Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, the man sentenced to death for a Whatsapp voice note

#ENDBLASPHEMYLAWS

By Eoin McSweeney and Stephanie Busari, CNN
1 hour ago

© Photo Illustration/Alberto Mier

An intense argument recorded and posted in a WhatsApp group has led to a death penalty sentence and a family torn apart over allegations of insulting Prophet Mohammed, according to lawyers for the defendant.

Music studio assistant Yahaya Sharif-Aminu was sentenced to death by hanging on August 10 after being convicted of blasphemy by an Islamic court in northern Nigeria.

The judgment document states that Sharif-Aminu, 22, was convicted for making "a blasphemous statement against Prophet Mohammed in a WhatsApp Group," which is contrary to the Kano State Sharia Penal Code and is an offence which carries the death sentence.© Photo Illustration/Alberto Mier

The recording was shared widely, causing mass outrage in the highly conservative, majority Muslim, state, according to various reports.

"Whoever insults, defames or utters words or acts which are capable of bringing into disrespect ... such a person has committed a serious crime which is punishable by death," according to a translation of court documents provided to CNN by his lawyers.

Sharif-Aminu, described by his friend Kabiru Ibrahim, as "kind, religious and dutiful," admitted charges of blasphemy during his trial, but said he had made a mistake.

No legal representation

Under Sharia law, a voluntary confession is binding, according to court papers.

Sharif-Aminu's lawyers, who became involved in the case only after his conviction, say he was not allowed legal representation before or during his trial -- in contravention of Nigerian citizens' constitutional right to legal representation.

According to the lawyers, the Sharia court adjourned his case four times because no lawyer came forth from the Legal Aid Council to represent him, likely because of the sensitivity of the case. The Sharia court is, however, statute-bound to provide legal representation.

Advocates from the Foundation for Religious Freedom (FRF), a not-for-profit aimed at protecting religious freedom in Nigeria, which is representing Sharif-Aminu, told CNN he has also not been permitted access to legal advice to prepare an appeal against his conviction.

The FRF says it has lodged an appeal on his behalf in Kano's high court, a common-law court with constitutional powers.

"The state laws he is accused of breaking are in gross conflict with the Nigerian constitution," said his counsel, Kola Alapinni.

Kano's State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje told clerics in Kano that he would sign Sharif-Aminu's death warrant as soon as the singer had exhausted the appeals process, local media reports say.

"I assure you that immediately the Supreme Court affirms the judgment, I will sign it without any hesitation," Ganduje said, according to Nigeria's Daily Post newspaper. CNN contacted a spokesman for Governor Ganduje several times for comment but did not receive a response.

Islamic scholar and cleric Bashir Aliyu Umar, who is not connected to the case, but said he had read the transcript of the court proceedings, told CNN, "No Muslim will condone it. People hold Prophet Mohammed higher than their parents, and when things like this happen, it will lead to a breakdown of peace because of mob action and attacks against the accused."

When news of Sharif-Aminu's alleged crime broke earlier this year, protesters marched to his family home and destroyed it, prompting his father to flee to a neighboring town, his lawyers told CNN. Sharif-Aminu went into hiding, according to Amnesty and his lawyers, but in March he was arrested by the Hisbah Corps, the religious police force that enforces Sharia law in Kano state.


'A travesty of justice'

Human rights organization Amnesty International has described Sharif-Aminu's trial as a "travesty of justice," and called on Kano state authorities to quash his conviction and death sentence.

"There are serious concerns about the fairness of his trial and the framing of the charges against him based on his Whatsapp messages," said Amnesty's Nigeria director Osai Ojigho. "Furthermore, the imposition of the death penalty following an unfair trial violates the right to life," she added.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has also condemned Sharif-Aminu's death sentence. It said Nigeria's blasphemy laws were inconsistent with universal human rights standards.

"It is unconscionable that Sharif-Aminu is facing a death sentence merely for expressing his beliefs artistically through music," said the organization's commissioner, Frederick A. Davie, in a statement.

The organization released a follow-up statement saying it had adopted Aminu-Sharif as "a religious prisoner of conscience."


Atheism frowned upon

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation and religion permeates every facet of life here, with prayers routinely said in schools and public offices. In addition to blasphemy, atheism is frowned upon by many in the majority Muslim north as well as in parts of the mostly Christian south.

Human rights groups have expressed concern over a crackdown on freedom of speech and expression, particularly when it comes to religion.

On April 28 this year, Mubarak Bala, president of the Nigerian humanist association, was arrested in Kaduna, another northern state, after allegedly posting a message on his Facebook page claiming that a Nigerian evangelical preacher was better than the Prophet Mohammed.

His family and lawyers told Human Rights Watch they have not seen or heard from him since. Bala remains detained without charge and has not been allowed to communicate with his lawyers or his family, according to USCIRF.

Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka is among those who recently sent a message of solidarity to Bala, following his 100th day in confinement on August 6.

"As a child, I remember living in a state of harmonious coexistence all but forgotten in the Nigeria of today, as the plague of religious extremism has encroached," Soyinka, a former political prisoner, wrote, "I write today to tell you that you are not alone, there is a whole community across the globe that stands beside you and will fight for you."


Stoning, amputations, flogging

Sharia law has been practiced alongside secular law in many northern Nigerian states since they were reintroduced in 1999. Nigeria's Sharia courts can also sentence those convicted of offenses to stoning, amputations, and flogging; while the former two are no longer carried out, "flogging is a quite common punishment for many crimes, particularly theft," according to the USCIRF.

Only one death sentence passed by Sharia courts has been carried out, according to Human Rights Watch. Sani Yakubu Rodi was hanged in 2002 for the murder of a woman, her four-year-old son, and baby daughter.

In 2015 and 2016 nine men and one woman were sentenced to death by hanging for insulting the Prophet Mohammed in Kano state, according to a 2019 research paper by the USCIRF. The sentences were not carried out.

In 2000, a Muslim man in the northern state of Zamfara had his hand amputated for stealing a cow. A year later, another man had his hand cut off after he was convicted of stealing bicycles, according to the same USCIRF research paper.


A constitutional violation?

In the eyes of many Nigerians, the adoption of Sharia law is a violation of the country's constitution, because Article 10 guarantees religious freedom when it states that "the Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion."

"This issue of blasphemy is incompatible with the Nigerian constitution," Leo Igwe, chair of the board of trustees for the Humanist Association of Nigeria, told CNN.

"We hope this case will help Nigeria confront the biggest constitutional challenge since independence. What should take precedence, Sharia law, or the Nigerian constitution?"

