UK must treat Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as Iranian hostage, husband says

Campbell MacDiarmid
Thu, November 26, 2020

the UK must acknowledge that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is an Iranian hostage, says husband Richard Ratcliffe, pictured with his daughter Gabriella, 6 - Clara Molden for The Telegraph

The UK needs to recognise Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s detention in Iran as a state-sponsored hostage taking, her husband said Thursday, the day after Tehran released a jailed British-Australian academic in an apparent prisoner swap.

Melbourne University lecturer Kylie Moore-Gilbert was released from Tehran’s Evin prison on Wednesday after serving over two years of a 10-year sentence for spying. Australia refused to confirm she was freed in a prisoner exchange, saying only that her release followed “diplomatic engagement with the Iranian government”.

Thailand said Thursday it had repatriated three Iranians involved in a failed 2012 bombing targeting Israeli diplomats. While Thai officials declined to call it a swap, Iranian state television showed the garlanded men being hailed as returning heroes in the same segment showing Dr Moore-Gilbert departing Tehran airport.

“It’s very certainly transactional from their point of view,” said Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife has been detained for four-and-a-half years in Iran.

The British-Iranian mother of one from north London was jailed in 2016 on charges of trying to overthrow the government, something her and her employer Thomson Reuters Foundation strongly deny. But the 42-year-old’s release has been tied to repayment of a long-standing £400 million debt that London owes Tehran.

The UK has acknowledged it owes the debt – which arose over non-delivery of 1,500 Chieftain tanks ordered and paid for by the Shah of Iran shortly before his 1979 overthrow – but says repayment must not breach sanctions.

However Mr Ratcliffe said that the UK’s position of not linking repayment of the debt to the release of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe ignored the reality of her case. “They picked her up for that money and they have made it increasingly clear about what that’s about,” he said.

He called on the UK to acknowledge that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was a victim of hostage diplomacy and not simply a citizen in need of consular assistance.

“I think it would protect her and protect others in the future to call Iran out for taking hostages,” he said. “Hostage taking and torture is no different than any other kind of abuse, you do not protect people from abuse by euphemising it away. You need a clear accountability so people do not do it with impunity.”

But publicly at least, the UK has been reluctant to speak out forcefully.

“I welcome news that Kylie Moore-Gilbert has been able to return to Australia and her family,” Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Wednesday. “I call on the Iranian government to release all the remaining dual British nationals arbitrarily detained and allow them to reunite with their loved ones.”

Currently on temporary home release in Tehran, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe will complete her sentence in March. But an Iranian court issued a new charge against her in September.

“I would still take seriously the threat of a new prison sentence,” said Mr Ratcliffe. “I would expect if we wait long enough she will be sent back to prison again.”

While the Foreign Office remains tight-lipped about efforts to free Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, her husband said he was skeptical that their current approach is working. “The British government preference seems to be to wait for the other side to be less unreasonable, well we’ve been waiting a long time.”

From Tehran’s perspective, its success in exchanging one prisoner for three jailed citizens may be encouraging.

Michael Stephens, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said: “I think what Kylie's release proves is that all along she was innocent, and that this was a cheap shot policy by Iran to get some of its captives out of jail. Ultimately it confirms that Iran has a policy of taking hostages and using them as leverage, and that it appears to get them what they want.”

But for Mr Ratcliffe, the release of one prisoner means his wife’s release must be “a bit closer”.

“It's a happy day for Kylie, one more family starts to heal again,” he said. “We’d like to be next.”

Kylie Moore-Gilbert: Academic says Iran detention was 'long and traumatic'

 
Thu, November 26, 2020

A British-Australian academic who has been freed from jail in Iran has thanked supporters for getting her through "a long and traumatic ordeal".

Kylie Moore-Gilbert has consistently denied accusations of espionage since her arrest in Iran in September 2018.

She had been serving a 10-year sentence but was released in a swap for three jailed Iranians, Tehran said.
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Dr Moore-Gilbert's family said they were "relieved and ecstatic" that she was free.

The Melbourne University lecturer had been travelling on an Australian passport in 2018 when she was detained at Tehran airport as she tried to leave following a conference.

Concerns for her wellbeing escalated in August when news emerged that she had been transferred to Qarchak, a notorious prison in the desert.

On Thursday, Dr Moore-Gilbert said Australian officials had worked "tirelessly" to secure her freedom. She thanked them and other supporters who had "meant the world to me" while in detention.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert was reported to have been on several hunger strikes while in Evin prison in Tehran

"I have nothing but respect, love and admiration for the great nation of Iran and its warm-hearted, generous and brave people," she said in a statement.

"It is with bittersweet feelings that I depart your country, despite the injustices which I have been subjected to. I came to Iran as a friend and with friendly intentions, and depart Iran with those sentiments not only still intact, but strengthened."

The Cambridge-educated scholar - who was tried in secret - had endured "over 800 days of incredible hardship", her family added.

"We cannot convey the overwhelming happiness that each of us feel at this incredible news," they said in a statement released by the Australian government.

According to Iranian state media, she was exchanged for an Iranian businessman and two Iranian citizens "who had been detained abroad". They have not yet been named.

Video of the apparent exchange was published by state broadcaster IRIB news and the Tasnim website.


نخستین تصویر تبادل جاسوس صهیونیستی با سه تاجر ایرانی pic.twitter.com/Y0lEIFLY5J

— باشگاه خبرنگاران جوان | YJC (@yjc___agency) November 25, 2020

The footage, which had no commentary, showed Dr Moore-Gilbert wearing a grey hijab and being driven away in a mini-van. Three men are seen being met by officials. One is in a wheelchair.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison declined to comment on whether a swap had taken place, but said no-one had been released in Australia.

