WAIT, WHAT

Ohio House passes bills to stiffen 'riot' penalties; stop police from limiting guns on scene

Jake Zuckerman, Ohio Capital Journal
February 17, 2022

UNARMED PEACEFUL PROTESTERS ARE DEEMED RIOTERS IN OHIO

The Ohio House passed two bills Wednesday that together would create new penalties and stiffen preexisting ones for people engaged in what the law considers to be “riots,” and another revoking a current police power to limit the transfer of guns and weapons during a “riot.”

House Bill 109 creates new felony offenses of “riot assault,” “riot vandalism,” and “bias motivated intimidation.” It also enhances penalties for existing offenses like rioting, aggravated rioting, disorderly conduct, and vandalism.

It also borrows language from state laws dealing with funding or supporting terrorism to expand the offense of racketeering to include knowingly providing material support to or organizing a crowd into a riot.

Lastly, it creates a new avenue for police officers to file civil lawsuits if they’re injured during a riot, if their civil rights are infringed while on duty, or if a “false complaint” is filed against the officer.

The legislation passed nearly along party lines, though Rep. Jamie Callender, R-Concord, voted with Democrats in opposition. It comes less than two years after protests erupted nationally when a Minneapolis police officer was captured on camera murdering George Floyd, an unarmed Black man. A vast majority of those demonstrations were peaceful, though an estimated 6% nationally turned chaotic and destructive.

The second bill would strike a section of current law that allows the top police officer in a jurisdiction, when suppressing a riot or when one might arise, to cordon off the area and block through-traffic. That officer can prohibit the sale, dispensing or transportation of firearms, ammo, dynamite, or other explosives.


It passed on party lines with Republicans in support and Democrats opposed.
Riots

Its sponsors, Reps. Sara Carruthers, R-Hamilton, and Cindy Abrams, R-Harrison, said the bill is focused on the small groups of “agitators” who hijack peaceful protests and turn to destruction. Rep. Haraz Ghanbari, R-Perrysburg, made similar comments, at one point suggesting that some of the protesters in 2020 were “bused in and driven in from other parts of the country.”

Democrats described the bill as an affront to people expressing their rights to speak and peacefully assemble. Rep. Dave Leland, D-Columbus, emphasized that most of what the bill targets is already illegal.

Much of the opposition centers on the broad definition of the term “riot.” Ohio law defines a riot as a group of four or more people engaged in disorderly conduct with the purpose of committing a misdemeanor. When the bill passed in committee, several social justice protesters stood in protests with red “X” letters taped over their coronavirus masks.

Several Democrats noted the racial dynamics of the issue — a mostly white group of lawmakers passed legislation to crack down on protests that formed in response to racial injustice.

“When we look at the details of the bill, there are inadvertent consequences for people simply wanting to speak and say, ‘Enough is enough,’” said Rep. Dontavius Jarrells, D-Columbus.

Carruthers said the bill isn’t about race or even any specific protest.

“This is not a racial issue, not even close,” she said. “This is about someone throwing a brick through a building.”
Guns

Rep. Scott Wiggam, R-Wooster, introduced the guns bill, a major priority of the Buckeye Firearms Association. He said while the governor and health department did not close down any gun stores during the COVID-19 lockdowns of early 2020, the bill ensures it remains that way in the future.

Democrats in the chamber said the bill infringes on a doctrine within the Ohio Constitution that calls for “home rule” on policing issues. Rep. Jessica Miranda offered an amendment to reshape the bill to continue to allow local police to limit firearm sales and transfers in a cordoned off area where a riot is taking place.

The amendment was voted down.


Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David DeWitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com. Follow Ohio Capital Journal on Facebook and Twitter.

Pro-'free speech' app Gettr bans users who are critical of Chinese financier Guo Wengui: report

Brad Reed
February 17, 2022

Wikipedia

Gettr, the MAGA-friendly social media platform intended to be a pro-"free speech" alternative to Twitter, is apparently banning accounts that are critical of Chinese finacier Guo Wengui, who reportedly has deep ties to the app.

Daily Beast reporter Zachary Petrizzo says that he heard rumors from Gettr users about getting banned for being critical of Guo -- and particularly if they baselessly accused him of being a secret "spy" for Chinese government.

To test this out, Petrizzo made six different accounts that all wrote negative posts about Guo.

"All six accounts were promptly banned, with 83 minutes being the longest span of time a single critical post remained live," writes The Daily Beast. "They were banned without notice of wrongdoing or explanation for the permanent suspensions."

