review of jail dockets. One 37-year-old man picked up at Baptist-DeSoto in 2022 was jailed for nearly two months, which according to jail dockets was one of the longest detentions between 2021 and 2023.

The husband of a 64-year-old woman said that during the evaluation process he was encouraged by someone at Baptist-DeSoto — he doesn’t remember who — to pursue commitment proceedings after his wife stopped taking her bipolar disorder medication and overdosed on prescription drugs and alcohol. She was jailed for 28 days.

“I’m a Jehovah’s Witness,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified because she doesn’t want people to know she was jailed for mental illness. “I never known anything like that in my life. Never been arrested. All my rights just stripped from me. To do that to an old woman, because I was having mental troubles!”

She said the experience left her terrified to seek mental health care in DeSoto County. “I’d rather die than go back in there,” she said of the jail.

Although DeSoto County has long relied on its jail to house people awaiting treatment, some communities elsewhere in the state have found other options. They rely on nearby crisis units to provide short-term treatment and in many cases have arrangements with local hospitals to treat patients if a publicly funded bed isn’t available.

On the Gulf Coast, people who come to hospitals in Ocean Springs or Pascagoula can be admitted to an eight-bed psychiatric unit, said Kim Henderson, director of emergency services for Singing River Health System, which operates those facilities.

Henderson said the psychiatric unit loses money because many patients lack insurance and can’t pay. “It would be so much easier to say we’re not going to do this anymore and shut it down,” she said. “But we don’t believe that’s the right thing to do.”

Over the years, DeSoto County officials have expressed frustration with how many people are jailed during the commitment process, but they’ve made little progress in coming up with an alternative.

In 2007, Baptist-DeSoto initiated 152 commitments, according to board meeting minutes and a news story in the DeSoto Times-Tribune; many of those patients went to jail. The hospital sends people “as quickly as they can to the Sheriff's Department. They want them out of there,” Michael Garriga, then the county administrator, said at the time, according to another Times-Tribune article. (The news stories didn’t include a comment from the hospital; Alexander, Baptist’s spokesperson, said she couldn’t comment on practices from years ago because no one who was part of the leadership team then is still around.)

In 2008, the CEO of Parkwood Behavioral Health System, which operates a psychiatric facility in the county, offered to treat people going through the commitment process for $465 per patient per day — many times more than the $25 a day it cost back then to house someone in jail. No contract was ever signed.

Two years later, again aiming to reduce how often people awaiting mental health treatment were jailed, DeSoto County started working with a different community mental health center, Region IV. The number of people held in jail during commitment proceedings fell sharply, but within several years it had risen.

In 2021, the state Department of Mental Health said it would give Region IV money to create a crisis unit in DeSoto, the largest county in the state without one. But the county must provide the building, and it has taken about two years just to move forward with a location, according to meeting minutes.

County officials considered putting the crisis unit in a building a few miles from the hospital and even got an architect to scope out a renovation, according to meeting minutes. By 2023, those plans had been scuttled amid concerns about the cost of renovations and opposition from neighbors, according to Mark Gardner, a county supervisor, and board meeting minutes.

Former Sheriff Bill Rasco said he was told by an alderman for the city of Southaven that residents didn’t want people with mental illness in their neighborhood. Rasco, who served from 2008 through 2023, said he believes the rapidly growing county has had the means to build a facility, but supervisors prioritize paving roads and keeping taxes low. “We build agricultural arenas, walking trails and ballfields, and we let our mental health suffer,” he said.

The county Board of Supervisors inched forward again in February, voting to hire an architect to draw up plans to renovate a different county building. But construction on the 16-bed facility won’t start until spring 2025 at the earliest.

Gardner, who was first elected in 2011, said he has always believed that people with mental illness shouldn’t be jailed, but the Sheriff’s Department and Region IV didn’t propose an alternative until recently. “We need it today,” he said. “I hate that we haven’t been able to find a suitable place till now to put this.”

A year after Sydney Jones’ second psychotic episode, she’s doing better. She hasn’t experienced another mental health crisis. The sight of a police cruiser no longer triggers a panic attack, though she does get anxious when she sees one in her neighborhood.

But she wants to remind herself of what she survived to get here, so she keeps mementos. The composition book where she wrote notes during group therapy at the crisis unit. The Bible she read in jail. The planner where she wrote “Hospital” in one square and “Jail” in the next. And two plastic wristbands: The white one identified her as a hospital patient; the yellow one, with her mug shot and booking number, identified her as a prisoner.

To report this story, we obtained DeSoto County Sheriff’s Department logs from 2021 through 2023 that showed when deputies were called to two local hospitals to take people into custody for involuntary commitment proceedings to receive treatment for mental illness or substance abuse. Those logs included nearly 200 calls, mostly to Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto.

To determine which calls resulted in jail detentions, we needed to cross-reference the logs with incident reports and county jail dockets. We requested incident reports for about half of calls from 2021 through 2023. Although this sample wasn’t collected at random, we requested records from a range of months to account for possible variations throughout the year. Patients’ names were redacted from incident reports, but by using other identifying information in those reports, we matched 76% of the call logs in our sample to an entry in jail dockets. The remaining calls included not just those for which we couldn’t match an incident report to a jail docket entry, but also those for which there was no incident report or the patient was taken to a crisis unit or a private psychiatric hospital.

Based on that percentage and the volume of calls during the three-year period, we estimated that about 23% of the roughly 650 people jailed during the civil commitment process in DeSoto County had been picked up at a local hospital. Again, the overwhelming majority were taken from Baptist-DeSoto. To ensure that our estimate was conservative and accounted for any variation due to our sample, we characterized this as about one-fifth of civil commitment jail detentions. We shared our preliminary findings with hospital and county officials; no one disputed them.

To determine how the number of people jailed during commitment proceedings in DeSoto County has changed over time, we obtained jail dockets dating back to 2007. We don’t have data for 2009 and 2010 because of a file storage issue at the Sheriff’s Department.

Agnel Philip contributed reporting. Mollie Simon contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Isabelle Taft, Mississippi Today.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Mississippi Today. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Mississippi lawmakers have overhauled the state’s civil commitment laws after Mississippi Today and ProPublica reported that hundreds of people in the state are jailed without criminal charges every year as they wait for court-ordered mental health treatment.

Right now, anyone going through the civil commitment process can be jailed if county officials decide they have no other place to hold them. House Bill 1640, which Gov. Tate Reeves signed Wednesday, would limit the practice. It says people can be jailed as they go through the civil commitment process only if they are “actively violent” and for a maximum of 48 hours. It requires the mental health professional who recommends commitment to document why less-restrictive treatment is not an option. And before paperwork can be filed to initiate the commitment process, a staffer with a local community mental health center must assess the person’s condition.

Supporters described the law, which goes into effect July 1, as a step forward in limiting jail detentions. Those praising it included county officials who handle commitments, associations representing sheriffs and county supervisors, and the state Department of Mental Health.

“This new process puts the person first,” said Adam Moore, a spokesperson for the Department of Mental Health, which provides training, along with some funding and services related to the commitment process. “It connects someone in need of mental health services with a mental health professional as the first step in the process, before the chancery court or law enforcement becomes involved.”

But some officials involved in the commitment process said that unless the state expands the number of treatment beds, the effect of the legislation will be limited. “Just because you’ve got a diversion program doesn’t mean you have anywhere to divert them to,” said Jamie Aultman, who handles commitments as chancery clerk in Lamar County, just west of Hattiesburg.

Although every state allows people to be involuntarily committed, most don’t jail people during the process unless they face criminal charges, and some prohibit the practice. Even among the few states that do jail people without charges, Mississippi is unique in how regularly it does so and for how long. Under Mississippi law, people going through the commitment process can be jailed if there is “no reasonable alternative.” State psychiatric hospitals usually have a waiting list, and short-term crisis units are often full or turn people away. Officials in many counties see jail as the only place to hold people as they await publicly funded treatment.

Idaho lawmakers recently dealt with a similar issue. There, some people deemed “dangerously mentally ill” have been imprisoned for months at a time; this spring, lawmakers funded the construction of a facility to house them.

Nearly every county in Mississippi reported jailing someone going through the commitment process at least once in the year ending in June 2023, according to the state Department of Mental Health. In just 19 of the state’s 82 counties, people awaiting treatment were jailed without criminal charges at least 2,000 times from 2019 to 2022, according to a review of jail dockets by Mississippi Today and ProPublica. (Those figures, which included counties that provided jail dockets identifying civil commitment bookings, include detentions for both mental illness and substance abuse; the legislation addresses only the commitment process for mental illness.)

Sheriffs have decried the practice, saying jails aren’t equipped to handle people with severe mental illness. Since 2006, at least 17 people have died after being held in jail during the civil commitment process; nine were suicides.

The bill’s sponsors said Mississippi Today and ProPublica’s reporting prompted them to act. “The deficiencies have been outlined and they're being corrected,” said state Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, a co-author of the bill.

As a chancery clerk in northeastern Mississippi’s Lee County, Bill Benson has long dealt with people seeking to file commitment affidavits asserting that someone, often a family member, should be forced into treatment. He said first requiring a screening by a mental health professional is a good move. “I’m an accountant. I’m not going to try and make a determination” about whether someone needs to be committed, he said. He generally allows people to file commitment papers so he can “let the judge make that call.”

The bill says that if the community mental health center recommends commitment after the initial screening, someone can’t be jailed while awaiting treatment unless all other options have been exhausted and a judge specifically orders the person to be jailed. The legislation also says people can be held in jail for only 24 hours unless the community mental health center requests an additional 24-hour hold and a judge agrees. Roughly two-thirds of the people jailed over four years were held longer than 48 hours, according to Mississippi Today and ProPublica’s analysis.

However, the bill does not address the underlying reason that many people are jailed as they await a treatment bed. “I’m not certain there are enough beds and personnel available to take everybody,” Benson said. “I think everyone will attempt to comply, but there are going to be some instances where somebody’s going to have to be housed in the jail.”

Nor does the legislation say anything about how the provisions will be enforced. House Public Health Chair Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, the primary sponsor of the bill, said the Department of Mental Health will “police this.” He also said he hopes the law’s new reporting requirements for community mental health centers will encourage county supervisors to monitor compliance.

Moore, at the Department of Mental Health, said the agency won’t enforce the law, although it will educate county officials, who are responsible for housing people going through civil commitment until they are transferred to a state hospital. “We sincerely hope all stakeholders will abide by the new processes and restrictions,” Moore said. “But DMH does not have oversight over county courts or law enforcement.”

Several mental health experts and advocates for people with mental illness say the law doesn’t go far enough to ban a practice that many contend is unconstitutional. For that reason, representatives of Disability Rights Mississippi have said they’re planning to sue the state and several counties.

“The basic flaw remains,” said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and former president of the American Psychiatric Association. “There is no justification for putting someone who needs hospital-level care in jail, not even for 24 hours.”

Agnel Philip of ProPublica and Isabelle Taft, formerly of Mississippi Today, contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Kate Royals, Mississippi Today.

“The acquittal and release of journalist Blaise Mabala in the DRC are welcome developments, but the four-and-a-half months he spent in detention and the legal harassment he endured remain a grave injustice,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program. “DRC authorities must make significant reforms to advance press freedom in the country and ensure journalists are protected, not prosecuted, for their work.”

A court in Kinshasa, the capital, acquitted Mabala, coordinator of the privately owned Même Morale FM, on May 3, but only made their decision public on May 6, Mabala’s lawyer, Christian Mwamba, told CPJ via messaging app.

Mwamba said Mabala was not freed from detention until Friday, May 10, due to administrative formalities.

The acquittal followed an April 17 court hearing during which the prosecutor requested that Mabala be convicted and sentenced to 15 months in prison. Mabala was arrested on October 20, 2023, and accused of insulting Rita Bola, governor of the western province of Maï-Ndombe, in a radio program. Mabala was released on bail on November 7 but re-arrested on December 29 on the same charges.

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

It marks the first time that one of the roughly 100 jailed Uyghur residents from Xaneriq village had been released alive, said an Uyghur from the area who now lives abroad, but who did not give his name for fear of retribution.

Authorities freed Mahmudjan Muqeddem, 46, who hails from the Tawaqchi community of Xaneriq village, on April 11, he said. The village lies in Kashgar Yengisheher county in Kashgar prefecture. 

A police officer from the Yenitam community in Xaneriq confirmed that Muqeddem, a butcher and farmer, had served seven years in a prison in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and was released on April 11. 

The officer’s colleagues told him that Muqeddem was arrested on suspicion of religious radicalization for advising his friends not to drink or smoke at an event prior to 2016.

Initially, he was “educated” in a camp for two years, but in 2019, he was sentenced and transferred to prison, they said. 

“The reason for arrest is that he stopped others from smoking and drinking,” said the officer. “He is not a religious figure.”

Extremist behaviors

Abstaining from alcohol is one of 75 different activities and behaviors identified by the Chinese government as a sign of potential religious extremism. It is listed in brochures distributed in some parts of Xinjiang to educate the public on how to identify extreme religious activities.

It is also a cause for jailing Uyghurs, who as Muslims abstain from drinking alcohol, as part of a larger effort by Beijing to eradicate Uyghur culture and religion. 

Xaneriq village consists of 23 smaller communities with a total population of 31,000 people, averaging around 1,400 people in each community. 

About 800 people live in Tawaqchi community, of which more than 100 were in prison, with some serving indefinite sentences in internment camps, the Uyghur expatriate said.

Since 2017, six others imprisoned were released dead, he said, though RFA could not independently confirm this.

Muqeddem’s release has offered some hope to others from the village’s Tawaqchi community worried out the fate of their imprisoned relatives, the expat said. 

But because the butcher was considered to have committed one of the mildest “crimes” among those arrested, his release also caused concern about the fate of those serving sentences for more serious offenses, he added.

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Shohret Hoshur for RFA Uyghur.

"Only people who have committed a crime should be sent to prison," Wei Yani told RFA in an interview shortly after arriving in Vancouver. "We weren't being detained and imprisoned because we had committed any crime, but because we fought for our rights and endangered the government's vested interests," Wei said. 

"And once people like us are locked up, we have it worst of all, and are subjected to all kinds of torture," she said, describing fainting after being forced to stand with her hands handcuffed far above her head on one occasion.

"They said they were going to leave me there for a week, but I only lasted just over an hour ... so they had to take me down again," Wei said, adding: "They have so many kinds of physical punishment."

She said inmates are fed poor food, for which they pay 7 yuan (about US$1) a day, and are only allowed to bathe once in 15 days. They are also forced to wake up to answer random "roll calls" at any time of the day or night and there is no protection from mosquito bites.

"Solitary confinement is more of a psychological punishment," Wei said. "They lock you up in there for 15 days and don't communicate with you at all."

Sought asylum in Taiwan

Wei Yani was among three Chinese nationals who fled to Thailand in November and sought political asylum in democratic Taiwan, where the authorities promptly sent them back to Malaysia on Feb. 1, because it was where their flight originated.

Their sudden departure from Taiwan ignited debate there about the authorities' treatment of genuine refugees in the absence of a refugee law.

While Taiwan's government has been a vocal supporter of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, the island's record on offering a safe haven for dissidents and refugees has been patchy, amid growing calls for legislation governing the treatment of refugees. 

Wei and her son were later contacted by international rights groups and activists, who liaised with Canadian and U.N. officials on their behalf, she told RFA Mandarin in an interview soon after landing in Vancouver on April 9.

"I am really relieved to be here, where I can finally relax and live a decent life," Wei said. "I no longer have to fear being detained and put in prison."

"I felt that fear every day while I was in China, the fear of how they would punish me if they arrested me," she said.

"Why do they torture us? Because they want to suppress us and make us afraid, so you won't complain about them any more," Wei said. "That's their main goal."

Ethnic minority

Wei, a member of the Zhuang ethnic minority from the southwestern region of Guangxi, was forcibly evicted from her home in 2006 to make way for the US$4.2 billion Longtan Hydropower Station, the second-largest in China, straddling the Hongshui river in Guangxi's Tian'e county.

But local people said they had never received the right amount in compensation, accusing local officials of embezzling their money.

Wei began a complaints procedure to recoup the lost funds that lasted for years, and led to her incarceration in a "re-education through labor" camp on two occasions.

Wei was detained again by police in Beijing at the start of 2014 after she continued to press her complaint with the central government, bringing her back to her hometown and charging her with "defamation," and "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble."

She attempted suicide while in detention, and her detention and subsequent trial prompted a campaign by more than 30,000 local people for her release.

In 2021, Wei was detained by police in the southwestern province of Yunnan on suspicion of "subversion," as part of a crackdown on dissent in the southern province of Guangdong. 

She had been at the home of fellow activist Zhang Lin in the Xishuangbanna border area of Yunnan, suggesting that she may have been hoping to flee China by crossing the border into neighboring Myanmar.

She was then placed under "residential surveillance at a designated location," but few details of the case ever emerged after that.

Canadian concerns

Canada-based rights activist Fu Ci said the authorities in Canada are increasingly concerned about the plight of human rights activists in China.

"In particular under Xi Jinping, the situation for human rights defenders is constantly deteriorating, and there is less and less room for them to exist," he said.

"A lot of people have no option but to seek rescue from the international community so they can carry on living in the free world," Fu said. "People like that would be in huge danger if the Canadian government didn't extend a helping hand."

He called on the international community to act with greater awareness and generosity towards activists fleeing China.

Wei said she believes the Canadian authorities acted "purely out of humanitarianism."

"My son and I will work hard to live a better life, to give back to Canada, and to help other Chinese people who are also suffering," she said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Liu Fei for RFA Mandarin.

Troops took 25-year-old Min Thu and 35-year-old Ko Win Thiha from Tanintharyi division’s Dawei Prison on the night of March 17. Both were arrested under the country’s anti-terrorism act, a set of broad laws that cover many actions related to opposing the military junta.

Since the country’s 2021 coup, civilians and activists have been subject to mass arrests for actions ranging from social media posts to suspicion of participating in or funding one of the many rebel groups opposing the military dictatorship. 

A Dawei Political Prisoners Network official, declining to be named for security reasons, told RFA that Min Thu and Ko Win Thiha’s families were informed of their relative’s deaths only after they submitted visitation requests to the prison. 