"The injustice of her detention and her conviction, Australia has always rejected, and I'm just so pleased that Kylie's coming home," he told local network Nine.

In letters smuggled out of Tehran's Evin prison earlier this year, Dr Moore-Gilbert said she had "never been a spy" and feared for her mental health. She said she had rejected an offer from Iran to become a spy.

"I am not a spy. I have never been a spy, and I have no interest to work for a spying organisation in any country," she wrote.

She was later visited by Australia's ambassador to Iran, Lyndall Sachs, who reported that she was "well".

Dr Moore-Gilbert was reported to have spent long periods in solitary confinement and undertaken hunger strikes while in detention.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the release "was achieved through diplomatic engagement with the Iranian government".

She added Dr Moore-Gilbert would "soon be reunited with her family" but did not specify when she would be returning to Australia.

Melbourne University Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell said he was "delighted" at the news, adding: "We have waited a long time for this day."

Iran has detained a number of foreign nationals and Iranian dual citizens in recent years, many of them on spying charges. Human rights groups have accused Tehran of using the cases as leverage to try to gain concessions from other countries.

British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was jailed on spying charges in 2016. She has always maintained her innocence.

Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, welcomed reports of Dr Moore-Gilbert's release.

"Nazanin and I are really happy for Kylie and her family," he told the BBC. "They have been through so much, borne with such dignity. And it is an early Christmas present for us all, that one more of us is out and on their way home, one more family can begin to heal."

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, said news of Dr Moore-Gilbert's release was "an enormous relief".

"There may now be renewed grounds for hoping that UK-Iranian dual-nationals like Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori will also be released from their unjust jail terms in Iran in the coming days or weeks," she said.

Anoosheh Ashoori, a retired civil engineer from London, was jailed for 10 years in July 2019 after being convicted of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.

Paris police suspended over beating of Black man

SYLVIE CORBET
Thu, November 26, 2020

PARIS (AP) — A Black man beaten up by several French police officers said he is seeking justice after the publication of videos showing officers repeatedly punching him, using a truncheon and tear gas against him for no apparent reason.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ordered the officers involved in the case suspended.

The incident came as President Emmanuel Macron’s government is pushing a new bill that restricts the ability to film police, which has prompted protests from civil liberties groups and journalists concerned that it would allow police brutality to go undiscovered and unpunished.

Videos first published on Thursday by French news website Loopsider show the violent arrest of a music producer, Michel Zecler, in the 17th arrondissement or district of the French capital on Saturday.

The video images obtained by the Associated Press, both from a security camera inside the studio and filmed by neighbors outside, show three officers following Zecler inside his music studio, where they can be seen repeatedly punching him and beating him with a truncheon.

Zecler told the Associated Press he feels “good” now that “the truth is out.”

“I want to understand why I have been assaulted by people who were wearing a police uniform. I want justice actually, because I believe in the justice of my country," he said.

Zecler said that the officers hurled repeated insults at him, including a very strong racist epithet.

He added that he still does not understand why officers decided to arrest him. He suffered injuries to his head, forearms and legs.

His lawyer, Hafida El Ali, said: “He asked them what they wanted, if they wanted to check his identity. ... They didn't stop beating him, the video of the violence (inside the studio) lasts for 12 minutes.”

At some point the officers called in reinforcements and went outside. They then threw a tear gas grenade into the studio to get those inside to come out, according El Ali.

El Ali said that nine others who were recording music in the studio basement were also beaten.

“Outside they are still beaten up and thrown to the ground and that's the moment when a police officer sees they are being filmed," she said. Then the violence stops.

Zecler was taken into custody.

“I’m obviously scandalized by these images,” Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti said in a television interview. "There are racist police, lawyers or bakers, but to say the police are racist, it's not true.”

Zecler's lawyer stressed the value of the videos in her client's case.

“These videos are essential because initially my client was being detained... for violence against people with public authority," El Ali said. "This is very serious. The reality is that if we didn't have these videos maybe my client would be in prison.”

Darmanin tweeted that the body that investigates allegations of police misconduct, the Inspectorate General of the National Police, known by its French acronym IGPN, is looking into the case, saying, “I want disciplinary proceedings as soon as possible.”

The Paris police prefecture said in a statement that IGPN will seek to establish the exact circumstances surrounding the man’s arrest.

The Paris prosecutor’s office is also investigating the police actions. The prosecutor’s office said Thursday it has dropped the proceedings against Zecler opened the day of his arrest, and instead opened an investigation for “acts of violence by a person in position of public authority” and “false declaration.”

According to Le Parisien newspaper, based on the written record of the officers' declarations the day after the arrest, Zecler drew their attention because he was not wearing a mask — which is mandatory in Paris outdoors amid the coronavirus pandemic. He seemed “nervous” and a “strong drug smell" was emanating from him. They said he was getting “dangerous” toward them.

Zecler's lawyer said: "My client never committed any violence against the police... He did not even defend himself."

It’s the second such police brutality investigation in Paris this week prompted by video footage. The government ordered an internal police investigation on Tuesday after police officers were filmed tossing migrants out of tents and intentionally tripping one while evacuating a protest camp.

