Barwe, the founder of the Samarth Bharat Pariwar YouTube-based news channel, was brutally beaten July 4 while reporting on claims of  illegal construction activity on disputed land in the Manchar region of Maharashtra’s Pune district, according to several news reports. A widely circulated video of the attack, reviewed by CPJ, shows a man striking Barwe with a wooden rod before the journalist  loses consciousness. She was hospitalized for three days with serious head and spinal injuries, and is currently recovering at home.

Police arrested five men over two days in connection with the attack who were granted bail and released,  Indian Express reported. The suspect wielding the stick has yet to be taken into custody.

“It is unacceptable that journalist Sneha Barwe’s attackers still walk free two weeks after her violent assault. This sends a troubling message that attacking the press will be met with impunity,” said Kunāl Majumder, CPJ’s India representative. “Maharashtra authorities must act decisively to ensure accountability and send a clear signal that violence against journalists will not be tolerated.”

The arrested suspects were accused of violating six sections of the Indian Penal Code, including provisions related to voluntarily causing hurt and causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons, according to Indian media watchdog Free Speech Collective. Three other people were also hurt in the attack with Barwe, who had been targeted on at least two previous occasions in connection with her reporting on local governance issues.

Srikant Kankal, the police officer supervising Barwe’s case, did not respond to CPJ’s texted request for an update on finding the journalist’s main attacker.

In February 2023, journalist Sashikant Warishe was murdered for reporting on a land dispute in Maharashtra.

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

As evidence mounts America's reckless, illegal, peace-through-stupidity attacks on Iran's nuclear sites did not in fact "OBLITERATE" them and could instead prove perilous, the moronic man-child lurches, rages, yammers on with deranged declarations - THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT! CNN is scum! Prosecute Dems! Unpatriotic! - duly parroted by his rabid flunkies: "Wave American Flags!" Still they go lower and crasser: Who had a juvenile White House resurrecting Vince Vance & The Valiants' Bomb Iran on their Clown Show Bingo Card?

After Israel finally got a U.S. president dumb enough to bomb Iran if they did - and to take his Very Serious strategic geo-political leads from what Fox News was saying - the TV-game-show-host-in chief who'd always wanted to be in a war as long as he didn't have to, you know, be in it violated U.S. and international law by launching strikes on Iran's three largest nuclear sites without legally mandated Congressional approval to do so, probably after both Israel and Iran went to him with tears in their eyes and said, "Please sir, you're the only one who can save us." Then, with only early, flimsy reports coming in, he swiftly proclaimed it "ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY" and a "PERFECT FLIGHT" and "total Obliteration for years and years" by "genius people in the military" and "it was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and STOP THE WAR!” Uh huh

After declaring a yuge fake victory, he declared a yuge fake ceasefire - which he evidently thought was like pressing the button on the Resolute Desk for Diet Coke, or like Michael Scott in The Office yelling, "I declare bankruptcy!" - by announcing that both Iran and Israel, now that they'd "gotten it all out of their 'system,'" had agreed to “a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE” that would lead to “an Official END to THE 12 DAY WAR." He excitedly added, "CONGRATULATIONS WORLD, ITS TIME FOR PEACE!" (No, really, he did.) "THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT! DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”

The announcement, "friendly plane wave" and all, took not just Israel and Iran but his own advisers by surprise, probably because the so-called leader of the free world is a batshit crazy, power-mad, 12-year-old living in a fever dream reality show who thinks saying something, no matter how delusional, makes it so. It didn't. Iran promptly said, "As of now, there is NO ‘agreement’ on any cessation of military operations." Israel, despite all those impressive CAPS, promptly dropped a load of bombs that the ignored, enraged ringmaster for the 7,846th time called "the likes of which I've never seen before." "Israel has to calm down," he testily told reporters. "These are two countries fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing" - a blaring pot/kettle allusion that most of the sentient world savagely noted and mocked, but he somehow missed.

Still, reality came calling. Emerging assessments - from U.S. intelligence, European leaders, media like The Financial Times, New York Times, CNN - found the attacks did less-than-obliterating damage, likely only setting back the nuclear program a few months and leaving the stockpile "largely intact.” Evidence, including photos of trucks lined up the day before removing uranium enriched material to unknown sites, suggest Iran knew the attacks were coming. Other questions linger: Maybe Fordow wasn't a major site, maybe the bombs didn't go deep enough to inflict serious damage, etc. Meanwhile, Iran charged the U.S. had "crossed a very big red line," suspended cooperation with nuclear watchdog agencies, and, experts say, may have decided to move ahead with a nuclear weapon having learned that diplomacy is "reversible, fragile and vulnerable to changes in leadership in Washington."

With the rest of us now facing what Gestapo Barbie calls "a heightened threat environment" thanks to a clusterfuck regime of clowns who make Dr. Strangelove look like a statesman, the inept juvenile who failed at casinos, steak, water, wine and now war just keeps blustering: "The sites (were) totally destroyed and everyone knows it," "It's called obliteration. No other military on Earth could have done it," "an unbelievable hit by genius pilots," "It’s gone for years, years. Inside, it’s all collapsed. Nobody can get in. It's a room that has ten million tons of rock in it." Also, he gloated, it was just like Hiroshima: "That hit ended the war. And this was essentially the same thing.” Finally, for any lingering doubts or discomfiting facts, blame "Fake News," with ZERO CREDIBILITY!” who are "scum....They're bad people. They're sick," including a CNN reporter who should be "thrown out 'like a dog."

Puffed up, he also urged the trial of fellow felon Netanyahu be "CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY" to save a "Great Hero," because America "saved" Israel and "now it is going to be the United States of America that saves" Bibi." At NATO, he told a head-swiveling, wildly under-reported story about Iran asking if it was OK they shoot 14 retaliatory missiles at the U.S. military base in Qatar at 1 o'clock. "They were very nice," Trump burbled. "They gave us warning...I said it's fine," despite America's alleged commander-in-chief agreeing to be bombed sure sounds like treason to us. "I am pleased to report that NO Americans were harmed, and hardly any damage was done...There will, hopefully, be no further HATE." He also sagely explained that everyone was taken off the base "except the gunners - they call them the gunners." At his side, Marco Rubio looks like Homer Simpson trying to melt into bushes.

Still, lacking alternatives, the minions have gamely climbed on board. Press Barbie screeched the attack was an "overwhelming success - everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets," but spent more time trashing a CNN reporter who suggested it wasn't. Drunken Pete, even angrier and more unhinged, proclaimed the strikes "the most complex and secretive military operation in history" - except how Iran knew about them and D-Day's Allied invasion of France took a year's planning, 156,000 soldiers, 195,700 navy personnel, and the cooperation of 13 nations - and launched a furious diatribe for an audience of one against mean media for seeking accurate information, aka "hunting for scandals," insulting Dear Leader and "brave pilots," and trying to "manipulate the public mind" rather than "talk about how special America is" and "Wave an American flag." What a belligerent asshole.

Trump loved it, praising "one of the greatest, most professional, and - running out of adjectives besides "beautiful" and "strong" - most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen!" Less entertainingly, he simply ignored diverging assessments of the U.S. intelligence community - a move former CIA Director Leon Panetta called "a very scary prospect" - dismissed the whistleblower who leaked them as a “low-level loser” while "declaring a war on leakers," announced he will (illegally, irrationally) limit classified information he shares with Congress despite no evidence the leaks came from Congress, the next day charged Dems leaked the information and "they should be prosecuted!" - this from the idiots who leaked actual war plans on Signal - and jabbered that the photos of trucks lined up at nuclear sites were those of "concrete workers trying to cover up the tops of the shafts." Say what?

Improbably, even without SCOTUS evil, it keeps getting weirder and worse. After NATO Sec. General Mark Rutte made a cringe joke about Trump as "Daddy," MAGA picked up and ran with the grotesque "Daddy" shtick: The White House posted a "Daddy's home" video, Fox giddily smirked that, thanks to those cool, pointless big-boy bombs being dropped, Republicans are "back to being the Daddy party - he gets things done," hideous orange Daddy merch instantly materialized. The final, puerile, demented abomination (for this week), like something from The Whitest Kids U' Know: He posted a 1995 parody video of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann by Vince Vance & The Valiants called Bomb Iran: "Went to a mosque/ Gonna throw some rocks." Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. His country's stunned response: "Bro, how the fuck is this real?" Honestly, we have no idea.

— (@)

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

The BDS movement has a global list of companies to boycott. Those on the list include multinational corporations such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Dell, HP, Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and Domino’s, among others, that have been associated with or shown support for Israel. The logic being that a withdrawal of such monetary, cultural, military and other support would prohibit Israel from carrying out its offensive in Palestine. It is estimated that about 53,000 Palestinians have been killed in this since October 2023, with the actual toll likely to be far higher.

The demonstration by 10-12 IPSP members on May 10 was along similar lines. They were distributing pamphlets on what was happening in Palestine outside a Domino’s outlet. Just when they were about to wrap up, things suddenly escalated.

What Happened on May 10?

One of the IPSP members, Swapnaja Manoj Limkar, told Alt News that the pro-Palestine group was questioned by 10-15 people as they were carrying out their campaign. “They asked us, ‘What are you doing?’, ‘What about Pahalgam?’, pointed at the Palestine flag and called us ‘deshdrohi‘ (traitor)… We were, anyway, wrapping up at that point and leaving, but within a few minutes, these people called some 50-60 others over there. They mentioned they were from the Bajrang Dal. One of those who led the mob was a BJP leader from Pune,” she said.

“At this point, there were only four of us—two females and two males—remaining there because I asked everybody else to leave when I sensed this might be escalating,” she said, adding, “One person from the mob started hitting the two men with a cricket bat. Lalita (another IPSP member present there) and I were trying to shield them as the mob was not attacking the women. If we hadn’t been there, it could have turned into a lynching situation… I was given rape and death threats, my saree was torn”.

Swapnaja’s account of the thrashing was corroborated by a video shared by the Instagram account @hindutvawatchin on May 12. The caption reads: “Hindu nationalists assaulted activists who were distributing pamphlets against the genocide in Gaza as part of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement, in front of a Domino’s outlet.” It also mentioned that the mob was led by BJP leaders Mahesh Pavale and Sagar Dhame.

The video showed two men holding an individual by their collar as others joined in to hit him. While this was happening, a woman in a green saree could be seen trying to shield the individual. In the same video, some men were treating another individual in a similar way when a woman in a black and white saree tried to protect him from the violence. The video also shows the mob hurling abuses at them. At some point, someone from the enraged mob could also be heard shouting “Pakistan Zindabad”. But the audio was not clear, so we could not decipher whether it was said in a particular context or as part of sloganeering.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Hindutva Watch (@hindutvawatchin)

A May 11 post on the official Instagram page of BDS India on May 11 detailed the incident with Swapnaja’s statement. The caption said that the police allegedly detained IPSP members while the assailants were let go.

Swapnaja also told Alt News that BJP leader Mahesh Pavale, who allegedly led the mob, told the police that IPSP members raised ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans. “It was spread in the news that in our protest, we raised ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans, it was also claimed that we were promoting pro-Hamas policies when we have clearly mentioned in our pamphlet that we do not support the ideology of Hamas, we only support the Palestinian liberation movement, the freedom struggle of Palestine”.

Hamas is a political and militant organisation that controls the Gaza Strip. It had launched an attack against Israel in October 2023, which triggered the war in which thousands of civilians have now been killed.

Swapnaja also showed us pictures of several other similar campaigns they organised. “We never faced backlash like this,” she said.

Police Complaints

Both parties filed complaints against each other at the Warje-Malwadi police station in Pune on May 12. Alt News has reviewed a copy of these.