Petrizzo then tried to create accounts that praised Guo and touted his animosity toward the Chinese Communist Party -- and these accounts were all allowed to stay up.

Of course, this isn't the only time that Gettr has banned people from its platform.

"Since its inception, the supposedly 'anti-cancel culture' Gettr has generated several controversies over its use of content moderation, drawing the ire of far-right extremists like Nicholas Fuentes who flocked to the site to say whatever they wanted," notes Petrizzo. "Shortly after joining, Fuentes and members of his white nationalist 'groyper army' were quickly given the boot for having 'violated Gettr’s clearly defined terms of use,' as a spokesperson told The Daily Beast at the time."

Let them eat steak: French Communists bounce back with recipe for ‘happy days’

“This left is no longer desirable, it has stopped fighting for the right to happiness.”

Agence France-Presse
February 17, 2022

Fabien Roussel, the Communist Party candidate for the French presidency, says the left has turned its back on the working class. © Daniel Cole, AP

France’s century-old Communist Party is showing signs of a renaissance in the run-up to April presidential elections, propelled by a charismatic candidate who promises happier days for a famously morose – and nostalgic – nation.

The rise of Fabien Roussel began with a juicy steak, a lump of cheese and a splash of red wine – “the essence of French cuisine”, as the Communist Party leader put it.

The seemingly banal statement, made during an interview on state television on January 9, touched a raw nerve in France, exposing deep fractures on the French left. It reignited a heated controversy between environmental activists, keen on weaning the French off their addiction to meat, and self-proclaimed defenders of French lifestyle.

For Roussel, a little-known candidate from an ailing party that looked consigned to the history books, the polemic was a gift, an easy gateway to the notoriety that had so far eluded him. Sensing an opportunity, he began to pepper his every speech and interview with talk of tasty, grass-fed beef, rigorously made in France. His critics, chief among them the Greens, he exposed as moralizing party poopers bent on eliminating life’s simple pleasures.

“No more coppa, no more panisse [pancakes] in Marseille, no more French fries in the North,” he cried in dismay at a rally earlier this month. “What are we going to eat? Tofu and soy beans? Oh, come on!”

The right’s favorite communist

Roussel’s culinary considerations are part of a broader strategy aimed at carving out a space for his party within a weak and deeply divided left wing. They join a string of topics on which the Communist nominee has been conspicuously at odds with others on the left.

Alone of all left-wing candidates for the presidency, Roussel is a staunch supporter of nuclear energy. He also advocates a stricter reading of France’s rules on secularism, has spoken dismissively of “wokeism”, and has voiced support for hunters and the police, appearing alongside far-right leaders at a controversial protest called by police unions last year. All of which has earned him unwanted plaudits from right-wing politicians and from members of President Emmanuel Macron’s government.

Never mind his orthodox plans to boost the minimum wage, nationalize top banks, introduce a steep wealth tax or hire half a million new civil servants; it’s the unorthodox proposals that have caught the public’s eye – chief among them his dining suggestions.

According to his campaign director Ian Brossat, a deputy mayor of Paris, criticism of Roussel has been mostly caricatural.

“If it’s right-wing to say that gastronomy should be available to everyone, then the vast majority of the country is right-wing,” Brossat told FRANCE 24. “I don’t think it is.”

Roussel himself has angrily dismissed his label as the right wing’s pet communist. “When the right wing, the Medef [a business lobby] and Macron take a look at the latest opinion polls and witness our surge, they’ll choke on their croissants while reading the Figaro,” he snapped in an interview on Tuesday, referring to France’s conservative newspaper of record.

Stepping out of Mélenchon’s shadow

There’s another reason for Roussel’s popularity on the right. By running as an independent candidate, he is siphoning votes from Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the firebrand leader of leftist party La France insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI), under whose banner the Communists ran in the last two presidential elections, and who narrowly missed out on the second round in 2017.

Roussel, 52, was elected head of the Communist Party the following year, with a specific mandate to carry the party’s colors in future presidential elections – regardless of the pressure to rally behind Mélenchon once again. His mission is to drag the party out of its “electoral irrelevance”, says Roger Martelli, a historian of the Parti communiste français (PCF).

“From the perspective of the Communist Party, the alliance with LFI was a failure, because it cost them seats in subsequent parliamentary elections,” Martelli told FRANCE 24. “The lesson they drew was that to miss out on the presidential election meant weakening the party.”