Governors of the northern states, where Sharia law is practiced, argue that it applies only to Muslims, and not to citizens of other faiths. The FRF says it is working on six other constitutional cases which will challenge what it sees as government interference in Nigerian citizens' right to religious freedom.



One of these, on behalf of the Atheist Society of Nigeria (ASN), is against the state government of Akwa Ibom, in the country's southeast, for its involvement in the construction of an 8,500-seat worship center at its High Court.

The ASN says millions of dollars in state funding have been spent on the center, which it says amounts to government interference in freedom of religion.

"The government has no business legislating on religions. End of story," Ebenezer Odubule, a founding member of the FRF told CNN.

The FRF says it has had to put some of its other cases on hold, to focus on Sharif-Aminu's case. It is also hampered by a lack of funding to fight new cases.

BLACK AND BROWN

Neighborhoods at risk for Covid see disproportionately high eviction rates

By Casey Tolan and Kyung Lah, CNN
29/9/2020

© CNN Falling ill to Covid-19 over the summer left Umu Conteh, of Columbus, Ohio, out of work for two months. Now she's facing eviction.

When Umu Conteh first learned she had tested positive for Covid-19 this summer, the nursing assistant was terrified for her two young daughters.

But the virus was only the start of her troubles: Her illness left her out of work for two months, forcing her to cut back on food and clothing purchases. The $922 monthly rent for their cramped two-bedroom apartment next to a highway interchange started to pile up. And a few weeks ago, she opened her door to see a court notice telling her she was facing eviction.

"I try hard to keep up my rent. I never joke with my rent," Conteh, an immigrant from Sierra Leone, told CNN as she waited for her case to be called at the Columbus, Ohio, eviction court last week. But now, she added through tears, "I don't have food to give them -- the baby's begging for food."

Conteh and her 1- and 4-year-old daughters were among the 118 families who faced eviction cases Wednesday at a temporary courtroom set up at the local convention center. That's a fraction of the eviction proceedings moving forward around the country, despite the Trump administration's moratorium in effect until the end of the year.

And communities at high risk of complications from Covid-19 have been especially affected by evictions -- a perfect storm for danger during the pandemic.

In a dozen large cities around the country, neighborhoods with elevated rates of medical conditions that put people at risk for serious illness from Covid-19 have seen disproportionately high rates of eviction filings over the last six months, according to a CNN analysis of data from The Eviction Lab, a Princeton University research institute.

That means that thousands of people evicted over the last six months were living in areas with the highest health risks from the coronavirus.

The trend is "very troubling," said Peter Hepburn, acassistant professor and research fellow at the Eviction Lab. People evicted during the pandemic may be forced to live with friends or relatives in more densely packed housing or left in homeless shelters, situations that make social distancing difficult or impossible, he said.

"Getting evicted is bad for the individual facing these problems," Hepburn said, "but also bad for the community and for public health generally."

Tenant advocates and experts say that the national moratorium put in place this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be strengthened, and Congress should pass rental assistance, to protect vulnerable families and prevent evictions from spreading the virus further.

"You can't stay at home and avoid people when you don't have a home to be in," said Melissa Benson, a legal aid attorney who represents Columbus tenants facing eviction.


Eviction moratorium 'kicked the can down the road'

© CNN Magistrate Judge Kirk Lindsey hears evictions cases at a temporary courtroom set up at a convention center in Columbus, Ohio, on September 23.

When the CDC abruptly released its unprecedented eviction moratorium this month, the agency declared that "housing stability helps protect public health."

The order from the federal agency prevents landlords from kicking tenants out for not paying rent -- as long as the renter declares in writing that she has lost income or been forced to pay unexpected medical bills, has done her best to get government assistance, and would be left homeless or stuck in a crowded living situation if evicted.

But landlords can still add late fees and interest on unpaid rent to tenants' bills, and they can evict tenants for reasons beyond failing to pay rent, such as a lease ending. The order also only applies to tenants earning less than $99,000 a year -- or people who received a stimulus check or earn less than $198,000 and file joint married tax returns -- although that covers most renters in the country.

© CNN

Advocates say that without major rental assistance money from Congress or states, there's a potential for a huge wave of evictions on January 1, the day after the moratorium expires.

"We kicked the can down the road," Hepburn said. "Come the first of the year, there are going to be a lot of people who owe pretty significant amounts of money and will be set up for failure."

Since the moratorium went into effect September 4, new eviction court filings have markedly declined. Eviction Lab has complete data for 14 cities. New cases in them dropped by almost half from the week of August 30 to the week of September 6, according to a CNN analysis, before rising slightly the week of September 13.

Still, in those 14 cities alone, more than 2,800 new evictions were filed in the two weeks after the moratorium went into effect, the data showed. And thousands of earlier cases are still working their way through the system in places like Columbus -- where landlords filed 427 new eviction cases last week, the highest weekly number since the beginning of the pandemic, according to court officials.

The county's eviction court moved to the local convention center in June for better social distancing.

Before the pandemic, the convention center had been scheduled to host events like the annual conference of the Association of Zoos & Aquariums this month. Instead, it has become the new home of Courtroom 11B, where dozens of tenants facing eviction -- nearly all of them Black or Latino -- gathered Wednesday to plead their case.

Shaylynn Webb and Rodney Turner, a young couple who owed thousands of dollars in rent after losing their jobs processing car insurance claims because of the pandemic, kept their 8-month-old daughter in her stroller out of fear of exposing her to coronavirus in the waiting area outside the courtroom.

"It's just really overwhelming and scary because we don't know what's going to happen in there," Webb, 21, said as they waited for their case to be called. "We would have never thought we'd be in this situation." Their Legal Aid lawyer said later that they were negotiating with the landlord to set up a payment plan.

In the cavernous convention hall, cases were handled quickly to keep up with the huge docket, while renters sat in chairs spaced apart as they waited. Kirk Lindsey, the magistrate judge presiding over the hearings, worked to comfort the tenants who stood before him in tears -- even as he spoke through an industrial respirator-style mask.

"We try so hard to get the parties to work together, to see if they can come up with some sort of mutually satisfactory arrangement to resolve their cases," Lindsey said. "But it is hard."

Pro bono legal groups and nonprofits set up tables outside the convention hall to help explain the process to tenants.

Benson, the managing attorney on the housing team of the Legal Aid Society of Columbus, said the CDC moratorium didn't go far enough. Most tenants that her group has represented don't realize they have to send their landlord a declaration form in order to benefit from the moratorium, she said. And around the country, most of the people facing eviction don't have a lawyer to guide them through the process.

"A moratorium alone is never going to solve this problem," Benson said. "There's a massive, massive need for substantial rental assistance for tenants across this country."