That same day, France’s lower house of parliament approved a draft law meant to strengthen local police and provide greater protection to all officers. It notably makes it a crime to publish images of officers with intent to cause them harm. The bill, which enjoys public support after recent terrorist attacks, will now go to the Senate.

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France Police
Music producer identified only by his first name, Michel, is pictured on his way to the Inspectorate General of the National Police, known by its French acronym IGPN, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ordered several Paris police officers suspended after the publication of videos showing them beating up a Black man and using tear gas against him with no apparent reason. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

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France Police
In this photo provided by Mazava music production shows Michel, no family name given, Saturday Nov.21, 2020 in Paris . French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ordered several Paris police officers suspended after the publication of videos showing them beating up a Black man and using tear gas against him with no apparent reason. (Mazava music production Via AP)

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France Police
In this photo provided by Mazava music production shows Michel, no family name given, Saturday Nov.21, 2020 in Paris . French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ordered several Paris police officers suspended after the publication of videos showing them beating up a Black man and using tear gas against him with no apparent reason. (Courtesy of Hafida el Ali Via AP)



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France Police
Music producer identified only by his first name, Michel, answers to media, before going to the Inspectorate General of the National Police, known by its French acronym IGPN, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ordered several Paris police officers suspended after the publication of videos showing them beating up a Black man and using tear gas against him with no apparent reason. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

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France Police
Music producer identified only by his first name, Michel, is pictured on his way to the Inspectorate General of the National Police, known by its French acronym IGPN, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ordered several Paris police officers suspended after the publication of videos showing them beating up a Black man and using tear gas against him with no apparent reason. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

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France Police
Music producer identified only by his first name, Michel, answers to media, before going to the Inspectorate General of the National Police, known by its French acronym IGPN, in Paris, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin ordered several Paris police officers suspended after the publication of videos showing them beating up a Black man and using tear gas against him with no apparent reason. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

'Why now?' Dismay as US considers troop pullout from Somalia

CARA ANNA
Thu, November 26, 2020

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — No country has been involved in Somalia’s future as much as the United States. Now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the Horn of Africa nation at what some experts call the worst possible time.

Three decades of chaos, from warlords to al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab to the emergence of an Islamic State-linked group, have ripped apart the country that only in the past few years has begun to find its footing. The U.S. Embassy returned to Somalia just last year, 28 years after diplomats and staffers fled.

Somalia faces a tense election season that begins in the next few weeks to decide the presidency and parliament. United Nations experts say al-Shabab, supporting its 5,000 to 10,000 fighters on a rich diet of extorting businesses and civilians, is improving its bomb-making skills. And an ever bigger military force, the African Union’s 19,000-strong AMISOM, has begun its own withdrawal from a country whose forces are widely considered unready to assume full responsibility for security.

It is not clear whether President Donald Trump will order the withdrawal of the some 700 U.S. military forces from Somalia, following his orders for Afghanistan and Iraq, or whether the reported urge will pass before he leaves office in January. But the idea is taken seriously, even as U.S. drone strikes are expected to continue in Somalia against al-Shabab and IS fighters from neighboring Djibouti and Kenya — where al-Shabab carried out a deadly attack against U.S. forces early this year.

The U.S. Africa Command has seen a “definitive shift” this year in al-Shabab's focus to attack U.S. interests in the region, a new report by the Department of Defense inspector general said Wednesday — and the command says al-Shabab is Africa's most “dangerous” and “imminent” threat.

Here’s what’s at stake:

COUNTERTERRORISM

“The first thing ... it’s disastrous for Somalia’s security sector, it just causes that first panic reaction: You know, why now?” said Samira Gaid, a Somali national security specialist who served as senior security adviser to the prime minister and special adviser to the head of AMISOM. “Especially since over the past three and half years in particular the security sector really improved, and we tried to work closely with" the U.S., she told The Associated Press.

Recent progress includes a “war council” between the U.S. and Somali governments, she said, where the U.S. helps to draw up military plans. “We call them Somali-led operations, but really the U.S. is hand-holding us through it."

The U.S. military also trains Somalia’s elite Danab special forces that now number around 1,000, and is providing Danab with air cover and intelligence, Gaid said.

“Danab was expanding, that’s why this is so shocking,” she said. “Is it possible to move forward with that plan now?”

Danab units are now operational in four of Somalia's five member states, the U.S. military says, and they conducted about 80% of the Somali national army's offensive forces in the quarter ending Sept. 30 and “nearly all” operations against al-Shabab.

The Danab forces also serve as a model for how the rest of Somali military forces can develop to be “more meritocracy and less clan-focused,” said Omar Mahmood, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

The loss of U.S. forces is widely seen as a gain for al-Shabab, and for the far smaller presence of hundreds of IS-affiliated fighters in Somalia's north. “From the al-Shabab perspective, they just need to hold out,” Mahmood said, and they might even ask themselves what need there is for any potential Taliban-style negotiations.

Al-Shabab’s messaging has always stressed the extremist group's staying power, national security specialist Gaid said: “These external forces will always leave.” A U.S. withdrawal will play into that narrative.

Gaid said she doesn't see any other country stepping into the U.S. military’s role, though a withdrawal would open space for powers like Russia and China. Somalia also has some 1,500 special forces that have been trained by Turkish troops, she said, but “they don’t benefit from Turkish advisers on the ground.”

SECURITY

Without U.S. forces, al-Shabab “will find it easier to overrun AMISOM, let alone the Somali national army,” Vanda Felbab-Brown, co-director of the African Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution, told an online event this week. And with neighboring Ethiopia’s conflict increasing pressure to withdraw more Ethiopian forces from Somalia, a U.S. troop withdrawal “is really just the worst time.”