Judging by voter surveys, the party’s decision to go it alone is starting to pay off. In recent weeks, Roussel has seen his poll numbers crawl up to 5% – still a small share of the vote but a far cry from the 1.9% the PCF won when it last fielded a presidential candidate, in 2007. In a highly symbolic reversal of fortunes, it has overtaken the once mighty Socialist Party, whose beleaguered candidate Anne Hidalgo has seen her support slump.

After decades of lingering in the shadow of larger parties, first as junior partners to the Socialists and then as side-kicks to Mélenchon, the Communists are reveling in their new-found independence. Once again, the media are knocking on the gates of their futuristic Paris headquarters, one of the capital’s great postwar architectural landmarks, which the Communists have held onto – even as the cash-strapped Socialists sold theirs.

“One could be tempted to joke that the Communist Party has finally got its revenge over the Socialists,” said Martelli. “But the satisfaction would necessarily be tempered by the knowledge that this is now a contest between minnows.”

Poaching voters from other left-wing parties is not an objective of the PCF, added Brossat, noting that “they already have so few”. Put together, the many little candidates of the left vying for the French presidency account for just a quarter of the electorate, according to surveys. Only one of them, Mélenchon, has reached double digits.

“Our aim is to broaden the left’s electorate by luring back voters who drifted away from the left in recent years,” said Roussel's campaign manager. “That means reaching out to them and offering solutions to their problems; which is what Fabien Roussel is trying to do.”

The moralising left

Nowhere has the left hemorrhaged supporters in greater numbers than in Roussel’s own northern heartland, once an industrial stronghold of the left and now a bastion of abstention and the far right.

An MP and small-town mayor from the Pas-de-Calais, France’s northernmost département, Roussel has cultivated the image of an affable, straight-talking man-of-the-people who is fond of engaging with his constituents at the market and in bistros. He is known to jot down grievances, ideas and puns on his notebook, perhaps a legacy of his stint as a reporter for the hallowed Communist daily, L’Humanité.

That’s how he came up with the term “roussellement” – a play on “ruissellement”, the French word for trickle-down economics – to describe his own economic platform. A Keynesian proposal to stimulate domestic demand through wage hikes, “roussellement” is hardly a revolutionary idea. But it’s the branding that matters.

As critics have argued, Roussel has proven adept at the art of “dressing up something old as something new”. And for those uncomfortable with the notion of voting for a party once aligned with Stalin’s USSR, he has a simple message: “You don’t need to be a Communist to vote Fabien Roussel.”

His explanation as to why blue-collar voters have turned their backs on the left is equally simple: It was the left that deserted them in the first place, he says, dismissing their concerns, shunning their language and habits, and ceasing to give them hope.

“I’m fed up with a left that makes people feel guilty all the time,” he told French newspaper Libération on Wednesday. “I don’t want the left-wing politics of the Greens, who lecture the French all the time, who make them feel guilty for eating meat, for using their cars, for building their homes in the countryside, for flying the national flag.”

He added: “This left is no longer desirable, it has stopped fighting for the right to happiness.”

Happy Days

To distinguish themselves from rivals on the left, the Communists have picked the most upbeat slogan in the campaign so far: "Happy Days for France" – a reference to a French Resistance manifesto from the end of World War II, when the PCF emerged as France's biggest party.

“The Communists are used to summoning the memory of what Roussel describes as the ‘happy days’, when the working-class movement helped change French society in a positive way,” said Martelli. “We’re in a country where memory plays an important role in shaping popular emotions and the capacity to mobilize.”

It helps that other candidates in this year’s presidential race carry distinctly pessimistic messages, from the warnings of impending climate catastrophe voiced by the Greens to the doom-laden prophecy of racial and cultural “replacement” vented by anti-immigration populist Eric Zemmour.

“France is getting richer and richer, and yet the French people see their quality of life decline and inequalities increase,” said Brossat. “Happy days means implementing policies that improve people’s daily lives instead of making them worse.”

Critics, however, say the Communists are merely distributing empty promises of happiness, safe in the knowledge that they won’t be called upon to deliver in government.

“I don’t try to generate enthusiasm by denying problems, because that is irresponsible,” Yannick Jadot, the Green candidate for the presidency, told BFMTV on Tuesday, in a jab at Roussel. He added: “Instead, I try to find solutions, because the Greens actually want to govern.”

According to Martelli, Roussel is offering a different type of ecology from the Greens, one “based on incentives rather than punishments, and which works hand in hand with social policies” aimed at struggling households. The point is not to place the burden unfairly on those who are already worse off.