A first information report (FIR) filed by the IPSP names three individuals—Mahesh Pavale, Sagar Dhame and Amit Jadhav. All three are affiliated with the BJP. Thy have been charged under sections 79, 189(2), 190, 191(2), 115(2), 351(2) and 352 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

Section 79 deals with words, gestures or acts intended to insult the modesty of a woman, while 189(2) deals with knowingly joining or remaining in an unlawful assembly despite being aware that it is unlawful. Section 190 punishes every member of unlawful assembly as guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object, 191(2) looks at punishment for provoking riots, 115(2) deals with voluntarily causing hurt, 351(2) with criminal intimidation and 352 with intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace.

Meanwhile, the FIR filed by the Hindutva group is against 11 individuals of the IPSP, of which only four were named in the FIR. However, the charges invoked by them were far more severe. The FIR charged them with sections 196, 299, 302, 189(2), 190, 126(2) and 135 of the BNS.

Section 196 deals with promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, or any other ground, 299 punishes those indulging in deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs, 302 penalises those who speak with with deliberate intent to wound religious feelings of another person, 126(2) deals with wrongfully restraining a person and 135 punishes those who assault or use criminal force to confine a person wrongfully.

Note that the FIR against IPSP has no mention of the ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans. Alt News also reached out to the deputy commissioner of police (Zone 3) Sambhaji Kadam, who told us that the cases were under investigation, and presently, statements are being recorded. When asked about the severity of the sections in the FIRs, DCP Kadam said that all sections imposed were “proper and correct”. Regarding the claim of the ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogan being raised by the protestors, he said that the matter is being investigated, and the CCTV footage is being reviewed. He did not confirm or deny whether such slogans were raised nor told us by which group.

Note that the IPSP did not have police permissions for their demonstration.

Swapnaja called the charges against the IPSP by the Hindutva mob ‘baseless’. She told Alt News that IPSP was moving the High Court to quash the FIR. “All the charges mentioned in the FIR we filed against them are bailable, while the charges filed against us are non-bailable,” she said.

The post Pro-Palestine group in Pune attacked by Hindutva mob, booked for promoting religious enmity appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

The Summit (Colo.) Daily (5/2/24) amplified the anxiety health consumers felt in the face of providers’ and insurers’ threats.

This time last year, tens of thousands of people in Colorado anxiously wondered if they’d have to find a new doctor or start using a different hospital. Contracts setting payment levels for Catholic Church–affiliated hospital chain CommonSpirit Health to be a member of preferred provider networks run by insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado were set to expire on May 1, 2024, and negotiations were a train wreck.

CommonSpirit accused Anthem of trying to pay rates so low that its hospitals couldn’t afford to take care of patients, while Anthem shot back that CommonSpirit wanted rate increases at more than twice the rate of inflation (CBS KKTV 11, 4/30/24).

Media coverage reached a fever pitch as the deadline approached. Without a new agreement, Coloradans covered by Anthem insurance plans would have to pay far more out of pocket to use CommonSpirit hospitals and the system’s affiliated doctors (Denver Post, 4/26/24). The potential consequences would be extreme in communities where CommonSpirit is a dominant provider, especially in the state’s rural and resort areas, where the company’s facilities are the only available option for miles around (KOAA, 5/1/24). “What Do We Do?” a plaintive Summit Daily headline (5/2/24) asked.

The high-stakes negotiations dragged on for more than two weeks past the contract’s expiration, with the two corporate giants contending that the other side wanted dangerously low or unaffordably high rates.

The eventual settlement was greeted with a mixture of relief and anger from patients whose care had been disrupted. La Plata County resident Christie Hunter, whose son Ollie suffers from myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disorder that weakens voluntary muscles, told the Durango Herald (5/17/24, 5/1/24) she was glad the two healthcare titans had settled, but angry that the dispute disrupted her family’s healthcare. The time spent looking for new providers “would have been much better spent trying to help my son, and get him feeling well enough to go to school.” Ollie’s first day at school after months of treatment and preparation was the day the Hunters received initial notice that they could lose access to his specialists.

Although the high-stakes conflict was about money, the terms of the new five-year price deal remain secret.

Performative hostage-taking

This kind of performative patient hostage-taking has become standard practice in hospital rate negotiations across the US. At least four major network contracts in Ohio/Virginia, Connecticut, Texas and Missouri expired at the beginning of April alone.

Media coverage usually captures the anxiety that patients like the Hunters experience at the disruption of critical medical relationships. Otherwise, the quality and depth of coverage varies widely. Some reporting fuels public hysteria to the benefit of the parties, while the best coverage provides critical national context and alerts audiences what to expect.

To help FAIR readers understand what’s happening when these conflicts hit their communities, we’ve assembled a few lessons from the past few years, and principles that should frame local and regional media coverage.

Think mob war

These stories are best understood as economic warfare between gangsters dividing money already looted from the public. Insurers, who offer employers and patients nothing the government can’t do better and cheaper, fight with hospital corporations who wield monopoly power to negotiate the world’s highest prices for inpatient care, leaving millions of Americans saddled with unmanageable medical debt.

Communicating with the public and political leaders through the media is a key negotiating strategy for both hospitals and insurance companies. Each side accuses the other of threatening patients’ access to doctors and hospitals. The corporations issue a deluge of press releases, statements and FAQ webpages to inform patients of pending changes to coverage, and the consequences for their financial, physical and mental health—all seasoned with a heavy dose of spin. The goal is to ratchet up public anxiety as the deadline approaches, and attach blame to the other side to win concessions.

Negotiations receive intense local and regional media coverage, following the same script. Both sides publicize the looming deadline, and warn that patients may lose access to local hospitals and valued doctors. Insurers accuse hospitals of price-gouging, while hospitals insist that insurers want to pay them less than it costs to take care of patients.

You’ll probably keep your doctor

KFF Health News (2/1/19) accurately characterized the antagonists in the rate disputes as “behemoths.”

Outlets frequently catch on to the fact that they’re witnessing “a battle of Goliath and Goliath,” as Dallas-based D Magazine (4/1/25) framed a recent clash in Texas. But reporters and editors should also alert their audiences to the fact that the conflicts usually resolve themselves after a few weeks or months of widespread terror.

Large local and regional insurers can’t run provider networks without major hospital systems, and hospital systems can’t afford to lose access to patients covered by major health insurers. As Georgetown University professor Sabrina Corlette told KFF Health News (2/1/19) during a 2019 dispute in California:

When you have a big behemoth healthcare system and a big behemoth payer with tens of thousands of enrolled lives, the incentives to work something out privately become much stronger.

This is what the market looks like 

The US healthcare financing system relies on the mechanism of having private health insurance companies build networks that use financial and bureaucratic coercion to force patients to use hospitals and doctors within the network, instead of other providers. Insurers offer hospitals privileged access to the thousands of “lives” they cover in exchange for discounted rates. This is supposed to lower costs and improve the quality of healthcare.

You can’t have networks with discounted rates without rate negotiations, which is why these high-stakes gang wars are so common and will continue. The degree to which these rate negotiations are central to the functioning of “market-based” healthcare is a critical piece of context for reporters, too often missing from coverage.

In Colorado, for example, Pueblo Chieftain reporter Tracy Harmon largely followed the companies’ scripts in two stories (5/14/24, 5/20/24) on the Anthem/CommonSpirit fight, focusing on patients’ need for access and sourced almost exclusively to the two combatants.

Summit Daily News reporter Ryan Spencer (4/14/24) offered some additional context, using public data to show that the CommonSpirit hospital in Summit charged rates at twice the statewide average, and “reported profit margins of 35% or more in 2020 and 2021,” according to a report by the state Division of Insurance. Neither Spencer nor Harmon made the critical policy point that the network rate negotiations are supposed to be the country’s primary cost control mechanism.

It doesn’t work

In Colorado, Durango Herald reporter Reuben Schafir (3/23/24) came closest to discussing the core policy problem illustrated by corporate collisions over hospital rates. A spokesperson for a consumer healthcare NGO told Schafir: “These negotiations are often a lose/lose situation for consumers. Even a timely agreement would likely result in higher healthcare costs.”

In other words, the primary US cost control mechanism doesn’t work. Leaving prices to the outcome of mob wars has given the US the highest hospital prices in the world. Since hospital care remains the largest single element of national health spending, the failure of market-based hospital rate negotiations is one of the driving forces making the US an outlier as the costliest system in existence.

MIT economist Jonathan Gruber told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (4/3/25) that insurer/provider conflicts illustrate why “the government should step in and regulate prices.”

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram got this right. On April 1, contracts between Southwestern Health Resources (SWHR) and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) expired amidst the usual anxious media coverage (e.g., Dallas Morning News, 4/1/25; WFAA, 4/2/25; KDFW Fox 4, 4/1/25).

A long Q&A-style summary in the Star-Telegram (4/3/25; non-paywall MSN text here) featured MIT economist Jonathan Gruber saying that “really the insurers and the providers are both bad guys when it comes to costs.” According to Gruber, markets have failed, and

situations like these contract negotiations breaking down are good examples of why the government should step in and regulate prices that the private sector has failed to keep within reach of the average consumer.

Gruber’s quote could well have been national news itself. Gruber was the intellectual architect of the Affordable Care Act, and it’s remarkable for an expert of his stature and influence to say categorically that markets have failed, and that government needs to regulate prices. Regardless, Gruber’s observation that market contracts between private insurers and hospitals have failed, and are likely to continue failing, is essential to understanding what’s happening when the healthcare mob wars come to your town.

Washington gangsters agree

As usual in mob wars, politicians bought by the combatants publicly wring their hands, while collecting millions of dollars in campaign assistance from each side and doing nothing to end the carnage. When the allegedly charitable Northeast Georgia Health System and insurer UnitedHealthcare ramped up their fear campaigns in 2023, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D–Ga.) sent strongly worded letters to both parties, typically devoid of anything indicating whether and how Senator Warnock and colleagues intend to prevent this from happening again. The dispute was a rare one that ended without an agreement.

The ultimate missing context for these stories is that for all their public antagonism, the insurance and hospital industries march in lockstep on the most important policy questions in the nation’s capital. The American Hospital Association and health insurers both spend millions of the dollars they get from premiums, and the rates exchanged under the terms of these contracts, to defeat Medicare for All, and make even modest partial reforms, like Gruber’s proposed price regulation, politically impossible.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by John Canham-Clyne.

Hamdan Ballal, the Oscar-winning Palestinian director of No Other Land, was attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta, arrested by Israeli soldiers and held overnight. The group entered their village and started the assault shortly after residents broke their daily Ramadan fast. Ballal’s No Other Land co-director Basel Adra witnessed the attack. He tells Democracy Now! that “settlers and soldiers together attacked [Ballal] physically, brutally, and abducted him,” while soldiers pointed guns and fired warning shots at a group of villagers including women and children. Ballal screamed “I’m dying” as he was being beaten. “Although the Israeli military has accused Ballal and two other Palestinians of throwing stones at soldiers, another eyewitness, Jewish American peace activist Anna Lippman, says the accusations are groundless. “The double standard is so strong here in the West Bank that Palestinians know that if they were to touch a stone, that could mean their life.” Adra calls on international intervention to end the violent occupation of Masafer Yatta, where “almost every day there is [an] attack.” Since this interview was conducted, Ballal has reportedly been released from Israeli custody and returned to his family.

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

Lam Cheuk-ting’s footage, which appeared on Facebook, showed attacks by white-clad pro-China thugs on passengers at the Yuen Long Mass Transit Railway station on July 21 of that year.

It depicted panicked passengers and bystanders calling for police help that took nearly 40 minutes to arrive.

Lam, 47, who was himself attacked for his pains, was sent to the hospital with head and arm injuries that required about 18 stitches.

Yet he was arrested for “rioting” on Aug. 26, 2020, sparking a public outcry, as part of an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in Hong Kong.