CDC order creates confusion in eviction courts

The CDC order replaced an earlier national eviction moratorium included in the CARES Act that only applied to properties that participated in federal housing assistance programs or had mortgage loans backed by the federal government -- a fraction of the housing units covered by the new moratorium. The CARES Act ban expired in July.

Now, the CDC's moratorium is leading to a legal patchwork of eviction procedures around the country. In some cities and counties, housing rights lawyers say, courts are requiring some tenants to prove they meet all the requirements in the moratorium, while elsewhere, judges have found that just sending the declaration form is enough.

In Kansas City, Missouri, for example, the local court issued an order allowing landlords to continue filing eviction cases and letting them request evidentiary hearings to challenge tenants who file declarations.

"In every case now where we have exercised the tenants' rights under the CDC moratorium, the landlord's attorney has filed an objection and demanded a hearing and invasive documentation," said Gina Chiala, a tenants rights lawyer in the city who's represented dozens of people facing eviction during the pandemic. "They want six months of payroll records, tax records, bank roll records, any requests the tenants have made of government aid."

"What we're potentially seeing is a process that could be abusive and traumatizing to tenants who are already going through a very hard time," she said. Chiala argued that federal officials should put in place "a real moratorium" that more broadly blocks all evictions from being carried out until Covid-19 is vanquished.

Landlords, on the other hand, have accused the CDC of overstepping its legal authority. The moratorium unfairly forces mom-and-pop landlords to subsidize renters even as they have to pay their own mortgages, argued Bob Pinnegar, the president of the National Apartment Association, which represents 85,000 landlords around the country and has joined a lawsuit against the CDC over its rule.

The CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.

The landlord group agrees with tenant advocates that Congress should pass new funding for renters who can't afford their bills.

Landlords are "sliding further into financial ruin and foreclosure," Pinnegar said. "We need a solution that will benefit everybody and make sure we don't fall into the financial abyss."


Covid-vulnerable neighborhoods face more evictions

As eviction cases continue to pile up, the communities that have been hardest hit by evictions are also those that are most at risk from coronavirus. 

To better understand the health risks in neighborhoods seeing the greatest levels of evictions, CNN analyzed Eviction Lab data about more than 45,000 eviction filings since mid-March in 14 cities around the country.

CNN used CDC data to identify the neighborhoods with the highest rates of medical conditions that researchers have concluded are major Covid-19 risk factors: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney disease and obesity. Neighborhoods with the highest risk were defined by CNN as the census tracts in the top 25% of their city for at least three of those six conditions.

In 12 of the 14 cities for which Eviction Lab has neighborhood-level data, there was a higher rate of eviction filings in those high-risk census tracts than in others that didn't have the same elevated rates of medical conditions.

In Columbus, for example, only about 21% of renter-occupied housing units are in neighborhoods with the highest rates of Covid-exacerbating conditions. But 37% of the evictions filed since March 15 were for families living in those neighborhoods.

Similar disparities were found in cities including Phoenix, Milwaukee, and Jacksonville. The only two cities in the Eviction Lab database that didn't see a disproportionate rate of evictions among the unhealthiest census tracts were Bridgeport and Hartford in Connecticut -- a state that has a strong state eviction moratorium, Hepburn said.

Experts say the trend reflects that the poorest neighborhoods, many of which are majority people of color, have long faced steep health disparities that put them at risk in the pandemic -- and have borne the brunt of this year's economic devastation. Research has shown that job losses during the pandemic have been concentrated among lower wage workers, and polls have found that Black and Latino workers are almost twice as likely to have been laid off.

"We know that poorer communities, and especially majority Black communities, face an array of disadvantages when it comes to access to health care, and they're also the communities that are disproportionately affected by eviction," Hepburn said.

In some proceedings, clients are forced to attend in person, potentially putting them at risk of exposure. Chiala said she's had clients who believed that if they told the judge about their experience testing positive for Covid-19 or the fact that they have health conditions that put them at risk, they would get a break.

"They go to court thinking if they just explain and tell the court what happened, then surely the court will grant them mercy," Chiala said. "But if the court doesn't have a legal means to do that, then their story doesn't matter."


'Like they want people to fail'

Chiala's clients include special education aide Jamie Thurman and her husband, who had clashed with their landlord for months over the condition of their four-bedroom house in Kansas City's East Side and whether they were allowed to have a dog. In June, Thurman was on a Zoom call with her students when a court process server showed up to hand her an eviction notice.

The couple have five daughters aged 3 to 14. If the family had been evicted, Thurman, 35, said she had no idea what they would have done. Making matters worse, she has struggled with high blood pressure, and her husband -- who was laid off from his job during the pandemic -- uses a CPAP machine to help him breathe, so she said she worried they would be especially vulnerable to the virus.

"We have such a large family, it's hard for us to just hang out on somebody's couch," she said. "I was emotional, I was crying -- like, what are we going to do with the kids?"

A lawyer for Thurman's landlord said that the family had damaged the house and that she was justified in seeking eviction. After going to court, the couple settled with their landlord, agreeing to leave the house by the end of September. Thurman said having an eviction case open in court records made it more difficult for them to find other housing.

"We were already struggling," she said. "This just made everything 10 times worse."

Some renters have faced a triple hit of coronavirus, layoff and eviction. David Wilson, a warehouse worker in Columbus, found a three-day eviction notice on his door while recovering from Covid-19.

Wilson, 50, said he rushed to the hospital last month after waking up gasping for breath. He tested positive for Covid-19, and spent two days in the hospital. While stuck in bed over the next few weeks, Wilson said his employer let him go and refused to pay sick leave. He waited hours on the phone to apply for unemployment and gave up after finding himself cut off again and again. When he saw the eviction notice, he said, "anxiety kicked in, just panic."

Now, he said he's found a new warehouse job that he hopes will allow him to catch up on rent, and his landlord has been willing to negotiate. But he isn't sure how much he'll have to pay in medical bills -- and he still worries about what will happen after the eviction moratorium expires.

If he gets evicted, Wilson said, "I guess I would have to sleep in my SUV."

In Milwaukee, some landlords have been aggressively moving to evict tenants in the mostly Black northwest side, which has some of the city's highest rates of poverty, health issues and evictions.

Valorie Davis, who's rented a small home in the neighborhood for several years, said she fell behind on rent as her work cleaning homes and doing other odd jobs fell off during the pandemic.

She used her stimulus check to pay the rent for July but was still behind on what she owed. Davis said she had been unable to get unemployment benefits and was denied housing assistance for parents because her sons are 18 and 19 -- even though one has autism and the other a weak immune system.