“Roussel is looking for a way to ‘reclaim’ the working-class vote,” he said. “Will it work? A historian can’t answer that question. But is it necessary? For sure.”
Getting vegans on board

For the Communists to have any chance of governing in the near future, an understanding with the Greens and others on the left will be equally indispensable – as Roussel himself appeared to acknowledge at a rally in the Paris suburb of Montreuil on Wednesday. He noticeably tempered his earlier culinary provocations, stressing that “good food, be it meat-based, vegetarian or vegan, must be available to everyone and I respect them all.”

In the vast town hall of Montreuil, which the Communist Party reclaimed from the Greens in 2014, the crowd cheered approvingly as Roussel called for a broad alliance of the left to win as many seats as possible in June parliamentary elections. For the presidential contest, however, they backed their candidate’s decision to go it alone.

“There’s no reason to get behind Mélenchon again, it can’t always be ‘me, me, me’,” said 56-year-old civil servant Mohammed Abdoul-Baki. “With Mélenchon, our party and its ideas were simply erased,” added Daniel Duclos, 74, holding the party’s red flag in one hand and the French tricolour in the other. He praised Roussel for embracing the national flag, “a symbol of the French Revolution that must not be surrendered to the far right.”

Among the younger members of the audience, 23-year-old students Nadia and Clara highlighted the words of optimism voiced by Roussel, and his ability to “reach out to those who don’t consider themselves Communists.” Still, others said they may yet cast a ballot for Mélenchon, rather than Roussel, should the former be in a position to qualify for the second round.

As things stand, Roussel’s success is good news for his party but bad news for the left’s already slim chances of reaching the all-important run-off, says Martelli.

“If you add up support for Mélenchon and the Communist candidate, then the second round is, in theory, attainable,” he explained, noting that the right is also divided, thereby lowering the threshold to qualify for the run-off. “In this respect, the end of their alliance is hugely detrimental to the left.”

Either way, this year’s race for the Élysée Palace is already a lost cause, counters Brossat, for whom a left-wing candidate would get pummeled in the second round – “including by the far right”.

“Our problem is not one of arithmetics, it’s political,” said Roussel’s campaign director. “Left-wing ideas have massively retreated in recent years. It is not by rallying behind a self-proclaimed candidate that we will reclaim the ideological ground we lost.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$T

Kris Kobach, running for Kansas AG, still working for scandal-tainted border wall group

2022/2/17 
© The Kansas City Star

Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is now running for state attorney general, on Aug. 6, 2018. - Shelly Yang/The Kansas City Star/TNS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Before Kris Kobach lost the Kansas Republican primary for U.S. Senate in August 2020, his pitch to voters included his work for We Build the Wall, the nonprofit funding the construction of strips of wall along the southern border.

As its general counsel, Kobach commanded a handsome fee of $25,000 per month. He was sometimes the organization's public face, appearing on conservative media and in slick promotional materials.

Everything changed 16 days after the election, when federal prosecutors charged leaders of We Build the Wall, including former White House strategist Steve Bannon, with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors. They created sham invoices and accounts to launder donations and cover up crimes, prosecutors alleged.

The former Kansas secretary of state, known for his hard-line views on immigration, wasn't charged or accused of wrongdoing. Bannon was pardoned by President Donald Trump during his final hours in office. We Build the Wall's operations largely ground to a halt, its funds frozen as the remaining criminal cases moved forward.

But Kobach has continued to work for the scandal-tainted group over the past year and a half, even after launching his campaign for Kansas attorney general — the state's top law enforcement official.

Kobach is no stranger to controversial causes or associating with fringe characters. His latest campaign, coming after unsuccessful bids for Senate and governor, may attract fresh attention to his day job as a lawyer. The ongoing fallout from the We Build the Wall scandal is only the latest headline-grabbing development in a legal career that has also included being held in contempt in federal court while personally defending a Kansas voter registration law.

Kobach remains general counsel at We Build the Wall. And according to Florida business filings, he is a director along with president and founder Brian Kolfage, who is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Money helps explain why Kobach has maintained his ties to Kolfage's organization.

In the immediate wake of the federal charges, We Build the Wall owed Kobach at least $75,000, according to a September 2020 letter that Kobach's attorney, Justin Weddle, filed in federal court. Kobach had a contract with the organization for a flat $25,000 monthly fee but was last paid in June 2020, the letter said.

Since then, Kobach has been fighting in court on behalf of himself and We Build the Wall to obtain access to the group's funds, which were frozen when charges were filed against Kolfage, Bannon and others. We Build the Wall has about $1.7 million cash on hand, Weddle wrote in September 2020.