Lam is currently serving a prison sentence of nearly seven years for “subversion” as one of the 47 pro-democracy activists prosecuted for organizing a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.

He can expect to serve 34 months of his rioting sentence after that term finishes.

Courts have skewed toward Beijing

Since the imposition of the 2020 National Security Law, Hong Kong’s once-independent courts have tended to issue rulings along pro-Beijing lines, particularly in politically sensitive cases, according to a 2024 report by law experts at Georgetown University.

Lam, a former Legislative Council member, was sentenced on Thursday alongside six other people convicted of the same charge, despite not being among the white-clad mob.

District Judge Stanley Chan said the defendants had taken part in “another riot” inside the station that was triggered by the attacks from the men wielding sticks and clubs.

He handed down sentences ranging between two years, one month to three years, one month.

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Referring to 2019 as “the year when the Pearl of the Orient lost its luster,” Chan said that the defendants had “responded to provocation” from around 100 men in white, about a dozen of whom have since been jailed for “rioting” and “conspiring to wound with intent.”

Chan said Lam hadn’t tried to calm people down, but had rather added “fuel to the flames” by providing a gathering point for people trying to resist the attacks.

6 others sentenced

The six other defendants -- Yu Ka Ho, Jason Chan, Yip Kam Sing, Kwong Ho Lam, Wan Chung Ming and Marco Yeung -- were sentenced to between 25-31 months.

They had tried to form a defensive line against the attackers, using fire extinguishers and water bottles, and pleaded self-defense during their trial.

But Chan said their actions were “unlawful assembly” and “breach of the peace,” saying that some of them had yelled at the attackers in white to come and fight them, as well as throwing objects at them.

“It is clear that at the time in question ... the defendants became the rioters,” he told the sentencing hearing.

During the attack--carried out by dozens of unidentified thugs in white T-shirts carrying wooden and metal poles--police were inundated with emergency calls, but didn’t move in until 39 minutes after it began.

(Anthony Wallace/AFP)

In a recent book about the protests, former Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent Shibani Mahtani and The Atlantic writer Timothy McLaughlin wrote that the Hong Kong authorities knew about the attacks in advance.

Members of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld “triad” organizations had been discussing the planned attack for days on a WhatsApp group that was being monitored by a detective sergeant from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, the book said.

The weeks and months after the incident saw a massive wave of public anger at the police, who were later seen as legitimate targets for doxxing and even violent attacks.

But instead of investigating, then Chief Executive Carrie Lam rejected any allegations of collusion, and later quashed a full report from the city’s police supervisory body on the handling of the protests.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party insists that the 2019 protests were an attempt by "hostile foreign forces" to foment an uprising against the government in Hong Kong.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.

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

In the video, the group can be seen walking through what appears to be fields and sounds of shots being fired can be heard too.

X user @MeghUpdates, who has been found sharing misinformation several times in the past, shared the clip alongside two other videos on November 28 with the following caption: “Radical mob attacked a village in Murshidpur in Sherpur District, Bangladesh. Hindu homes, crops destroyed. Livestock looted. One person has been killed. Even Sufi shrine of unorthodox islamic sect looted and vandalised.” The tweet has received over 3.66 lakh views and has been retweeted over 6,500 times. (Archive)

Radical mob attacked a village in Murshidpur in Sherpur District, Bangladesh.

Hindu homes, crops destroyed. Livestock looted. One person has been killed. Even Sufi shrine of unorthodox islamic sect looted and vandalised. pic.twitter.com/Ta7iHrwMu7

— Megh Updates (@MeghUpdates) November 28, 2024

Right-wing propaganda outlet Kreately.in (@KreatelyMedia) also tweeted the video with a caption that said: “Pray for Bangladeshi Hindus #AllEyesOnBangladeshiHindus”. (Archive)

Pray for Bangladeshi Hindus#AllEyesOnBangladeshiHindus pic.twitter.com/mkTOw2PvAx

— Kreately.in (@KreatelyMedia) November 28, 2024

The video seems to be among a string of similarly viral clips from Bangladesh after erstwhile Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August. Since then, the country has witnessed several targeted attacks against minorities including Hindus and several videos have—over the past few months—gone viral as cases of attacks against Hindu minorities there. Alt News has debunked several such (false) claims (Examples 1, 2, 3).

Even after the formation of the interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, there’s hardly been a let up in cases of violence and viral claims suggesting the same. Alt News has documented several such cases in a detailed report.

The viral video in question was shared by many claiming that it depicted an attack on Hindu minorities in Bangladesh by Muslims.

So, what’s at play here?

We ran a keyword search and found a news report by Dhaka Tribune from November 27 titled “7 held over attack on Sherpur’s Murshidpur Darbar Sharif”. The report said it was an incident of vandalism and looting that took place the previous day. Note that the this is the same location as the one mentioned in the viral claims. Darbar Sharif is a religious establishment in the Lachhmanpur area of Bangladesh’s Sherpur district. Sources at Darbar Sharif told Alt News that the attack was allegedly orchestrated by local madrasa teachers and residents who were concerned about “anti-Islamic practices” being conducted there. Thirteen people were injured in the incident.

Another report from The Daily Star, an English daily in Bangladesh, corroborates the details. This report also has an image, which helps identify the location from the viral video. Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

From the above context, it is clear that neither of the parties in the above incident is from the Hindu community. Hence, there is no communal angle to the matter.

We also found the same video posted by several users on Facebook with captions that say that a mob was headed towards Murshidpur Darbar Sharif.

Further, upon checking the Google Maps images of the Lachhmanpur area where the incident is said to have happened, we could confirm that the viral clip was indeed filmed near the Darbar Sharif, which had been vandalised. Additionally, the two other videos shared by @MeghUpdates also showed similarities to this area. Below is a comparison of screengrabs from all three videos and the Google Maps images.

Therefore, the claim that the viral video depicts a Muslim mob vandalising Hindu homes and destroying crops is false.

The post No, a Muslim mob in Bangladesh’s Sherpur district did not attack Hindu homes appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

We get an update from the University of California, Los Angeles, where police in riot gear began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday, using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas, and arresting dozens of students. The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods and fireworks attacked students at the encampment. The Real News Network reporter Mel Buer was on the scene during the attack. She describes seeing counterprotesters provoke students, yelling slurs and bludgeoning them with parts of the encampment’s barricade, and says the attack lasted several hours without police or security intervention. ”UCLA is complicit in violence inflicted upon protesters,” wrote the editorial board of UCLA’s campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin, the next day. Four of the paper’s student journalists were targeted and assaulted by counterprotesters while covering the protests. We speak with Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri, one of the student journalists, who says one of their colleagues was hospitalized over the assault, while campus security officers “were nowhere to be found.” Meanwhile, UCLA’s chapter of Faculty for Justice in Palestine has called on faculty to refuse university labor Thursday in protest of the administration’s failure to protect students from what it termed “Zionist mobs.” Professor Gaye Theresa Johnson, a member of UCLA Faculty for Justice in Palestine, denounces the administration’s response to nonviolent protest and says she sees the events as part of a major sea change in the politicization of American youth. “This is a movement. It cannot be unseen. It cannot be put back in the box.”

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

Around 12:30 p.m. on August 22, approximately 50 Sinhalese men led by a Buddhist monk surrounded vehicles holding the three journalists after they reported on alleged state-backed encroachments on Tamil cattle farmers’ land in the Mylathamadu area of the eastern district of Batticaloa, according to news reports, the rights group Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, and the three journalists, who spoke to CPJ.

The men—some armed with knives and swords—moved the three journalists and around 17 others, including farmers and members of an accompanying interfaith group, to an open area and held them in the presence of officers from a local government development authority. 

Although the interfaith group leaders immediately called the police, officers only arrived five hours later, after Tamil lawmakers raised the issue on the parliament floor.

As of August 30, police have not opened an investigation into the incident, the three journalists told CPJ. CPJ’s messages to the officer-in-charge of the Karadiyanaru Police Station, which oversees Mylathamadu, and Sri Lankan police spokesperson Nihal Thalduwa did not receive any replies. 

“Sri Lankan authorities must thoroughly and impartially investigate the recent harassment of Selvakumar Nilanthan, Valasingham Krishnakumar, and Antony Christopher Christiraj by a mob in Batticaloa, and work to end the pattern of impunity relating to attacks on Tamil reporters,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “Tamil journalists have a right to report on issues affecting their community without interference or fear of reprisal.”

Ethnic tensions persist between the Sinhalese people, the country’s majority ethnic group, and Tamils following the country’s 26-year civil war that ended in 2009.

Nilanthan, secretary of the Batticaloa District Tamil Journalists Association, was wearing a press jacket and reporting for the privately owned U.K.-based broadcaster IBC Tamil. While he was held, several of the men forced him to delete photos and videos of farmers’ testimonies and the mob setting fire to the land. 

He said they also forced him to sign two letters in Sinhala and Tamil stating that he would not report on the incident.

Christiraj, a freelance reporter, and Krishnakumar, a freelancer and the head of the Batticaloa District Tamil Journalists Association, were not wearing press jackets, hid their cameras, and did not inform the mob that they were reporters, they told CPJ.

When Christiraj and Krishnakumar later told police at the scene that they were members of the press, the Buddhist monk asked a police official to order all three journalists to delete their photos and videos, the reporters told CPJ, adding that the official did not comply with the request.

Members of the mob also pressured Krishnakumar to delete photos and videos after learning he was a journalist, which he refused to do, he said.

Although the mob assaulted a Hindu priest, the three journalists were not physically harmed, they told CPJ, adding that they felt traumatized and feared for their safety if they continued to report on the farmers’ plight.

In November 2020, police questioned Nilanthan at his home after reporting on Tamil farmers’ concerns following the growth of military-backed Sinhalese settlements in the district, including Mylathamadu.

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

In 2018, a newly hired software engineer at a defense and intelligence contractor in the Washington, D.C., suburbs was assigned to a team led by a senior developer named Hatchet Speed.

At first, the new engineer, Richard Ngo, got along well with Speed. They sometimes went out to lunch together and socialized away from the office. “Speed was my mentor at Novetta as the software lead,” Ngo later said in court testimony. “We worked together every day.”

But after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Ngo noticed that Speed, a longtime Navy reservist who had deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as an intelligence analyst and held other sensitive cyber and intelligence posts in connection with Naval Special Warfare units, seemed to be changing. Ngo had always known that Speed was a gun enthusiast, but after the Capitol riot, he became more openly anti-government than he had ever been before. “He was just frustrated with just how everything was going,” Ngo testified, adding that Speed was “panic-buying” guns.

What Ngo didn’t realize was that Speed, who had legally changed his first name from Daniel to Hatchet in 2007, according to Utah court records, had been an apocalyptic far-right extremist long before January 6.

No investigation has been conducted to determine whether Hatched Speed compromised classified information.

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Speed is the longest-serving official in the intelligence community to be charged so far in connection with January 6.

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This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by James Risen.

Photograph Source: TV BrasilGov – CC BY 3.0

The images of the January 8 violent attacks against the governmental buildings in Brasília spread through international media and are still resounding today. Wearing the colors of the national flag and the beloved Brazilian football team, the mob of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, stormed and vandalized the Federal Supreme Court, the National Congress’s building and the Planalto Presidential Palace, institutions that compose the Three Powers Plaza. The aim was to reject the election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The parallels to the storming of the U.S. Capitol two years ago are evident.

Many Brazilian political analysts were not surprised. “Brazilian political experts had been expecting this to happen since last year. The episode shows how a small group of Bolsonaro supporters does not respect the democratic values of the country,” said Brazilian historian and journalist Lucas de Souza Martins in a recent interview with the Americas Program.