Davis, 47, has found a cheaper house but she's waiting for renovations to finish. She said she had emailed the CDC declaration to her landlord but had just learned from a public aid lawyer that it had to be mailed. "Hopefully that will save me from being put out on the street," she said.

Davis sat on a lawn chair in front of her tidy house as she waited for a friend to pick her up to go mail the form. She shook her head at the hoops she's had to jump through to avoid getting evicted during a pandemic.

"It feels like they want people to fail," she said.


How we reported this story

To better understand the health risks in neighborhoods seeing the greatest levels of evictions, CNN analyzed Eviction Lab data about more than 45,000 eviction filings since mid-March in 14 cities around the country: Boston; Bridgeport and Hartford, Connecticut; Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Fort Worth and Houston, Texas; Gainesville and Jacksonville, Florida; St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri; Milwaukee; and Phoenix.

About 2.7% of the total filings were removed from the analysis because the location was not available. And just because a landlord filed for an eviction does not mean the tenant was actually evicted — the information does not specify which filings led to eviction judgments.

CNN used CDC data to identify the neighborhoods with the highest rates of medical conditions that researchers have concluded are major Covid-19 risk factors: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, kidney disease and obesity. We defined neighborhoods with the highest risk as the census tracts in the top 25% of their city for at least three of those six conditions. The analysis was based on crude rates of the health conditions, as age-adjusted data were not available at the census tract level.

© CNN Shaylynn Webb and Rodney Turner, a young couple who owed thousands of dollars in rent after losing their jobs because of the pandemic, speak to their legal aid attorney outside a temporary eviction court in Columbus, Ohio, on September 23.

#OXYMORON
No, There’s No Such Thing As “Conservative Feminism”

Natalie Gontcharova Refinery29
29/9/2020

© Provided by Refinery29

In his most recent New York Times editorial, Ross Douthat suggested that Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court was exciting, and represents a new “conservative feminism that’s distinctive, coherent, and influential.” He then waxed poetic about the reprioritization of things like “sex and romance and marriage and child rearing,” all of which were apparently lost thanks to feminist advancements in the 1970s.

Rather than using the classic conservative tactic of invoking feminism as a liberal plot to destroy the nuclear family, Douthat is also using feminism to defend her nomination, and making it seem like it’s a victory for all women. He is not the only conservative pundit to do so this week, and he won’t be the last. Conservatives are seemingly taking pleasure in trolling us both with the fact that their latest right-wing extremist Supreme Court pick is a woman — meaningless, since her entire record is so anti-woman — and with her transparently laughable portrayal as a new type of “feminist.” They’re even trying to make the nickname “Notorious ACB” happen.

The trouble is, “conservative feminism” is not only a nonsensical term, but an oxymoron. Feminism at its core is about dismantling long-standing patriarchal power structures and protecting women’s freedom in the pursuit of gender equality. This is not what Barrett’s judicial history reflects. Rather, she has a firmly anti-choice judicial abortion record, and has referred to abortion as “always immoral,” indicating she does not seem to believe in women’s freedom to make their own choices about their bodies. There’s no philosophical wiggle room here.

Douthat, though, doesn’t care about what feminism actually stands for, and instead distorts its meaning, claiming that its “victories were somewhat unbalanced,” which is why “conservative feminism is needed, so that it can ignore women’s “professional ambition” in favor of “other human aspirations,” like getting married and having children. But this is nonsense: Feminism is pro-motherhood and pro “work-life balance” because it advocates that women should choose whether and when to bear children, and fights for their equal treatment in the workplace and public sphere. RBG, a working mother and wife, certainly ascribed to that type of feminism and fought to make it possible for people across America. To suggest that Barrett’s far-right record and hostility to abortion rights and healthcare access are a form of feminism, or an adequate successor to RBG, is not only disingenuous, but dangerous.

A Judge's Group Inspired "The Handmaid's Tale"

You Owe Ruth Bader Ginsburg More Than You Know

Mitch McConnell Wasted No Time Being Human Garbage

Meatpackers deny workers benefits for COVID-19 deaths, illnesses

© Reuters/Jim Urquhart FILE PHOTO: Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Greeley, Colorado

By Tom Hals and Tom Polansek

(Reuters) - Saul Sanchez died in April, one of six workers with fatal COVID-19 infections at meatpacker JBS USA's slaughterhouse in Greeley, Colorado, the site of one of the earliest and deadliest coronavirus outbreaks at a U.S. meatpacking plant.

Before getting sick, the 78-year-old Sanchez only left home to work on the fabrication line, where cattle carcasses are sliced into cuts of beef, and to go to his church, with its five-person congregation, said his daughter, Betty Rangel. She said no one else got infected in the family or at Bible Missionary Church, which could not be reached for comment.

JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, denied the family's application for workers' compensation benefits, along with those filed by the families of two other Greeley workers who died of COVID-19, said lawyers handling the three claims. Families of the three other Greeley workers who died also sought compensation, a union representative said, but Reuters could not determine the status of their claims.

JBS has said the employees' COVID-19 infections were not work-related in denying the claims, according to responses the company gave to employees, which were reviewed by Reuters.

As more Americans return to workplaces, the experience of JBS employees shows the difficulty of linking infections to employment and getting compensation for medical care and lost wages.

"That is the ultimate question: How can you prove it?" said Nick Fogel, an attorney specializing in workers' compensation at the firm Burg Simpson in Colorado.The meatpacking industry has suffered severe coronavirus outbreaks, in part because production-line workers often work side-by-side for long shifts. Companies including JBS, Tyson Foods Inc and WH Group Ltd's <0288.HK> Smithfield Foods closed about 20 plants this spring after outbreaks, prompting President Donald Trump in April to order the plants to stay open to ensure the nation's meat supply. The White House declined to comment on the industry's rejections of workers' claims. The U.S. Department of Labor did not respond to a request for comment.

Tyson has also denied workers' compensation claims stemming from a big outbreak in Iowa, workers' attorneys told Reuters. Smithfield workers at a plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, also hit by a major outbreak, have generally not filed claims, a union official said, in part because the company has paid infected workers' wages and medical bills.

Smithfield declined to comment on workers’ compensation. Tyson said it reviews claims on a case-by-case basis, but declined to disclose how often it rejects them. JBS acknowledged rejecting claims but declined to say how often. It called the denials consistent with the law, without elaborating.

Workers can challenge companies' denials in an administrative process that varies by state but typically resembles a court hearing. The burden of proof, however, usually falls on the worker to prove a claim was wrongfully denied.