The support that U.S. forces give AMISOM is “huge,” Gaid said, including as a key interlocutor with Somali forces. And with AMISOM also drawing down by the end of next year, “it’s a tricky time.”

The U.S. has said implementation of the plan for Somali forces to take over the country's security next year is “badly off track,” said the new report by the Department of Defense inspector general.

Somali forces cannot contain the al-Shabab threat on its own, the report said. They still rely on the international community for financial support, and yet they “sometimes go unpaid for months.”

Maybe a U.S. withdrawal would lead the AMISOM force to adjust its own withdrawal timeline “more realistically,” Mahmood said.

The U.S. has been the most engaged security partner in Somalia “willing to get down and dirty,” he added. But no other country appears to have the willingness to replace what U.S. forces are doing on the ground

And a withdrawal of both the U.S. and AMISOM would risk leaving the impression that “Somalia increasingly can rely less and less on external security partners," Mahmood said.

POLITICAL STABILITY

Somalia is on the brink of elections, with the parliamentary vote scheduled in December and the presidential one in February. What had meant to be the country’s first one-person-one-vote election in decades instead remains limited by disputes between the federal government and regional ones — which the U.S. has said also weakens command and control of Somali forces.

At least keep U.S. forces in Somalia until after the elections, Felbab-Brown wrote this week, warning of possible post-election violence or al-Shabab taking advantage of any chaos.

Even though U.S. forces don’t provide election security, “our problem is, with the U.S. focused on a drawdown of troops, it would not be focused on how the elections are going politically,” Gaid said.

The U.S. has been one of the most vocal actors on Somalia's election process, she said. “We were all expecting after November that the U.S. would be clear on a lot of stuff. Now it seems we have to wait.”

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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
U.S. Army Spc. Dominic Deitrick, assigned to the 1-186th Infantry Battalion, Task Force Guardian, Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, seen through a night-vision device, provides security for a 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron (EAS) C-130J Super Hercules during unloading and loading operations Friday, June 12, 2020 at an unidentified location in Somalia. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Tech. Sgt. Christopher Ruano/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)

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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Damian T. Donahoe, deputy commanding general, Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, center, talks with service members during a battlefield circulation Saturday, Sept. 5, 2020, in Somalia. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Senior Airman Kristin Savage/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)

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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
A U.S. Army soldier assigned to Site Security Team Task Force Guardian, 1st Battalion, 186th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, provides security for a C-130J Super Hercules from the 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron (EAS) at an unidentified location in Somalia Wednesday, June 10, 2020. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Staff Sgt. Shawn White/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)



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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
U.S. Army soldiers assigned to the 1-186th Infantry Battalion, Task Force Guardian, Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, provide security for a 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron (EAS) C-130J Super Hercules during loading and unloading operations at an unidentified location in Somalia Friday, July 10, 2020. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Tech. Sgt. Christopher Ruano/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)

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Somalia US Troop Withdrawal
U.S. Army Spc. Kevin Martin, junior sniper, assigned to the 1-186th Infantry Battalion, Task Force Guardian, Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, provides security for a 75th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron (EAS) C-130J Super Hercules during unloading operations at an unidentified location in Somalia Sunday, June 28, 2020. No country has been involved in Somalia's future as much as the United States but now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the nation at what some experts call the worst possible time. (Tech. Sgt. Christopher Ruano/Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa via AP)

Trump set to execute more inmates than any other president - with more due before Biden takes office

Donald Trump is set to become the only president in history to carry out federal executions during the ‘lame duck’ period

Harriet Alexander Wednesday 11 November 2020 

Donald Trump has enthusiastically embraced the death penalty
(Getty Images)

Three death row prisoners are to be executed by the federal government in the window of time before Joe Biden takes office, as Donald Trump continues his unprecedented and enthusiastic embrace of capital punishment.

Mr Trump ordered in July 2019 ordered a resumption of federal executions and this year, on 14 July, the first prisoner was put to death, ending a 17 year hiatus.

His administration has executed seven people so far this year, and expects to execute three more before Christmas - meaning that he will have put more people to death in a single year than any other president.

Furthermore, no president before him has ever executed death row inmates in the “lame duck” period.

Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) said Mr Trump was "out of step with federal practices for more than a century."

"No-one has ever attempted to carry out so many executions at the federal level," he told Newsweek.

"No-one in modern American history has attempted to carry out so many executions in such a short period of time, and no-one has done so in a manner that so closely disregards the rule of law.

The federal death penalty applies in all 50 states and US territories but is used relatively rarely.

In 1972 the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional, in Furman v. Georgia in 1972. They put it back on the books four years later, and most states resumed executions.

It was not reinstated at a federal level until 1988, however, and was then expanded in 1994 to make 60 offences eligible for federal execution - among them treason, espionage, murder involving torture or government officials, and first degree murder.

Now, 28 US states have the death penalty on the books.

In recent years, New Mexico (2009), Illinois (2011), Connecticut (2012), Maryland (2013), New Hampshire (2019) and Colorado (2020) have legislatively abolished the death penalty, replacing it with a sentence of life imprisonment with no possibility for parole.


More than half of US states do not have the death penalty
(Death Penalty Information Center)

George W. Bush was the only other president, since 1988, to order federal executions.

Mr Trump has outpaced Mr Bush, and sparked anger by pressing ahead with highly contentious cases.