Martins, a Ph.D. candidate at Temple University in Philadelphia in Latin America-U.S. Relations recalled that, back in 2018, when the then-candidate Fernando Haddad lost against Bolsonaro, “there was not a single supporter of the Workers’ Party who encouraged any action like the one taken by those who lost in 2022. In a certain way, President Bolsonaro gave voice to a group of activists who were always present in the Brazilian political scene; however, they did not believe they could pursue their agenda until the former Army captain became president.”

Raphael Tsavkko Garcia, Brazilian journalist and Ph.D. in Human Rights at the University of Deusto, stated: “The far-right has shown its strength on the streets, beyond the ballot box and on the internet. And it unveiled the deep collusion of the security forces and politicians in relevant positions with fascism. The institutions reacted quickly but showed themselves to be vulnerable.”

Garcia sees this as an opportunity to send a clear message to those who would assault Brazilian democracy. He noted the need “to seek swift and harsh punishment for those responsible” as a deterrent to future attacks on democratic institutions and rule of law. He added that prosecution should include not only those who stormed the buildings, but also the financiers and military leaders behind the attempted coup.

“This could be a chance to reform the armed forces, to put an end to the obsolete military justice, but I have doubts as to whether the government will seize the opportunity”, Garcia stated.

However, there is one obstacle: the Brazilian government never passed legislation or carried out trials to hold military forces accountable for their deeds during the civil-military dictatorship (1964–1985) like Argentina and other Latin American countries did. Garcia is skeptical about the possibility for further actions to pursue the Jan. 8 crimes, when Bolsonaro’s supporters openly supported a coup d’état to install another military dictatorship.

Garcia noted the similarities between the attacks on the U.S. Capitol and the government buildings in Brasília. “The link is direct. Contacts between the American and Brazilian extreme right are constant, not only between leaders via Steve Bannon, but also between militants of various statures within the pro-Bolsonaro movement. What happens in the U.S. is copied in Brazil and the invasion of the Capitol was celebrated by the extreme right in Brazil. No doubt they learned and replicated it, in their own way.”

Martins sees other similarities when comparing the far-right coup d’état attempts in both nations: Both involved minority groups that do not accept the results of the presidential elections and launch accusations of electoral fraud based on fake narratives spread through social media platforms.

“Bannon was the one who advised Bolsonaro to challenge the election result and encouraged Bolsonaristas to storm the headquarters of the three powers on January 8,” Garcia stated. “He played a major role forging the alliance between Trump and Bolsonaro and exchanging media guerrilla tactics. There are those who try to reduce his role, placing him only as a media figure who knows how to seize the moment, but I see him as fundamental in bridging the gap between the former U.S. and Brazilian presidents,” Garcia noted

Martins pointed out another similarity between Trump and Bolsonaro’s governments—the nepotism and corruption arising from the close participation of family members in their administrations. “We never heard of former President Dilma Rousseff’s daughter or former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s children dealing directly with cabinet issues. The same with the United States. Even Bush’s family members did not necessarily bring other relatives into their own political careers.”

The Brazilian attack ended with the destruction of three institutional buildings and at least 1,406 people arrested. When asked if the failure of the coup attempt on Jan. 8 and the government’s swift response will deter further violent events in Brazil, Martins mentioned the cost to the far-right rioters–not just in prison time, but also in political power and influence, “Those in charge of those attacks know that such a strategy is not worth it. Moderate voters tend to vote against the right wing when they see situations like that. And the far-right voters know they do not have enough institutional or popular support to install a coup through force. That is why, once again, former President Donald Trump is preparing his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, while former President Jair Bolsonaro’s party is setting up a new candidacy for 2026. I think they learned the lesson: it is necessary to win votes to return to the White House or the Planalto Palace.”

Garcia is less sure. “It’s impossible to predict if new violent demonstrations will take place”, he stated, noting the need to monitor the far-right as the extremists might be planning new destabilizing plots, even if not of the same magnitude as the Brasilia attack. When questioned on how Brazil could monitor the extremist forces and their actions, Garcia explained “There are several ways it can be done, but mostly through intelligence, using ABIN (Brazil’s Secret Service), the army’s intelligence and perhaps setting up a specific group to monitor such activities linked to the government and the justice, but also with the help of tech giants. In fact, the Supreme Court has several agreements with big tech, particularly during election periods, to tackle fake news, through moderating social networks, taking down profiles, etc.”

A friendly shift in Brazilian foreign policy

The attack on government buildings revealed the of the far-right in democratic Brazil, and also marked the closing ceremony of the Bolsonaro government, which will be remembered for its far-right ideology and violent proclivities.

The Bolsonaro presidency also created a profound shift in foreign policy. The country distanced itself from “everything it has historically stood for,” according to Garcia.  Under the prior Lula presidency, Brazil participated actively in regional integration, and mediated issues of regional and international importance. From being a leader in South America, it shrunk to the point of becoming ‘toxic’ during Bolsonaro’s government.

Bolsonaro implemented “an ideological diplomacy that distanced itself from everything the country has historically stood for. It made Brazil lose its prominent role in matters of great importance, to become a pariah. From a country admired and sought after for mediating on issues of international relevance, Brazil became toxic.”

Bolsonaro’s disdain for human rights, social equality and the preservation of the Amazon rainforest drove other countries away from Brazil. Martins noted that under his administration, Brazil was the last democracy in the world to acknowledge U.S. President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020. Bolsonaro made alliances with far-right ideologues, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Argentina’s Mauricio Macri, while cancelling the meeting in 2019 with French Chancellor Jean-Yves Le Drian due to “a barber shop appointment”, which undermined the conclusion of a prospective free trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur. For the historian, those events symbolize the dismal foreign policy legacy of the Bolsonaro days.

Will Lula’s leadership lead Brazilian foreign policy back to the era when it had a say in relevant international forums?

“At the very least, a return to the period when the country was leading and participating in important international discussions,” Garcia predicted. “No doubt, the world has become more complex, alliances more complicated to maintain and forge, but Lula can and should play an important role (thanks to Marina Silva) in debates about the environment and global warming. Of course, the Workers Party (PT) still maintains regrettable positions in relation to allies in Latin America, dictatorships like Nicaragua and Venezuela, but, in general, these are less relevant issues in the big picture of world discussions.”

Martins added that relations between the United States and Brazil will likely improve. “They will be absolutely better than the previous relationship between Biden and Bolsonaro. With Lula in office, both presidents share similar values regarding the importance of democratic institutions and their defense. The U.S. President was the first international head of state to greet Lula after his election. That means a lot in terms of the American interest toward Brasília.”

Improved relations with the U.S. could lead to progress in some important areas. “On the Brazilian side, Brasília must continue to demonstrate its commitment to the preservation of the Amazon rainforest and the development of green energy strategies. There is room for a beneficial partnership between the two countries on this matter. Beyond that, Brazil needs to do its homework regarding the modernization of its economy and the stability of the political system. Foreign investment tends to search for stable nations with a conducive environment for business,” Martins said.

“When it comes to Washington’s role, it has to do with acknowledging Brazil’s leadership in the South American region and respect for (and the establishment of non-coercive policies toward) President Lula’s administration positions on the international scene, such as his views on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the political crisis in Venezuela, and the relationship with China”, he continued.

The Bolsonaro government left animosity–within the country, and in foreign relations. In the years to come, Brazil will be watched as it launches a new approach, aiming to become more respected abroad as a mediator and peacemaker.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Gabriel Leão.

Photograph Source: TV BrasilGov – CC BY 3.0

The images of the January 8 violent attacks against the governmental buildings in Brasília spread through international media and are still resounding today. Wearing the colors of the national flag and the beloved Brazilian football team, the mob of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, stormed and vandalized the Federal Supreme Court, the National Congress’s building and the Planalto Presidential Palace, institutions that compose the Three Powers Plaza. The aim was to reject the election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The parallels to the storming of the U.S. Capitol two years ago are evident.

Many Brazilian political analysts were not surprised. “Brazilian political experts had been expecting this to happen since last year. The episode shows how a small group of Bolsonaro supporters does not respect the democratic values of the country,” said Brazilian historian and journalist Lucas de Souza Martins in a recent interview with the Americas Program.

Martins, a Ph.D. candidate at Temple University in Philadelphia in Latin America-U.S. Relations recalled that, back in 2018, when the then-candidate Fernando Haddad lost against Bolsonaro, “there was not a single supporter of the Workers’ Party who encouraged any action like the one taken by those who lost in 2022. In a certain way, President Bolsonaro gave voice to a group of activists who were always present in the Brazilian political scene; however, they did not believe they could pursue their agenda until the former Army captain became president.”

Raphael Tsavkko Garcia, Brazilian journalist and Ph.D. in Human Rights at the University of Deusto, stated: “The far-right has shown its strength on the streets, beyond the ballot box and on the internet. And it unveiled the deep collusion of the security forces and politicians in relevant positions with fascism. The institutions reacted quickly but showed themselves to be vulnerable.”

Garcia sees this as an opportunity to send a clear message to those who would assault Brazilian democracy. He noted the need “to seek swift and harsh punishment for those responsible” as a deterrent to future attacks on democratic institutions and rule of law. He added that prosecution should include not only those who stormed the buildings, but also the financiers and military leaders behind the attempted coup.

“This could be a chance to reform the armed forces, to put an end to the obsolete military justice, but I have doubts as to whether the government will seize the opportunity”, Garcia stated.

However, there is one obstacle: the Brazilian government never passed legislation or carried out trials to hold military forces accountable for their deeds during the civil-military dictatorship (1964–1985) like Argentina and other Latin American countries did. Garcia is skeptical about the possibility for further actions to pursue the Jan. 8 crimes, when Bolsonaro’s supporters openly supported a coup d’état to install another military dictatorship.

Garcia noted the similarities between the attacks on the U.S. Capitol and the government buildings in Brasília. “The link is direct. Contacts between the American and Brazilian extreme right are constant, not only between leaders via Steve Bannon, but also between militants of various statures within the pro-Bolsonaro movement. What happens in the U.S. is copied in Brazil and the invasion of the Capitol was celebrated by the extreme right in Brazil. No doubt they learned and replicated it, in their own way.”

Martins sees other similarities when comparing the far-right coup d’état attempts in both nations: Both involved minority groups that do not accept the results of the presidential elections and launch accusations of electoral fraud based on fake narratives spread through social media platforms.

“Bannon was the one who advised Bolsonaro to challenge the election result and encouraged Bolsonaristas to storm the headquarters of the three powers on January 8,” Garcia stated. “He played a major role forging the alliance between Trump and Bolsonaro and exchanging media guerrilla tactics. There are those who try to reduce his role, placing him only as a media figure who knows how to seize the moment, but I see him as fundamental in bridging the gap between the former U.S. and Brazilian presidents,” Garcia noted

Martins pointed out another similarity between Trump and Bolsonaro’s governments—the nepotism and corruption arising from the close participation of family members in their administrations. “We never heard of former President Dilma Rousseff’s daughter or former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s children dealing directly with cabinet issues. The same with the United States. Even Bush’s family members did not necessarily bring other relatives into their own political careers.”

The Brazilian attack ended with the destruction of three institutional buildings and at least 1,406 people arrested. When asked if the failure of the coup attempt on Jan. 8 and the government’s swift response will deter further violent events in Brazil, Martins mentioned the cost to the far-right rioters–not just in prison time, but also in political power and influence, “Those in charge of those attacks know that such a strategy is not worth it. Moderate voters tend to vote against the right wing when they see situations like that. And the far-right voters know they do not have enough institutional or popular support to install a coup through force. That is why, once again, former President Donald Trump is preparing his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, while former President Jair Bolsonaro’s party is setting up a new candidacy for 2026. I think they learned the lesson: it is necessary to win votes to return to the White House or the Planalto Palace.”