The full picture of how the meatpacking industry has handled COVID-related workers' compensation remains murky because of a lack of national claims data. Reuters requested data from seven states where JBS or its affiliates have plants that had coronavirus outbreaks. Only three states provided data in any detail; all show a pattern of rejections.

In Minnesota, where JBS had a major outbreak, meatpacking employees filed 930 workers' compensation claims involving COVID-19 as of Sept. 11, according to the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. None were accepted, 717 were rejected and 213 were under review. The agency did not identify the employers.The Minnesota Department of Health said only two meatpacking plants there had significant coronavirus outbreaks: a JBS pork processing plant in Worthington, and a poultry plant in Cold Spring run by Pilgrim's Pride Corp , which is majority-owned by JBS.

Tom Atkinson, a Minnesota workers' compensation attorney who has represented meatpacking workers, estimates up to 100 COVID-19 claims were filed by employees at the Worthington plant.

In Utah, seven JBS workers filed claims related to COVID-19 by Aug. 1 and all were denied, according to the state's Labor Commission. At least 385 workers at a JBS beef plant in Hyrum, Utah, tested positive for COVID-19.

In Colorado, 69% of the 2,294 worker compensation claims for COVID-19 had been denied as of Sept. 12. Although the state does not break down the denials by industry, a JBS spokesman told Reuters the company is rejecting claims in Colorado and that it uses the same claim-review procedures nationwide.

JBS spokesman Cameron Bruett did not answer the question of whether JBS employees were infected on the job and declined comment on individual workers’ claims. He said the company has outsourced claim reviews to a third-party administrator.

"Given the widespread nature of viral spread, our third-party claims administrator reviews each case thoroughly and independently," said Bruett.

The administrator, Sedgwick, did not respond to a request for comment. Bruett, also a spokesman for Pilgrim's Pride, did not respond to questions about infections and claims at its Minnesota plant.

At the JBS plant in Greeley, where Sanchez worked before he died, at least 291 of about 6,000 workers were infected, according to state data. The company, in its written response to the family’s claim, said that his infection was “not work-related,” without spelling out its reasoning. The two sides are now litigating the matter in Colorado's workers' compensation system.

Under Colorado law, a workers' compensation death benefit provides about two-thirds of the deceased worker's salary to the surviving spouse and pays medical expenses not covered by insurance. If JBS had not denied the Sanchez family’s claim, that would have provided his widow a steady income and paid uncovered medical bills totaling about $10,000, according to his daughter.

"They don't care," Rangel said of JBS. "They are all about the big profits, and they are not going to give any money out."

MASS INFECTIONS, LITTLE COMPENSATION

The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) International Union, which represents 250,000 U.S. meatpacking and food-processing workers, said last week at least 122 meatpacking workers have died of COVID-19 and more than 18,000 had missed work because they were infected or potentially exposed.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said on Sept. 11 that it had cited JBS for failing to protect workers at the Greeley plant from the virus. OSHA cited Smithfield this month for failing to protect workers at its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant, where the agency said nearly 1,300 workers contracted the coronavirus and four died.

Smithfield and JBS said the citations had no merit because they concerned conditions in plants before OSHA issued COVID-19 guidance for the industry. OSHA said it stands by the citations.

Workers' compensation is generally the only way to recoup medical expenses and lost wages for work-related injuries and deaths. The system protects employers from lawsuits, with few exceptions, and allows workers to collect benefits without having to prove fault or negligence. But the system was designed for factory accidents, not airborne illnesses.

In response to the coronavirus, governors and lawmakers in at least 14 states have made it easier for some employees to collect workers compensation for COVID-19 by putting the burden on companies and insurers to prove an infection did not occur at work. But most of the changes, which vary by state, only apply to workers in healthcare or emergency services. A similar proposal failed to gain support in Colorado.

Mark Dopp, general counsel for the North American Meat Institute, a trade association that represents meatpackers, said it is difficult to determine where workers get infections given extensive sanitation efforts taken by meat plants and workers' daily travel to and from the plants.

Tyson in April closed its Waterloo, Iowa, pork processing plant due to a COVID-19 outbreak. Ben Roth, a local workers’ compensation attorney, said five families of employees who died filed workers compensation claims for death benefits, and all were denied.

He said meat-processing companies have an incentive to deny every claim because admitting they caused even one infection can expose the firms to liability for all workers contracting COVID-19.

"That undercuts the argument that they want to make across the board: that you can’t prove you got it here and not at a grocery store," Roth said.

Tyson said it follows state laws for workers’ compensation. The company noted that Iowa law states that disease with an equal likelihood of being contracted outside the workplace are "not compensable as an occupational disease.”

In Colorado, Sylvia Martinez runs a group called Latinos Unidos of Greeley and said she knows of more than 20 JBS workers who applied for workers compensation and were denied. Many plant workers are not native English speakers and sought out her group for guidance, she said, adding that many don't understand their rights and fear being fired. The company's rejections have discouraged more claims, Martinez said.

"If you deny five or 10, those workers will tell their co-workers," she said.

'WHO IS GOING TO HIRE HIM?'

JBS also contested the claim of Alfredo Hernandez, 55, a custodian who worked at the Greeley plant for 31 years. He became infected and was hospitalized in March. He still relies on supplemental oxygen and hasn't returned to work, said his wife, Rosario Hernandez.

Generall y, companies approve claims if it looks probable that an employee was injured or sickened at work, said Erika Alverson, the attorney representing Hernandez. But JBS, she said, is arguing workers could have contracted COVID-19 anywhere.

"They're getting into, where did our clients go, what were they doing during that time, who was coming into their house, what did their spouse do, was there any other form of exposure?" said Alverson, of the Denver firm Alverson and O’Brien.

A judge will decide the Hernandez case in an administrative hearing. In the meantime, the Hernandez family has only his disability benefits – a portion of his salary – to cover his medical and insurance costs, Rosario Hernandez said.

"We're getting bunches of bills," she said.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, and Tom Polansek in Chicago; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Caroline Stauffer and Brian Thevenot)

Largest outbreak of COVID-19 in an Indigenous community in Canada offers important lessons


Bonnie Allen CBC


In the wake of a large outbreak of COVID-19 in northwestern Saskatchewan — the most serious of any Indigenous community in Canada — health officials and local leaders are relying on what they learned during the three-month ordeal to plan for potential outbreaks in other remote, rural areas.

"When it first hit us, we were basically clueless of how to contain this," said Chief Teddy Clark of the Clearwater River Dene Nation (CRDN), 600 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon.

But now, given what he's learned, Clark said he feels "a little bit at ease" that he'd be ready for a surge in cases.