On 26 August the only Native American on death row was executed by the federal government, despite objections from many Navajo leaders who had urged Mr Trump to halt the execution on the grounds it would violate tribal culture and sovereignty.

On 8 December the government plans to execute Lisa Montgomery, who will be the first woman federally executed since 1953.

She is a victim of sex trafficking who suffers from psychosis and complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, according to anti-death penalty advocates.

On 10 December they plan to put to death Brandon Bernard for the murder of a Texas couple in 1999, when he was 18.

The last time the US government executed a person as young as eighteen at the time of the crime was in 1952.

The third person to be executed during the “lame duck” period is likely to be Orlando Hall, a Black man sentenced to death by an all-white jury in 1994 for kidnapping, raping, and burying a 16-year-old girl alive in retaliation for a bad drug deal.

He never denied killing her, but his lawyers insist racial bias and remorse were not taken into account.

Mr Dunham said the ratcheting up of federal executions were also out of step with the views of Americans.

He told Newsweek support for the death penalty has been waning, and cited a recent Gallup poll that found 56 per cent of Americans are in favour of the death penalty, down from 80 per cent in 1994.

The 2019 Gallup survey also showed that 60 per cent of Americans think life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is a more appropriate punishment for murder than the death penalty.

Mr Biden has promised to eliminate the death penalty at a federal level, and try to convince states to take it off their books too.

“Over 160 individuals who’ve been sentenced to death in this country since 1973 have later been exonerated,” his manifesto states.

"Because we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right every time, Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example.

“These individuals should instead serve life sentences without probation or parole.”

Trump pushing through dozens of last minute policy changes – including use of firing squads

Alex Woodward THE INDEPENDENT
Wed., November 25, 2020

Donald Trump has sought fast-track authorisation for several administration-wide policy changes before he leaves the White House in January, including the use of firing squads and electrocutions in federal executions, according to a report from ProPublica.

The Department of Justice entered a proposed rule change into the federal register in August. It cleared a White House review earlier this month, and the president could authorise the policy before he leaves office.

Federal executions are typically carried about by lethal injection, unless a judge orders a person to death by other means.

According to the proposed rule change, the administration claims that “death by firing squad and death by electrocution do not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment”.

The proposal argues: “In recent US Supreme Court litigation involving Eighth Amendment challenges to execution by lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia and firing squad have been identified as potential alternative methods of execution, including by prisoners themselves, that might – or even must– be used instead of lethal injection, in particular because those methods allegedly carry a lesser risk of pain."

It’s unlikely that the rule could be put into practise – president-elect Joe Biden does not support the death penalty and has signalled that he could seek to eliminate capital punishment for felony convictions and suspend federal executions, which Attorney General William Barr aggressively pursued after he was sworn in last year.

Federal executions resumed for the first time in 17 years in July, following a divided Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for their return. Daniel Lee was killed in Indiana following a conviction for the murder of a family of three in Arkansas in 1996. The Associated Press reporter present for his killing said his last words were "you’re killing an innocent man."

Orlando Cordia Hall was executed on 19 November. In the remaining weeks of the Trump administration, the federal government will kill five more people – Brandon Bernard, Alfred Bourgeois, Dustin Higgins, Corey Johnson and Lisa Montgomery, who will be the first female federal inmate to be executed in decades.

ProPublica reports that the president has sought to finalise 36 major rule chances in the coming weeks, similar to the 35 to 40 changes from under the four previous administrations – so-called “midnight regulations” in the lame-duck period after Election Day and before the incoming president’s inauguration.

In 2017, Republican lawmakers eliminated several rule changes under Barack Obama using the Congressional Review Act, which Democrats may not be able to invoke if the GOP maintains control of the Senate.

This is pending the outcome of two crucial runoff elections in Georgia that could determine whether Democrats win a majority in both chambers, with a Democrat in the executive office.

Mr Trump’s rush to finalise those rule changes would otherwise enshrine conservative policy proposals to ensure almost-certain roadblocks for a Biden administration.

Republicans are right: democracy is rigged. But they are the beneficiaries

Stephen Holmes
Thu, November 26, 2020

The Republican establishment, despite being unfairly advantaged by the skewed composition of the electoral college, by over-representation in the House due to partisan gerrymandering and in the Senate due to equal State suffrage, has been in no hurry to reject Donald Trump’s ludicrous allegation that the American electoral system is rigged to favor Democrats. Sweating the make-or-break Georgia runoffs, the party’s leaders are apparently frightened to cross the mad king, who owns their voters, lest he cause their ratings to plummet as he is doing with Fox News. But Republican complicity with this unprecedented attack on American democracy is not a matter of short-term expediency or fear of reprisals. It is much worse than that. Mitch McConnell and the others are not merely humoring the president until his mania subsides. Trump’s voters are the Republicans’ voters and the Republican party cannot easily cut them, and their deranged conspiracy theories, loose even after 20 January.

This has important implications for how Biden should respond to the incalculable damage Trump has inflicted on the country, including how his Department of Justice approaches the restoration of the rule of law.

The Republican party is deeply committed to the outrageously tilted playing field that allows a minority of voters to choose a majority of senators and, indirectly, a majority of supreme court justices, not to mention the occasional president as in 2000 and 2016. They are an unabashedly anti-democratic party in that sense alone, even if we set aside their brazen efforts at voter suppression and voter intimidation. This is perhaps the main reason why its leaders have proved so reluctant to dissociate themselves from Trump’s specious allegation that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged”. They know that the system is rigged. It is rigged to favor Republicans. And they relish not only the irony of Trump’s audacious reversal of the truth, but also the way it distracts attention from the genuinely unconscionable rigging that gives an American minority the power to impose its will on the American majority.