We Build the Wall has also been unable to retain private attorneys to defend itself in a lawsuit brought by the North American Butterfly Association, which is accusing Kolfage of defamation over social media posts in 2019 alleging a link between the group and sex trafficking. NABA operates the National Butterfly Center, located in Mission, Texas, near a strip of wall funded by We Build the Wall, and closed to the public earlier this year amid threats.

Federal judges have rejected Kobach's requests for access to the funds, looking skeptically at allowing the organization to spend cash that may eventually be used to compensate victims if We Build the Wall's leaders are ultimately convicted.

Kobach is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. In November, We Build the Wall filed a petition asking the high court to take up the case. A response from the Department of Justice is due Tuesday.

Kobach and We Build the Wall's byzantine legal quest, and the prospect of the Supreme Court taking it up, appears to be unusual.

"I will tell you, I have not seen a situation like this before ... I've been deeply engaged in these things since 2006 and this is not something I've seen," said Phil Hackney, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies nonprofits.

Kobach responded to questions for this story with a statement, saying the chances the Supreme Court will hear any case are "always slim."

"This case presents an important question though, regarding the freezing of assets that belong to an organization that has not been charged with any crime, merely because a board member (who does not own the assets) has been charged with a crime," Kobach said, referring to Kolfage. " A Supreme Court ruling would likely affect other nonprofit organizations in the future."

We Build the Wall's frozen funds

We Build the Wall formed in late 2018 after Kolfage, a U.S. Air Force veteran of Iraq, initially raised money for a wall through a GoFundMe page. It's not exactly clear when Kobach joined, but when he launched his Senate campaign in July 2019, he told supporters his involvement with the group had been "one of the most rewarding things I have done in my career."

The organization and the novelty of its mission — privately-funded border wall — quickly attracted attention. Trump had made building a wall (and making Mexico pay for it) a key part of his first campaign for president. We Build the Wall offered Trump supporters a way to take matters into their own hands.

Kolfage told The Kansas City Star in June 2020 that he and Kobach were first connected through Bannon. At the time, Kolfage said Kobach was "involved in every decision-making process for the organization."

"Because we've had so many eyes just watching every move that we make and he's been able to help me make sure everything we do is by the book and legally above board," Kolfage said.

But prosecutors allege Kolfage covertly used more than $350,000 in donations for his personal use. Bannon was also accused of using We Build the Wall funds to cover personal expenses. The two men, along with Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea, were accused of concealing payments to Kolfage by routing them through a nonprofit and shell company controlled by Shea.

While Bannon was pardoned, Kolfage and Shea may face trial in May. Badolato is in the "final stages of a pretrial resolution" — indicating he is likely to take a plea deal — prosecutors said in a letter filed in court on Monday.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York first unveiled the charges on Aug. 20, 2020. Two weeks later, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Sobelman emailed Weddle asking Kobach to voluntarily produce two categories of documents.

One category included documents concerning an array of politically-oriented limited liability companies and individuals, including Bannon, Kolfage and others close to We Build the Wall. The other was for documents about the group's email or donor lists in connection with Kobach's campaign for Senate, including "any solicitations for contributions."

Kobach had been previously accused by government watchdogs of misusing We Build the Wall's email list to raise money for his campaign. Kobach had emailed the group's supporters, providing links to the campaign's official fundraising page and asked for "a financial contribution of $50, $100, $250, $500, or any amount up to the maximum of $2,800 per individual."

Washington-based Common Cause in 2019 filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, asking for an investigation. Campaign finance experts at the time pointed to the lack of a "paid for" disclosure in the message and said if Kobach didn't pay a fair market price for access to the email list, it could be a violation of campaign finance law.

"Any time a candidate for public office is associated with an outside political organization, it warrants scrutiny to make sure the candidate is not getting an unfair or even illegal boost from the outside organization," Paul S. Ryan, Common Cause's vice president of policy and litigation, said in an interview this week.

Sobelman's email indicates prosecutors had interest in how Kobach's Senate campaign had used We Build the Wall resources and went at least as far as asking for records in his possession.

$75,000 in back pay

Kobach's efforts to gain access to We Build the Wall's funds began soon after charges were filed, according to court documents.

Weddle responded to Sobelman on Sept. 22, 2020, asking in a letter for permission to spend We Build the Wall's funds for a variety of purposes — everything from hiring attorneys to help Kobach produce documents to $75,000 in back pay Kobach was owed.

Weddle also wanted permission to spend $125,000 to pay a retention fee that would allow an insurance company to pay for Kolfage's defense.

Sobelman and Weddle's messages were originally filed under seal in the We Build the Wall criminal cases, but the seal was later lifted. The Star accessed them through a public court records search.