Despite dire predictions early in the pandemic, the on-reserve infection rate among First Nations people in Canada is four times lower than the rest of the population, according to the federal government, with a total of 639 confirmed cases as of Sept. 25. The on-reserve First Nations population in Canada is about 329,000, as of the 2016 census.

In mid-April, the first case of COVID-19 in northwestern Saskatchewan was traced to travel from an oilsands camp near Fort McMurray, Alta. The virus spread to a long-term care home in the village of La Loche and then moved quickly through overcrowded homes in the community and its neighbour, the Clearwater River Dene Nation.

The two Dene communities have a combined population of 3,800, and people frequently move back and forth between the village and reserve.

From the beginning of the outbreak, Indigenous leaders warned public health officials that any response needed to be led by the community and elders, with their culture in mind. They also warned that people in their communities were particularly vulnerable.

"Our people suffer from extremely high rates of co-morbid conditions, with issues like diabetes, respiratory, HIV, heart conditions and trauma-induced addictions, that put them at high risk of death from COVID-19," Rick Laliberte, the commander of the North West Communities Incident Command Centre, said in a letter to Saskatchewan's chief medical health officer.

Over the next three months, 282 people in the village and First Nation would test positive for the disease — about seven per cent of the population — and five people died.

Still, many applaud the efforts that eventually contained the outbreak and say there are lessons to be learned.

"I think it's a success story of how things can be handled," said Carrie Bourassa, the scientific director at the federal Institute of Indigenous Peoples' Health.

"They have an excellent model that I think can be scaled up in other rural, remote northern communities."

CBC News interviewed several local leaders, health officials and residents to determine the five things they deemed most effective in containing the outbreak in these Indigenous communities.
Collaboration and communication

When the outbreak began, local leaders came up with their own pandemic response plan.

Chief Clark of the CRDN joined forces with the mayor of La Loche and the northern Métis representative to set up a joint emergency operations centre at the high school in La Loche that would serve people both on and off reserve.

"I said, 'Look, guys, we need to join up here and make an alliance here and start looking at things so we don't duplicate and we don't confuse things,'" Clark said.

Randy Herman, deputy mayor of La Loche, knew that one of the main challenges would be getting local residents to trust government and health officials, given the history of colonization and strained relationships.

"Governments roll into town and promise everything but the moon, and then they don't deliver, so that's where the mistrust is from [for] years and years and years," said Herman, who is also a schoolteacher.

But faced with a pandemic, all levels of government worked together like never before, he said.

Herman translated messages into Dene for health officials during regular radio briefings that featured updates from local leaders, the Saskatchewan Health Authority and the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority, an organization that supports 33 First Nations.

Herman knew elders would listen to local leaders, particularly in Dene, in a way they wouldn't listen to outsiders.

"They know us, we know them. They trust us," he said.

And since there was a real risk the virus would spread to surrounding communities, a group of 24 Indigenous communities along Highway 155 to La Loche, called the "155 Collective," set up a command centre to co-ordinate check stops and communicate with residents and the government.

It had daily phone calls with the health authority.

But there were hiccups.

Three weeks into the outbreak, the group wrote a sternly worded letter to the province's chief medical health officer demanding more consultation and respect for local culture and expertise.

"We ask you to learn from us, and with us," the letter said.

Dr. Rim Zayed, the Saskatchewan Health Authority's northern medical health officer, called the relationship-building during the outbreak "the silver lining of the crisis."

"We have more understanding, communication, engagement, solidarity," she told CBC News.

Jurisdictional snafus between the province and Indigenous Services Canada had to be quickly smoothed out.

WATCH | When will Canadians have a rapid test for coronavirus? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam provide an update:
Travel restrictions

Local leaders took it upon themselves to set up check stops at the edges of their communities to share information and monitor the movements of residents.

The village of La Loche and CRDN also imposed a curfew and hired security to police the streets at night.

As the outbreak worsened, the province introduced an unprecedented travel ban that outlawed all non-essential travel into and out of the northern half of the province. It required northern residents to remain in their local communities, except for grocery runs and medical appointments, and to maintain physical distancing.  

© Don Somers/CBC Roadblocks on provincial highways stopped northern Saskatchewan residents from travelling south except for grocery runs and medical appointments.

The province began staffing highway checkpoints with employees from the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency.

Eventually those travel restrictions and roadblocks triggered backlash among many northern residents who felt they were being discriminated against and treated like "caged animals." The 155 Collective said employing more Indigenous people and traditional language speakers at the roadblocks would have reduced confusion and smoothed tensions.

Still, most northern leaders said the lockdown was effective.
Remote testing

The Saskatchewan Health Authority deployed more than 50 health-care workers to the northern community to launch an aggressive testing and contact-tracing campaign. Mobile testing teams went door-to-door to swab people in 813 households. Each team included a local outreach worker to interview people and translate.

Dr. Moliehi Khaketla, who leads the Northern Population Health Unit, said that "local knowledge was invaluable."

Initially, test swabs had to be shipped south to the provincial lab, delaying results. The province then sent a portable GeneXpert testing machine to the region to do on-site testing, delivering test results within an hour. It had limited capacity, so the province also used a government plane to ship tests south.

To prepare for more outbreaks, the province has stationed a GeneXpert testing unit in more than 20 locations in the province, including the north, and arranged for more testing supplies to increase capacity to 1,200 tests a week, rather than 200.
Temporary housing

A chronic housing shortage and lack of hotels in La Loche and CRDN made it difficult for people in the remote region to self-isolate.

Creative solutions included setting up a makeshift homeless shelter in mobile trailers to house transient couch-surfers, as well as hauling in RV campers to serve as isolation units for people who tested positive for COVID-19 but couldn't isolate at home.

"There's a lot of logistics behind this," said Leonard Montgrand, a northern representative with the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan. "We just don't throw a person into a trailer and say, 'Here, you're isolated, see you in 14 days.' No, we have to do daily monitoring, we have to provide sustenance."

The La Loche Friendship Centre cooked and delivered hot meals twice a day to people isolated in their homes, RV campers and the homeless shelter.

As temperatures drop, local leaders are arranging for winterized trailers and other isolation centres to prepare for another surge.
Programs to help those with chronic issues

From the outset, local leaders and health officials were concerned about caring for people living in poverty, as well as those with multiple chronic health issues, such as diabetes, respiratory problems and mental health challenges.

The emergency operations centre arranged deliveries of food hampers, cleaning supplies and masks to families. The First Nation sent out fishermen to catch fish for elders.

Leaders were blunt that people dealing with addictions were gathering to drink, frequently flouting physical-distancing restrictions and isolation orders, thus fuelling infections.