"Min Thu and Win Thiha, with black hoods on their heads, were taken out of prison by junta soldiers,” he said. “Before they were taken, extensive searches were conducted in the prison. They were taken out of jail and killed after being accused of having things that were prohibited in jail.”

In late March, relatives who went to the prison to request visitation were informed by prison officials of the two men’s deaths, a source close to Dawei Prison said.

Min Thu was am Islamic studies teacher serving a ten-year sentence. RFA could not confirm when he was arrested. Win Thiha was arrested in February 2022 and sentenced to seven years in prison under Section 51(c) of the Counter-Terrorism Law for production or intention to distribute a weapon and Section 505(a) of the penal code for incitement against the military.

RFA contacted the junta’s Prisons Department deputy director Naing Win for comment on the deaths at Dawei Prison, but he didn’t answer the phone.

As of Wednesday, 217 political prisoners are serving prison terms in Dawei Prison, according to a report from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

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.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the assault involved 150 drones and missiles and appealed again to Ukraine's allies to speed up deliveries of critically needed ammunition and weapons systems.

As the full-scale invasion neared the 25-month mark, Zelenskiy aide Mykhailo Podolyak denied recent reports that the United States had demanded that its ally Kyiv stop any attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure as "fictitious information."

"After two years of full-scale war, no one will dictate to Ukraine the conditions for conducting this war," Podolyak told the Dozhd TV channel. "Within the framework of international law, Ukraine can 'degrease' Russian instruments of war. Fuel is the main tool of warfare. Ukraine will destroy the [Russian] fuel infrastructure."

The Financial Times quoted anonymous sources as saying that Washington had given "repeated warnings" to Ukraine's state security service and its military intelligence agency to stop attacking Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure. It said officials cited such attacks' effect on global oil prices and the risk of retaliation.

The southern Zaporizhzhya region bore the brunt of the Russian assault that hit Ukraine's energy infrastructure particularly hard on March 22, with at least three people killed, including a man and his 8-year-old daughter. There were at least 20 dead and injured, in all.

Ukraine's state hydropower company, Ukrhydroenerho, said the DniproHES hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper in Zaporizhzhya was hit by two Russian missiles that damaged HPP-2, one of the plant's two power stations, although there was no immediate risk of a breach.

"There is currently a fire at the dam. Emergency services are working at the site, eliminating the consequences of numerous air strikes," Ukrhydroenerho said in a statement, adding that the situation at the dam "is under control."

However, Ihor Syrota, the director of national grid operator Ukrenerho, told RFE/RL that currently it was not known if power station HPP-2 could be repaired.

Transport across the dam has been suspended after a missile struck a trolleybus, killing the 62-year-old driver. The vehicle was not carrying any passengers.

"This night, Russia launched over 60 'Shahed' drones and nearly 90 missiles of various types at Ukraine," Zelenskiy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"The world sees the Russian terrorists' targets as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, and even a trolleybus," Zelenskiy wrote.

Ukrainian rescuers were combing the wreckage of homes in Zaporizhzhya following a deadly Russian missile strike on March 22.

Ukraine's power generating company Enerhoatom later said it has repaired a power line at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, Europe's largest.

"Currently, the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhya NPP is connected to the unified energy system of Ukraine by two power transmission lines, thanks to which the plant's own needs are fulfilled," the state's nuclear-energy operator wrote on Telegram.

Besides Zaporizhzhya, strikes were also reported in the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsya, Khmelnytskiy, Kryviy Rih, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava, Odesa, and Lviv regions.

Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, has been left completely without electricity by intense Russian strikes that also caused water shortages.

"The occupiers carried out more than 15 strikes on energy facilities. The city is virtually completely without light," Oleh Synyehubov, the head of Kharkiv regional military administration, wrote on Telegram.

In the Odesa region, more than 50,000 households have been left without electricity, regional officials reported. Odesa, Ukraine's largest Black Sea port, has been frequently attacked by Russia in recent months.

In the Khmelnitskiy region, the local administration reported that one person had been killed and several wounded during the Russian strikes, without giving details.

Local authorities reported one person had been killed and several wounded during Russian strikes on a residential area in Khmelnitskiy in central Ukraine. RFE/RL journalists were on the scene and captured the aftermath.

Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko called it "the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy industry in recent times."

Despite the widespread damage, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the situation remained under control, and there was no need to switch off electricity throughout the country.

"There are problems with the electricity supply in some areas, but in general, the situation in the energy sector is under control, there is no need for blackouts throughout the country," Shmyhal wrote on Telegram.

Ukrenerho also said that it was receiving emergency assistance from its European Union neighbors Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Ukraine linked its power grid with that of the EU in March 2022, shortly after the start of Russia's invasion.

Ukraine's air force said its air defenses downed 92 of 151 missiles and drones fired at Ukraine by Russia in the overnight attack.

"Russian missiles have no delays, unlike aid packages for Ukraine. 'Shahed' drones have no indecision, unlike some politicians. It is critical to understand the cost of delays and postponed decisions," Zelenskiy wrote, appealing to the West to do more for his country.

"Our partners know exactly what is needed. They can definitely support us. These are necessary decisions. Life must be protected from these savages from Moscow."

Zelenskiy's message came as EU leaders were wrapping up a summit in Brussels where they discussed ways to speed up ammunition and weapons deliveries for the embattled Ukrainian forces struggling to stave off an increasingly intense assault by more numerous and better-equipped Russian troops.

A critical $60 billion military aid package from the United States, Ukraine's main backer, remains stuck in the House of Representatives due to Republican opposition, prompting Kyiv to rely more on aid from its European allies.

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

In November 2020, Los Angeles voters moved to radically transform the way the county handled incarceration. That year, Angelenos filled the streets, joining worldwide protests after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The mood was ripe for change, and a ballot initiative known as Measure J passed with 57 percent support, amending the LA County charter so that jailing people before trial would be treated as a last resort. Ten percent of the county’s general fund would be allocated to community-led alternatives to incarceration that prioritized diversion, job training, and health programs. 

But years later, as Measure J finally, slowly, gets implemented, advocates say that changes meant to divert money from law enforcement might instead just funnel it back to them. 

Case in point: In June, LA County signed over the handling of changes to pretrial detention under Measure J to the consulting firm Accenture, a behemoth in the world of biometric databases and predictive policing. Accenture has led the development of “intelligent public safety” platforms and tech-enabled risk assessment tools for national security and law enforcement agencies in the United States and around the world, including in Israel and India. An Accenture advisory panel working on the Measure J implementation includes former federal and local law enforcement agents.

Accenture’s role was further publicized Monday after Civil Rights Corps, a nonprofit focused on injustice in the legal system, sent a letter to the LA County Board of Supervisors calling on them to immediately cancel the company’s contract. The contract takes the county away from its stated vision for a “care first, jails last” approach and toward carceral policies, CRC wrote in the letter. “Already, Accenture has concluded that electronic monitoring is a ‘favorable alternative’ to incarceration, ignoring the reality that electronic monitoring is expensive, unsupported by social science, and demonstrably racially biased as applied in Los Angeles,” the letter adds. “This is unsurprising: the consultants working on the Contract have deep ties to police departments and prisons.”

Measure J was one of at least 20 local criminal justice reform efforts that passed nationwide in the six months after Floyd’s murder. It was also part of a string of major wins by advocates in Los Angeles, who had been pushing alternatives to incarceration and investment in social services long before 2020. 

Measure J ran into predictable opposition: A group including the union for Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies sued to block the measure and delayed it from going into effect in 2021, but it was put back on track after a judge upheld it on appeal last year. Nationally, despite widespread support, the criminal justice reform wave was met by a well-funded and bipartisan opposition led by police, sheriffs, and conservative Republicans and Democrats who fearmongered about rising crime. In the years since the 2020 uprisings, efforts to reallocate police funding, implement federal and local police reforms, and invest in social services have been undone or derailed. Many of those who cheered the reform movement are frustrated that they haven’t seen the impact of so many policy wins. Accenture’s contract for Measure J shows another reason why. 

Criminal justice reforms are “being cannibalized,” said Matyos Kidane, an organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, an abolitionist community group based in Skid Row. Kidane said the group organizes against reforms because of the way corporations and law enforcement groups exploit and defang such initiatives. He pointed to Axon, which has profited massively from the push to get police equipped with body cameras. 

“It’s a golden opportunity for them,” Kidane said. When Measure J passed, “Accenture was ready to go once this opportunity presented itself.” 

Accenture has not publicly announced the contract with Los Angeles County, which was signed in June 2023 without a competitive bidding process for a total of $8.6 million over two and a half years. The contract exceeded the $200,000 limit in state law and county charter for a sole-source contract, and the board of supervisors created a motion to allow the requirement to be skirted in order to implement Measure J. But that motion allowed for a contract of up to $3 million, far less than the final signing price. The county told The Intercept it had paid $2 million to Accenture so far. (The supervisors who signed the motion did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

“Even if it were entered into legally — which it was not — the Contract is duplicative, wasteful, and harmful to Los Angeles and should be canceled on policy grounds alone,” the Civil Rights Corp letter states. 

In presentations made in August to the Los Angeles Justice, Care, and Opportunities Department, which is administering the contract (published in September by the accountability group Expose Accenture) the firm gave an overview of its project timeline and plans to engage stakeholders in focus groups, interviews, workshops, and site visits. The firm highlighted targets for “quick wins” by October 1, 2023, such as creating a county website and launching marketing and communications for “Justice Involved Individuals” (i.e., people who have been arrested) and summarized top lines of conversations with 50 such people, including the observation that there was wide support for electronic monitoring as an alternative to custody. 

A spokesperson for the county CEO, which controls county budget decisions, directed questions about the CRC letter to JCOD, as did Accenture. Department spokesperson Avi Bernard did not answer specific questions about how the county raised the limit for the contract but told The Intercept that JCOD had used approved county procedures and consulted with county counsel throughout the contract process. Bernard said CRC had previously raised similar concerns. “County Counsel and Board reviewed these concerns and found no issues with continuing the contract,” Bernard said. He added that there had been “no conversations with Accenture” and JCOD related to the use of electronic monitoring. 

Bernard said that so far, Accenture had designed an independent pretrial services agency for the county, incorporated input from stakeholders, and supported a hotline, website, and marketing campaign. Bernard said the firm has now deployed a three-person implementation team to launch the independent pretrial services agency and is helping JCOD develop a case management IT system.

“It’s talking left while running off with the profiteers of mass surveillance and detention.”

The fact that Accenture was even an option for implementing Measure J came as a shock to many of its supporters, who had watched the county meet with community partners interested in helping carry out its implementation. The contract was also news to some county supervisors, according to advocates with knowledge of the contract process.

“It’s worse than talk left, walk right politics,” said Nika Soon-Shiong, founder and executive director at the Fund for Guaranteed Income and a Ph.D. researcher on digital identification systems. “It’s talking left while running off with the profiteers of mass surveillance and detention.”

Accenture has pushed counterterror and policing strategies around the globe: The company built the world’s biggest biometric identification system in India, which has used similar technologies to surveil protesters and conduct crowd control as part of efforts by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party to investigate the citizenship of Muslim residents. And in Israel, Accenture acquired the cybersecurity firm Maglan in 2016 and has worked to facilitate collaboration between India and Israel aimed at “fostering inclusive economic growth and maximizing human potential.” 

Accenture ballooned into a giant in federal consulting over the course of the “war on terror,” winning hundreds of millions of dollars in lucrative contracts from federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security for projects from a “virtual border” to recruiting and hiring Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol agents. In 2006, Accenture won a $10 million contract for a DHS biometric ID program, the world’s second biggest, to collect and share biometric data on foreign nationals entering or leaving the U.S. The company has also worked with police departments in Seattle and in the United Kingdom. Jimmy Etheredge, Accenture’s former CEO for North America, sits on the board of the Atlanta Police Foundation. 

Asked about Accenture’s international work on biometric identification, predictive policing, and national security, Bernard, the JCOD spokesperson, said the firm was involved in many different kinds of work. “Accenture is a large, international consulting firm with many lines of business. The specific consultants assigned to this project are part of a team in Accenture dedicated to the public sector. Their team comes from a variety of backgrounds, primarily in the health and human services industry.” 

But several LA-based advocates told The Intercept that the contract is yet another development that calls into question the county’s commitment to real criminal justice reform. The county has missed all of its deadlines for a plan to close the notoriously inhumane Men’s Central Jail, even as deaths in custody continue apace. In August, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department issued a Request for Information for a biometric identification system.

“I’m genuinely confused about how we ended up with this Accenture contract, especially as someone who participated in the development of the Care First, Jails Last (ATI) report,” said Danielle Dupuy-Watson, CEO of CRC, referring to an “Alternatives to Incarceration” working group commissioned by the county. “We hoped for transparency and accountability but instead we were gaslit.” 

Behind-the-scenes deals like the one with Accenture are one reason that popular reforms haven’t come to fruition, said Lex Steppling, an organizer with Los Angeles Community Action Network. 

“There’s the performance of democracy on the front end where a policy gets pressured into place, and on the back end there’s no governance.”

“People vote in that direction, and then it doesn’t happen. And they chalk it up to, ‘Well, politicians ain’t shit,’” Steppling said. People assume, he added, that when policy is passed, bureaucrats work out its implementation. “What we’re learning is there’s the performance of democracy on the front end where a policy gets pressured into place, and on the back end there’s no governance. It just simply gets procured and contracted away to these consulting firms.” 

That the county took a historic progressive reform and contracted it out to a firm that put the community’s plans back into the hands of law enforcement is a perfect expression of the problem, Steppling said. “There’s no democracy there. There’s no transparency there. Nobody even knows it’s happening.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Akela Lacy.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Timmy Facciola.

On February 27, Sultan was released from jail in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and on February 29 he reached his home in Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, some 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) further north, according to multiple news reports and a local journalist familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

When Sultan responded later that day to a summons to appear at Srinagar’s Rainawari police station for questioning on a separate matter, he was re-arrested, those sources said, in addition to Sultan’s lawyer Adil Pandit, who spoke to CPJ.

On March 1, Sultan was presented at a local court in Srinagar, which ordered that he remain in police custody pending investigation until March 5, Pandit said, adding that he was applying for bail on behalf of his client.

Sultan, an assistant editor and reporter with the defunct monthly magazine Kashmir Narrator, was first arrested in Srinagar in August 2018 and accused of “harbouring known militants” in a case marred by procedural delays and evidentiary irregularities. The previous month, Sultan published a cover story on slain Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani. CPJ and its partner organizations repeatedly called for Sultan’s release.

“The re-arrest of Kashmiri journalist Aasif Sultan on old charges, days after his release from five and a half years of arbitrary detention, raises concern that he has again been targeted because of his journalism,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “We call on the Indian government to immediately end its media crackdown in Kashmir and to ensure that Sultan and other Kashmiri journalists do not spend another day behind bars for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression.”

Sultan’s re-arrest on February 29 was related to a 2019 police first information report—a document opening an investigation—regarding riots in Srinagar Central Jail, where Sultan was detained at the time, Pandit told CPJ. Authorities filed a chargesheet in the case against Sultan and 20 others under sections of the penal code and anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Pandit said, adding that his client was not guilty.

It is not the first time that Sultan has been re-arrested.

On April 5, 2022, he was granted bail by a special court, which said that the state had failed to provide evidence linking him to any militant organization. But he was not released. Authorities held Sultan in a Srinagar police station, re-arrested him under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) on April 10, and transferred him to jail in Uttar Pradesh. The law allows for preventive detention for up to two years without trial.

On December 11, 2023, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir quashed the PSA case, calling Sultan’s detention “illegal and unsustainable.” However, Sultan was not released until February 27 because he required security clearance from the Jammu and Kashmir administration to return home, Pandit said.

Similarly, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court quashed a PSA order against journalist Sajad Gul in November, but he remains jailed in relation to a separate case.

R.R. Swain, Director General of Police of Jammu and Kashmir, did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Sultan’s re-arrest.

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

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Mississippi Today. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Key Mississippi lawmakers have introduced several bills that would drastically limit when people can be jailed without criminal charges as they await court-ordered psychiatric treatment.

The proposals follow an investigation by Mississippi Today and ProPublica finding that hundreds of people in the state are jailed without charges every year as they go through the civil commitment process, in which a judge can force people to undergo treatment if they’re deemed dangerous to themselves or others. People who were jailed said they were treated like criminal defendants and received no mental health care. Since 2006, at least 17 people have died after being jailed during the commitment process, raising questions about whether jails can protect people in the midst of a mental health crisis.

Civil rights lawyers contend Mississippi’s practice is unconstitutional because it amounts to punishing people for mental illness, but the state’s civil commitment law allows it. That law spells out the process by which people suffering from severe mental illness can be detained, evaluated and ordered into treatment. Under the law, those people can be held in jail until they’re admitted to a state psychiatric hospital or another mental health facility if there is “no reasonable alternative.” If there isn’t room at a publicly funded facility or open beds are too far away, local officials often conclude that they have no other option besides jail.

“Putting a person in jail because they’re hearing voices and you don’t know what to do with them — that’s not right,” said state Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, one of the lawmakers behind legislation to curtail the practice. The news stories, he said, showed that people are jailed for longer than he thought and that Mississippi is unique in doing so.

The proposals represent the biggest effort to change the state’s civil commitment process since at least 2010, according to a review of legislation and interviews with mental health advocates. That year, lawmakers standardized the commitment process across the state and gave county officials the option to call on crisis teams first. A measure that would have prohibited jail detentions altogether ultimately failed.

A bill proposed by Felsher would allow jail detentions during the commitment process only for “protective custody purposes and only while awaiting transportation” to a medical facility. It would restrict such detentions to 72 hours.

A bill authored by state Rep. Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, chair of the House Public Health and Human Services Committee, would clamp down on the practice even more, allowing counties to jail people without criminal charges only if they are “actively violent” and for no longer than 24 hours.

The vast majority of the 2,000 jail detentions in 19 counties analyzed by Mississippi Today and ProPublica lasted longer than 24 hours. About 1,200 lasted longer than 72 hours. (Those figures include detentions between 2019 and 2022 for both mental illness and substance abuse; the legislation would address only the commitment process for mental illness.)