"I have complied voluntarily with the DoJ requests for documents in my possession," Kobach told The Star. "I have continued to serve as General Counsel in order to protect the interests of an organization that serves an important cause, namely physically securing our southern border, and to protect the interests of the hundreds of thousands of contributors who donated to that mission."

Beyond Kobach's own legal expenses and Kolfage's criminal defense, We Build the Wall continues to face long-running litigation involving the North American Butterfly Association. The association sued in 2019, alleging defamation by Kolfage, who sent tweets alleging sex trafficking on National Butterfly Center property.

Over time, the Butterfly Center has become the target of right-wing conspiracy theories about sex and human trafficking.

Last year, We Build the Wall's private attorneys in the lawsuit received permission to drop the case because of non-payment. We Build the Wall has "every intention of paying its legal fees, but is temporarily unable to do so," Kobach said during a March 2021 hearing, according to a transcript.

Kobach said that he, too, hadn't been paid as general counsel since August 2020, "but I don't believe it's appropriate to withdraw."

In an unusual move, Crane designated Kobach as We Build the Wall's attorney "not of record." Earlier this year, the defamation allegations were returned to Texas state court, where the lawsuit was originally filed.

Marianna Trevino-Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center, told The Star that she expects the discovery and depositions in the lawsuit to move forward now that it's back in state court.

"Boy, do I feel sorry for you people," Trevino-Wright said of Kobach's run for attorney general.

Supreme Court request

Kobach's formal legal effort to obtain access to We Build the Wall's accounts has been ongoing since the fall of 2020, when his attorney first asked to modify a restraining order placed upon funds in three bank accounts in the nonprofit's name.

Prosecutors said the restraining order was meant to "safeguard funds" that it could later recover through a forfeiture order if it convicts the defendants.

In December 2020, Kobach's request was denied by a district court judge. He appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments in June 2021.

"If the boss of an organized crime family formed an LLC and had all his capos pay money into the LLC instead of giving it to him in cash, can't the government reach the LLC?" U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan asked, according to Courthouse News Service.

Weddle replied that the nonprofit had an existence apart from its managers. According to CNS, Kaplan exclaimed that Kolfage "is the crime boss!"

The appeals court dismissed Kobach's appeal the next month. We Build the Wall then filed its petition for Supreme Court review in November.

Kobach didn't answer a question this week about how much We Build the Wall currently owes him.

Community radio schools: educational alternatives in the context of digital divide

Radio enhances education in rural areas of Bolivia

posted 8 February 2022 

Boys and girls from rural areas of Bolivia who were part of the Radio Escuela. Photo: Courtesy of CEPRA.

This article was originally published in our partner Bolivian outlet Muy Waso and was edited and republished by Global Voices.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bolivia, the gap in access to education between schoolchildren in urban and rural areas has increased. An educational radio project has sought to fix it.

During 2021, educational activities in Bolivia were virtual and blended due to the pandemic, yet about 30 percent of students attend schools in rural areas with limited access to the internet and computers. The dropout rate in 2021 was around 20 percent in Bolivia, one of the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to data from the National Institute of Statistics from 2018, nine out of 10 households in rural Bolivia do not have internet access. In cities, the situation is not much better: only six out of 10 households have an internet connection. Four out of 10 Bolivian adolescents or young people indicated that they were not attending classes through any internet platform in a UNICEF opinion poll.

Boys and girls from rural areas of Bolivia who were part of the Radio Escuela. Photo: Courtesy of CEPRA

Searching for solutions

It was in this context that a radio school project from the non-profit radio organization Centro de Producción Radiofónica (CEPRA) emerged to provide educational materials to primary school children in 24 municipalities in the country in 2021. The project was managed by their own funds and donations.

CEPRA's radio school reached areas that received little to no resources from the State. It brought printed and radio materials such as booklets, radio stories, and radio dramas to support children's education.

“In 2021, this project aims to close the gap that left rural areas without any support or guidance at the end of the 2020 school year. (Following government regulations), radio and educational booklets are included, but with a lesson-based approach, giving only instructions to the students,” explains Juan Luis Gutiérrez, CEPRA coordinator. 

CEPRA's radio school project also sought to recognize the different types of intelligence and ways of learning that children have “without qualifying or categorizing them.”

CEPRA reached children in four rural departments of the country: Potosí, Oruro, Cochabamba, and Chuquisaca. The booklets and radio materials include themes, characters, flora and fauna from each of these areas of Bolivia. The project addressed issues specific to each region.