La Loche Mayor Robert St. Pierre and the council asked the province to cut off alcohol sales in the community. That prompted fears that people with serious addictions would suffer life-threatening withdrawals and overwhelm the local health centre.

So, the health authority quickly launched a managed alcohol program (MAP) that gave daily allotments of alcohol to people.

"We have all these pieces of the puzzle," Montgrand said.

The community leaders all agreed that it was a steep learning curve, with some hard lessons along the way.

Chief Teddy Clark said he can summarize his advice in just two words: "Be ready."

Asked if he was proud of what the community had accomplished, St. Pierre said: "How do you be proud of something when five people died? We still had loss of life. There's still a sense of sadness and loss ... but yes, what we accomplished was phenomenal and our people proved how resilient they are."

#ZENAIR

Singapore Airlines drops 'flights to nowhere' after outcry

AFP

© Roslan RAHMAN Singapore Airlines has scrapped plans for "flights to nowhere" aimed at boosting coronavirus-hit finances after an outcry over the environmental impact

Singapore Airlines said Tuesday it had scrapped plans for "flights to nowhere" aimed at boosting its coronavirus-hit finances after an outcry over the environmental impact.

With the aviation industry in deep crisis, several carriers -- including in Australia, Japan and Taiwan -- have been offering short flights that start and end at the same airport to raise cash.

They are designed for travel-starved people keen to fly at a time of virus-related restrictions, and have proved surprisingly popular.

But Singapore's flag carrier -- which has grounded nearly all its planes and cut thousands of jobs -- said it had ditched the idea following a review.

The carrier has come up with alternative ideas to raise revenue, including offering customers tours of aircraft and offering them the chance to dine inside an Airbus A380, the world's biggest commercial airliner.

Environmental activists had voiced opposition to Singapore Airlines launching "flights to nowhere", with group SG Climate Rally saying they would encourage "carbon-intensive travel for no good reason".

"We believe air travel has always caused environmental harm, and it is now an opportune moment for us to think seriously about transitions instead of yearning to return to a destructive status quo."

The airline said earlier this month it was cutting about 4,300 jobs, or 20 percent of its workforce, the latest carrier to make massive layoffs.

The International Air Transport Association estimates that airlines operating in the Asia-Pacific region stand to lose a combined $27.8 billion this year.

The group also forecasts that global air traffic is unlikely to return to pre-coronavirus levels until at least 2024.

mba/sr/fox

Indian rape victim dies weeks after assault triggering protests


By Saurabh Sharma

© Reuters/DANISH SIDDIQUI Demonstrators shout slogans during a protest after the death of a rape victim, in New Delhi

By Saurabh Sharma

LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - A woman from the lowest rung of India's caste system died in hospital on Tuesday weeks after authorities said she was raped by a group of men, triggering protests and opposition criticism over what it said was a failure to protect women.

Her case was the latest in a string of gruesome crimes against women in India that have given it the dismal reputation of being one of the worst places in the world to be female.

One woman reported a rape every 15 minutes on an average in India in 2018, according to the latest government data released in January.

"There is next to no protection for women. Criminals are openly committing crimes," Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a leader of the opposition Congress party, said on Twitter.

The 19-year-old victim, belonging to the Dalit community, was attacked and raped Sept. 14 at a field near her home in Hathras district, 100 km (62-mile) from Delhi, authorities said.

Police have arrested four men in connection with the crime.

On Monday, the woman was brought from a hospital in Uttar Pradesh state to New Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital, where she died while undergoing treatment, authorities said.

About 300 protesters from the Bhim Army, a party championing the rights of Dalits, entered the hospital premises and shouted slogans near the mortuary where the woman's body was kept.

"We will take the matter to fast-track court for the faster investigation and collection of evidence," district authorities in Hathras said in a statement.

The woman's home state of Uttar Pradesh, which is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, ranks as the most unsafe state for women in the country.

Last December, a 23-year-old Dalit woman was set ablaze by a gang of men as she made her way to a court in Uttar Pradesh to press rape charges.

(Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

RAPE IS A COMMON WEAPON OF ASSAULT USED BY HINDUTVA TO IMPOSE THEIR FASCST ARYAN CASTISM ON THE DALITS (AKA UNTOUCABLES)

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=HINDUISM+IS+FASCISM+

Rights group Amnesty halts India operations, says facing crackdown

© Reuters/CARLOS JASSO FILE PHOTO: The logo of Amnesty International is seen next to director of Mujeres En Linea Luisa Kislinger, during a news conference in Caracas

By Sanjeev Miglani


NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Human rights group Amnesty International stopped its work in India on Tuesday saying the government had frozen its bank accounts in the latest action against it for speaking out about rights violations.

The group said it had laid off staff after facing a crackdown over the past two years over allegations of financial wrongdoing that it said were baseless.

"This is latest in the incessant witch-hunt of human rights organizations by the government of India over unfounded and motivated allegations," Amnesty said in a statement.

Its bank accounts were frozen on Sept. 10, it said.

Amnesty had highlighted rights violations in recent months in the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region as well as what it said was a lack of police accountability during riots in Delhi in February, and the government had sought to punish it, it said.

There was no immediate response from government spokesmen to requests for comment.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has faced accusations that it is clamping down on dissent, including in Muslim-majority Kashmir, where insurgents have battled government forces for more than 30 years.

Critics also say the government is pushing a Hindu-first agenda, undermining the secular foundations of India's democracy and raising fears among its 170 million Muslim minority.

The government denies any bias against any community.

Opposition politician Shashi Tharoor said Amnesty's exit was a blow.

"India's stature as a liberal democracy with free institutions, including media & civil society organisations, accounted for much of its soft power in the world. Actions like this both undermine our reputation as a democracy & vitiate our soft power," he said on Twitter.

'FREEZING DISSENT'

Amnesty said the federal financial crimes investigation agency, the Enforcement Directorate, had targeted it.

"The constant harassment by government agencies including the Enforcement Directorate is a result of our unequivocal calls for transparency in the government, more recently for accountability of the Delhi police and the Government of India regarding the grave human rights violations in Delhi riots and Jammu & Kashmir," said Avinash Kumar, executive director of Amnesty International India.

"For a movement that has done nothing but raise its voices against injustice, this latest attack is akin to freezing dissent," he said.

Amnesty and other groups have accused police of complicity in the riots in Delhi in which at least 50 people were killed, most of them Muslims.

Police denied the allegation.

The government has been tightening oversight of foreign non-governmental groups (NGOs), they say.

Last week, the government enacted changes in the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill setting new conditions for organisations.