Republican officials are slowly distancing themselves from the embarrassingly delusional president’s refusal to accept the reality of his defeat. But the fact that it is taking them so long reflects a deep truth about the country’s politics, namely that Americans are still fighting the civil war. When Trump and his madcap surrogates cry “voter fraud”, they do not mean fraud in the technical sense of ballot stuffing or the miscounting of legal votes. What they mean is that Democrats have debased the composition of the electorate by making it easier for African Americans in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Milwaukee, the most reliably Democratic voters in the country, to register and vote. Trump would have been elected in a landslide, they imply, if only “real Americans”, meaning exactly who you think, had been allowed to vote.

Nixon’s famous “southern strategy”, crafted with the support of Strom Thurmond, the infamous South Carolina segregationist, suffices to remind us that Republican pandering to white fears of demographic inundation did not begin, and will not end, with Donald Trump. Key to the historical origins of Republican acquiescence in Trump’s efforts to wreck American democracy is his last-ditch and doomed gambit to convince Republican controlled state legislatures in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to replace the pro-Biden delegates to their state’s electoral college with a pro-Trump slate of electors.

Trump’s advisers evidently believe that this anti-democratic maneuver is perfectly constitutional since article II, section 1, clause 2 of the US constitution declares that “each state shall appoint” presidential electors “in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct”. That clause seems straightforward enough until we recall, as Republicans are apparently loath to do, that the framers’ constitution was radically revised by the civil war amendments. In particular, section 2 of the 14th amendment of 1868 was designed to penalize any state that attempted to deny any American citizen “the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for president and vice-president of the United States”. Allowing Republican-controlled state legislatures to appoint the electors would run grievously afoul of this all-important clause. It was bitterly contested in the states of the former Confederacy for the same reason that Trump’s diehard supporters are refusing to accept his defeat. Section 2 of the 14th amendment was seen at the time, and is apparently still seen today, as a betrayal of the racial solidarity of the white majority because crafted to reshape the American electorate by enfranchising African Americans. Shamelessly echoing the South’s post-civil war howls of betrayal, Trump shows why he should forever be remembered as the second president of the Confederacy.

While none of this implies that Joe Biden’s well-meaning appetite for some measure of bipartisanship is completely hopeless, it does suggest that he may be thinking about it in the wrong way. The Republican establishment, as mentioned, is panicked by the prospect of alienating Trump’s voters. But they also have strong reasons, after 20 January, to consign Trump himself to political oblivion. This is the wedge that the president-elect should exploit. After all, the presidential hopes of Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and even Mike Pompeo depend on the current darling of their electorate being swept from the scene. And if his strident voice can be silenced, the party can hope to retreat into its pre-Trump habits of making only the kind of discreet appeals to white resentment acceptable in polite company.

Although Biden says that he wants to restore the rule of law that has been desecrated by the outgoing attorney general, William Barr, he may imagine that the best way to convince at least some Republicans to cooperate with his administration is to close the books on the past by directing his new justice department to let bygones be bygones. But attempting to “heal the soul of the nation” by discouraging a thorough inquiry into Trump’s potential violations of federal law recalls Robert Frost’s definition of a liberal as “a man who can’t take his own side in an argument”.

If retreat from confrontation is what Biden has in mind, he may be underestimating the tacit desire of the Republican leadership to rid themselves of the rabble-rouser who is keeping their electorate hostage. They may well silently but heartily approve if Biden keeps his promise to abstain from interfering with his new attorney general’s efforts to uncover the extent of Trump’s malfeasance in office. Even criminal prosecution, if it comes to that, might be an act of bipartisanship since, by publicly disgracing Trump, it would free a few more Republicans to be occasionally cooperative. This possibility should appeal to a president-elect who, with 80 million voters at his back, is not only willing to reach across the aisle but eager to take his own side’s side in an argument.


Stephen Holmes is professor of law at NYU School of Law and co-author with Ivan Krastev of The Light that Failed: A Reckoning (Penguin 2019)

Rudy Giuliani has tried to subvert the will of the voters before. He did it after 9/11

Nicholas Goldberg
Tue, November 24, 2020

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, left, with President George W. Bush and Fire Commissioner Thomas Van Essen on Sept. 14, 2001. (Doug Mills / Associated Press) 

CHUCK SCHUMER IN BACKGROUND

The problem with Rudy Giuliani isn’t that his mascara runs or that he held a post-election event next to an adult book shop. Nor is it his behavior toward the young woman in the Borat movie or his pinkie ring or the fact that he told his second wife he was divorcing her by announcing it at a news conference.

The problem with the former New York City mayor is that he doesn’t respect elections.

Not only has Giuliani been President Trump's chief accomplice in his outrageous and deceptive efforts to subvert the will of the American people, a role he is continuing to play even as the transition gets underway, but he also fought hard in the aftermath of 9/11 to keep himself in office after his term as mayor ran out.

Let me remind you what happened then.

Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City was a crisp, shockingly clear fall day. When the two World Trade Center towers were attacked, and then collapsed in a cloud of dust, steel and concrete, then-Mayor Giuliani rose to the occasion, emerging from an office two blocks away covered in ash but ready to defend the city. He was calm and commanding in the days that followed, supporting first responders and comforting survivors and speaking effectively for an anxious city. He revived his battered political image, reinventing himself as “America’s mayor.”