Creekmore’s bill, which passed out of committee without opposition Thursday, aims to reduce unnecessary commitments by generally requiring people to be screened for mental illness before paperwork can be filed to have them committed. Those screenings would be conducted in most cases by community mental health centers — independent organizations, partly funded by state grants, that are supposed to provide mental health care close to home. That bill also would require those organizations to treat people while they’re in jail.

A bill authored by Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, to increase state oversight of community mental health centers contains language similar to Creekmore’s proposal restricting jail detentions. Her bill has been referred to the Judiciary A committee, which is chaired by one of its co-authors, Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula.

The bills would bring Mississippi more in line with other states that allow people going through the civil commitment process to be jailed in limited circumstances. South Dakota permits jail detentions without criminal charges but limits them to 24 hours. Wyoming permits them in an “extreme emergency” and only for 72 hours before a hearing.

The Mississippi Department of Mental Health says reforming the commitment process is a priority this legislative session. “We don’t want someone to have to wait in jail simply because they need mental health treatment,” said Wendy Bailey, director of the agency, at a January conference attended by county officials from all over the state.

I think you’ll find all 82 clerks, all 82 sheriffs, all 400 supervisors understand that the jail is not the place they need to be. But there has to be a place. If it’s not the jail, there has to be a place available.

But the Mississippi Association of Supervisors, which represents county governments, has raised questions about whether the bills would force county officials to spend more money. Under state law, counties are responsible for housing residents going through the commitment process until they are admitted to a state hospital. Some local officials contend they don’t have any place other than jail to put people.

“I think you’ll find all 82 clerks, all 82 sheriffs, all 400 supervisors understand that the jail is not the place they need to be,” said Bill Benson, who as Lee County’s chancery clerk coordinates the commitment process there. “But there has to be a place. If it’s not the jail, there has to be a place available.”

Derrick Surrette, executive director of the Mississippi Association of Supervisors, said county leaders are “all for” keeping people out of jail while they wait for mental health care. But, he said, they’re concerned that they’ll be forced to pay for treatment in private facilities because there aren’t enough publicly funded beds. None of the proposals would expand publicly funded treatment beds, nor would they provide funding to counties. The association hasn’t taken a position on the bills to limit jail detentions.

“It’s a whole lot of legislation being proposed telling the county and a regional mental facility what to do,” Surrette said. “Is there very much in there telling what the state shall do?”

The Department of Mental Health advises local officials to direct people who need help to outpatient mental health care when appropriate and to rely on the civil commitment process only when needed. If the commitment process can’t be avoided, the department says officials should work with their local community mental health centers to seek alternatives to jail.

The state has expanded the number of beds in crisis stabilization units, which are designed to provide short-term treatment in a less restrictive setting than state hospitals. Chancery clerks and sheriff’s deputies complain that those facilities frequently refuse to accept people they deem to be violent or in need of additional medical care, though state data shows those refusals are declining.

An additional bill filed by Felsher would require counties to pay for care at a medical facility if a judge has ordered someone into treatment, no publicly funded bed is available and the person can’t pay for treatment. Although the Mississippi Association of Supervisors hasn’t taken a position on that bill, either, it opposed a similar provision last year because the measure didn’t provide any funding.

At a hearing in November 2022, Felsher asked Benson, the chancery clerk in Lee County, whether he would support his county paying hospitals to treat residents as an alternative to jail. Benson responded that if he did, “My supervisors would hang me.”

Benson said in an interview that it costs just $40 a day on average to jail someone in Lee County. By contrast, Neshoba County, which is among those that contract with private providers, pays between $625 and $675 a day to Alliance Health Center to treat county residents when no public bed is available.

Felsher said he hopes to expand the availability of public treatment facilities so counties aren’t on the hook except in rare circumstances. But he also said he believes the cost of alternatives can’t justify jailing people who haven’t been charged with crimes.

“We can’t send people with mental illness to jail because the county doesn’t want to pay for it,” he said. “If it is a fight, it’s a fight that I will have. We may not win it, but we’ll have it.”

Staffers with Disability Rights Mississippi say the bills don’t go far enough because they don’t ban jail detentions outright. At least a dozen states, including neighboring Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee, have done so.

Without such a ban, Disability Rights Mississippi staff say they’re planning to sue the state and some counties, alleging the practice is unconstitutional. A federal lawsuit in Alabama led to a ruling in 1984 prohibiting the practice there.

“Mississippi Today’s reporting has revealed the horrifying scope of this problem, including those who have met an untimely death and data to back it up,” said Polly Tribble, the organization’s director. “I hope that, in light of these dire situations, the Legislature will be motivated to address these issues.”

Bailey, head of the state Department of Mental Health, said she was not aware of the possibility of litigation until Mississippi Today asked about it. She said her agency is working to find ways to make sure people get mental health treatment without going through the civil commitment process, and to restrict the use of jail when they do.

Agnel Philip of ProPublica contributed reporting and Mollie Simon of ProPublica contributed research.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Isabelle Taft, Mississippi Today.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Oregon Public Broadcasting. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

It's a scene police say plays out all too frequently in downtown Portland.

An officer hands someone a $100 ticket for possessing the deadly narcotic fentanyl and a card with a treatment hotline number. Call this number, the officer says, and the ticket goes away. The person caught with fentanyl never calls. The ticket goes unpaid.

“We’ve talked to exactly two people that have actually called that number," said Sgt. Jerry Cioeta of the Portland Police Bureau. He said last year his bike squad handed out more than 700 tickets “and got absolutely nowhere with it.”

This is the day-to-day reality of Oregon’s unusual experiment in decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl.

Ballot Measure 110, approved by voters in 2020, created a new role for law enforcement in Oregon. While there’s evidence people living with addiction in the state are increasingly finding their way into treatment, the failure to turn police encounters into successful on-ramps to rehab has been cited by critics as prime evidence the measure isn’t working. Oregon lawmakers, noting an ongoing rise in overdose deaths, are now looking to restore jail time for drug possession.

But Oregon’s political leaders themselves played central roles in failing to deliver on the potential for law enforcement to connect people with lifesaving services under the new measure, documents and interviews with a wide array of people involved in the system indicate.

The Legislature, the court system and the bureaucracy under two governors ignored or rejected proposed solutions as seemingly straightforward as designing a specialized ticket to highlight treatment information. They declined to fund a proposed $50,000 online course that would have instructed cops how to better use the new law. They took no action on recommendations to get police, whose leaders campaigned against the ballot measure, talking with treatment providers after decriminalization passed.

Leaders involved in the process pointed to the rapid timeline for implementing the measure amid the pandemic, among other developments, as a factor hindering what they could accomplish.

Both a leading critic of Measure 110 and its most prominent supporter agree that leadership failures took away any chance for Oregon to truly test the measure’s potential.

Tera Hurst, of Oregon’s Health Justice Recovery Alliance, a nonprofit that represents many of the addiction service providers the measure now funds, said law enforcement and providers needed to be brought together to talk in order to translate its vision into reality.

“The people who are literally on the ground were not really engaged in the beginning to say, ‘How do we make this work?’” Hurst said.

Mike Marshall, director of the rehab and prevention advocacy nonprofit Oregon Recovers, said he considered the threat of jail an important motivator and didn’t want voters to pass Measure 110. But once they did, he was dismayed that state officials didn’t step forward to fulfill the measure’s goals.

“They didn't see that the voters gave them this really imperfect tool but were committed to reducing substance use disorder rates and increased access to treatment,” Marshall said.

“Instead,” he said, “they simply tried to do the least amount of work to administer it to the letter of the law.”

Voters made the broad intent of Measure 110 clear when 58% approved it in November 2020.

“People suffering from addiction are more effectively treated with health care services than with criminal punishments,” the ballot measure declared. The measure emphasized that this new health care approach for people living with addiction “includes connecting them to the services they need.”

The measure earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars for treatment and replaced criminal penalties with $100 fines, which would be voided if the recipient underwent an assessment of their rehab needs. Further details were left to the Legislature and the governor.

Hurst, whose group had campaigned for Measure 110, had ideas.

Three days before the measure took effect in February 2021, Hurst emailed the office of then-Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat in a state where Democrats also dominate the Legislature.

Hurst’s email contained a “blueprint” for Measure 110 implementation, capturing what her coalition of service providers believed the governor’s staff had agreed to in previous conversations.

The blueprint called for the state agency in charge of training and certifying police to issue a bulletin to all departments laying out how Measure 110 would affect the way officers work.

It called for the state judicial department to print up a specialized new ticket for drug possession, replacing Oregon’s generic “uniform citation” that is used for speeding and other traffic offenses. This one would prominently feature a treatment hotline number and say the fine could be waived after a screening to determine the person’s needs for social or medical services.

And the blueprint said hotline operators should be responsible for notifying the court when a person completed a screening for treatment.

None of those items in the blueprint came to pass. Police hit the streets with the old traffic citation that said nothing about treatment making the ticket disappear.

Hurst kept trying. She said she had weekly meetings with Brown’s staff in which she urged the governor’s advisers to convene law enforcement, state agencies and treatment providers to figure out how to make the $100 citations work. She recalled raising the issue at least five times, to no avail.

If a collaborative group couldn’t be convened, then Hurst wanted Brown’s office at least to direct the police on the role they needed to play in implementing the law. For example, she recommended informing officers where to find detox beds, peer counseling or other services, and how to guide people to those services.

Brown’s office told The Oregonian/OregonLive in October 2021 that she was “exploring” options such as new police training.

But Oregon’s Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, which trains law enforcement, confirmed in February that it has offered police no instruction on how Measure 110 works other than to update information for new recruits on when drug possession is a violation, misdemeanor or felony.

The Oregon Health Authority, the agency that voters required to “administer and provide all necessary support to ensure the implementation of ” Measure 110, developed no programs to inform police of the expanded services available to people they ticketed.

The agency told OPB and ProPublica its role was limited to “technical and logistical support” for the citizens’ panel that decided how to spend treatment funding. The agency said that under legislation fleshing out details of the citation system after the measure passed, “there is no role for OHA to coordinate with law enforcement.”

Brown addressed the troubled Measure 110 rollout in a 30-minute interview with the news organizations last week.

The former governor said she supported the initiative but that many factors limited her administration’s options when it took effect in 2021.

Oregon was recovering from its deadliest wildfire season on record. Law enforcement was emerging from violent Portland street clashes that followed the murder of George Floyd and coping with calls for police reform that ensued. COVID-19 vaccinations were finally on their way, and her office chose to focus on supplying shots and reopening schools.

“This initiative, happening when it did, was the perfect storm," she said.

In addition, Brown said, the measure’s authors didn’t provide Oregon elected officials an adequate framework to make implementation successful.

“This was a theory that was put into practice in a state that was probably one of the least prepared to be successful,” Brown said, noting that before Measure 110 passed Oregon was rated among the worst states for treatment access.

Brown recalled — and Hurst did not dispute — that Measure 110 supporters asked her not to be involved in selecting a citizens’ panel that would decide how new treatment funding should be spent. But she also confirmed her staff met weekly with the measure’s proponents to discuss other aspects of the rollout.

Asked about the specific steps advocates said they urged her to take on the citation system and whether these would have helped, Brown said, “I can’t speak to that.”

In January 2023, the month Brown left office, the Oregon Secretary of State released an audit critical of the Measure 110 rollout. It said the citizens’ panel overseeing new treatment funding had been far too slow in delivering the money and the health authority had not provided the panel with adequate support.

The audit also flagged inconsistencies in how law enforcement issued tickets and a lack of communication with treatment providers. It said “steps to unify the statewide process for issuing class E citations and promoting the hotline should also be taken.”

Gov. Tina Kotek, the Democrat who took over from Brown, defended Measure 110 forcefully during her 2022 campaign and vowed to fix problems with how the measure was implemented.

The health authority under Kotek managed to speed up funding to treatment providers as promised, according to a December 2023 audit by the Secretary of State.

But the same audit found that the problems with the citation and hotline system persisted.

Hurst, of the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, said she gave Kotek the same recommendations as her predecessor. A spokesperson for Kotek, Elisabeth Shepard, declined to address why these steps weren’t followed. Instead, she pointed to expanded funding and oversight for treatment.

Unlike Brown, the new governor did propose new funding to train police about Measure 110. The online course was tucked into Kotek’s first budget at a cost of $50,000.

Lawmakers declined to fund it. They believed any new money should go toward treatment instead, a spokesperson for the Senate Democratic leadership office said recently.

It wasn’t the only time the Legislature rebuffed some of the same ideas passed over by Oregon’s governors for making decriminalization work.

According to a summary of comments from a series of 2021 meetings on how to implement the measure, a working group of leading lawmakers, law enforcement, health officials and Measure 110 advocates at least briefly discussed additional training for law enforcement.

“Yes to training,” the summary quotes a member from the state Department of Justice as saying. A department spokesperson said the member was Kimberly McCullough, the agency’s legislative director.

“Training is important for officers to have trust in the system,” McCullough said, according to the summary. “I think the more they learn about the purpose of the law and the importance of their role in getting people to an assessment, the better.”

But the group working on the bill to implement Measure 110 ultimately decided against a training proposal, the summary document shows, partly because of cost and partly because members believed law enforcement agencies were already planning their own Measure 110 training.

The next year, 2022, a Senate committee overseeing Measure 110 implementation heard testimony from addiction and drug policy experts at Stanford and Oregon Health & Science universities that the state’s ticketing system was failing to get people into treatment and needed an overhaul. But the committee didn’t take action in response.

Hurst said members of the same committee in 2023 briefly considered granting advocates’ requests to gather service providers and police to develop a better citation system, but that it didn’t happen.

Legislation passed that year mainly focused on speeding up the rollout of treatment services. It also authorized promotional campaigns to raise the visibility of the hotline number, but it did not mandate that police use citations with the phone number printed on them.

To this day, the Oregon Judicial Department — the state’s third branch of government that includes the courts — has not created a specialized Measure 110 ticket. Phil Lemman, deputy state court administrator, said in an email that a new ticket design is a lengthy process and requires state Supreme Court approval. Court officials were also concerned the hotline number might change, he wrote.

The 2023 bill intended to smooth out the implementation of Measure 110 called for state auditors to assess the kind of training law enforcement was getting. It did not offer money for training.

Lawmakers had delivered one change to the ticketing system that advocates sought. A bill passed in 2021 eliminated any penalty for failure to either obtain treatment or pay the $100 fine.

The combined result of all the legislative efforts on Measure 110 was to leave Oregon with no carrot and no stick to steer people into treatment.

“Hindsight always gives you a better view of what has come before you,” said Sen. Floyd Prozanski, the Senate judiciary chair who led the legislative effort to implement Measure 110, when asked why he and other lawmakers didn’t take further action.

He said lawmakers should have taken more time to set up both outreach and proper incentives for treatment at the outset.

Oregon could have avoided the problems that ensued, he said, if he and others had acknowledged “We’re not ready for opening up this concept without building the infrastructure that’s needed.”

In the absence of a ticketing system that made sense, the outcome was predictable.

In the first 15 months after Measure 110 took effect, state auditors found, only 119 people called the state’s 24-hour hotline. That meant the cost of operating the hotline amounted to roughly $7,000 per call. The total number of callers as of early December of last year had only amounted to 943.

Part of the bottleneck was that police were not eager to issue citations for drug possession.

“Why would I do that?” one officer told researchers from Portland State University in 2021.

Another criticized the $100 fine as being low. “Lower than somebody failing to use a turn signal,” the officer was quoted as saying.

Police gave out only about 2,500 citations a year, compared with the roughly 9,500 arrests they made annually in years before Measure 110.

The problem, Marshall believes, is that nobody told the police why they remained relevant to addressing drug use after Measure 110 passed.

“We never trained the cops on ‘Look, this is the value of we're going to go from prosecuting people who use drugs to intervening on people who use drugs,’” Marshall said. “‘This ticket system is a process for that. And so let’s get as many tickets out there as possible, and then let’s use that ticket and that interaction to connect people to the services they need.’”

Treatment providers wanted to ensure that when officers issued the occasional citation, they at least had some way to tell recipients about treatment — even if the information wasn’t on the ticket. Lines For Life, the hotline operator, printed its phone number on thousands of wallet cards for the police.

It didn’t go smoothly.

When officials at the Portland Police Bureau placed an order with Lines For Life for 5,000 wallet cards, the organization told them the cards had been sent five months before.

The police bureau later found them sitting unused.

The Oregon Health Authority has touted a continuous and substantial increase in people accessing treatment for substance abuse disorder in each quarter from 2022 to 2023. Other state and federal treatment statistics from before and after Measure 110 passed seem to show a less consistent rise over a longer period of time, and a health authority spokesperson did not address how to interpret the other data when asked.

But regardless of the bigger picture on treatment, critics began to cite hotline phones that seldom rang and ignored citations as evidence that decriminalization had failed.

By late last year, the backlash gained momentum. Wealthy business owners put $700,000 behind a new ballot initiative to make drug possession the highest level of misdemeanor, punishable with up to a year in jail.

With polls showing public sentiment turning against Measure 110, the governor and lawmakers who’d previously opposed recriminalization warmed to the idea. They developed legislation with a variety of sweeteners for attending treatment while restoring the threat of jail time as further incentive. Kotek has signaled she would sign a bill reinstating criminal penalties.

“People need to be able to walk down the street and make sure people aren't using drugs in front of them,” Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber told OPB in January.

“There has been a change in the mood of the electorate,” Lieber said. “They realize that things are not working.”

Measure 110 supporters point to research that says data does not support the idea that recriminalizing drugs would have an effect on Oregon’s rise in fentanyl overdoses. Deaths have been on the same high trajectory as in neighboring states before and after Measure 110 took effect. Many people suggest that Oregon could create other consequences for skipping out on treatment, short of jail.

Or Oregon leaders could implement Measure 110 the way backers say they’ve always wanted.

It might look like the pilot program between police and health workers that was on display in December on a downtown Portland sidewalk. Cioeta, the Portland sergeant who’s been frustrated by how few people have called for help after getting a ticket, was a big part of the effort.

“If we have one person that actually goes into treatment today, that’s one more than the 700 that we’ve had not going to treatment at all,” he said as he set out in a police cruiser to support Portland’s bicycle patrol on the project’s firstday.