Garcia is less sure. “It’s impossible to predict if new violent demonstrations will take place”, he stated, noting the need to monitor the far-right as the extremists might be planning new destabilizing plots, even if not of the same magnitude as the Brasilia attack. When questioned on how Brazil could monitor the extremist forces and their actions, Garcia explained “There are several ways it can be done, but mostly through intelligence, using ABIN (Brazil’s Secret Service), the army’s intelligence and perhaps setting up a specific group to monitor such activities linked to the government and the justice, but also with the help of tech giants. In fact, the Supreme Court has several agreements with big tech, particularly during election periods, to tackle fake news, through moderating social networks, taking down profiles, etc.”

A friendly shift in Brazilian foreign policy

The attack on government buildings revealed the of the far-right in democratic Brazil, and also marked the closing ceremony of the Bolsonaro government, which will be remembered for its far-right ideology and violent proclivities.

The Bolsonaro presidency also created a profound shift in foreign policy. The country distanced itself from “everything it has historically stood for,” according to Garcia.  Under the prior Lula presidency, Brazil participated actively in regional integration, and mediated issues of regional and international importance. From being a leader in South America, it shrunk to the point of becoming ‘toxic’ during Bolsonaro’s government.

Bolsonaro implemented “an ideological diplomacy that distanced itself from everything the country has historically stood for. It made Brazil lose its prominent role in matters of great importance, to become a pariah. From a country admired and sought after for mediating on issues of international relevance, Brazil became toxic.”

Bolsonaro’s disdain for human rights, social equality and the preservation of the Amazon rainforest drove other countries away from Brazil. Martins noted that under his administration, Brazil was the last democracy in the world to acknowledge U.S. President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020. Bolsonaro made alliances with far-right ideologues, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Argentina’s Mauricio Macri, while cancelling the meeting in 2019 with French Chancellor Jean-Yves Le Drian due to “a barber shop appointment”, which undermined the conclusion of a prospective free trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur. For the historian, those events symbolize the dismal foreign policy legacy of the Bolsonaro days.

Will Lula’s leadership lead Brazilian foreign policy back to the era when it had a say in relevant international forums?

“At the very least, a return to the period when the country was leading and participating in important international discussions,” Garcia predicted. “No doubt, the world has become more complex, alliances more complicated to maintain and forge, but Lula can and should play an important role (thanks to Marina Silva) in debates about the environment and global warming. Of course, the Workers Party (PT) still maintains regrettable positions in relation to allies in Latin America, dictatorships like Nicaragua and Venezuela, but, in general, these are less relevant issues in the big picture of world discussions.”

Martins added that relations between the United States and Brazil will likely improve. “They will be absolutely better than the previous relationship between Biden and Bolsonaro. With Lula in office, both presidents share similar values regarding the importance of democratic institutions and their defense. The U.S. President was the first international head of state to greet Lula after his election. That means a lot in terms of the American interest toward Brasília.”

Improved relations with the U.S. could lead to progress in some important areas. “On the Brazilian side, Brasília must continue to demonstrate its commitment to the preservation of the Amazon rainforest and the development of green energy strategies. There is room for a beneficial partnership between the two countries on this matter. Beyond that, Brazil needs to do its homework regarding the modernization of its economy and the stability of the political system. Foreign investment tends to search for stable nations with a conducive environment for business,” Martins said.

“When it comes to Washington’s role, it has to do with acknowledging Brazil’s leadership in the South American region and respect for (and the establishment of non-coercive policies toward) President Lula’s administration positions on the international scene, such as his views on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the political crisis in Venezuela, and the relationship with China”, he continued.

The Bolsonaro government left animosity–within the country, and in foreign relations. In the years to come, Brazil will be watched as it launches a new approach, aiming to become more respected abroad as a mediator and peacemaker.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Gabriel Leão.

As ceremonies mark the 100th anniversary of when a white mob attacked and burned down the Black town of Rosewood, Florida, we look at the largely untold story of how a racist mob murdered at least six Black residents and forced the rest of the town to flee. Many eyewitnesses said the true death toll was far higher. The bloodshed began after a white woman accused a Black man of assault, resulting in several days of violence by the white mob that ultimately destroyed the once-thriving community. We speak with Jonathan Barry-Blocker, whose late grandfather, Reverend Ernest Blocker, was a survivor of the 1923 massacre.

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

It’s the afternoon of January 6. There is chaos on the floor of the House of Representatives, and the business of Congress is stalled. Will the meeting be adjourned so that leaders can figure out whether and how it might be possible to restore normal order, so that the business of the House can be resumed?

Back in 2021 these questions arose in the most dramatic way imaginable, in response to the insurrectionary invasion of the Capitol building by an angry ragtag mob seeking to attack public officials deemed “disloyal” and to undermine the democratic election of Joe Biden as president.

It’s now 2023, and the outcome of another election is unfolding at the Capitol. Again a right-wing mob is attempting to seize control of the House floor in order to hijack the political system. But this time the mob consists of besuited Republican politicians recently elected to the House.

The chaos we are now witnessing centers on the inability of the newly elected Republican majority to agree on a new Speaker of the House. The mainstream media has focused obsessively on the dramatic confrontation between Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and a small group of self-styled “change agents,” led by Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert, willing to delay indefinitely the normal business of the House in order to obstruct McCarthy’s ascension to the Speakership. This obstruction is figured as “extremist,” and the effort to codify Republican control of the House and “get back to business” is regarded as “normal.” The obstructionists are figured as “radicals” and the supporters of McCarthy as “moderates.”

Pundits on CNN and MSNBC breathlessly wonder whether McCarthy can “get control of the extremist wing of his party.” And every time they wonder, they lend a patina of respectability to McCarthy and his supporters, and obscure the fact that every House Republican, on either side of this dispute, is an extremist, the differences between them miniscule and largely personalist.

Through thirteen rounds of House voting, each one followed by more McCarthy concessions, this has been made increasingly clear, and indeed it has been stated, explicitly, by every Republican who has risen to speak in support of McCarthy: the real “enemy” of them all is Biden and his supposedly critical race theorizing, open border loving, and freedom hating liberal supporters. And so they should “reach across the aisle,” and join together as America-loving Republicans, to vanquish their “Democrat” foes, “enemies of the people” all.

Let us not forget that on the evening of January 6, 2021, when the House finally reconvened hours after members had fled the chamber and the building in fear for their lives, 139 House Republicans—two thirds of the caucus– voted to overturn the election results in order to nullify Joe Biden’s election. Among them were the four top leaders of the current Republican caucus who are now being touted as “institutionalists”—Steve Scalise, Elise Stefaniak, Jim Jordan, and Kevin McCarthy himself.

Since last November’s washout of the so-called Republican “red wave,” it has become fashionable to say that the electorate had decisively repudiated “election denialism.” And it is true that almost all of the most extreme election deniers endorsed by Trump, especially at the state level, were defeated. But, as the Washington Post’s Philip Bump has shown, “House Republicans who opposed 2020 electoral vote paid no price,” and indeed almost every single one of them who ran for reelection—over a hundred– was successful. Indeed, according to the Huffpost, when newly-elected Republicans are added in, the number of election deniers in the 2023 House rises to as many as 170—more than the number who voted to overturn Biden’s election in 2020.

On January 3, the Post’s Amy Gardner reported that “all but two of the 20 Republican House members who voted against Kevin McCarthy . . . are election deniers who embraced former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.” This may be true. But it is also true that all but a handful or two of the House Republicans who voted for McCarthy were also election deniers and in effect still are election deniers.

To put this more bluntly: the idea that the Biden presidency, and indeed Democratic political power more generally, is illegitimate, and must be reversed by a combination of culture war and dramatic changes to election law—this idea is the common sense, and indeed the catechism, of the entire current Republican party.

Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan and their crowd are not eager to become the official leaders of the House so that they can promote a coherent policy agenda. They are eager to assume the reins of power so that they can do what they have long said they wanted to do: relentlessly stymie, investigate, and hound the Biden administration, the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Centers for Disease Control, and more generally to undermine what they call “the deep state.” If there is any distance between McCarthy supporters and “Never Kevins,” it is only that the latter are eager to proceed in an even more fanatical way (one MSNBC journalist just reported that one of McCarthy’s “concessions” to his opponents was an agreement to support the impeachment of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas–something that McCarthy himself threatened last November).

The distance between the “original” January 6—2021—and today is not very great at all.

As the House Selection January 6 Committee Report now makes clear, the violent assault of the mob on the Capitol that day was the culmination of a very extensive effort by Trump and his supporters to use a range of legal and extra-legal means to stay in power. The violence was rather quickly seen as excessive by almost all Republican members of Congress—no doubt because it threatened their very lives—if only for a while (within days they were walking back their criticisms of Trump, then opposing his impeachment, and then eventually kissing his ring at Mar-a-Lago). But it has long been clear that the primary means by which the Republican party seeks to weaken political opposition, cement its own power, and thereby limit democracy, are legal or quasi-legal means—through federal and state law, court rulings, and executive power when they control it. And the key to this agenda is the weakening and the delegitimation of the Biden administration, the Democratic party, and liberal democracy itself. Control of the House of Representatives is now central to this. On this all the House Republicans now squabbling about titles and rules and committee assignments agree.

There may be differences among them. But when it comes to their hostility to liberal democracy, they are united. They may be wearing suits and carrying briefcases. But they are a mob, and they are dangerous.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jeffrey C. Isaac.

A huge crowd of defeated Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's supporters rallied outside one of the national army's headquarters on Wednesday to demand a military coup to nullify the right-wing incumbent's loss and prevent President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking power.

The Associated Press reported that thousands attended the rally, where Bolsonaro loyalists chanted "Armed forces, save Brazil!" and carried signs demanding a "federal intervention" following the president's narrow defeat in Sunday's runoff election.

The demonstration came a day after Bolsonaro, in his first public remarks since his defeat in Sunday's contest, refused to directly concede defeat but pledged to "follow all the commandments of our constitution," a signal that he would allow the presidential transition to move forward.

In recent weeks, Bolsonaro has repeatedly and baselessly warned of election fraud and hinted that he would not willingly leave office, in some cases invoking support among Brazil's military.

"The army is on our side," Bolsonaro said during a July campaign event.

But AP noted that while "the military has taken on an ample role under Bolsonaro," it "has remained silent in the month since the first round of the election, a sign it is likely distancing itself from the ex-army captain."

Bolsonaro reportedly met with the heads of the Brazilian Navy and Air Force on Tuesday as his supporters wreaked havoc on the nation's streets, setting tires on fire and blocking roads.

During his brief public statement, Bolsonaro said his supporters' actions stemmed from "indignation and a feeling of injustice about how the electoral process played out."

Thomas Traumann, a Brazilian journalist and political analyst, told The Guardian on Tuesday that he believes Bolsonaro "is clearly afraid of prison... so what he's trying to do is negotiate with the only card he has left, which is big street protests."

The Guardian noted that "after leaving power Bolsonaro, could find himself exposed to a multitude of possible investigations and charges relating to fake news, anti-democratic behavior, alleged corruption, and his handling of a Covid pandemic which killed nearly 700,000 Brazilians."

"On Tuesday night, Bolsonaro was reportedly locked in talks with at least six members of the supreme court as part of that supposed negotiation," the newspaper reported. "One prominent political journalist, Guilherme Amado, said the president planned to 'request that neither he nor his family be persecuted' once he stepped down."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.

The documentary “Jihad Rehab” opens with a series of testimonies from former Guantánamo Bay prisoners. One former detainee, wearing a red headdress and seated on a living room sofa, says, “The American government did bad, bad, bad things against us, and at least I am honest with what I did.” He goes on to describe explosives training he says he received at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. The film then introduces a small group of other former Guantánamo detainees, all Yemeni, who are now part of a government rehabilitation program for accused former terrorists in Saudi Arabia. They, too, appear to discuss frankly to their past involvement in militancy.