Sept. 11 was also primary day in New York City. A mayoral election was underway. Giuliani was termed out — it was the end of his second term and his time in City Hall was up at the end of the year. More than half a dozen candidates — including Mark Green and Michael Bloomberg, who eventually became the nominees in the general election — were fighting for their parties’ support. Because of the World Trade Center attacks, that day’s primary was put off for two weeks.

Delaying the primary was entirely reasonable. People weren’t going to turn out to vote on a day when the city had been violently terrorized.

But Giuliani saw an opportunity for something else. In the days that followed — as he watched his poll numbers rise — Giuliani and his aides and supporters began hinting that the mayor shouldn’t be required to leave office when his term was up. What the city really needed was an extraordinary three-month extension of his term to help deal with the fallout of the attack and ease the transition for the next mayor. This was a catastrophe after all. Steady leadership was needed. The November election should be canceled.

Or maybe that wasn’t enough. In fact, according to Giuliani and his aides, the 1993 law barring him from serving a third consecutive term should be overturned entirely if his bid for an extension was rejected and he should be allowed to run again. Giuliani even considered trying to get himself on the ballot despite the term limits law. He lobbied the governor and the Legislature to keep him in office.

Trump-like, Giuliani insisted that supporters were “begging me to stay in the run for another term.”

He got some support in the heat of the crisis, but a lot of pushback too. The New York Civil Rights Coalition accused Giuliani of bullying the mayoral candidates and being “disruptive to electoral democracy.” The Democrats in the state Assembly (whose support was necessary for any extension) refused to back his proposal. Frederick A.O. Schwarz, who had served as the city’s top lawyer, said Giuliani had “created the very dangerous idea that we couldn’t survive without him.”

Republican Gov. George Pataki wrote later that Giuliani’s team “pushed the issue” with the governor’s staff for weeks. Pataki finally told Giuliani he would neither support an extension nor cancel the upcoming election.

“Regardless of Rudy’s motivation, regardless of his raw emotions in the situation, he abandoned some of the most basic conservative principles — to follow the law and relinquish power when your term is over, even in times of crisis,” Pataki wrote later.

Sound familiar?

Another opponent of Giuliani’s attempted power grab was his friend Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who advised the mayor to back down. According to ABC News at the time, McCain cautioned Giuliani to “listen to people you trust, not people who have a stake in your decision.”

When it became clear that state leaders would not authorize his continuing on as an unelected mayor, Giuliani gave in. But he appears to have learned nothing from the experience.

Even as he approved starting the transition, Trump refused to concede and may well never do so. His tactics — and Giuliani’s — have undermined the integrity of a legitimate election in the eyes of Americans and deepened the fissures in an already deeply divided country.

It is precisely in times of crisis — whether a terrorist attack or a pandemic — that democracy must show its resilience. Rules, laws and norms, including elections, obviously shouldn’t be tossed aside at the first signs of strain.

That’s a lesson Giuliani should have learned two decades ago when the towers came down.

@Nick_Goldberg

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

A 14-year-old boy drew a portrait of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. He never expected her to see it — then she called.

Sarah Al-Arshani
Wed, November 25, 2020

Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaking in Washington, DC, on August 27, 2020. ERIC BARADAT/AFP via Getty Images

Fourteen-year-old Tyler Gordon drew a portrait of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who inspires him, but he never thought she would actually see it.

His tweet of a time-lapse video of him drawing the portrait went viral.

Harris called him after she saw it.

A teenager from the San Francisco Bay Area who was inspired by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris painted a portrait of her. And while he hoped she would see it, he never expected that she would — or that she would call him.

Tyler Gordon, 14, got a call from Harris after a time-lapse video of him painting a portrait of her went viral. Gordon told Insider that he looks up to Harris who overcame a lot of obstacles to become the first woman vice president-elect — and the first South Asian American and Black woman to hold the title — the way he's had to overcome hurdles in his own life.

"She inspires me and she broke through tons of barriers. I also broke through barriers with my stutter, being in a wheelchair for two years, and being deaf until I was six," he said. "So she just inspires me and also she's from the Bay Area, my hometown. So I feel like I just relate to that.
—Tyler Gordon (@Official_tylerg) November 23, 2020

Gordon, who began drawing when he was 10, said he hopes that Harris can one day have her portrait and that he aspires to someday plaint the official White House portrait. He also harbors dreams of opening up his own art gallery.

After the phone call, he described Harris as "humble," a quality he admires.

"I'm really grateful because she's really humble, actually. When she called me actually today, I was shocked. She thanked me for the painting and told me that I was really talented and bright during the conversation," he said.

He added that during the call, a timer went off for Harris' cornbread and she told him, 'hold on, I gotta check my cornbread,'" which he thought was very personable.

Gordon said that his mom Nicole Kindle initially did not allow him to paint when he first showed interest. It was only after he had a dream where he said God had told him if he didn't use his artistic talent, he would take it away, that he went to his mom crying, who eventually agreed.

Kindle told Insider that she's glad her son didn't let her stand in the way of his passion and that she regretted that she hadn't been as supportive from the get-go.