The patrol soon encountered a man who gave his name as Joseph, who lay curled in a sleeping bag, sick from fentanyl withdrawal. (The man asked OPB and ProPublica not to publish his full name to protect his medical privacy.)

An officer asked if he was interested in treatment, and Joseph said yes. The officer called a nearby outreach worker from the nonprofit Mental Health and Addiction Association of Oregon, who arrived and sat down on the sidewalk.

“How’s it going, Joseph? My name’s Ryan.”

“I feel terrible, and I’m really cold,” Joseph told him.

The outreach worker placed a call while the police officer stood by watching.

“Ryan, we’ll be right here if you need something,” the officer told the outreach worker.

Within an hour, Joseph buckled himself into a blue sedan that would drive him to detox.

He completed it and, about a month later, was continuing his recovery in an intensive outpatient program in Portland.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Tony Schick and Conrad Wilson, Oregon Public Broadcasting.

“Saint Mienpamo Onitsha was detained for nearly four months simply for doing his job, which should never be considered a crime,” said CPJ Africa Head Angela Quintal in New York. “While we welcome Thursday’s release of Onitsha, we repeat our call for Nigerian authorities to swiftly drop all charges against him and reform the country’s laws to ensure journalists do not continue to be jailed for their reporting.”

In October 2023, police arrested Ontisha, founder of the privately owned online broadcaster NAIJA Live TV, and charged him with cyberstalking under section 24 of Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act and defamation under the criminal code. The charge sheet cited a September report about tensions in the southern Niger Delta region.

On December 4, a court in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, heard Onitsha’s bail application and on January 25 the court granted him bail with a condition that he provides two sureties—persons willing to take responsibility for any court decisions made if Onitsha fails to meet bail obligations—with a bond of 10 million naira (US$8,372), according to copies of the court ruling, reviewed by CPJ, and Onitsha’s lawyer, Anande Terungwa, who spoke by phone with CPJ.

The court also ordered the residence of the sureties must be verified by the court registrar and that the sureties must submit documents proving they own a landed property in Abuja, as well as their recent passport photographs, according to those same sources.

Onitsha’s next court date is March 19. If convicted, he faces a 25 million naira (US$20,930) fine and/or up to 10 years in jail on the cyberstalking charges—as well as potential imprisonment for two years for charges of defamation and the publication of defamatory matter under the Criminal Code Act, according to Terungwa and a copy of the charge sheet reviewed by CPJ.

Terungwa told CPJ that the delay between Onitsha being granted bail on January 25 and his release on February 1 was due to a prolonged verification process among officials and prosecution lawyers on the conditions of Onitsha’s bail.

Onitsha appeared in CPJ’s 2023 prison census, which documented at least 67 journalists jailed across Africa as of December 1.

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

Chief Justice Melville Fuller swears in William McKinley as president; outgoing President Grover Cleveland at right – Public Domain

The last time the Republicans had a candidate as weak as Donald Trump—and that’s saying a lot as in between we’ve had Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and George W. Bush—it was 1896, and his fixers (of note Mark Hanna) decided to run the William McKinley campaign from his front porch, which was located in Canton, Ohio.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Matthew Stevenson.

"We will, in the months to come, have to accelerate the scale of our support," Macron said in a speech on January 30 during a visit to Sweden. The "costs...of a Russian victory are too high for all of us."

EU leaders will meet in Brussels on February 1 for a meeting of the European Council, where they will discuss aid to Ukraine as the war approaches its second anniversary.

Ukraine continues to hold off large-scale Russian grounds attacks in the east but has struggled to intercept many of the deadly missiles Moscow fires at its cities on a regular basis.

Earlier in the day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had launched nearly 1,000 missiles and drones at Ukraine since the start of the year as Kyiv maintained a missile-threat alert for several regions on January 30, hours after Russian strikes killed at least three civilians.

"Russia has launched over 330 missiles of various types and approximately 600 combat drones at Ukrainian cities since the beginning of the year," Zelenskiy said on X, formerly Twitter.

"To withstand such terrorist pressure, a sufficiently strong air shield is required. And this is the type of air shield we are building with our partners," he wrote.

"Air defense and electronic warfare are our top priorities. Russian terror must be defeated -- this is achievable."

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.

A man was killed and his wife was wounded in the Russian shelling early on January 30 in the village of Veletenske in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, the regional prosecutor's office reported.

U.S. lawmakers have been debating for months a supplementary spending bill that includes $61 billion in aid to Ukraine. The aid would allow Ukraine to obtain a variety of U.S. weapons and armaments, including air-defense systems. The $61 billion -- if approved -- would likely cover Ukraine's needs through early 2025, experts have said.

Separately, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said that Russian forces had fired 272 shells at Kherson from across the Dnieper River.

In the eastern region of Donetsk, one civilian was killed and another one was wounded by the Russian bombardment of the settlement of Myrnohrad, Vadym Filashin, the governor of the Ukrainian-controlled part of the region, said on January 30.

Also in Donetsk, in the industrial city of Avdiyivka, Russian shells struck a private house, killing a 47-year-old woman, Filashkin said on Telegram.

Russian forces have been trying to capture Adviyivka for the past several weeks in one of the bloodiest battles of the war triggered by Moscow's unprovoked invasion in February 2022.

Indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas has turned most of Avdiyivka into rubble.

Earlier on January 30, Ukrainian air defenses shot down 15 out of 35 drones launched by Russia, the military said.

The Russian drones targeted the Mykolayiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, and Kharkiv regions, the Ukrainian Air Force said.

Russian forces also launched 10 S-300 anti-aircraft missiles at civilian infrastructure in the Donetsk and Kherson regions, the military said, adding that there dead and wounded among the civilian population.

The Ukrainian Air Force later said that the Kirovohrad, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhya regions remained under a heightened level of alert due to the danger of more missile strikes.

Meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses had destroyed or intercepted 21 Ukrainian drones over the Moscow-occupied Crimean Peninsula and several Russian regions.

On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces fought 70 close-quarters battles along the entire front line, the General Staff of the Ukrainian military said in its daily report early on January 30. Ukrainian defenders repelled repeated Russian attacks in eight hot spots in the east, the military said.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on January 29 warned that Ukraine's gains over two years of fighting invading Russian troops were all in doubt without new U.S. funding, as NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg visited to lobby Congress.

WATCH: In February 2022, Ukrainian Army medic Yuriy Armash was trying to reach his unit as the Russian invasion was advancing fast. He was caught in Kherson, tortured, and held for months. While in captivity, he used his medical training to treat other Ukrainian prisoners. Some say he saved their lives.

Tens of billions of dollars in aid has been sent to Ukraine since the invasion in February 2022, but Republican lawmakers have grown reluctant to keep supporting Kyiv, saying it lacks a clear end game as the fighting against President Vladimir Putin's forces grinds on.

Blinken offered an increasingly dire picture of Ukraine's prospects without U.S. approval of the so-called supplemental funding amid reports that some progress was being made on the matter late on January 29.

In Brussels, European Union leaders will restate their determination to continue to provide "timely, predictable, and sustainable military support" to Ukraine at a summit on February 1, according to draft conclusions of the meeting.

"The European Council also reiterates the urgent need to accelerate the delivery of ammunition and missiles," the draft text, seen by Reuters, also says.

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

Russian lawmaker Andrei Kartapolov told deputies in Moscow on January 25 that Ukrainian military intelligence had been given a 15-minute warning before the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane entered the Belgorod region in Russia, near the border with Ukraine, and that Russia had received confirmation the message was received.

Kartapolov did not provide any evidence to back up his claim and Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov reiterated in comments to RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that it had not received either a written or verbal request to secure the airspace where the plane went down.

Yusov said Ukraine had been using reconnaissance drones in the area and that Russia had launched attack drones. There was "no confirmed information" that Ukraine had hit any targets, he said.

"Unfortunately, we can assume various scenarios, including provocation, as well as the use of Ukrainian prisoners as a human shield for transporting ammunition and weapons for S-300 systems," he told RFE/RL.

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.

There has been no direct confirmation from Kyiv on Russian claims that the plane had Ukrainian POWs on board or that the aircraft was downed by a Ukrainian antiaircraft missile.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for an international investigation of the incident, and Yusov reiterated that call, as "there are many circumstances that require investigation and maximum study."

The RIA Novosti news agency on January 25 reported that both black boxes had been recovered from the wreckage site in Russia's Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine.

The Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case into what it said was a "terrorist attack." The press service of the Investigative Committee said in a news release that preliminary data of the inspection of the scene of the incident, "allow us to conclude that the aircraft was attacked by an antiaircraft missile from the territory of Ukraine."

The Investigative Committee said that "fragmented human remains" were found at the crash site, repeating that six crew members, military police officers, and Ukrainian POWs were on board the plane.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on January 25 called the downing of the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane a "monstrous act," though Moscow has yet to show any evidence that it was downed by a Ukrainian missile, or that there were Ukrainian prisoners on board.

While not saying who shot down the plane, Zelenskiy said that "all clear facts must be established...our state will insist on an international investigation."

Ukrainian officials have said that a prisoner exchange was to have taken place on January 24 and that Russia had not informed Ukraine that Ukrainian POWs would be flown on cargo planes.

Ukrainian military intelligence said it did not have "reliable and comprehensive information" on who was on board the flight but said the Russian POWs it was responsible for "were delivered in time to the conditional exchange point where they were safe."

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine's commissioner for human rights, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that "currently, there are no signs of the fact that there were so many people on the Il-76 plane, be they citizens of Ukraine or not."

Aviation experts told RFE/RL that it was possible a Ukrainian antiaircraft missile downed the plane but added that a Russian antiaircraft could have been responsible.

"During the investigation, you can easily determine which system shot down the plane based on the missiles' damaging elements," said Roman Svitan, a Ukrainian reserve colonel and an aviation-instructor pilot.

When asked about Russian claims of dozens of POWs on board, Svitan said that from the footage released so far, he'd seen no evidence to back up the statements.

"From the footage that was there, I looked through it all, it’s not clear where there are dozens of bodies.... There's not a single body visible at all. At one time I was a military investigator, including investigating disasters; believe me, if there were seven or eight dozen people there, the field would be strewn with corpses and remains of bodies," Svitan added.

Russian officials said the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, six crew members, and three escorts.

A list of the six crew members who were supposed to be on the flight was obtained by RFE/RL. The deaths of three of the crew members were confirmed to RFE/RL by their relatives.

Video on social media showed a plane spiraling to the ground, followed by a loud bang and explosion that sent a ball of smoke and flames skyward.

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

UFA, Russia -- A court in Ufa, the capital of Russia's Republic of Bashkortostan, has sentenced eight men to up to 14 days in jail for taking part in an unprecedented rally earlier this week to support the former leader of the banned Bashqort movement, Fail Alsynov, who has criticized Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine.

The Kirov district court on January 18 sentenced activists Salavat Idelbayev and Rustam Yuldashev to 14 and 13 days in jail, respectively, after finding them guilty of taking part in "an unsanctioned rally that led to the disruption of infrastructure activities and obstructed the work of a court" on January 15.

A day earlier, the same court sentenced Ilnar Galin to 13 days in jail, and Denis Skvortsov, Fanzil Akhmetshin, Yulai Aralbayev, Radmir Mukhametshin, and Dmitry Petrov to 10 days in jail each on the same charges.

The sentences were related to a January 15 rally of around 5,000 people in front of a court in the town of Baimak, where the verdict and sentencing of Alsynov, who was charged with inciting ethnic hatred, were expected to be announced. But the court postponed the announcement to January 17 to allow security forces to prepare for any reaction to the verdict in the controversial trial.

On January 17, thousands of supporters gathered in front of the court again, and after Alsynov was sentenced to four years in prison, clashes broke out as police using batons, tear gas, and stun grenades forced the protesters to leave the site. Several protesters were injured and at least two were hospitalized.

Dozens of protesters were detained and the Investigative Committee said those in custody from the January 17 unrest will face criminal charges -- organizing and participating in mass disorder and using violence against law enforcement.

Separately on January 18, police detained two young men in Baimak on unspecified charges. Friends of the men said the detentions were most likely linked to the rallies to support Alsynov.

The head of Bashkortostan, Radiy Khabirov, made his first statement on January 18 about the largest protest rally in Russia since Moscow launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, saying he "will not tolerate extremism and attempts to shake up the situation," and promising to find the "real organizers" of the rallies.

It was Khabirov who initiated the investigation of Alsynov, accusing him of inciting ethnic hatred as well as calling for anti-government rallies and extremist activities and discrediting Russia's armed forces.

In the end, Alsynov was charged only with inciting hatred, which stemmed from a speech he gave at a rally in late April 2023 in the village of Ishmurzino in which he criticized local government plans to start mining gold near the village, as it would bring in migrant laborers.

Investigators said Alsynov's speech "negatively assessed people in the Caucasus and Central Asia, humiliating their human dignity." Alsynov and his supporters have rejected the charge as politically motivated.

Bashkortostan's Supreme Court banned Alsynov's Bashqort group, which for years promoted Bashkir language, culture, and equal rights for ethnic Bashkirs, in May 2020, declaring it extremist.

Bashqort was banned after staging several rallies and other events challenging the policies of both local and federal authorities, including Moscow's move to abolish mandatory indigenous-language classes in the regions with large populations of indigenous ethnic groups.

With reporting by RusNews

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

UFA, Russia -- A court in Ufa, the capital of Russia's Republic of Bashkortostan, has sentenced eight men to up to 14 days in jail for taking part in an unprecedented rally earlier this week to support the former leader of the banned Bashqort movement, Fail Alsynov, who has criticized Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine.

The Kirov district court on January 18 sentenced activists Salavat Idelbayev and Rustam Yuldashev to 14 and 13 days in jail, respectively, after finding them guilty of taking part in "an unsanctioned rally that led to the disruption of infrastructure activities and obstructed the work of a court" on January 15.

A day earlier, the same court sentenced Ilnar Galin to 13 days in jail, and Denis Skvortsov, Fanzil Akhmetshin, Yulai Aralbayev, Radmir Mukhametshin, and Dmitry Petrov to 10 days in jail each on the same charges.

The sentences were related to a January 15 rally of around 5,000 people in front of a court in the town of Baimak, where the verdict and sentencing of Alsynov, who was charged with inciting ethnic hatred, were expected to be announced. But the court postponed the announcement to January 17 to allow security forces to prepare for any reaction to the verdict in the controversial trial.

On January 17, thousands of supporters gathered in front of the court again, and after Alsynov was sentenced to four years in prison, clashes broke out as police using batons, tear gas, and stun grenades forced the protesters to leave the site. Several protesters were injured and at least two were hospitalized.

Dozens of protesters were detained and the Investigative Committee said those in custody from the January 17 unrest will face criminal charges -- organizing and participating in mass disorder and using violence against law enforcement.

Separately on January 18, police detained two young men in Baimak on unspecified charges. Friends of the men said the detentions were most likely linked to the rallies to support Alsynov.

The head of Bashkortostan, Radiy Khabirov, made his first statement on January 18 about the largest protest rally in Russia since Moscow launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, saying he "will not tolerate extremism and attempts to shake up the situation," and promising to find the "real organizers" of the rallies.

It was Khabirov who initiated the investigation of Alsynov, accusing him of inciting ethnic hatred as well as calling for anti-government rallies and extremist activities and discrediting Russia's armed forces.

In the end, Alsynov was charged only with inciting hatred, which stemmed from a speech he gave at a rally in late April 2023 in the village of Ishmurzino in which he criticized local government plans to start mining gold near the village, as it would bring in migrant laborers.

Investigators said Alsynov's speech "negatively assessed people in the Caucasus and Central Asia, humiliating their human dignity." Alsynov and his supporters have rejected the charge as politically motivated.

Bashkortostan's Supreme Court banned Alsynov's Bashqort group, which for years promoted Bashkir language, culture, and equal rights for ethnic Bashkirs, in May 2020, declaring it extremist.

Bashqort was banned after staging several rallies and other events challenging the policies of both local and federal authorities, including Moscow's move to abolish mandatory indigenous-language classes in the regions with large populations of indigenous ethnic groups.

With reporting by RusNews

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

UFA, Russia -- A court in Ufa, the capital of Russia's Republic of Bashkortostan, has sentenced eight men to up to 14 days in jail for taking part in an unprecedented rally earlier this week to support the former leader of the banned Bashqort movement, Fail Alsynov, who has criticized Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine.

The Kirov district court on January 18 sentenced activists Salavat Idelbayev and Rustam Yuldashev to 14 and 13 days in jail, respectively, after finding them guilty of taking part in "an unsanctioned rally that led to the disruption of infrastructure activities and obstructed the work of a court" on January 15.

A day earlier, the same court sentenced Ilnar Galin to 13 days in jail, and Denis Skvortsov, Fanzil Akhmetshin, Yulai Aralbayev, Radmir Mukhametshin, and Dmitry Petrov to 10 days in jail each on the same charges.

The sentences were related to a January 15 rally of around 5,000 people in front of a court in the town of Baimak, where the verdict and sentencing of Alsynov, who was charged with inciting ethnic hatred, were expected to be announced. But the court postponed the announcement to January 17 to allow security forces to prepare for any reaction to the verdict in the controversial trial.

On January 17, thousands of supporters gathered in front of the court again, and after Alsynov was sentenced to four years in prison, clashes broke out as police using batons, tear gas, and stun grenades forced the protesters to leave the site. Several protesters were injured and at least two were hospitalized.

Dozens of protesters were detained and the Investigative Committee said those in custody from the January 17 unrest will face criminal charges -- organizing and participating in mass disorder and using violence against law enforcement.

Separately on January 18, police detained two young men in Baimak on unspecified charges. Friends of the men said the detentions were most likely linked to the rallies to support Alsynov.

The head of Bashkortostan, Radiy Khabirov, made his first statement on January 18 about the largest protest rally in Russia since Moscow launched its ongoing invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, saying he "will not tolerate extremism and attempts to shake up the situation," and promising to find the "real organizers" of the rallies.

It was Khabirov who initiated the investigation of Alsynov, accusing him of inciting ethnic hatred as well as calling for anti-government rallies and extremist activities and discrediting Russia's armed forces.