The controversy around “Jihad Rehab” began before many people would have a chance to see those opening minutes of the film. The announcement that it would be screened at Sundance Film Festival this year triggered objections among some Muslim American filmmakers, who expressed concerns about its content and how it was produced. Sundance would eventually apologize for screening the film, leading other prestigious film festivals to rescind their invitations.

The fallout at Sundance and the rescinded invitations kicked off a fierce debate that was, initially, limited to a small community of documentary filmmakers and Guantánamo Bay activists. But it has since exploded to national attention.

A recent front-page New York Times article about the subject framed the controversy as a culture war issue centered around the identity of the filmmaker, Meg Smaker, and whether she, as a white American woman, had the perspective necessary to produce a film about the lives of Arab Muslim former prisoners. A recent segment on the MSNBC show “Morning Joe” about the film echoed this characterization of the controversy, introducing it to viewers as a battle over race and free speech in the United States. The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, a free-speech advocacy organization focused on the culture war over what some refer to as “wokeness,” has also spoken out in support of the film and organized a screening for it this summer in Los Angeles.

Related

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A Saudi man walks past the Mohammed bin Naif Counseling and Care Center on Oct. 4, 2017, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Photo: AFP via Getty Images

“I lived with these men for years; they live in fear in Saudi Arabia every day.”

Mansoor Adayfi relaxes and reads at a park near his apartment in Belgrade, Serbia, on Sept. 8, 2021.

Photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images

A girl holds a photo of Abu Ghanim, a Yemeni man featured in Meg Smaker’s documentary, during a protest to demand Yemenis imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, on April 16, 2013, outside the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen.

Photo: Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images

“Believe me, no one cares if Meg is Black or white, or a man or a woman. I don’t even understand how this is being made out as a debate about a person’s race.”

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Murtaza Hussain.

Along with these videos, an audio clip, too, is being shared in which a person is requesting people not to send their children outside alone as the police have reportedly announced that 400 to 500 goons have entered the area and are kidnapping children for organ trading. In addition, the voice on the clip says that these child thieves are disguising themselves as pheriwalas, junk sellers, sadhus and fakirs. The recording ends with the man saying, “Audio Recording Abrar Chhotu, Sitapur”.

Fact-check

Both the videos being shared with the child theft claim feature a shop in the background with a board that reads – “Harisuman Kirana & General Stores”.

Using this as a clue, Alt News performed a keyword search on YouTube. This led us to a video report by IBC24 dated August 8, 2022. This includes the video shared on WhatsApp. According to the caption, this incident took place in Raisen in central Madhya Pradesh where a group of people tried to commit a theft while being disguised as sadhus. Later, the villagers beat them up with sticks.

Navbharat Times reported about this incident on August 7. According to the article, some sadhus had robbed a woman after knocking her unconscious in Paloha, located in the Mandideep Police Station area of ​​Raisen district. The perpetrators, who were dressed as sadhus, stole jewellery and cash from the woman’s house. The villagers discovered they were staying in Pipaliya Gajju village, adjacent to Paloha. After thrashing the sadhus, the locals handed them over to the police. The Mandideep Police registered a case against six people and started an investigation. The article quoted the police as saying that the accused were residents of Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh.

One India also covered the incident. The article quoted the police as saying that the accused, Bacchu Joshi, Lovelesh Goswami, Mithilesh Goswami, Vidayak Goswami, Gulab Joshi and Ramswaroop Goswami, residents of Bandhavgarh in Uttar Pradesh, had gone to Polaha village to beg for alms. Upon seeing the pictures included in the article, it becomes evident that both the videos shared on WhatsApp are from the incident in Raisen.

Alt News reached out to the Mandideep Police Station for more information on this. SHO Manoj Singh told us that these accused, disguised as sadhus, were known to commit petty thefts. The villagers caught and beat them up. Police registered a case and sent them to jail.

Alt News also spoke to Raisen SP Vikas Kumar Sehwal. The SP told us that this incident did not involve sadhus trying to kidnap children. He said that these sadhus had come to the village to perform a pooja. They asked the woman for gold and silver jewellery for the ceremony. They stole those ornaments and fled. After registering a complaint in the matter, the police sent the accused to jail.

There is no concrete evidence of the claims made in the viral audio clip regarding child theft. Taking cognizance of such rumours, the SP of Sitapur issued a video statement. He made an appeal to locals not to pay heed to the rumours of child theft and inform the police about such rumours.

@Uppolice जनपद में बच्चे चोर की अफवाह फैल रही है कृपया ऐसी अफवाहों पर ध्यान न दें एवं आमजनमस से अपील है कि कानून को अपने हाथों में न लें यदि किसी प्रकार की कोई सूचना मिले तो तत्काल अपने निकटतम थाना/चौकी क्षेत्र व डायल 112 को सूचना दें,इस संबंध में #SP_Sitapur द्वारा दी गई बाइट। pic.twitter.com/YLlgyxQ5Zj

— Sitapur Police (@sitapurpolice) August 26, 2022

In other words, these videos do not feature child kidnappers in the guise of sadhus. In reality, locals from a village in Raisen nabbed a group of thieves who were dressed as sadhus.

Photos of sadhus shared as child kidnappers in Varanasi

On August 30, a website named Prakhar Purvanchal reported that two sadhus from Varanasi had been detained for allegedly being child kidnappers. (Archived link)

बच्चा चोरी के आरोप में दो साधुओं को पुलिस ने लिया हिरासत में https://t.co/MyR1GXTJyr

— Prakhar Purvanchal (@PrakharPurv) August 30, 2022

Another website named KTG Samachar also covered the incident. According to the article, this incident took place in the Phulpur police station area of ​​the Varanasi district.

Alt News contacted the Phulpur police station. SHO Jagdish Kushwaha informed us that there was no incident of child theft. People suspected two sadhus and informed the police about them. The SHO added, “We called these two sadhus to the police station. We came to know that they were residents of Punjab. The sadhus spoke to both the village head and the police regarding the matter, but we didn’t find anything suspicious. They were later released.”

It is worth noting that in the past, mobs have beaten up mentally ill or suspicious individuals over child theft rumours. Alt News has continued to report the reality behind such incidents to the public. There have also been incidents in the past where people have been lynched on the basis of rumours. 

The post Videos of a mob thrashing sadhus for petty theft falsely viral as case of child kidnapping appeared first on Alt News.

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

The post The Maybe Mob and the Rushdie Attack appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

It was a chilling reminder that the fatwa condemning him to death never risked going stale, even if it might have been put into a form of archived cold storage.  Declared by the Iran’s sickly spiritual ruler, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Rushdie’s remarkable crime was to have blasphemed against the Prophet Muhammad in the novel The Satanic Verses.  The supreme leader, having hardly distinguished himself in a bloody war against Iraq, needed a supreme distraction.

The entire exercise was an example of how irony and humour have no place for dour, dogmatic priestliness.  How dare an author, in a work of fiction, playfully and plausibly claim that the Prophet was not the sole editor of the message to Angel Gibreel (Gabriel), and that Satan had cheekily inserted his role into it?  And that this was done using the medium of Gibreel Farishta’s hallucinations?

Dare Rushdie did, and this exhortation to state-sanctioned killing of an author and all those associated with translating and disseminating the book exposed the underbelly of cowardice that often accompanies attempts to defend literary freedoms.  Rushdie’s translator Hitoshi Igarashi was, in fact, murdered, while his Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was gravely wounded.  The Turkish translator, Aziz Nesin, escaped a mob assault that led to 37 deaths in Silvas, Turkey.

It was one thing to find fanatics who had never read the book and wished to do away with the author in a fit of state subsidised zealotry.  But then there was that camp: those who, in principle, opposed the fatwa but still wished to attack Rushdie as an act of cultural understanding and solidarity with his enemies.  (Grahame Wood of The Atlantic calls them the “Team To Be Sure”, who rubbished the West’s free speech defence of Rushdie, claiming that mischief might have been averted if only he hadn’t been so inclined to offend.)

The events of 1989 cast a long shadow.  There were those in holy orders, who thought that the Ayatollah had a point.  There was Dr. Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, who called for a strengthening of blasphemy laws to cover religions other than Christianity, though he was also careful to “condemn incitement to murder or any other violence from any source whatever.”  Very Church of England.

And there was former US President Jimmy Carter, who seemed to take issue that an author’s rights were considered fundamental even in the face of insulting religions.  What, came the insinuation, about the insulted?  Where would their anger go?  Rushdie’s First Amendment freedoms might be “important”, but there had been “little acknowledgment that this is a direct insult to those millions of Moslems whose sacred beliefs have been violated and are suffering in restrained silence”.  Contemplated homicide against an author, in other words, was being excused, even if the “death sentence” was an “abhorrent response”.

It was even more galling to see fellow novelists mauling the underdog, showing how solidarity among scribes is rarer than you think.  The Marxist author John Berger did not think much of Rushdie’s case, hiding behind a sham argument that producing threatening literature might well endanger “the lives of those who are innocent of either writing or reading the book.”  Berger’s ingratiating note was an attempt to convince other Islamic leaders and statesmen to avoid “a unique 20^th-century holy war, with its terrifying righteousness on both sides.”

Roald Dahl, man of dysfunctional virtue and author of disturbed children’s tales, decided in a letter to The Times that Rushdie was a “dangerous opportunist”, as if engaging in irony in such matters is to be avoided.  He had to have been “aware of the deep and violent feelings his book would stir up among devout Muslims.”  His suggestion: a modest dose of self-censorship.  “In a civilized world we have a moral obligation to apply a modicum of censorship to our own work to reinforce this principle of free speech.”  Censors from Moscow to Tehran would have approved.

Nor did John le Carré, consummate writer of espionage novels, disagree.  “I don’t think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity,” he told The New York Times in May 1989.

In November 1997, with le Carré complaining of being unfairly branded an anti-Semite, Rushdie wrote a pointed reminder it would have been easier “to sympathize with him had he not been so ready to join in an earlier campaign of vilification against a fellow writer.”  It would have been gracious were “he to admit that he understands the nature of the Thought Police a little better now that, at last in his own opinion, he’s the one in the line of fire.”

Le Carré sniped back accordingly, taking the position he claimed to have had in 1989: “that there is no law in life or nature that says great religions may be insulted with impunity.”  Little time was spent then, and now, on the malicious, sinister nature of religious totalitarianism that has been a monstrous burden on expression, critique and sober thought.  Instead, the creator of Smiley and the Circus wished to strike a “less arrogant, less colonialist, and less self-righteous note than we were hearing from the safety of his admirers’ camp.”

As Wood writes, the honourable response to the attack on Rushdie would have been to admit a failure to protect a brave author and declare “that we are all Rushdie now”.  Read his work; throw his name in the faces of the regime’s apologists and their homicidal dolts.  After all, while the Republic of Iran has claimed to have lost active interest in killing the author, it will not object to an independent enthusiast doing the same.  The decision encouraging Rushdie’s murder, stated Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “is a bullet for which there is a target.  It has been shot.  It will one day sooner or later hit the target.”

This crippling germ of authorial assassination is incarnated in more current forms, without the lethal element: cancel culture, the desire to actively enact one’s offended disposition to liquidate, banish and extirpate the views of your opponent.  They offend you because you, somehow, have answers beyond question.  Assassination is simply one of the most extreme forms of censorship, an attempt to silence and kill off the vibrant chatter that makes an intellectual world live.  Sadly, as Rushdie recovers, the maybe mob and their complicity should be noted, their names marked on walls high.  The inner censoring assassin is everywhere.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

It was a chilling reminder that the fatwa condemning him to death never risked going stale, even if it might have been put into a form of archived cold storage.  Declared by the Iran’s sickly spiritual ruler, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Rushdie’s remarkable crime was to have blasphemed against the Prophet Muhammad in the novel The Satanic Verses.  The supreme leader, having hardly distinguished himself in a bloody war against Iraq, needed a supreme distraction.