Some NGOs said the measures seeking tighter control of funds were aimed at creating an air of distrust.

Kumar said more than four million Indians have supported Amnesty's work in the last eight years and about 100,000 Indians had donated money.

(Reporting by Sanjeev Miglani; Additional reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Robert Birsel)

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=HINDUISM+IS+FASCISM+

Brazil revokes mangrove protections, triggering alarm

AFP

© NELSON ALMEIDA Environmentalists warn that rolling back regulations protecting Brazil's mangroves would open such lands up to development, with possibly catastrophic impact on their ecosystems

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's government on Monday revoked regulations protecting mangroves and other fragile coastal ecosystems, in a measure environmentalists condemned as a "crime" that would lead to their destruction.

The decision eliminated so-called "permanent protection zones" created in 2002 to preserve Brazil's many tropical mangroves and the sand-dune scrublands known as "restinga" along its Atlantic coast.

Environmentalists warned that rolling back the regulations would open such lands up to development, with possibly catastrophic impact on their ecosystems.

"These areas are already under intense pressure from real-estate development," said Mario Mantovani, head of environmental group SOS Mata Atlantica.

"The 2002 regulations at least protected them from further destruction," he told AFP, calling their repeal "a crime against society."

It is the latest in a series of environmental controversies for the far-right president, who has presided over a surge in deforestation and fires in the Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands since taking office in January 2019.

The decision was made at a meeting of the National Environmental Council (Conama), which is presided over by controversial Environment Minister Ricardo Salles.

The council brings together government officials, environmental groups and business associations, but the administration has dramatically changed its composition.

Last year, the government issued a decree reducing the number of council members from 96 to 23, giving its own members more weight.

In other decisions, the council also repealed a measure requiring environmental permits for irrigation projects and authorized cement companies to burn empty pesticide containers to recycle them in concrete, a practice environmentalists say is highly polluting.

"Even as we witness record environmental devastation and Brazil is in flames, Salles dedicates his time to promoting even more destruction," environmental group Greenpeace said in a statement on the measures.

Salles has a knack for stirring up controversy.

In April, a video recording was made public of a Bolsonaro cabinet meeting at which the environment minister said the coronavirus pandemic was an opportunity to roll back regulations "now that the media's only talking about Covid."

lg/jhb/bgs

Nowhere to go: pandemic inflames Albania's scourge of domestic abuse

AFP 

© Gent SHKULLAKU Albania's parliament recently tightened the penalties for domestic violence

Her face swollen and arms darkened by bruises, Ana's eyes dart anxiously around her flat in eastern Albania, where she is trapped with a violent husband whose blows have worsened during the pandemic.

"My life has been hell for the past few months," the 31-year-old, whose name has been changed for her safety, says, as her daughters, aged three and five, cling to her in a dark corner of the small apartment.

© Gent SHKULLAKU Losing faith: Semiha Xhani has tried for six years to claim rights to her house and child support after her 2013 divorce

Domestic violence was already at crisis-level in Albania, one of Europe's poorest countries, before the coronavirus emergency began in March.

But for Ana and women like her, the stay-at-home measures and economic anxiety have exacerbated their plight and led to a spike in abuse.

The beatings started several years ago when Ana's husband learned she was pregnant with a second daughter and not a son.

"He wanted me to have an abortion, but I wanted to keep my baby," she told AFP.

The abuse worsened recently when the pandemic caused both Ana and her husband to lose their jobs.

Terrified of angering him further, Ana doesn't see a way out.

"If I take a small step, he will be even more violent. What can I do," she said, through tears.

Albania's patriarchal society strictly governs gender roles, leaving many women financially dependent on men, and revolves around an honour-and-shame system.

According to a United Nations report in 2019, nearly one in two Albanian women has suffered domestic violence in their lifetime, compared to a third globally.

And yet, nearly half of those surveyed in Albania believe "a woman should tolerate some violence to keep her family together", the report found, speaking to the taboo that prevents many from seeking help.

- Suffering in secret -

"Women and children are the first to bear the brunt of the pandemic, the number of victims of domestic violence has increased considerably," said Iris Luarasi, who runs a group to assist victims in Albania.

Calls to her national help hotline shot up 60 percent during March to September, compared to the same period last year.

Likewise, the Woman Forum in the central town of Elbasan has also seen "a considerable increase" in calls for help from victims, whose "mental health is deteriorating", its head Shpresa Banja said.

"They want to talk about their distress, their total lack of a solution," she told AFP.

While only a small fraction of survivors speak out, the UN Development Programme has helped more than 200 women and girls escape violent situations this year, its Tirana representative Limya Eltayeb said.

According to activists, many women choose to secretly share their suffering over the hotlines rather than go to a court, where protection orders offer little help to those who don't have the financial means to find a new home.

Semiha Xhani, 37, mother of a 10-year-old boy, has tried the legal route but is losing faith after a six-year battle to claim rights to her house and child support from her 2013 divorce.

It is a common problem for women in Albania, where property is traditionally registered and inherited through the husband or his family's name.

With nowhere else to go, Xhani is still living next to her in-laws in a decrepit room with holes in the wall, outside the capital Tirana.

The relatives of her husband, who works abroad, routinely threaten to evict her and her son.

"It would have been better to endure violence than risk being thrown out like beaten dogs," she told AFP.

Her meagre salary from dishwashing at a fast food joint is not enough to cover rent.

"I don't know where to go," she said.

- 'He tortured me' -

The Albanian parliament has recently tightened the penalties for domestic violence, which is now punishable by between five and 10 years in prison.

But that doesn't bring any peace of mind to Lindita Hoxha, a 40-year-old mother of three, who is still recovering from assaults that left her with a broken nose, jaw and vertebrae.

"He tortured me with screwdrivers, knives, a gun to my head," said Hoxha, who still has damage on her left eye "which he tried to tear out with a screwdriver".

After going to jail in 2018 for domestic abuse, her ex-husband was recently freed in April as part of an amnesty to clear out prisons during the Covid-19 crisis.

"Even in prison, he didn't stop threatening, but everything became awful when he regained his freedom," Hoxha told AFP.

Terrified of his return, she took her children and fled their home.

Safe houses for women were already full, so she sought refuge in a small, rented space in a new neighbourhood.

"I'm still very afraid, even the children are afraid, he can appear at any moment, he's going to kill me," she said, crying.

Her injuries, coupled with the pandemic, make it difficult for her to find work to support her children.

A paltry 32 euros ($37) a month from the state doesn't help much.

"School is starting, the children need everything, a safe space, books, clothes, food... how to do it?" she asked.

bme-ev-ssm/kjm