In the end, Alsynov was charged only with inciting hatred, which stemmed from a speech he gave at a rally in late April 2023 in the village of Ishmurzino in which he criticized local government plans to start mining gold near the village, as it would bring in migrant laborers.

Investigators said Alsynov's speech "negatively assessed people in the Caucasus and Central Asia, humiliating their human dignity." Alsynov and his supporters have rejected the charge as politically motivated.

Bashkortostan's Supreme Court banned Alsynov's Bashqort group, which for years promoted Bashkir language, culture, and equal rights for ethnic Bashkirs, in May 2020, declaring it extremist.

Bashqort was banned after staging several rallies and other events challenging the policies of both local and federal authorities, including Moscow's move to abolish mandatory indigenous-language classes in the regions with large populations of indigenous ethnic groups.

With reporting by RusNews

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

Israel has arrested a total of 38 Palestinian journalists since the start of its war with Hamas on October 7 and is currently holding 31 — most of them without any charge, reports Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog has condemning the use of detention to silence the Palestinian media and called for the protection of all journalists and the release of those detained.

Reporter Diaa al-Kahlout’s release on January 9 after more than a month in detention will not eclipse the scale of Israeli’s arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinian journalists, said RSF in a statement.

• READ MORE: Journalists need to ‘take a stand’ over the Gaza carnage after latest killings

At least 31 of those arrested since October 7 – 29 in the West Bank, one in Gaza and one in East Jerusalem — are still held in Israeli jails, in most cases without being notified of any charge.

“This unprecedented wave of arrests and detentions, while the war continues in the Gaza Strip, has clearly been carried out with the deliberate aim of silencing the Palestinian media,” RSF said.

All of the detained journalists work for Palestinian media outlets such as J-Media, Maan News Agency, Sanad and Radio al-Karama or are freelancers.

Massive crackdown in West Bank
Most of the arrests have been in the West Bank.

According to RSF’s tally, a total of 34 journalists have been arrested there since October 7, of whom only five have so far been released.

When the war began, two were being held. The detained journalists cannot receive visits and most are held in locations in Israel that have not been revealed.

Some of those who have been released, such as freelancer Somaya Jawbara, who was granted bail on November 22, 17 days after her arrest, are required to remain at home, are banned from using the internet or talking to the media, and have been placed under surveillance for an unspecified period.

Since the start of the war, Israel has been using the procedure known as “administrative detention” to detain journalists.

Under this procedure, a person is detained without notification of any charge on the grounds that they intended to break the law. They can be jailed for periods of up to six months that can be renewed on nothing more than an Israeli judge’s order.

At least 19 journalists are currently subject to “administrative detention.” The other 10 journalists are being held pending trial on “trumped-up charges of inciting violence”, said RSF.

“At least 31 Palestinian reporters are currently held in Israeli prisons in connection with their journalism,” said Jonathan Dagher, head of RSF’s Middle East desk.

“This intimidation, this terror, these endless attempts to silence Palestinian journalism, whether by chains, bullets or bombs, must stop. We call for the immediate release of all detained journalists and for their urgent protection.”

Inhuman treatment of detained journalists
Some of the detained journalists are being subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This was seen in the case of Diaa al-Kahlout, the newly released reporter for the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news site.

His family identified him in a video posted by an Israeli soldier in the north of the Gaza Strip on December 7.

#Gaza : RSF s’inquiète de la disparition depuis 4 jours du journaliste d’@alaraby_ar Diaa Kahlout. Il a été identifié dans 1 vidéo, publiée le 7/12 par des soldats , parmi des détenus déshabillés&agenouillés.RSF dénonce cette arrestation&exige d’Israël des infos sur son sort

— RSF (@RSF_inter) December 11, 2023

Al-Kahlout was seen kneeling in the street in the middle of a group of half-naked detainees.

An Israeli patrol had arrested him a few hours earlier at his home in Beit Lahia. His house was burned down.

His two brothers, who had been arrested with him, were released. The reporter was briefly held in Eshel prison in Israel and was subjected to torture, according to several RSF sources.

The Israeli authorities said nothing about his fate for more than a month, until his release on January 9. In almost all cases of detained journalists, the families are given no information about their arrest and their situation.

Terrible ordeal for detained journalists in Gaza
In Gaza, where two journalists are currently detained, many reporters have been subjected to arrests of less than 48 hours in duration that have been no less traumatic.

They include Said Kilani, a photojournalist who freelances for Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and other international media, who was one of the few reporters to remain in Beit Lahia.

On December 13, Kilani was covering the fighting as Israeli forces advanced on Kamal Adwan Hospital when he found himself being arrested along with a medical team.

“As I knew that journalists were being targeted by the Israeli army, I was afraid and I initially hid my helmet and my press vest,” he said.

Kilani was held for 14 hours at a military base in the north of the Gaza Strip.

“We were forced to take our clothes off, we were insulted and humiliated,” he said, although he insists that he immediately identified himself as a journalist to those holding him.

After being released, he found his wife and children, who had also been arrested and then released. While they had been held, their house had been set on fire, and the journalistic equipment that Kilani had hidden in the hospital had also been burned.

“The Israeli soldiers took everything from us,” he told RSF. “We are homeless, in the cold, with nowhere to go.”

Five days after his arrest, Kilani was with his 16-year-old son when the boy was killed by an Israeli sniper before his very eyes.

Huge tragedy for journalism
At least 80 journalists have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7 (Al Jazeera reports 113 killed), including 18 in the course of their work, according to information verified by RSF.

More than 50 media offices in the Gaza Strip have also been completely or partially destroyed by Israeli strikes since the start of the war.

Pacific Media Watch collaborates with RSF.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

This article was produced in partnership with Mississippi Today, which was a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in 2023. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

For many people in Mississippi, the path to treatment for a serious mental illness may run through the local jail — even though they haven’t been charged with a crime.

In 2023, Mississippi Today and ProPublica investigated the practice of jailing people solely because they were waiting for mental health treatment provided through a legal process called civil commitment.

We found that people awaiting treatment were jailed without criminal charges at least 2,000 times from 2019 to 2022 in just 19 counties, meaning the statewide figure is almost certainly higher. Most of the jail stays we tallied lasted longer than three days, and about 130 were longer than 30 days.

Some people have died after being jailed purportedly for their own safety.

Every state has a civil commitment process in which a court can order someone to be hospitalized for psychiatric treatment, generally if they are deemed dangerous to themselves or others. But it is rare for people going through that process to be held in jail without criminal charges for days or weeks — except in Mississippi.

If you’d like to share your experiences or perspective, contact Isabelle Taft at itaft@mississippitoday.org or 601-691-4756.

In Mississippi, the process starts when someone files paperwork with a county office alleging that another person’s mental illness or substance abuse is so serious that they are a danger to themselves or others. That person is taken into custody by sheriff’s deputies until they can be evaluated and go before a judge. Although people may wait at a medical facility, if no publicly funded bed is available, they can sit in a jail cell until a treatment bed opens up.

We have spoken with people who were jailed solely on the basis of mental illness, family members of people who went through the commitment process, sheriffs and jail administrators, county officials, lawmakers, the head of the state Department of Mental Health, and experts in mental health and disability law. We have filed more than 100 public records requests and reviewed lawsuits and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation reports on jail deaths.

Here are five key findings from our reporting so far.

We spoke to more than a dozen Mississippians who were jailed without criminal charges as they went through the civil commitment process. They wore jail scrubs and were often shackled as they moved through the jail. They were frequently unable to access prescribed psychiatric medications, much less therapy or other treatment. They had no idea how long they would be jailed, because they could get out only when a treatment bed became available. They were often housed alongside people facing criminal charges. One jail doctor told us that people going through the commitment process were vulnerable to assault and theft of their snacks and personal items.

“They become a prisoner just like the average person coming in that’s charged with a crime,” said Ed Hargett, a former superintendent of Parchman state penitentiary and a corrections consultant who has worked with about 20 Mississippi county jails. “Some of the staff that works in the jail, they don’t really know why they’re there. … Then when they start acting out, naturally they deal with them just like they would with a violent offender.”

At least 14 people have died after being jailed during the commitment process since 2006, according to our review of lawsuits and records from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Nine died by suicide, and three died after receiving medical care that experts called substandard. Most recently, 37-year-old Lacey Handjis, a Natchez hospice-care consultant and mother of two, died in a padded cell in the Adams County jail in late August. Her death was not a suicide and is still under investigation.

Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten said he asked the state Bureau of Investigation to review Handjis’ death. “It just hurt me because I just know that people who are suffering from those type of conditions shouldn’t be in jail,” he said in September.

Mental health providers we spoke with said jail can exacerbate symptoms when someone is in crisis, increasing their risk of suicide. Jail staff with limited medical training may interpret signs of medical distress as manifestations of mental illness and fail to call for additional care.

After three men awaiting treatment died by suicide in the Quitman County jail in 2006, 2007 and 2019, chancery clerk Butch Scipper no longer jails people going through the commitment process. His advice to other county officials: “Do not put them in your jail. Jails are not safe places. We think they are, but they’re definitely not” for people who are mentally ill.

Mississippi Today and ProPublica surveyed disability rights advocates and state behavioral health agencies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Nowhere else did respondents say people are routinely jailed for days or weeks without criminal charges while going through the involuntary commitment process. In three states where respondents said people are sometimes jailed to await psychiatric evaluations, it happens to fewer people and for shorter periods. At least a dozen states ban the practice altogether; Mississippi law allows it when there is “no reasonable alternative.” In Alabama, a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional in 1984.

Disability rights advocates in other states and experts on civil commitment or mental health care used words like “horrifying,” “breaks my heart” and “speechless” when they learned how many Mississippians are jailed without criminal charges while they wait for mental health care every year.

Wendy Bailey, head of the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, has said it’s “unacceptable” to jail people simply because they may need behavioral health treatment, and staff have encouraged chancery clerks to steer families toward outpatient treatment instead of the civil commitment process when appropriate.

The Department of Mental Health says it prioritizes people waiting in jail when making admissions to state hospitals, and the average wait time in jail after a hearing has dropped. The state has expanded the number of crisis unit beds and plans to add more. And it has increased funding for local services in recent years in an effort to reduce commitments.

In early January, Bailey said the agency has been reviewing commitment statutes in other states that restrict jailing people during the process. During the current legislative session, she said, the agency will support “changes to the commitment process that we hope will divert Mississippians from unnecessary commitments.”

In 2009, the Mississippi Legislature passed a law requiring any county facility that holds people awaiting psychiatric treatment through the commitment process to be certified by the Department of Mental Health. The department developed certification standards requiring suicide prevention training, access to medications and treatment, safe housing and more. But the law provides no funding to help counties comply and has no penalties if they don’t. Only a handful of counties got certified, and after 2013 the department’s efforts to enforce the law apparently petered out.

As of late last year, only one jail — out of 71 that had recently held people awaiting court-ordered treatment — was still certified. There is no statewide oversight or inspection of county jails.

After we asked about the law, the Department of Mental Health sought an opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office, which opined that it is a “mandatory requirement” that the agency certify the county facilities, including jails, where people wait for treatment. In October, the department sent letters to counties informing them of the attorney general’s opinion and encouraging them to get certified. Department officials are waiting for counties to initiate the certification process, though they know which jails have held people after their hearings. Department leaders, including Bailey, have emphasized that they have limited authority over counties and can’t force them to do anything.

According to data from the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, 71 of the state’s 82 counties held a total of 812 people prior to their admission to a state hospital during the fiscal year ending in June. According to state data and our analysis of jail dockets, the two counties that jail the most people during the commitment process are DeSoto and Lauderdale — together home to three of the state’s 10 largest cities. DeSoto has one of the highest per capita incomes in the state, and Lauderdale’s is above average. (Those counties’ chancery clerks, who handle the civil commitment process, and officials with the boards of supervisors, which handle county finances, haven’t responded to questions about why they jail so many people going through the commitment process.)

Meanwhile, some smaller, rural counties don’t jail people or do so rarely. Guy Nowell, who served as chancery clerk of Neshoba County until the end of 2023, said the county arranged each person’s commitment evaluations and hearing to take place on the same day to eliminate waits between appointments. If no publicly funded bed is available after the hearing, the county pays for people to receive treatment at a private psychiatric hospital.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Isabelle Taft, Mississippi Today.

Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny says he was immediately placed in a punitive solitary confinement cell after finishing a quarantine term at the so-called Polar Wolf prison in Russia's Arctic region where he was transferred last month.

In a series of messages on X, formerly Twitter, Navalny said on January 9 a prison guard ruled that "convict Navalny refused to introduce himself according to format, did not respond to the educational work, and did not draw appropriate conclusions for himself" and therefore must spend seven days in solitary confinement.

Navalny added that unlike in a regular cell, where inmates are allowed to have a walk outside of the cell in the afternoon when it is a bit warmer outside, in the punitive cell, such walks are at 6:30 a.m. in a part of the world where temperatures can fall to minus 45 degrees Celsius or colder.

"I have already promised myself that I will try to go for a walk no matter what the weather is," Navalny said in an irony-laced series of eight posts, adding that the cell-like sites for walks are "11 steps from the wall and 3 steps to the wall" with an open sky covered with metal bars above.

"It's never been colder here than -32 degrees Celsius (-25 degrees Fahrenheit). Even at that temperature you can walk for more than half an hour, but only if you have time to grow a new nose, ears, and fingers," Navalny joked, comparing himself with the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the Revenant film, who saved himself from freezing in the cold by crawling inside the carcass of a dead horse.

"Here you need an elephant. A hot or even roasted elephant. If you cut open the belly of a freshly roasted elephant and crawl inside, you can keep warm for a while. But where am I going to get a hot, roasted elephant [here], especially at 6:30 in the morning? So, I will continue to freeze," Navalny concludes in his sarcastic string of messages.

Navalny was transported in December to the notorious and remote prison, formally known as IK-3, but widely referred to as Polar Wolf.

Some 2,000 kilometers northeast of Moscow, the prison holds about 1,050 of Russia's most incorrigible prisoners.

Human rights activists say the prison holds serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, repeat offenders, and others convicted of the most serious crimes and serving sentences of 20 years or more.

In some cases, like Navalny's, the government sends convicts who are widely considered to be political prisoners there as well. Platon Lebedev, a former business partner of Mikhail Khodorkovsky who was convicted of tax evasion and other charges during the dismantling of the Yukos oil giant, spent about two years at IK-3 in the mid-2000s.

The prison was founded in 1961 at a former camp of dictator Josef Stalin's Gulag network. The settlement of Kharp, with about 5,000 people, mostly provides housing and services for prison workers and administrators.

Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison in August 2023 on extremism charges, on top of previous sentences for fraud. He says the charges are politically motivated, and human rights organizations recognized him as a political prisoner.

He has posed one of the most-serious threats to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who recently announced he is running for reelection in March. Putin is expected to easily win the election amid the continued sidelining of opponents and a clampdown on opposition and civil society that intensified after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Navalny survived a poisoning with Novichok-type nerve agent in 2020 that he says was ordered by Putin. The Kremlin has denied any role in Navalny's poisoning.

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

"Japan is determined to support Ukraine so that peace can return to Ukraine," Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said during a surprise visit to Kyiv, becoming the first official foreign visitor for 2024.

"I can feel how tense the situation in Ukraine is now," she told a news conference -- held in a shelter due to an air-raid alert in the capital at the time -- alongside her Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba.

"I once again strongly condemn Russia's missile and drone attacks, particularly on New Year's Day," she added, while also saying Japan would provide an additional $37 million to a NATO trust fund to help purchase drone-detection systems.

The Japanese diplomat also visited Bucha, the Kyiv suburb where Russian forces are blamed for a civilian massacre in 2022, stating she was "shocked" by what occurred there.

In a Telegram post, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked "Japan for its comprehensive support, as well as significant humanitarian and financial assistance."

In particular, he cited Tokyo's "decision to allocate $1 billion for humanitarian projects and reconstruction with its readiness to increase this amount to $4.5 billion through the mechanisms of international institutions."

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.

Meanwhile, Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told a Stockholm defense conference that the main goal of the country’s foreign policy efforts in the coming years will be to support Kyiv.

“Sweden’s military, political, and economic support for Ukraine remains the Swedish government’s main foreign policy task in the coming years,” he posted on social media during the event.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking via video link, told the conference that the battlefield in his country was currently stable but that he remained confident Russia could be defeated.

"Even Russia can be brought back within the framework of international law. Its aggression can be defeated," he said.

Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive last summer largely failed to shift the front line, giving confidence to the Kremlin’s forces, especially as further Western aid is in question.

Ukraine has pleaded with its Western allies to keep supplying it with air defense weapons, along with other weapons necessary to defeat the invasion that began in February 2022.

U.S. President Joe Biden has proposed a national-security spending bill that includes $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, but it has been blocked by Republican lawmakers who insist Biden and his fellow Democrats in Congress address border security.

Zelenskiy also urged fellow European nations to join Ukraine in developing joint weapons-production capabilities so that the continent is able to "preserve itself" in the face of any future crises.

"Two years of this war have proven that Europe needs its own sufficient arsenal for the defense of freedom, its own capabilities to ensure defense," he said.

Overnight, Ukrainian officials said Russia launched 28 drones and three cruise missiles, and 12 people were wounded by a drone attack in the central city of Dnipro.

Though smaller in scale than other recent assaults, the January 7 aerial attack was the latest indication that Russia has no intention of stopping its targeting of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, often far from the front lines.

In a post to Telegram, Ukraine’s air force claimed that air defenses destroyed 21 of the 28 drones, which mainly targeted locations in the south and east of Ukraine.

"The enemy is shifting the focus of attack to the frontline territories: the Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions were attacked by drones," air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian TV.

Russia made no immediate comment on the attack.

In the southern city of Kherson, meanwhile, Russian shelling from across the Dnieper River left at least two people dead, officials said.

In the past few months, Ukrainian forces have moved across the Dnieper, setting up a small bridgehead in villages on the river's eastern banks, upriver from Kherson. The effort to establish a larger foothold there, however, has faltered, with Russian troops pinning the Ukrainians down, and keeping them from moving heavier equipment over.