The entire exercise was an example of how irony and humour have no place for dour, dogmatic priestliness.  How dare an author, in a work of fiction, playfully and plausibly claim that the Prophet was not the sole editor of the message to Angel Gibreel (Gabriel), and that Satan had cheekily inserted his role into it?  And that this was done using the medium of Gibreel Farishta’s hallucinations?

Dare Rushdie did, and this exhortation to state-sanctioned killing of an author and all those associated with translating and disseminating the book exposed the underbelly of cowardice that often accompanies attempts to defend literary freedoms.  Rushdie’s translator Hitoshi Igarashi was, in fact, murdered, while his Norwegian publisher, William Nygaard, was gravely wounded.  The Turkish translator, Aziz Nesin, escaped a mob assault that led to 37 deaths in Silvas, Turkey.

It was one thing to find fanatics who had never read the book and wished to do away with the author in a fit of state subsidised zealotry.  But then there was that camp: those who, in principle, opposed the fatwa but still wished to attack Rushdie as an act of cultural understanding and solidarity with his enemies.  (Grahame Wood of The Atlantic calls them the “Team To Be Sure”, who rubbished the West’s free speech defence of Rushdie, claiming that mischief might have been averted if only he hadn’t been so inclined to offend.)

The events of 1989 cast a long shadow.  There were those in holy orders, who thought that the Ayatollah had a point.  There was Dr. Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, who called for a strengthening of blasphemy laws to cover religions other than Christianity, though he was also careful to “condemn incitement to murder or any other violence from any source whatever.”  Very Church of England.

And there was former US President Jimmy Carter, who seemed to take issue that an author’s rights were considered fundamental even in the face of insulting religions.  What, came the insinuation, about the insulted?  Where would their anger go?  Rushdie’s First Amendment freedoms might be “important”, but there had been “little acknowledgment that this is a direct insult to those millions of Moslems whose sacred beliefs have been violated and are suffering in restrained silence”.  Contemplated homicide against an author, in other words, was being excused, even if the “death sentence” was an “abhorrent response”.

It was even more galling to see fellow novelists mauling the underdog, showing how solidarity among scribes is rarer than you think.  The Marxist author John Berger did not think much of Rushdie’s case, hiding behind a sham argument that producing threatening literature might well endanger “the lives of those who are innocent of either writing or reading the book.”  Berger’s ingratiating note was an attempt to convince other Islamic leaders and statesmen to avoid “a unique 20^th-century holy war, with its terrifying righteousness on both sides.”

Roald Dahl, man of dysfunctional virtue and author of disturbed children’s tales, decided in a letter to The Times that Rushdie was a “dangerous opportunist”, as if engaging in irony in such matters is to be avoided.  He had to have been “aware of the deep and violent feelings his book would stir up among devout Muslims.”  His suggestion: a modest dose of self-censorship.  “In a civilized world we have a moral obligation to apply a modicum of censorship to our own work to reinforce this principle of free speech.”  Censors from Moscow to Tehran would have approved.

Nor did John le Carré, consummate writer of espionage novels, disagree.  “I don’t think it is given to any of us to be impertinent to great religions with impunity,” he told The New York Times in May 1989.

In November 1997, with le Carré complaining of being unfairly branded an anti-Semite, Rushdie wrote a pointed reminder it would have been easier “to sympathize with him had he not been so ready to join in an earlier campaign of vilification against a fellow writer.”  It would have been gracious were “he to admit that he understands the nature of the Thought Police a little better now that, at last in his own opinion, he’s the one in the line of fire.”

Le Carré sniped back accordingly, taking the position he claimed to have had in 1989: “that there is no law in life or nature that says great religions may be insulted with impunity.”  Little time was spent then, and now, on the malicious, sinister nature of religious totalitarianism that has been a monstrous burden on expression, critique and sober thought.  Instead, the creator of Smiley and the Circus wished to strike a “less arrogant, less colonialist, and less self-righteous note than we were hearing from the safety of his admirers’ camp.”

As Wood writes, the honourable response to the attack on Rushdie would have been to admit a failure to protect a brave author and declare “that we are all Rushdie now”.  Read his work; throw his name in the faces of the regime’s apologists and their homicidal dolts.  After all, while the Republic of Iran has claimed to have lost active interest in killing the author, it will not object to an independent enthusiast doing the same.  The decision encouraging Rushdie’s murder, stated Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “is a bullet for which there is a target.  It has been shot.  It will one day sooner or later hit the target.”

This crippling germ of authorial assassination is incarnated in more current forms, without the lethal element: cancel culture, the desire to actively enact one’s offended disposition to liquidate, banish and extirpate the views of your opponent.  They offend you because you, somehow, have answers beyond question.  Assassination is simply one of the most extreme forms of censorship, an attempt to silence and kill off the vibrant chatter that makes an intellectual world live.  Sadly, as Rushdie recovers, the maybe mob and their complicity should be noted, their names marked on walls high.  The inner censoring assassin is everywhere.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Missouri's second-largest newspaper by circulation derided home-state Sen. Josh Hawley in a scathing editorial on Saturday, calling him a "laughingstock" and a "coward" after the House panel investigating the January 6 Capitol attack showed previously unseen security footage of the GOP lawmaker fleeing the violent right-wing insurrectionists that he helped embolden.

"Hawley has become one of the defining figures of that day," notes The Kansas City Star's editorial board. "A famous photo captured by Francis Chung shows him raising a fist in solidarity with the crowds that would soon break through doors, loot offices, and assault law enforcement."

During its latest public hearing on Thursday, the House January 6 committee played a video clip showing Hawley running away after armed Trump supporters breached the Capitol.

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.), who presided over Thursday's hearing, quoted a Capitol police officer as saying Hawley's supportive gesture to the mob just ahead of the attack "riled up the crowd."

"It bothered her greatly," Luria added, "because he was doing it in a safe space protected by the officers and the barriers."

The Kansas City Star's editorial goes on to recount that "when the Senate reconvened after the halls of the Capitol had been cleared and secured, Hawley took to the floor as the very first voice calling to throw out millions of Americans' votes cast fairly and legally for the rightful winner in a presidential election."

"We said that day Hawley has blood on his hands for his role in perpetuating the lies that drove thousands of people to violence," the editorial reads. "That remains true. Beyond the physical toll, though, is the damage Jan. 6 continues to inflict on our democracy and our shared sense of truth. The House committee is systematically demonstrating how too many Republicans in Donald Trump's orbit allowed him to incite the riot, which he had promised in advance 'will be wild,' and were then unable to get him to call his fans off until unimaginable damage had already been done."

"Hawley has never apologized for attempting to reinstall a man who everyone around him knew had lost the election, as witness testimony continues to confirm," the editorial continues. "Saluting the Trump posse was politically expeditious for him before the siege began. Yet once he realized his own safety was in real danger from the angry revolutionists swarming the building, he hotfooted it away from 'his' people to the protection of the security forces charged with protecting him. Where's that fist in the air now?"

Far from showing contrition for helping provoke a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol and then fleeing the scene, Hawley has doubled down on his election lies and attempted to fundraise off the backlash, hawking a mug emblazoned with the raised-fist photo that he does not have permission to use.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Common Dreams staff.

During their eighth and final hearing until the fall, the January 6 House select committee aired new testimony from an anonymous national security official detailing how Mike Pence’s Secret Service agents feared for their lives during the breach of the Capitol. “There were calls to say goodbye to family members,” said the anonymous official. Despite knowledge of the growing mob, Trump decided to publish a tweet at 2:24 p.m. saying Mike Pence “lacked the courage” to stop the certification. The tweet poured “gasoline on the fire,” said Trump’s ex-deputy press secretary, Sarah Matthews, who testified live on Thursday. Meanwhile, Trump was still reaching out to Republican senators, including Senator Josh Hawley, who was seen in footage racing to safety just hours after he raised his fist to the massing mob.

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

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol held a primetime hearing on Thursday night focused on former President Donald Trump’s refusal to take action as his supporters attacked the Capitol on January 6. Lawmakers dissected the three-hour period on January 6 after Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” For 187 minutes, Trump refused to call off the mob or reach out to law enforcement or military leaders to try to stop the violence. Instead, Trump called Republican senators, urging them to stop the certification. “For hours Donald Trump chose not to answer the pleas from Congress, from his own party and from all across our nation to do what his oath required,” said Congressmember Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair.

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

The video also "pays tribute to the interviewees who dared to comment publicly and on the record," despite an ongoing crackdown on public criticism of the government under a national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020.

"Some of them have been forced to leave [Hong Kong], while others have chosen to stay, but they all want to see the day when the truth is made public," it said.

The HKIJ channel where the video was published had garnered 3,540 subscribers by Wednesday afternoon, and 5,700 likes, with a number of supportive comments from Hongkongers.

"You were the victims, but you bravely stood up and remembered the pain. I sincerely thank you and wish you all peace," one comment read, while another said: "Neither forget nor forgive. Thank you to everyone who stood up."

"Thank you to every citizen who still dares to tell the truth, and every reporter who reports the truth, three years on," another comment said.

The video includes interviews with three people who were in Yuen Long MTR three years ago, including Tuen Mun resident "Galileo" who was attacked while trying to rescue journalist Gwyneth Ho, and chef surnamed So who sustained heavy injuries from being beaten with rods, as well as a local businessman who supplied CCTV footage from his premises.

"Galileo" and his wife tell the producers they gave high-definition video and detailed witness accounts to police, but that most of the attackers hadn't been arrested to this day.

Choy was arrested and fined for "road traffic violations" relating to vehicle registration searches used in her RTHK film.

Thirty-nine minutes elapsed between the first emergency calls to the final arrival of police at the Yuen Long MTR station, where dozens of people were already injured, and many were in need of hospital treatment.

At least eight media organizations, including the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association and the RTHK staff union expressed “extreme shock and outrage” at Choy’s arrest.

The anniversary came as the Hong Kong Book Fair, once a vibrant showcase for independent publishers in the city, started displaying prominently a number of new titles about CCP leader Xi Jinping and the history of the ruling party, apparently specially produced for the Hong Kong market.

Offerings from CCP-backed publishers were on prominent display at the fair on July 19, including titles expounding the success of the "one country, two systems" model under which Beijing took back control of Hong Kong in 1997.

A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), which runs the book fair, denied that a higher level of censorship is being implemented at the fair under the national security law, which bans public criticism of the authorities.

"We don't engage in the prior vetting of books, nor will we take action to censor any books," spokeswoman Clementine Cheung told reporters. "But if someone complains or thinks there is an issue with a book, we have a mechanism for checking on that."

"If there really is a problem with a book, it won't be up to us to decide that," she said.

While independent publishers have been gradually disappearing from the book fair in Hong Kong, organizers set up a small but independent event titled the "Five Cities Book Fair 2022" in small venues in Taipei, London, Manchester, Vancouver and Toronto, showcasing titles that are now banned in Hong Kong, especially those about the political crackdown and the 2019 protest movement.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Yuk Yue, Cheryl Tung and Jojo Man for RFA Cantonese.

The seventh House select committee hearing on the January 6 attack at the Capitol examined in detail how then-President Trump went against the advice of top aides to claim President Biden’s win was fraudulent and to strategize a means to overturn the election. Tuesday’s hearing focused in part on a tweet Trump sent on December 19, 2020, in which he called for a “big protest” at the coming joint session of Congress on January 6 and told his supporters, “Be there, will be wild!” Committee member, Democratic Congressmember Jamie Raskin lays out how Trump sent the tweet just about an hour after a tense meeting at the White House between his official and unofficial advisers that was described in testimony as “unhinged,” and features excerpts of deposition testimony from Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, White House lawyer Eric Herschmann and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, among others.