The activities of the CEPRA project addressed community issues and the flora and fauna of the place. Photo: Courtesy of CEPRA.

A participatory project

The project not only focused on the distribution of materials but also included the training of teachers and community media broadcasters.

“Twenty-four community radio stations had an hour dedicated to children. It is something that had not happened until now,” emphasizes Gutiérrez, who is also a specialist in neuroeducation. It was not easy, some teachers said that trying to apply this project was “one more task for them to do,” but others cooperated with the project.

They had to evaluate the connectivity conditions and check if the students had internet and radio signals. This allowed them to carry out interventions in the households where they identified situations of violence.

“The 15 teams of educators who were going to implement the radio school sessions evaluated what was happening in the schools. During this process, we witnessed situations of violence from teachers, parents… so we set up spaces for psycho-pedagogical support and the pedagogues increased the number of visits to the households,” highlights Gutiérrez.

The initiative also sought to implement cultural, community, and environmental values, under the Montessori educational methodology. “Our educational approach includes more resources in the classroom and does not focus on the teacher. We want to support the student's perspective. We wanted to dignify the children, promote them as people with voice and decision power, and to create well-being with education,” says Gutiérrez enthusiastically.

This post is from Rising Voices, a Global Voices project that helps spread citizen media to places that don't normally have access to it. All Posts

Categories

• Latin America
• Bolivia

• Digital Activism
• Education
• Conversations for a Better World
• Rising Voices

Written byMuy Waso

Translated byTeodora C. Hasegan

India's Mising tribe lives in traditional flood-resilient homes to adapt to climate change

These houses can be raised depending on the last flood levels

 9 February 2022 

Sogunpara, a typical Mising village in the Jorhat district of Assam, featuring chang ghar or traditional houses on raised platforms. Image by the author.

(The interviews in this story were conducted in-person as a part of field research between October and December 2021)

India’s northeastern state of Assam is the most impacted by climate change in the country, due to flash floods and erosion. The second-largest tribe of the state, the Mising (who make up 17.8 percent of the state’s population) are amongst the worst affected as they live on the banks of the Brahmaputra River and its tributaries. However, they manage to survive in their unique and traditional flood-resilient houses called chang ghar in Assamese, perched above the ground on bamboo stilts.

The word “mising” means man (mi) of the water (asi), and those who live on the mainland call them “river people.” As they live in low lands near the river, the Mising's homes can easily be inundated during tides or swept away by floods.

Inside a traditional chang ghar

Chang ghar are built on a raised platform supported by bamboo stilts, which can keep floodwaters at bay.

Sogunpara in Jorhat district is a typical Mising village, about 300–500 metres away from the Brahmaputra River. “Each time when its water level rises during floods, we become the most vulnerable,” says Nandi Mili, who owns a chang ghar in the village.

Chang ghar above wooden stilts with a jokhola or auspicious ladder for entering. Image by the author.

Flanked by similar houses around, it stands at about 8 feet above the ground. This height of the floor, according to Nandi, indicates the level the last flood reached in the locality. The villagers mark this height on the poles of their homes, based on which they raise their floors during the next repairs.

A wooden ladder locally called a jokhola leads to the raised entrance of the house. It is an important element of the community’s home on which rest some of their social beliefs. “A jokhola has either five or seven steps as these numbers are considered auspicious by us,” explains Nandi’s wife Lotika.

According to Mising traditions, the arrival of a new bride in their household calls for the setting up of a new jokhola. Rituals and ceremonies in the presence of village elders mark her climbing up this jokhola, to enter the house for the first time. “This is believed to make the marriage long and happy,” Lotika says.

Nandi Mili with his family in his chang ghar. Image by the author.

The jokhola outside Lotika’s chang ghar has five steps leading to the entrance through a rectangular porch or verandah. The room at the entrance is almost bare, with a few chairs laid out for visitors. The walls of the house are made of interwoven bamboo or cane.

“We use neither mud nor cement in our construction, to minimize damages to our houses due to recurrent floods. Further, cane and bamboo are easily available natural resources in patches of wilderness near our village; hence rebuilding our homes becomes easy and cost-effective with them,” says Nandi.

The floor of the house is lined with long and thick bamboo strips, and conveniently bears the weight of the household items and members. Its variable height is one of the unique highlights of a chang ghar’s flood resilient strategy. “Another important aspect of this coping strategy is whenever possible, we can undo these bamboo structures, load them on boats etc. and keep them on highlands or raised platforms, to fix them back, after the floods are over,” says Nandi.

Lotika Mili making tea in her chang ghar kitchen. Image by the author.