Over the past two weeks, Russia has fired nearly 300 missiles and more than 200 drones at targets in Ukraine, as part of an effort to terrorize the civilian population and undermine morale. On December 29, more than 120 Russian missiles were launched at cities across Ukraine, killing at least 44 people, including 30 in Kyiv alone.

Ukraine’s air defenses have improved markedly since the months following Russia’s mass invasion in February 2022. At least five Western-supplied Patriot missile batteries, along with smaller systems like German-made Gepard and the French-manufactured SAMP/T, have also improved Ukraine’s ability to repel Russian drones and missiles.

Last week, U.S. officials said that Russia had begun using North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles as part of its aerial attacks on Ukrainian sites.

Inside Russia, authorities in Belgorod said dozens of residents have been evacuated to areas farther from the Ukrainian border.

“On behalf of regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, we met the first Belgorod residents who decided to move to a safer place. More than 100 people were placed in our temporary accommodation centers,” Andrei Chesnokov, head of the Stary Oskol district, about 115 kilometers from Belgorod, wrote in Telegram post.

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP

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

Stand Up America’s Executive Director, Christina Harvey, issued the following statement marking the third anniversary of the January 6th attack on our democracy and the U.S. Capitol:

“Tomorrow marks another year since Donald Trump, unable to win reelection on the merits, orchestrated a seditious, violent insurrection in an attempt to maintain power. Since then, hundreds of Trump’s foot soldiers have been convicted and sentenced for their roles in violently interrupting the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in our nation’s history.

“While Trump himself remains free, he faces four criminal indictments, and is desperately seeking a second term in the hopes of avoiding accountability for his crimes. If Trump is reelected, he and other MAGA Republicans are already plotting schemes to pardon themselves, exact revenge on their enemies, and further undermine our democracy, rather than focusing on the needs of everyday Americans.

“The Presidency isn’t a ‘get out of jail free’ card, and over the next year, the Stand Up America community will be mobilizing to ensure that Trump is held accountable in the court of law and at the ballot box.”

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

Authorities in the northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey released the six activists on Wednesday, according to former Candlelight Party secretary Suon Khemrin.

“They were released last night,” he told RFA on Thursday. “They have submitted their resignations and defected to the ruling party before they were released.”

In September, police arrested 23 Candlelight Party activists for hosting a rally to collect fingerprints, a necessary step to register new parties. Seventeen activists were released after 30 hours in custody, but six leaders remained in custody.

Authorities detained the activists until this week even though they had already obtained authorization from the Ministry of Interior to form a new party they called the Panha Tumnerp – or Intellectual Modern – Party. 

“There has been criticism from both civil society and the international community that the persecution against political activists is politically motivated and it is not about enforcing the law,” said Soeng Senkaruna, the spokesman for the Adhoc human rights group.

“They should be treated fairly before the law,” he said.

According to the Law on Political Parties, any Cambodian citizen who is aged 18 or older and is a permanent resident of the country has the right to form a political party simply by notifying the Ministry of Interior.

The law states that in order to be valid, political parties must apply for registration with at least 4,000 members, depending on the province where the party is based.

The Candlelight Party had gathered enough support in recent years to become the country’s main opposition party. But its candidates were kept off the July general election ballot by the National Election Committee, which cited inadequate paperwork.

With no real opposition, the CPP won 120 of 125 seats in the National Assembly. 

Efforts by Candlelight leaders to regain official status after the election failed, which has led opposition activists to seek other parties certified by the ministry or consider forming new parties. 

Thach Setha’s appeal

Meanwhile, the Candlelight Party’s 70-year-old vice president, Thach Setha, asked the Supreme Court to overturn his September conviction on false check charges at an appeals trial on Friday.

Human rights groups and party officials have called the conviction politically motivated. His arrest in January was seen as part of a months-long campaign of intimidation and threats against opposition leaders and activists ahead of July’s general election.

Thach Setha was brought to court wearing an orange jumpsuit. Diplomats and officials from the U.N. attended the trial, and about 20 supporters stood outside the court to show their support. 

“He told the court that he is not well,” his wife, Thach Sokborany, told RFA. “In general, he is innocent. I want the court to release him to have his freedom and get treatment.”

Phnom Penh Municipal Court deputy prosecutor Seng Heang asked the panel judges to uphold the verdict. 

Thach Setha’s lawyer, Son Chum Chhuon, told RFA after the hearing that the municipal court used unfounded evidence in the September trial. He said he hopes the Supreme Court judges will also consider his client’s age and declining health in deciding to set him free.

Because the charges were politically motivated, the judges could consider that releasing Thach Setha would have a calming effect on the country’s political environment, according to Am Sam Ath of human rights group Licadho. 

“Releasing political activists will ease political tension, improve human rights and democracy,” he said. 

The court is scheduled to announce its decision on Dec. 25. 

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

Authorities in the northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey released the six activists on Wednesday, according to former Candlelight Party secretary Suon Khemrin.

“They were released last night,” he told RFA on Thursday. “They have submitted their resignations and defected to the ruling party before they were released.”

In September, police arrested 23 Candlelight Party activists for hosting a rally to collect fingerprints, a necessary step to register new parties. Seventeen activists were released after 30 hours in custody, but six leaders remained in custody.

Authorities detained the activists until this week even though they had already obtained authorization from the Ministry of Interior to form a new party they called the Panha Tumnerp – or Intellectual Modern – Party. 

“There has been criticism from both civil society and the international community that the persecution against political activists is politically motivated and it is not about enforcing the law,” said Soeng Senkaruna, the spokesman for the Adhoc human rights group.

“They should be treated fairly before the law,” he said.

According to the Law on Political Parties, any Cambodian citizen who is aged 18 or older and is a permanent resident of the country has the right to form a political party simply by notifying the Ministry of Interior.

The law states that in order to be valid, political parties must apply for registration with at least 4,000 members, depending on the province where the party is based.

The Candlelight Party had gathered enough support in recent years to become the country’s main opposition party. But its candidates were kept off the July general election ballot by the National Election Committee, which cited inadequate paperwork.

With no real opposition, the CPP won 120 of 125 seats in the National Assembly. 

Efforts by Candlelight leaders to regain official status after the election failed, which has led opposition activists to seek other parties certified by the ministry or consider forming new parties. 

Thach Setha’s appeal

Meanwhile, the Candlelight Party’s 70-year-old vice president, Thach Setha, asked the Supreme Court to overturn his September conviction on false check charges at an appeals trial on Friday.

Human rights groups and party officials have called the conviction politically motivated. His arrest in January was seen as part of a months-long campaign of intimidation and threats against opposition leaders and activists ahead of July’s general election.

Thach Setha was brought to court wearing an orange jumpsuit. Diplomats and officials from the U.N. attended the trial, and about 20 supporters stood outside the court to show their support. 

“He told the court that he is not well,” his wife, Thach Sokborany, told RFA. “In general, he is innocent. I want the court to release him to have his freedom and get treatment.”

Phnom Penh Municipal Court deputy prosecutor Seng Heang asked the panel judges to uphold the verdict. 

Thach Setha’s lawyer, Son Chum Chhuon, told RFA after the hearing that the municipal court used unfounded evidence in the September trial. He said he hopes the Supreme Court judges will also consider his client’s age and declining health in deciding to set him free.

Because the charges were politically motivated, the judges could consider that releasing Thach Setha would have a calming effect on the country’s political environment, according to Am Sam Ath of human rights group Licadho. 

“Releasing political activists will ease political tension, improve human rights and democracy,” he said. 

The court is scheduled to announce its decision on Dec. 25. 

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.

On Saturday, police in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, arrested Muradli, a presenter for the popular online broadcaster Kanal 13, on charges of minor hooliganism and disobeying police orders. Later the same day, the Khatai District Court in Baku sentenced him to 30 days’ detention on those charges, according to news reports and a copy of the court verdict reviewed by CPJ.

Muradli denies the charges, Kanal 13 chief editor Anar Orujov told CPJ. Orujov said the allegations against the journalist are “absolutely not credible” and are a part of Azerbaijani authorities’ ongoing crackdown against Kanal 13 and other independent media.

Muradli’s detention came four days after authorities ordered Kanal 13 director Aziz Orujov, who is Anar’s brother, to be held in pretrial detention for three months on charges of illegal construction, which his lawyer said were in retaliation for his journalism. Four members of anti-corruption investigative outlet Abzas Media have been detained on financial crime accusations since November 20.

“The sixth Azerbaijani journalist arrested in less than two weeks, Rufat Muradli appears to have been sentenced on charges every bit as spurious and pretextual as those facing his colleagues,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna in New York. “Azerbaijani authorities should release Muradli and the other unjustly jailed journalists immediately and stop their crackdown on independent reporting.”

According to the court verdict, two police officers approached Muradli just after midday on a street in Baku’s Khatai district because he was “shouting obscenities.” When police “called him to order,” the journalist “did not obey,” so the officers arrested him. The verdict did not provide any additional detail.

An associate of Muradli told regional outlet Caucasian Knot that Muradli had dropped him and two other individuals off outside a café, saying he would park the car and meet them inside, but he never returned. Muradli’s lawyer quoted the journalist as saying that police arrested him in the car park without explanation. The court convicted Muradli “effectively without a hearing” and did not allow the defense to speak, his lawyer told Caucasian Knot.

Azerbaijani authorities commonly use trumped-up charges of hooliganism against government critics, according to rights organizations, including in numerous cases involving journalists. In February, photojournalist Vali Shukurzade was sentenced to 30 days in jail on charges of hooliganism and disobeying police orders, which his lawyer said were fabricated.

Muradli is also a deputy chairman of the unregistered Azerbaijan Democracy and Prosperity Party, whose chairman, Gubad Ibadoghlu, has been detained since July on charges widely criticized as politically motivated. However, Orujov told CPJ the timing of Muradli’s arrest amid a wave of journalist detentions, including Kanal 13’s director, strongly suggests it is related to his journalism. Orujov said Muradli is well-known as the presenter of Kanal 13’s political show on its Azerbaijani-language YouTube channel, which has more than 400,000 subscribers.

Separately, on Monday, police in Azerbaijan’s southwestern city of Lankaran detained Shahla Karim and Aytaj Mammadli, freelance reporters on assignment with U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, while they were conducting street interviews, on the grounds that the pair lacked press IDs, according to news reports and Karim, who spoke to CPJ. Karim said police deleted video footage from Mammadli’s cell phone and attempted to delete footage on Karim’s camera storage card, but stopped and returned her storage card when she called the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Police released both journalists after about an hour and a half.

CPJ emailed the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Justice for comment but did not immediately receive any replies.

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

On November 15, Alves, a freelance journalist, was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay a fine of Brazilian real 400,000 (US$81,692) for defamation of Judge Rudson Marcos and Prosecutor Thiago Carriço de Oliveira, who were involved in a 2020 rape trial brought by digital influencer Mariana Ferrer, according to multiple news sources.

Ferrer alleged that she was drugged and raped at a party in 2018 by a wealthy businessman. During the trial, the accused’s defense attorney tried to blame Ferrer by producing sensual photographs that she had taken as a model, which he described as “gynecological,” accused her of “fake crying,” and thanked God that she was not his daughter, Alves reported in The Intercept Brasil and ND+.

The defendant was acquitted.

In a preliminary ruling in December 2020, a court ordered The Intercept Brazil and ND+ to “rectify” their reporting after Oliveira alleged that Alves had defamed him.  The judge’s ruling instructed the outlets to add specific language to their reporting, which she provided, highlighting that Judge Marcos did make interventions to maintain order and that Oliveira, as lead prosecutor in the case, warned the defense lawyer about his line of questioning.

The case sparked a national outcry and led to the passing in 2021 of the Mariana Ferrer Law, which punishes public agents who violate the dignity of victims or witnesses of sexual violence in court.

“We call on Brazil’s justice system to remedy this blatant injustice against journalist Schirlei Alves, whose reporting on the humiliation of a young woman in the witness box led to legal reform to protect rape victims,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator, said on Wednesday. “Rather than treating a journalist like a criminal for fulfilling her duty to inform the public, Brazil should follow the standards of the regional Inter-American Human Rights System, which provides for cases of insult, slander and defamation to be dealt with in civil courts.”

The journalist’s attorney Rafael Fagundes told CPJ that the ruling was “arbitrary and illegal.”

“This ruling can be a threat to those who dare to denounce any abuses committed by the judiciary,” he said, adding that he had appealed the decision.

Judge Andrea Cristina Rodrigues Studer, head of the 5th Criminal Court of Florianópolis, who issued the November 15 sentence, told CPJ that judges did not comment on their decisions.

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

Israeli troops detained and reportedly beat the acclaimed Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha after he was stopped at an Israeli military checkpoint Sunday while heading toward the Rafah border crossing with his family in Gaza. His whereabouts had been unknown until today, when news emerged that he had been released. According to the Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu, Abu Toha was taken to an Israeli prison in the Naqab, where he was interrogated and beaten along with more than 200 other Palestinians who remain in detention. We play excerpts from Abu Toha’s recent appearance on Democracy Now! and speak to Buttu, who says, “Mosab’s story is like that of so many Palestinians in Gaza.”

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

We get an update on Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston. New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to fine Trump $250 million and is asking for a permanent ban on Trump family members running a business in New York. The outcome of the trial could put the future of the Trump Organization in jeopardy. Trump himself has already been barred from posting or speaking publicly about the trial after his public comments about James, which she described as “race-baiting,” and about Judge Arthur Engoron. Johnston, the author of three books on Trump, including The Big Cheat: How Donald Trump Fleeced America and Enriched Himself and His Family, says that though this trial doesn’t carry with it the potential for incarceration that his criminal trials do, it is just as threatening to the Trump empire because “Donald Trump is his money.”

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

Prabir Purkayastha holding his recent book, Knowledge as Commons.

On October 3, 2023, the day after MK Gandhi’s birthday, over five hundred officers of the Delhi Police fanned out across India to detain either at their Special Cell station or at their homes over a hundred journalists and researchers. They held them for interrogation for the entire day – an average of eight hours per person – and asked them if they had covered the epochal farmers’ revolt of 2020-21, the anti-Muslim violence in East Delhi in February 2020, and the disastrous government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These three events are part of the great processes of our time, and not covering them would have been a dereliction of duty for a journalist and a researcher. The journalists in the government’s dragnet came largely from Newsclick, a web-based news site that began in 2009; the researchers came from Tricontinental Research Services, which provides materials to Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. After an entire day of harassment and intimidation, including violence against some of the people detained, the Delhi Police arrested two men – Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakravarty, the founder and chief editor of Newsclick, and the portal’s human relations chief respectively.

Prabir

Both Prabir and Amit have been my friends for years. I first met Prabir about thirty years ago, when I was a young journalist and researcher in Delhi, and he was one of the key figures in the Delhi Science Forum (DSF). Sitting on one of the little desks in the DSF office in Saket (it was in J block, I think), I met with Dr. Amit Sengupta (who died tragically in 2018) and Prabir. Amit was a leading advocate for better public health systems, having edited Drug Industry and the Indian People, 1986, and Prabir is an engineer who had led the fight for building public energy systems that would place people before profit. We talked about the 1986 General Agreement of Trade and Tariffs round, which seemed to change the rules for intellectual property rights; the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS, would be established as international law in 1995. I remember being dazzled by their intellect, by their great love for people, and by their sense of humor (Amit and Prabir both have distinctive laughs).

Prabir, Amit, and others like them in the Delhi Science Forum built a research agenda to favor the 1948 Charter of the UN Education, Science, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), whose Article 27 says, “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” The charter was signed by 194 countries, that’s all the countries in the world, which obliges them to follow its mandate. Restrictive intellectual property laws go against the UNESCO Charter, which is often ignored. But not by people like Prabir, who played a part in the first All-India Peoples Science Congress in 1988 that established the All-India Peoples Science Network, and later who played a part in building and then leading (as President) the Free Software Movement of India. In 2002, Prabir and I published a book on the scam led by the Enron Corporation to build a liquified natural gas plant in India – Enron Blowout: Corporate Capitalism and the Theft of the Global Commons. A few years later, at the Mumbai World Social Forum, which Prabir helped organize, we were able to share our ideas on this kind of tech-led scam before thousands of people. Prabir, who built a professional life as an engineer, remains nonetheless one of the fiercest advocates for the democratization of science and technology. His new book from LeftWord Books – Knowledge as Commons: Towards Inclusive Science and Technology (2023) – builds on a lifetime of battle to make sure that the gains of science and technology are not held by a few but are owned by everyone.

Newsclick

As the US war on Iraq steadily destabilized West Asia, and as the hybrid war on Iran began to escalate, a group of us (Prabir, Aijaz Ahmad, D. Raghunandan, myself, and others) discussed the need to create a media outlet in India that focused on these issues. In the basement of a house, with the books of Aijaz as the backdrop, with a camera bought by Prabir and another by Aijaz, Newsclick was born. Here, we would gather in the evening – when everybody left their actual places of employment – and we would interview each other about West Asia and about science. “Hello and welcome to Newsclick. Today we have with us Professor Aijaz Ahmad,” I can hear that opening in my head, and heard it today as I watched Prabir being taken to prison, tears in my eyes. Newsclick was one of the few outlets in India to seriously cover the events in West Asia and North Africa, particularly in Iraq and in Iran (around the US pressure campaign over nuclear energy from 2006). Raghu, Satyajit Rath, and Prabir – along with a host of others – introduced us to current debates in the world of science and technology, wondrous ideas about tremendous possibilities.

Over the years, Newsclick grew to become one of the most important voices that covered people-centered news. It was well-known that the main people involved in Newsclick were from the Left, and it was well-known that the coverage from Newsclick took seriously the views of people’s movements and of people’s lives. As Newsclick began to cover India more seriously, the website became one of the few places that paid attention to the struggles of workers, peasants, women, Dalits, Adivasis, and others who were fighting to make the country a better place. Over the past three years, journalists across India working for mainstream publications would go to Newsclick to read up on the strikes of workers and the struggles of caregivers, on the waves of farmers’ protests and the uprisings of Dalits and Adivasis, as well as of the severe attack on Muslims in general and on Kashmiris in particular. The site built a remarkable body of work, a catalogue of protests inside India to deepen democracy against a democracy that the writer Arundhati Roy recently said is being “systematically disassembled.” When the journalists whose heart beats with the people are silenced, then it becomes impossible to even know if the people are struggling to brighten their country.