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

Police identified the two main accused of Kanhaiya Lal’s murder as Mohammad Riaz and Ghaus Mohammad. Seven people have been arrested so far in connection with the murder of Kanhaiya Lal. Against the backdrop of this unfortunate incident, it is being claimed that people from the Muslim community attacked the police while protesting against the arrest of the killers of Kanhaiya Lal.

Pro-BJP propaganda website OpIndia reported that an Islamic mob attacked police constable Sandeep on his neck with a sharp weapon, leaving him seriously injured (archived link). OpIndia also shared the same on its Twitter handle and Facebook page. However, the posts were later deleted.

BJP spokesperson Prashant Kumar Umrao tweeted, “While protesting the arrest of the terrorist killers of Kanhaiya Lal in Rajsamand, a mob attacked constable Sandeep with a sword, injuring his neck.” Umrao has deleted the tweet. (Archived link)

Kreately Media tweeted that when police officers went to arrest Goz Mohammed and Riyaz, the two main accused in Kanhaiya Lal’s murder, a mob attacked the police with stones and swords. Constable Sandeep was seriously injured in the attack and was referred to Ajmer. (Archived link)

आप सभी को ये पता होना चाहिए-

कनाहिया लाल के हत्यारे गोज मोहम्मद और रियाज़ को पकड़ने गई पुलिस पर पत्थरबाजी और तलवार से हमला हुआ।

कांस्टेबल संदीप को खंजर से मारा। गंभीर हालत में अजमेर रेफर कराया गया। #Kanhaiya #Kanahiyalal

— Kreately.in (@KreatelyMedia) June 29, 2022

Bhagva Update, RB Pathak, BJP supporter Divyam Thakur and several other handles amplified the claim on Twitter.

Fact-check

A keyword search led us to an article by ETV Bharat. As per the report, various organizations staged demonstrations in protest of the murder of tailor Kanhaiya Lal. As the crowd became rowdy, the police made attempts to control them. One of the youths from the mob attacked police constable Sandeep with a sword in which he was seriously injured. According to media reports, the situation in the area was tense following this incident. The police were only able to gain control of the crowd by using force.

We reached out to Rajsamand SP Sudhir Chaudhary to gather information on the matter. Refuting the viral claim, SP Sudhir Chaudhary said that the mob in which one of the youngsters attacked constable Sandeep was not led by the Muslim community. The mob was made up of local groups who opposed the killing. He revealed that 23 people have been arrested in the case so far.

The Rajasthan Police also refuted the viral claim via its official Twitter handle.

यह खबर सरासर झूठ है। इसमें गलत तथ्य प्रस्तुत किए गए हैं।

पुलिस कांस्टेबल संदीप पर हमला करने वाला आरोपी उसी के समुदाय से संबंधित है।

हमारी आपसे दरख्वास्त है फेक न्यूज फैलाने से बचें।#RajasthanPolice#StopFakeNews pic.twitter.com/cAPTnSXmU4

— Rajasthan Police (@PoliceRajasthan) June 29, 2022

After the main accused was apprehended, the Rajsamand SP informed us that in a joint operation on July 8, the Rajasthan Police and Gujarat Anti Terror Squad (ATS) arrested Mahavir and Shravan along with main accused Balveer, who attacked constable Sandeep. They were arrested from Vadodara in Gujarat.

Bhim Police Station SHO Gajendra Singh issued a statement on the development. Bhim is a town in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district. “Some anti-social elements had entered Bhim with swords, petrol bottles and sticks. The police and administration chased them away, but Balveer, a man from the crowd, attacked Sandeep using a sword on his neck with the intention of killing him.”

The three accused were arrested from Limda in Vadodara’s Waghodia area, a Gujarat ATS official said.

To sum it up, right-wing propaganda website OpIndia falsely claimed that a police constable named Sandeep was attacked by a Muslim mob. When Rajasthan Police declared this news to be false, the outlet updated its article. BJP spokesperson Prashant Kumar Umrao and several social media accounts also falsely claimed that a mob attacked a police constable while protesting the arrest of Kanhaiya Lal’s killers. However, there have been no such demonstrations against the arrest of the killers. The people in the mob that attacked the police were not Muslims.

The post Fact-check: Did an ‘Islamic mob’ attack constable Sandeep after Kanhaiya Lal’s murder? appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

Minutes after rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows seemed unperturbed and reluctant to act, according to live testimony from his former aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, at the public hearing on Tuesday. Then-President Donald Trump, rather than calling off his supporters, defended their chants to hang Vice President Mike Pence for validating the election results. “I remember thinking in that moment, Mark needs to snap out of this,” recalled Hutchinson. “I don’t know how to snap him out of this, but he needs to care.” Hutchinson also notes Meadows and Rudy Giuliani both sought pardons after the insurrection. Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney presented evidence of possible witness tampering by allies of Trump. Meanwhile, in a video deposition with Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, Flynn repeatedly refused to answer questions from Cheney.

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

In one of the most dramatic revelations at Tuesday’s hearing of the House committee investigating the January 6 attack, star witness Cassidy Hutchinson described how then-President Trump intended to join his supporters in the march to the Capitol and lunged at his Secret Service agent, who tried to prevent him from doing so, and grabbed the steering wheel of the presidential limousine, before he was driven back to the White House. Hutchinson was aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows at the time. She also describes another temper tantrum by the president weeks earlier, after Attorney General Bill Barr said publicly there was no election fraud, saying Trump threw a plate of food, leaving “ketchup dripping down the wall.”

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

The January 6 committee released new footage Thursday night showing a detailed timeline of the day of the insurrection. We feature the video they played that shows how Proud Boys and Oath Keepers marched from the National Mall — where Donald Trump delivered a speech pressuring Mike Pence to recertify the election results to deliver him a victory — to the Capitol Building to chants of “Hang Mike Pence,” before they violently pushed through police barriers and broke into the government building chanting “Nancy.”

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

Sociopaths like Ric Prado rise to leadership positions in rogue agency that acts with utter disregard for the law

If you’ve watched Fox News or CNN or if you’ve read the Washington Post or New York Times over the past two weeks, you will have been told that Enrique “Ric” Prado is a bona fide American hero. The former chief of operations in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) and former operations officer in the CIA’s Special Activities Division has just come out with a new book, Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior. The title is a true representation of what the book is, even if it dances around directness.

Ric Prado’s job at the CIA was to head the units charged with killing, kidnapping, torturing, and secretly incarcerating people around the world. Sure, it was wartime. Sure, war is hell. But the United States is also a nation of laws. And Ric Prado, the Counterterrorism Center, and the CIA chose to ignore those laws. Now Prado is getting rich writing about it.

Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior is what you might expect it to be. It’s an overly long and self-indulgent tome of how the Cuban refugee fled Communism at the age of 10 and made good in a new land. Prado clearly loves his parents, his Cuban culture, his wife and kids, and the CIA. There are no surprises there.

Prado is what CIA analysts used to derisively call a “knuckle-dragger,” a guy with long military service who joined the CIA not to think the big thoughts, not to write for the President’s Daily Brief, the morning compendium of intelligence updates from around the world, not to end up at the White House, making policy at the National Security Council. Prado and people like him joined the CIA because they loved the violence. They love the adrenalin rush of parachuting into denied areas to kick asses and take names. They love guns, they love blowing things up, and they love the simplicity of a life where there are only good guys, bad guys, and civilians.

That’s what this book is about, for the most part. In painstaking detail, Prado walks us through his heroics with the Nicaraguan Contras, those champions of freedom and democracy who overthrew the government of Daniel Ortega before collapsing under the weight of their own corruption and drug trafficking.

The latter part isn’t covered in this book. Instead, you’ll read about “blood-covered, machete-wielding Marxists,” about how “Marxists would murder dogs and hang them from light poles as a warning to anyone trying to oppose them,” and how “hatred for the Marxists burned hot.”

The reader is treated to comments like, “I so wanted to double tap them,” meaning Marxists, and describing the assassination tactic of two quick shots to the back of the head.

You get the idea. The whole book is like this until later in Prado’s career, when it became more fashionable to hate Muslims than Marxists.

I won’t bore you with the blow-by-blow of Prado’s “heroics” against al-Qaeda. There are 120 lightly redacted pages about it. What I prefer to talk about is what Prado leaves out of the book, what he leaves out of his entire life story.

The Miami New Times reported in 2012 that Prado, before joining the CIA, had been a hit man for an organized crime figure in south Florida in the 1970s and 1980s. Journalist Gus Garcia-Roberts wrote,

Criminals tend to talk a lot of shit. So journalist Evan Wright wasn’t exactly convinced when a former cocaine mega-smuggler told him he once performed a contract murder with a drug-world enforcer who went on to become a CIA spy. But when Wright researched the claim, he was stunned. Hard evidence showed a high-level spook specializing in counterterrorism was suspected by the Miami-Dade Police Department in not one, but seven murders—and was apparently protected from prosecution through his connections in the CIA.

(Wright’s) investigation traces Enrique ‘Ricky’ Prado from alleged Mafia hit man and drug dealer to his perch near the top of the CIA and then Blackwater, the private contractor that has handled much of the United States’ dirty work in Iraq. Prado first appeared on Wright’s radar when he was co-authoring former Medellín cartel smuggler Jon Roberts’s memoir, American Desperado. The since-deceased Roberts bragged that he and Prado had gunned down Richard Schwartz—famed gangster Meyer Lansky’s stepson—in a North Bay Village hit in 1977. Wright unearthed thousands of pages in documents, he writes, that implicated Prado in so many murders that one investigator said he was “technically a serial killer.”

I don’t know if Ric Prado is or was a serial killer. I don’t know if he was a hit man for the Medellin cartel. I don’t know if he was a drug dealer. Although I briefly worked directly for him; our encounters were never more than, “Morning, Ric. Morning, John.”

What I do know is this: The CIA attracts psychopaths and sociopaths who can easily pass a polygraph exam and who tend to rise to leadership positions because they are comfortable climbing on the backs of those around them to get to the top.

Psychopaths and sociopaths are unable to feel remorse or regret. Their brains just won’t allow them to.

Couple that with “patriotism” and secrecy and you have a rogue organization, a governmental body that knows institutionally that it can act with impunity, with utter disregard for the law, and get away with it.

It’s that system that attracts, cultivates, and advances people like Ric Prado. Want to know what’s wrong with the CIA? Look no further than this book.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Kiriakou.

• California Representative Lieu plans to introduce an impeachment resolution next Monday
• Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar introduces articles of impeachment against Trump after he incites mob
• Followers of the far-right movement say there were warning signs leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol this week
• Civil-rights advocates say the police response to Trump supporters was in stark contrast to responses to peaceful civil-rights protests
• California Governor Newsom unveils his new state budget plan, marking the start of months of negotiations
• California state legislators introduce the Keep California Working Act to help small businesses and nonprofits

The post California Representative Lieu plans to introduce an impeachment resolution next Monday; Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar introduces articles of impeachment against Trump after he incites mob appeared first on KPFA.

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

Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.

• At least one dead after President Donald Trump incites mob that sieges capital.
• Trump’s Republican allies try to stop congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
• Historic victory as Democrats win Georgia senate runoff, including state’s first African American senator.
• SoCal hospitals entering crisis care mode as Santa Clara County warns of COVID-19 breaking point.
• California health care for all advocates urge lawmakers to pass measure during pandemic.

The post One dead after President Donald Trump incites mob siege on capitol; Historic victory as Democrats win Georgia senate runoff; SoCal and Bay Area Hospitals warn of breaking point – January 6, 2021 appeared first on KPFA.

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