The chang ghar‘s special kitchen

The centre of the house has a kitchen and fireplace — this is typically designed to endure floods. While lighting the hearth, Lotika says it is locally called “meram,” and it also keeps the house warm among the cold winds of the river banks. But most importantly, this part of the house has certain traditional food storage mechanisms both for daily and emergency use during floods. They are rectangular bamboo shelves (about 4 feet by 3 feet) suspended with ropes from the ceiling at optimum heights over the fireplace.

About 4 feet above the meram hangs the first shelf, called “perab,” over which there is another, known as rabbong. Since the perab is directly above the fireplace, it is also used to smoke raw fish and meat or to dry paddy during the rainy season. Daily household items such as utensils and firewood are also stacked there.

Rabbong is very special for the community as it stores pitchers of the traditional Mising rice beer apong, especially in winter to keep it warm and prevent it from getting sour. In summer, however, these pitchers are placed on the floor of the chang ghar to keep them cool.

There is another topmost shelf close to the kitchen’s ceiling called the “kumbang.” This is used to store vegetables like potatoes, pumpkins, gourds, onions, garlic, etc.

According to Nandi, since these layers are directly over the fireplace, the smoke and the heat keep  bacteria and fungi out of the stored items. Further, the thatched roof also keeps the items in the kumbang cool.

For emergency and livestock protection

Additional storage space is often created with bamboo mats below the ceiling of their room at the entrance. Here, bags of paddy, vegetable seeds and other essentials are stored to protect them from floods and set aside to be used during emergencies. “Our community is perpetually ready to evacuate their homes since floods today are more sudden and recurrent,” says Lotika.

Livestock that forms an important part of Mising household is kept in the basement of a chang ghar. Image by the author.

In the space below the house or the open basement, flanked by the bamboo stilts, few pigs laze in the morning sun. This part of the house is occupied by the family’s livestock, which occupies an important place in the lives of the local communities. Certain homes in the village have also constructed a raised platform close to their homes where their cattle take refuge during floods.

Replications of traditional tribal housing

A few houses away from Nandi’s, there is a chang ghar with an interesting variation. Its supporting bamboo stilts have been replaced by cemented pillars and the usual thatched roof substituted with asbestos sheets. “Though such modifications in building materials are expensive and very few in the village can afford, yet the basic flood resilient adaptations within the house remain the same,” points out Nandi.

This traditional concept of chang ghar is being replicated in flood-hit villages by local grass-root based non-profits such as North East Area Affected Development Society (NEADS) with the help of indigenous youth clubs and disaster management committees. “We particularly want to incorporate their traditional ideas and climate adaptation strategies adopted on shelter management, put together with our innovative practices under the organisation’s post-flood rehabilitation and reconstruction programme,” says Tirtha Prasad Saikia, Joint Director, NEADS. Nearly 250 homes have been constructed in 25 villages in the districts of Jorhat, Golaghat and Sibsagar, during the past 6–7 years.

A Mising community member flaunts the chang ghar design on his traditional attire. Image by the author.

The local villagers are paid for their labour during construction work. The former also provide bamboo, cane and other locally available materials required for construction in their villages. “These homes are distributed to beneficiaries free of cost, selected through community-based consultations with village groups including their heads and elders,” says Saikia.

Chang ghar, however, is a special survival strategy of the Mising community only. Other tribes that live away from the river banks do not use stilted homes; they live in ordinary huts.

Note: The research and reporting for the story were supported by the National Geographic Society, as a part of a storytelling grant on climate impacts in the Himalayan region.

Written byMoushumi Basu

Saudi Arabia considering four-day working week, labour minister says

The New Arab Staff
17 February, 2022
Saudi Arabia is considering reducing the working week to 'attract more investors and create more job opportunities', the country's human resources and social development minister said Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia currently has a five-day working week [Getty]

Saudi Arabia is considering reducing the working week to four days, the country's human resources and social development minister said Wednesday.

The Gulf kingdom is also considering adjusting its five-day working week to four and a half days, minister Ahmed Al-Rajhi said in his statement.

Riyadh aims to “attract more investors and create more job opportunities” with the reduction, al-Rajhi said.

The move is part of a wider plan to revamp the kingdom's labour market strategy, he said, including the creation of some 1.8 million jobs.

The minister said he is looking to implement nationalisation schemes through which Saudi companies and enterprises must employ a certain number of Saudi nationals.

There are currently 1.9 million Saudis in the country's workforce, he added.

The United Arab Emirates began adopting a four-and-a-half-day work week in January.