In February 2021, India’s Enforcement Directorate launched raids on eight locations associated with Newsclick. The raid on Prabir’s house lasted for 113 hours. It was a grueling process, the agents of the State interested in financing that Newsclick had received and alleging that Newsclick had been paid by foreign interests to undermine India. The idea that reporting on farmers’ protests and workers’ strikes is against India is to immediately suggest that Indian farmers and workers are not Indian. In an interview shortly after this ordeal, Prabir was asked about the funds that had allowed Newsclick to grow. Prabir’s answer is instructive:

“The investments that have come are public—on the balance sheets of the company, and that have come through the Reserve Bank of India. Now, our income—today, foreign investment up to 26 percent is legal in digital platforms. Our foreign investment is much lower than that, around nine percent. There was nothing illegal about it in any case because till then, there was no bar on foreign investment in digital platforms. So, what is the issue I have not understood? Why is this being raised, even that I don’t understand.”

The Role of the New York Times

The case against Newsclick and Prabir continued, as the harassment did over Tricontinental Research Services. The harassment seemed to be the punishment. Low-level officers of the intelligence services and the police suggested that there was no evidence of any crime, but that they were being pushed to keep the investigation alive. The case remained alive, but it appeared as if the final destination for the journalists was Purgatory and not Hell. But then the New York Times (August 5, 2023) appeared with a hallucinatory article on the foundations funded by Neville Roy Singham, who had made his money in the tech industry and who had decided to give his money away – unlike the normal fashion – without fanfare. There is no Singham Foundation, no Singham anything really. Roy’s idea was to give his millions away to enhance media that covered people’s voices and to build left-wing institutions around the world. Nothing in any of this is illegal. The story by the Times was built on public information but pretended to be a major scoop that revealed the existence of a network guided by the Chinese government. The article is incoherent, but it had its impact.

The day after the Times article came out, India’s Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur held a press conference, where he launched another attack on Newsclick. Now, the Times article had said explicitly that the Modi government had raided Newsclick and accused it of having “ties to the Chinese government but offering no proof.” The Times linked to their own article from 2020 with a headline, “Under Modi, India’s Press is Not So Free Anymore.” But the Times allowed itself to be a weapon in the hands of people like Thakur. The entire fracas in India was not even about Newsclick but about the leader of the Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi. Gandhi’s popularity has been rising due to his Bharat Jodo Yatra (2022-2023), when he walked from one end of India to the other to argue for a different dispensation for the country. A fierce attack on Modi’s proximity to the businessman Gautam Adani – whose businesses have been shown to be financed by a fraudulent scheme (as reported by the Financial Times in August 2023) – led to Gandhi being disqualified from parliament in March 2023. On August 7, thanks to the intervention of the Indian Supreme Court, Rahul Gandhi was to return to Parliament. Thakur used the New York Times article to argue that Rahul Gandhi was somehow related to Newsclick and therefore to Singham. None of this is true, but it was useful political theatre with Newsclick as the collateral damage.

Ten days after Thakur’s press conference, and after news media in India published leaked (by the government) emails from Roy to Prabir and myself, the Delhi Police filed a suo motu case against Prabir and Amit under the hugely draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act [UAPA] (in 2022, the Foundation of Media Professionals filed a motion in the Indian Supreme Court saying that this Act has “manifestly arbitrary” provisions and has a very broad definition of “unlawful activity”). The raids of the houses and the arrests of Prabir and Amit were conducted under the shadow of this UAPA law. “This is India’s McCarthy-like moment,” said former editor of The Hindu N. Ram to one of India’s leading television anchors Rajdeep Sardesai. “This is an attack on the freedom of the press,” Ram said.

Prabir, age 71, and Amit are now in custody. They are both people of great sensitivity, who has spent their entire lives trying to make the world a better place. My friends are in prison. Since this case started, Prabir would laugh and say that he prefers to cover stories than to be the story, a line that journalists often use. A few weeks ago, Prabir (a frequent contributor to CounterPunch) and I spoke about his new book for Peoples Dispatch, where he reminisced about how we “used to sit in that little basement of ours.” I remember those days fondly. We believed in building a press that would be alive to the needs of workers and peasants and would be instructed by the need for peace and not war. That’s the press we wanted then, and it is the press we need now. India sits at 161 out of the 180 countries counted in the World Press Freedom Index. As more and more Indian journalists become a guest of the State, India will likely slip all the way to the bottom.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

Prabir Purkayastha holding his recent book, Knowledge as Commons.

On October 3, 2023, the day after MK Gandhi’s birthday, over five hundred officers of the Delhi Police fanned out across India to detain either at their Special Cell station or at their homes over a hundred journalists and researchers. They held them for interrogation for the entire day – an average of eight hours per person – and asked them if they had covered the epochal farmers’ revolt of 2020-21, the anti-Muslim violence in East Delhi in February 2020, and the disastrous government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These three events are part of the great processes of our time, and not covering them would have been a dereliction of duty for a journalist and a researcher. The journalists in the government’s dragnet came largely from Newsclick, a web-based news site that began in 2009; the researchers came from Tricontinental Research Services, which provides materials to Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. After an entire day of harassment and intimidation, including violence against some of the people detained, the Delhi Police arrested two men – Prabir Purkayastha and Amit Chakravarty, the founder and chief editor of Newsclick, and the portal’s human relations chief respectively.

Prabir

Both Prabir and Amit have been my friends for years. I first met Prabir about thirty years ago, when I was a young journalist and researcher in Delhi, and he was one of the key figures in the Delhi Science Forum (DSF). Sitting on one of the little desks in the DSF office in Saket (it was in J block, I think), I met with Dr. Amit Sengupta (who died tragically in 2018) and Prabir. Amit was a leading advocate for better public health systems, having edited Drug Industry and the Indian People, 1986, and Prabir is an engineer who had led the fight for building public energy systems that would place people before profit. We talked about the 1986 General Agreement of Trade and Tariffs round, which seemed to change the rules for intellectual property rights; the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS, would be established as international law in 1995. I remember being dazzled by their intellect, by their great love for people, and by their sense of humor (Amit and Prabir both have distinctive laughs).

Prabir, Amit, and others like them in the Delhi Science Forum built a research agenda to favor the 1948 Charter of the UN Education, Science, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), whose Article 27 says, “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” The charter was signed by 194 countries, that’s all the countries in the world, which obliges them to follow its mandate. Restrictive intellectual property laws go against the UNESCO Charter, which is often ignored. But not by people like Prabir, who played a part in the first All-India Peoples Science Congress in 1988 that established the All-India Peoples Science Network, and later who played a part in building and then leading (as President) the Free Software Movement of India. In 2002, Prabir and I published a book on the scam led by the Enron Corporation to build a liquified natural gas plant in India – Enron Blowout: Corporate Capitalism and the Theft of the Global Commons. A few years later, at the Mumbai World Social Forum, which Prabir helped organize, we were able to share our ideas on this kind of tech-led scam before thousands of people. Prabir, who built a professional life as an engineer, remains nonetheless one of the fiercest advocates for the democratization of science and technology. His new book from LeftWord Books – Knowledge as Commons: Towards Inclusive Science and Technology (2023) – builds on a lifetime of battle to make sure that the gains of science and technology are not held by a few but are owned by everyone.

Newsclick

As the US war on Iraq steadily destabilized West Asia, and as the hybrid war on Iran began to escalate, a group of us (Prabir, Aijaz Ahmad, D. Raghunandan, myself, and others) discussed the need to create a media outlet in India that focused on these issues. In the basement of a house, with the books of Aijaz as the backdrop, with a camera bought by Prabir and another by Aijaz, Newsclick was born. Here, we would gather in the evening – when everybody left their actual places of employment – and we would interview each other about West Asia and about science. “Hello and welcome to Newsclick. Today we have with us Professor Aijaz Ahmad,” I can hear that opening in my head, and heard it today as I watched Prabir being taken to prison, tears in my eyes. Newsclick was one of the few outlets in India to seriously cover the events in West Asia and North Africa, particularly in Iraq and in Iran (around the US pressure campaign over nuclear energy from 2006). Raghu, Satyajit Rath, and Prabir – along with a host of others – introduced us to current debates in the world of science and technology, wondrous ideas about tremendous possibilities.

Over the years, Newsclick grew to become one of the most important voices that covered people-centered news. It was well-known that the main people involved in Newsclick were from the Left, and it was well-known that the coverage from Newsclick took seriously the views of people’s movements and of people’s lives. As Newsclick began to cover India more seriously, the website became one of the few places that paid attention to the struggles of workers, peasants, women, Dalits, Adivasis, and others who were fighting to make the country a better place. Over the past three years, journalists across India working for mainstream publications would go to Newsclick to read up on the strikes of workers and the struggles of caregivers, on the waves of farmers’ protests and the uprisings of Dalits and Adivasis, as well as of the severe attack on Muslims in general and on Kashmiris in particular. The site built a remarkable body of work, a catalogue of protests inside India to deepen democracy against a democracy that the writer Arundhati Roy recently said is being “systematically disassembled.” When the journalists whose heart beats with the people are silenced, then it becomes impossible to even know if the people are struggling to brighten their country.

In February 2021, India’s Enforcement Directorate launched raids on eight locations associated with Newsclick. The raid on Prabir’s house lasted for 113 hours. It was a grueling process, the agents of the State interested in financing that Newsclick had received and alleging that Newsclick had been paid by foreign interests to undermine India. The idea that reporting on farmers’ protests and workers’ strikes is against India is to immediately suggest that Indian farmers and workers are not Indian. In an interview shortly after this ordeal, Prabir was asked about the funds that had allowed Newsclick to grow. Prabir’s answer is instructive:

“The investments that have come are public—on the balance sheets of the company, and that have come through the Reserve Bank of India. Now, our income—today, foreign investment up to 26 percent is legal in digital platforms. Our foreign investment is much lower than that, around nine percent. There was nothing illegal about it in any case because till then, there was no bar on foreign investment in digital platforms. So, what is the issue I have not understood? Why is this being raised, even that I don’t understand.”

The Role of the New York Times

The case against Newsclick and Prabir continued, as the harassment did over Tricontinental Research Services. The harassment seemed to be the punishment. Low-level officers of the intelligence services and the police suggested that there was no evidence of any crime, but that they were being pushed to keep the investigation alive. The case remained alive, but it appeared as if the final destination for the journalists was Purgatory and not Hell. But then the New York Times (August 5, 2023) appeared with a hallucinatory article on the foundations funded by Neville Roy Singham, who had made his money in the tech industry and who had decided to give his money away – unlike the normal fashion – without fanfare. There is no Singham Foundation, no Singham anything really. Roy’s idea was to give his millions away to enhance media that covered people’s voices and to build left-wing institutions around the world. Nothing in any of this is illegal. The story by the Times was built on public information but pretended to be a major scoop that revealed the existence of a network guided by the Chinese government. The article is incoherent, but it had its impact.

The day after the Times article came out, India’s Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur held a press conference, where he launched another attack on Newsclick. Now, the Times article had said explicitly that the Modi government had raided Newsclick and accused it of having “ties to the Chinese government but offering no proof.” The Times linked to their own article from 2020 with a headline, “Under Modi, India’s Press is Not So Free Anymore.” But the Times allowed itself to be a weapon in the hands of people like Thakur. The entire fracas in India was not even about Newsclick but about the leader of the Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi. Gandhi’s popularity has been rising due to his Bharat Jodo Yatra (2022-2023), when he walked from one end of India to the other to argue for a different dispensation for the country. A fierce attack on Modi’s proximity to the businessman Gautam Adani – whose businesses have been shown to be financed by a fraudulent scheme (as reported by the Financial Times in August 2023) – led to Gandhi being disqualified from parliament in March 2023. On August 7, thanks to the intervention of the Indian Supreme Court, Rahul Gandhi was to return to Parliament. Thakur used the New York Times article to argue that Rahul Gandhi was somehow related to Newsclick and therefore to Singham. None of this is true, but it was useful political theatre with Newsclick as the collateral damage.

Ten days after Thakur’s press conference, and after news media in India published leaked (by the government) emails from Roy to Prabir and myself, the Delhi Police filed a suo motu case against Prabir and Amit under the hugely draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act [UAPA] (in 2022, the Foundation of Media Professionals filed a motion in the Indian Supreme Court saying that this Act has “manifestly arbitrary” provisions and has a very broad definition of “unlawful activity”). The raids of the houses and the arrests of Prabir and Amit were conducted under the shadow of this UAPA law. “This is India’s McCarthy-like moment,” said former editor of The Hindu N. Ram to one of India’s leading television anchors Rajdeep Sardesai. “This is an attack on the freedom of the press,” Ram said.

Prabir, age 71, and Amit are now in custody. They are both people of great sensitivity, who has spent their entire lives trying to make the world a better place. My friends are in prison. Since this case started, Prabir would laugh and say that he prefers to cover stories than to be the story, a line that journalists often use. A few weeks ago, Prabir (a frequent contributor to CounterPunch) and I spoke about his new book for Peoples Dispatch, where he reminisced about how we “used to sit in that little basement of ours.” I remember those days fondly. We believed in building a press that would be alive to the needs of workers and peasants and would be instructed by the need for peace and not war. That’s the press we wanted then, and it is the press we need now. India sits at 161 out of the 180 countries counted in the World Press Freedom Index. As more and more Indian journalists become a guest of the State, India will likely slip all the way to the bottom.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Vijay Prashad.

“The 5-day sentence issued to journalist Ronson Chan is another deliberate humiliation to the freedom of the press in Hong Kong by authorities,” said Iris Hsu, CPJ’s China representative. “The court decision gives grounds to Hong Kong police’s harassment of journalists who are simply doing their job and shows how intolerant the Hong Kong government is towards the press.”

On Monday, a court in Hong Kong convicted Chan, a reporter for the independent online news outlet Channel C HK and chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, of obstructing a police officer while reporting in 2022. He was granted bail pending an appeal.

Chan was arrested and accused of obstructing police officers and public disorder while covering a residents’ meeting in Mong Kok on September 7, 2022.

CPJ’s email to the Hong Kong police did not immediately receive a response.

China was the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 43 journalists behind bars, at the time of CPJ’s December 1, 2022, prison census.  

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

On Tuesday, 75-year-old Lai will have been behind bars in Hong Kong for 1,000 days. The release of Lai, who is facing charges that could lead to life imprisonment, is a fundamental step to safeguard press freedom in Hong Kong, the groups said.

Read the full letter below.

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

Guo, serving an eight-year jail term for "incitement to subvert state power" after he set up a website calling for constitutional democracy, recently wrote to his family asking her to make arrangements for his funeral, a friend who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals said on Thursday.

The 58-year-old Guo, whose birth name is Yang Maodong, has been refusing food since he started serving his sentence in May, and now weighs less than 40 kilograms, down from 65 or 70, after speaking to family members who visited Guo in prison last month. 

"His state of health is very bad, and he is pale with thyroid problems – he’s just skin and bones.”

"He wrote in a recent letter that he had a fever for more than 10 days, and it wouldn't go away," the friend said. "During the visit, he was cold, and was shivering despite being covered by a quilt ... He was very weak."

The fact that Guo is still alive suggests that the prison authorities have been force-feeding him, the friend said. "Otherwise he would have died a long time ago."

"If he continues to lose weight, it will definitely be life-threatening," he said.

Prison authorities recently denied Guo's request for a transfer to Panyu Prison, where conditions are better and where he would be closer to his sister Yang Maoping, Hunan-based rights activist Zhu Chengzhi said, calling on them to grant his request.

"If he can be moved to Panyu Prison ... it will be much easier for her to visit him," Zhu said. "I can't understand why they won't agree to it, and I strongly protest [this decision]."

Life sentence

Meanwhile, the relatives of jailed veteran activist Wang Bingzhang – who is serving a life sentence to be served in solitary confinement for spying for Taiwan – say he is suffering from very high blood pressure.

Wang's U.S.-based daughter Wang Qingyan visited her father in Guangdong's Shaoguan Prison on Sept. 18, her brother Wang Bingwu told Radio Free Asia.

"When he came out to meet with my niece, he had to be helped along," Wang Bingwu said. "He was obviously ... very weak and very thin."

"Is he eating well? Are all of his nutritional needs being met? We don't know."

Wang, 75, has reportedly already suffered several strokes in prison, and continues to have very high blood pressure, Wang Bingwu said.

"His blood pressure has been very high recently, sometimes as high as 170,” he said. “Even when he takes medicine, his blood pressure is still usually around 150."

"Since high blood pressure can cause stroke, it could be said that his life is in danger," Wang Bingwu. "I believe that his medicine isn't specially prescribed for him, but is just a generic blood pressure medicine, and it's not that effective."

He said his brother still writes to his family once a month, although the letters are read by the authorities and sometimes take three months to arrive.

"We can't just call the prison directly and talk to him -- it's not allowed," Wang Bingwu said.

Studied medicine

Wang was one of the first Chinese nationals to study medicine at postgraduate level overseas, following the economic reforms and opening up policies of then-supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, following decades of relative isolation and political turmoil under Mao Zedong.

But in 1982, he gave up medicine to dedicate himself to the full-time pursuit of democracy in China, moving to New York and founding China Spring in the same year, as well as co-founding several of the first overseas Chinese democratic parties.

In December 2022, his U.S.-based family announced they would reboot China Spring, the pro-democracy magazine he founded in a bid to 'pass the torch' to the next generation.

Wang spent the next 20 years of his life "organizing and promoting pro-democracy activities in North America and around the world," according to his official website.

In 1989, he was prevented from entering China during the Tiananmen Square protests, but managed to get back in covertly in 1998, where he was instrumental in helping to found the banned opposition China Democracy Party, only to be arrested and expelled from the country two weeks later.

Wang traveled to meet with Chinese labor activists in Vietnam in 2002, before disappearing along with two companions and being dumped across the border in China to be arrested by Chinese police.

He was tried in secret by the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court on Jan. 22, 2003, and handed a life sentence to be served in solitary confinement after being found guilty of spying for Taiwan and plotting to bomb the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok.