"He's painted for lots of celebrities and done lots of work, but he's really a humble kid," Kindle said of her son."He just enjoys playing with his twin brother and eating pop tarts, like a normal kid. He still has his chores. He's just a normal kid that has extreme talent, and that's what I love about him. He'd never let it go to his head. He's really humble about it. "

Read the original article on Insider

'She called me!!!!!': Vice President-elect Kamala Harris phones California teen to thank him for painting her portrait


Jessica Flores, USA TODAY
Wed, November 25, 2020

A teen artist from California asked his Twitter followers on Sunday to share his painted portrait of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to improve the chances she'd see it.

On Wednesday, Tyler Gordon learned Harris had seen it. How? She called to thank him.

"I was really shocked," Gordon, 14, of San Jose, told USA TODAY.

On Twitter, Gordon wrote, "She called me!!!!!! @KamalaHarris called ME!!!!"

He said he painted a portrait of Harris because he was inspired by the barriers she broke as the first woman, first Black person and first person of Asian descent to be elected as vice president.

"I, myself, broke a lot of barriers with my stuttering, breaking my hips and being deaf since I was 6," he said. "I feel like she represents that."

@KamalaHarris My name is Tyler Gordon and I'm 14 years old and I live in the Bay Area! I painted this picture of you and I hope you like it!!! Please Rt and tag her so that she can see this. Please!!!@JoeBiden @DouglasEmhoff @SenKamalaHarris @WeGotGame2 pic.twitter.com/X0qtChKBf2
— Tyler Gordon (@Official_tylerg) November 23, 2020

The tweet included a time-lapse video of Gordon painting his portrait of Harris with the Golden Gate Bridge as his background.

"My name is Tyler Gordon and I'm 14 years old and I live in the Bay Area! I painted this picture of you and I hope you like it!!" the tweet says.

Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo helped spread Gordon's message on Twitter.

I’d like to proudly add that the very talented Tyler is a resident of @CityofSanJose ! He’s a wonderful young man who has demonstrated unique strength of character to overcome obstacles in his young life. @ChelseaClinton @KamalaHarris @DouglasEmhoff @WeGotGame2 @JoeBiden https://t.co/4mFhAdsEfe
— Sam Liccardo (@sliccardo) November 25, 2020

Madame Vice President-Elect @KamalaHarris 🇺🇸, check out this beautiful portrait of you by @Official_tylerg! https://t.co/2JrmJoiueG
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) November 25, 2020

Gordon's mother, Nicole Kindle, captured the moment Harris called him in a video.

"I'm overwhelmed with just the magnificence of your artistry," Harris told Gordon. "You really have a gift, my goodness. I was so touched to see it."

Harris, who was born in Oakland, also told Gordon she hopes to meet him one day.

This isn't the first time Gordon's artwork has captured the attention of a high-profile figure. His portraits of celebrities have led him to meet Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez, Janet Jackson, Kevin Durant and Kevin Hart, he said.

When he grows up, Gordon said he hopes to have his own art gallery and display his work around the world.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: California teen who painted Kamala Harris portrait gets surprise call

Obama says Republicans won votes for Trump by wrongly framing white men as victims

Adam Payne
Thu, November 26, 2020

Barack Obama 

Republicans have wrongly created a narrative where white men see themselves as "victims" who are "under attack", according to Barack Obama.

The former president said this belief was pervasive among many Republican voters despite the fact that it "obviously doesn't jive with both history and data and economics."

"That's a story that's being told and how you unwind that is going to be not something that is done right away," Obama said in a radio interview on Wednesday.

Trump and the Republicans have won millions of votes partly by framing white American men as "victims" who are "under attack," according to former president Barack Obama.

In an interview with the Breakfast Club radio show on Wednesday, reported by The Guardian newspaper, Obama said one of the reasons Trump managed to secure a record-breaking number of votes in his defeat to Joe Biden was that Republicans have created and perpetuated "the sense that white males are victims."

"What's always interesting to me is the degree to which you've seen created in Republican politics the sense that white males are victims," Obama told the Breakfast Club radio show.

"They are the ones who are under attack — which obviously doesn't jive with both history and data and economics.

"But that's a sincere belief, that's been internalized, that's a story that's being told and how you unwind that is going to be not something that is done right away."

Obama said that pushing this narrative helped Trump secure the highest number of votes for any sitting president in American history, despite his administration "objectively" having "failed, miserably, in handling just basic looking after the American people and keeping them safe."

Trump won white men by a margin of around 31% in his 2016 election victory over Hilary Clinton, and performed particularly well among white men in rural areas. Analysis of this month's election indicates that the outgoing president lost ground with this group, though he still defeated President-elect Biden by around 23%.

Rey Del Rio/Getty Images

In his interview on Wednesday, Obama said he understood why some black people and those from other ethnic minorities felt disappointed by what he did for them while in the White House, but insisted that he managed to improve their conditions significantly despite the constraints of Congress.

"I understand it [the disappointment] because when I was elected there was so much excitement and hope, and I also think we generally view the presidency as almost like a monarchy in the sense of once the president's there, he can just do whatever needs to get done and if he's not doing it, it must be because he didn't want to do it," he said, adding that unlike Trump, he didn't break the law and disregarded the constitution in the pursuit of his agenda.

Watch Obama talk about race and politics



"The good news for me was I was very confident in what I had done for Black folks because I have the statistics to prove it," Obama said.

He warned that Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would face similar struggles in implementing their own policies if the Democrats did not win two upcoming runoff elections in Georgia. Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are being challenged by Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock respectively.

"If the Republicans win those two seats, then Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will not be able to get any law passed that Mitch McConnell and the other Republicans aren't going to go along with," he told host DJ Envy.

Read the original article on Business Insider