During the trial, no evidence was presented nor witnesses called to back up the charge against him. Wang Bingwu said a senior officer in the Thai police had even testified that Wang was never involved in any bomb plot in Bangkok.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gao Feng for RFA Mandarin.

We look at the dire conditions inside the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, where Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants were recently booked. Ten prisoners have now died in the jail’s custody just this year — the latest on Sunday. Shawndre Delmore had been incarcerated pretrial for five months before he was found unresponsive in a cell on August 31. Delmore’s family is demanding answers as to why a previously healthy 24-year-old would so suddenly suffer from cardiac arrest, and is calling for an immediate independent investigation into conditions at the jail, which is already under federal investigation. “This is systemic. This is not a one-off,” says the family’s attorney Mawuli Mel Davis, whose firm represents three other families with relatives that have died at the jail in the past two years. In 2022, Fulton County Jail recorded 15 in-custody deaths, including that of Lashawn Thompson, a 35-year-old Black man who was “eaten alive” by insects and bedbugs in his cell. We also speak to Davis about another client, the family of Johnny Hollman Sr., a 62-year-old Black grandfather and church deacon who died after a traffic stop in August, and about the Republican Georgia attorney general’s sweeping indictment of 61 Cop City protesters on RICO charges. “This is fascism,” warns Davis. “This is an attempt to have a chilling effect on people who are organizing against police violence.”

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

It’s a stock phrase frequently used by Chinese officials and state media to criticize speech or actions by outsiders that Beijing disapproves of. 

But now it could be turned against the Chinese people themselves.

Under a proposed amendment to the Public Security Administration Law, wearing the wrong T-shirt or complaining about China online could lead to a fine of up to 5,000 yuan (US$680) or 15 days in jail.

The law doesn't specify what kind of acts might do such a thing, but does warn that "denying the deeds" of revolutionary heroes and martyrs or defacing their public memorials would count. 

China already has in place laws banning insults to revolutionary heroes and martyrs, as well as to the national anthem, its soldiers and police force.

"The wearing in public places ... of clothing and symbols that damage the spirit of the Chinese nation, or that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people," could land perpetrators with up to 10 days in detention and fines of up to 5,000 yuan, according to draft amendments currently open for public consultation and viewable on the website of the National People’s Congress.

"Items or remarks that contain sentiments about the Chinese nation," will also be banned, as will "producing, disseminating or publicizing products that are detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese nation or harmful to it."

‘Can we criticize football?’

Online comments took aim at the lack of specifics in the draft, wondering if "watching anime," "riding a roller-coaster," or "wearing a suit and tie" would count as violations of the law.

"Can we still criticize Chinese football in future?" one wanted to know. “So Chinese people should just all wear Mao suits now,” said another.

"If [someone] wearing clothes hurts your feelings, then you're just too fragile," commented another, while one social media user quipped: "Take one bit of KFC and I'll report you!"

Others worried that praising any other country could amount to hurting the feelings of the Chinese people, or nation.

"This will probably be used to label people traitors or rebels," said one comment, although some pro-government comments said the law could help fight "infiltration," a current preoccupation of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Touchy topics

Taiwan-based Chinese dissident Gong Yujian said the amendments tie in with the Chinese government's reaction to the release of wastewater from Japan's damaged Fukushima nuclear power station, and that actions linked to three places – Japan, the United States and Taiwan – are the most likely to trigger accusations under the law, if passed.

For example, in 2022 sports brand Li-Ning apologized after some of its fashion designs were likened to Japanese military uniforms.

"When it comes to who hurts the feelings of the Chinese people most, Japan is in top place, the United States is second, and Taiwan is in third place," Gong said. 

"These [proposed] rules continue to incite nationalistic sentiment in China, as well as placing strict controls on people's clothing, food, housing, and transportation methods," he said. 

"It proves once and for all that China under the totalitarian rule of Xi Jinping is heading pell-mell into another Cultural Revolution, the end result of which will be zero freedom for the Chinese people,” he said.

Room for ambiguity

The proposed amendments come in the wake of recent legislation targeting foreign entities and individuals in China that includes recent amendments to the Counterespionage Law, and a Foreign Relations Law.

Wu Se-Chih of Taiwan's Cross-Strait Policy Association said the rules seem to be part of the same political campaign by the government.

"They want to cut off any connection between what the Chinese Communist Party identifies as hostile foreign forces and the Chinese people," Wu said. "It is somewhat related to the anti-Japanese populist sentiment triggered by the recent discharge of nuclear wastewater by Japan."

He said there was plenty of room for ambiguity and doubt in the new rules, and the extent to which they would be implemented, if passed.

"Is Chinese national pride destroyed just by wearing clothing referencing Japanese, American or other foreign cultures, or by eating in Japanese restaurants, or by driving American, European or Japanese cars?" Wu said.

"If they replace liking foreign cultures with anti-Japanese or anti-U.S. sentiment, won't that harm [China's] foreign relations? And wouldn't that also hurt the feelings of the Chinese people?" he said.

Wu said he believes the insistence on whipping up nationalistic sentiment is linked to authoritarian and totalitarian rule, and also acts as a distraction from China's current economic woes.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hsia Hsiao-hwa for RFA Mandarin.

It’s a stock phrase frequently used by Chinese officials and state media to criticize speech or actions by outsiders that Beijing disapproves of. 

But now it could be turned against the Chinese people themselves.

Under a proposed amendment to the Public Security Administration Law, wearing the wrong T-shirt or complaining about China online could lead to a fine of up to 5,000 yuan (US$680) or 15 days in jail.

The law doesn't specify what kind of acts might do such a thing, but does warn that "denying the deeds" of revolutionary heroes and martyrs or defacing their public memorials would count. 

China already has in place laws banning insults to revolutionary heroes and martyrs, as well as to the national anthem, its soldiers and police force.

"The wearing in public places ... of clothing and symbols that damage the spirit of the Chinese nation, or that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people," could land perpetrators with up to 10 days in detention and fines of up to 5,000 yuan, according to draft amendments currently open for public consultation and viewable on the website of the National People’s Congress.

"Items or remarks that contain sentiments about the Chinese nation," will also be banned, as will "producing, disseminating or publicizing products that are detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese nation or harmful to it."

‘Can we criticize football?’

Online comments took aim at the lack of specifics in the draft, wondering if "watching anime," "riding a roller-coaster," or "wearing a suit and tie" would count as violations of the law.

"Can we still criticize Chinese football in future?" one wanted to know. “So Chinese people should just all wear Mao suits now,” said another.

"If [someone] wearing clothes hurts your feelings, then you're just too fragile," commented another, while one social media user quipped: "Take one bit of KFC and I'll report you!"

Others worried that praising any other country could amount to hurting the feelings of the Chinese people, or nation.

"This will probably be used to label people traitors or rebels," said one comment, although some pro-government comments said the law could help fight "infiltration," a current preoccupation of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Touchy topics

Taiwan-based Chinese dissident Gong Yujian said the amendments tie in with the Chinese government's reaction to the release of wastewater from Japan's damaged Fukushima nuclear power station, and that actions linked to three places – Japan, the United States and Taiwan – are the most likely to trigger accusations under the law, if passed.

For example, in 2022 sports brand Li-Ning apologized after some of its fashion designs were likened to Japanese military uniforms.

"When it comes to who hurts the feelings of the Chinese people most, Japan is in top place, the United States is second, and Taiwan is in third place," Gong said. 

"These [proposed] rules continue to incite nationalistic sentiment in China, as well as placing strict controls on people's clothing, food, housing, and transportation methods," he said. 

"It proves once and for all that China under the totalitarian rule of Xi Jinping is heading pell-mell into another Cultural Revolution, the end result of which will be zero freedom for the Chinese people,” he said.

Room for ambiguity

The proposed amendments come in the wake of recent legislation targeting foreign entities and individuals in China that includes recent amendments to the Counterespionage Law, and a Foreign Relations Law.

Wu Se-Chih of Taiwan's Cross-Strait Policy Association said the rules seem to be part of the same political campaign by the government.

"They want to cut off any connection between what the Chinese Communist Party identifies as hostile foreign forces and the Chinese people," Wu said. "It is somewhat related to the anti-Japanese populist sentiment triggered by the recent discharge of nuclear wastewater by Japan."

He said there was plenty of room for ambiguity and doubt in the new rules, and the extent to which they would be implemented, if passed.

"Is Chinese national pride destroyed just by wearing clothing referencing Japanese, American or other foreign cultures, or by eating in Japanese restaurants, or by driving American, European or Japanese cars?" Wu said.

"If they replace liking foreign cultures with anti-Japanese or anti-U.S. sentiment, won't that harm [China's] foreign relations? And wouldn't that also hurt the feelings of the Chinese people?" he said.

Wu said he believes the insistence on whipping up nationalistic sentiment is linked to authoritarian and totalitarian rule, and also acts as a distraction from China's current economic woes.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hsia Hsiao-hwa for RFA Mandarin.

“The September 3 arrest of journalist Khalifa Guesmi is a clear attack on journalists and the freedom of the press in Tunisia,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Tunisian authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Guesmi, drop all charges against him, and ensure that journalists can work freely without fear of imprisonment.”

Tunisian police arrested Guesmi, a correspondent at local independent radio station and news website Mosaique FM, in the southern city of Kairouan and brought him to the capital, Tunis, to serve his sentence. 

Guesmi was initially arrested on March 18, 2022, and held for a week after authorities alleged that his reporting about the dismantling of a terrorist cell illegally disclosed information about government surveillance. On November 29, a court sentenced Guesmi to one year in prison. On May 16, 2023, an appeals court increased his sentence to five years.

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

A 54-year-old climate activist who was among hundreds of peaceful protesters criminalized for opposing the construction of an oil pipeline through pristine Indigenous lands is facing up to five years in prison, amid growing alarm at the crackdown on legitimate environmental protests.

Mylene Vialard was arrested in August 2021 while protesting in northern Minnesota against the expansion and rerouting of Line 3 – a 1,097-mile tar sands oil pipeline with a dismal safety record, that crosses more than 200 water bodies from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the US midwest.

Vialard was charged with felony obstruction and gross misdemeanor trespass on critical infrastructure after attaching herself to a 25-foot bamboo tower erected to block a pumping station in Aitkin county. The gross misdemeanor charge, a post 9/11 law which has been used widely against protesters, was eventually dismissed after a court ruled there was insufficient evidence.

Vialard refused to take a plea deal on the felony charge, and her trial opened in Aitkin county on Monday.

“It was kind of a torturous decision. But in the end, I couldn’t sign a piece of paper saying I was guilty because I’m not the guilty party here. Enbridge is guilty, the violation of treaty rights, the pollution, the risk to water, that is what’s wrong. I’m just using my voice to point out something that’s wrong,” said Vialard, a self-employed translator and racial justice activist from Boulder, Colorado.

“I’m preparing my house for the worst case scenario,” she added.

Vialard’s arrest was not an anomaly. Minnesota law enforcement – which along with other agencies received at least $8.6 million in payments from the Canadian pipeline company Enbridge – made more than 1,000 arrests between December 2020 and September 2021.

The protesters, who identified as water protectors, were arrested during non-violent direct actions across northern Minnesota as construction of the 330-mile line expansion jumped from site to site, in what campaigners say was a coordinated strategy to divide and weaken the Indigenous-led social movement – an allegation Enbridge denies.

Overall, at least 967 criminal charges were filed including three people charged under the state’s new critical infrastructure protection legislation – approved as part of a wave of anti-protest laws inspired by the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a rightwing group backed by fossil fuel companies.

Among those criminalized were a grandfather in his late 70s, numerous teenagers, first-time protesters and seasoned activists – many of whom travelled long distances amid growing anger and desperation at the government’s lack of urgency in tackling the climate emergency.

Yet the vast majority of charges were eventually dismissed – either outright by prosecutors and judges or through plea deals, suggesting the mass arrests were about silencing and distracting protesters, according to Claire Glenn, an attorney at the Climate Defense Project.

“It was obviously not about criminal sanctions or public safety because otherwise the prosecutors would not be dismissing these cases left and right. Enbridge was paying police to get people off the protest line and tied up with pretrial conditions, so they could get the pipeline in the ground, and it worked,” said Glenn, who has represented more than 100 Line 3 protesters including Vialard.

In a statement to the Guardian, Enbridge said the protesters were not arrested for peaceful protest but acted in ways that were “illegal and unsafe”, endangering themselves and others and causing damage.

Line 3 has a long track record of environmental disasters since it began operating in 1968, including a 1.7 million gallon spill at Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 1991 which remains the largest inland oil leak in US history. Enbridge reduced its capacity amid growing concerns about the pipeline’s safety, but in 2014 announced a multibillion-dollar project to expand and partially reroute the pipeline.

Construction went ahead everywhere except Minnesota due to widespread opposition from tribal nations, some state agencies, and climate and environmental groups. But in late 2020, regulators granted the remaining permits, and construction began in freezing cold December as thousands of Americans were dying every week from Covid.

Vialard and her teenage daughter were among thousands of ordinary people from across the US to respond to Indigenous activists requesting help in protecting their sovereign territory and water sources.

“The video of Indigenous leaders calling on white people to show up and do what was necessary to protect the land was very moving. There’s been so much racism and so much abuse towards Indigenous people throughout history, that this felt like part of the work that we need to do,” Vialard said.

It wasn’t the first time an Indigenous-led movement garnered wider public support.

The huge 2016 gathering of tribes and allies defending Standing Rock Sioux territory from the Dakota Access pipeline captured the world’s attention, and inspired a global movement of resistance to fossil-fuel infrastructure projects. The protest was brutally policed but the tribe never backed down and succeeded in forcing an environmental impact study – which could eventually shut down the pipeline.

The Standing Rock success triggered a wave of new anti-protest laws and could explain why in Minnesota Enbridge made it difficult for activists – and the media – by constructing at multiple sites simultaneously, according to the attorney Glenn.

Vialard had supported Standing Rock from afar but Line 3, located more than 1,000 miles from Boulder, was her first experience of civil disobedience or direct action. The arrests were tough – but Vialard says that the environmental destruction she saw was even harder.

“People being arrested was the reality. But I was mostly worried about the destruction of pristine lands that I was witnessing. I went to the headwaters of the Mississippi, such an iconic gorgeous river full of rare species, and to turn around and see this big swath of destruction through the forest … that was really very moving to me, it just breaks my heart.”

The new Line 3 started transporting oil in October 2021.

Minnesota environmental regulators have confirmed four groundwater aquifer breaches along the new pipeline – including one last month in Aitkin county, not far from where Vialard was arrested, at a wild rice lake in an area with complex wetlands and peat bogs. Enbridge, which reported gross profits of $16.55 billion for the year ending June 2023, has so far been fined $11 million to address the breaches, which a spokesperson said “Enbridge reported transparently and corrected them consistent with plans approved by the agencies.”

Oil from tar sands is among the dirtiest and most destructive fossil fuels, emitting three times as much planet-heating pollution as conventional crude oil. Environmentalists say the Line 3 expansion was the equivalent of adding 38 million fossil fuel-powered vehicles to our roads.

Many of the Line 3 defendants – including Vialard’s daughter – opted for plea deals, but the legal wrangling still tied people up for months or years. Some were left with a criminal record while others were able to secure a “deferred adjudication” plea in exchange for the charge being erased after a probationary period that restricted their ability to protest, find work and travel.

Vialard’s is only the second felony case to reach the trial phase, but several other Line 3 cases remain open and a misdemeanor trial against 70-year-old Jill Ferguson also begins on Monday, in Clearwater county. Next month three Anishinaabe women elders – Winona LaDuke, Tania Aubid, and Dawn Goodwin – will go on trial together on gross misdemeanor critical infrastructure charges related to a January 2021 protest.

But the mass arrests and criminalization of Line 3 activists is part of a nationwide – and global – trend of suppressing legitimate protests about climate and environmental harms, according to Marla Marcum, director of the Climate Disobedience Centre, which supports climate activists engaged in civil disobedience in the US.

“The pattern of heavier and heavier criminalization is undeniable. It’s a tactic which aims to divide and distract activists, suppress dissent and stop ordinary folks getting involved as more and more people wake-up to the urgency of the situation … tying people up for years is a huge emotional and energy drag.”

Marcum says that most environmental activists are being charged with serious crimes from old statutes such as domestic terrorism and gross trespass.

Yet since 2017 45 states have passed or tried to pass new legislation that further restricts the right to protest, and which expands penalties for protesters. At least three states – Oklahoma, Iowa, and Florida – have passed legislation providing some impunity for those who injure protesters, according to the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law, which tracks anti-protest bills.

“When a protest movement is righteous, effective and powerful, the US government responds by trying to chill, deter and criminalize rather than engaging with the issue,” said Vera Eidelman, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s speech, privacy and technology project who focuses on the right to protest and free speech rights.

A spokesperson from Enbridge said: “Protesters were not arrested for peaceful protest. They were arrested for breaking the law. Illegal and unsafe acts by protesters endangered themselves, first responders and our workers. They also caused millions of dollars in damages … including to equipment owned by small businesses and Tribal contractors on the project. We support efforts to hold protesters accountable for their actions. Activists may attempt to position this as a global conspiracy. It isn’t.”

The past two years since the arrest have been difficult for Vialard, and fighting the criminal charges has cost a lot of time, energy and lost income, but she doesn’t regret answering the call for help from Indigenous leaders.

“I was born and raised in France, and was never taught about the people and wisdom being crushed and forgotten because of colonization. But there’s so much to learn from ancient wisdom and so much to unpack within ourselves … You don’t have to get arrested, but be brave and do something that’s valuable for your future, for your children and their children’s future. It’s so enriching.”

Last month, Vialard packed up her house and headed back to northern Minnesota to prepare for the trial among those who tried their best to stop the pipeline that is polluting waterways and warming the planet.

“I am preparing for the worst case scenario. Making this decision was not an easy one, but I feel like it’s our duty to to fight when the decisions being made are so wrong. There is pollution everywhere, climate change is a reality and yet the oil and gas industry is still destroying our planet. I’m just a regular person but it’s pretty crazy to me.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘I’m not the guilty one’: the water protector facing jail time for trying to stop a pipeline on Sep 2, 2023.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Nina Lakhani, The Guardian.