After the death of George Floyd, Africa mobilises against police violence
Issued on: 13/06/2020 - FRANCE24/AFP

Family members of people killed by Kenyan Police protest in front of the Kenyan Parliament against police brutality in Nairobi on June 9, 2020. © Patrick Meinhardt, AFP

Text by:Romain HOUEIX

If the death of George Floyd has sparked a worldwide protest movement, Africa is not to be outdone. In Kenya, Ghana and South Africa, demonstrators are taking to the streets. Others would like to see their leaders tackle the issue more firmly, in solidarity with their "African-American brothers".

The death of George Floyd, an African-American man who was killed by a police officer on May 25 in Minneapolis, has become a global symbol. That case of police violence sparked a worldwide wave of anti-racist protests, with marchers chanting the slogan "I can't breathe" - the last words spoken by the 46-year-old. Demonstrations have also erupted in Africa, calling on African leaders to address their own problems of police violence, which often go unpunished.

A particular resonance in South Africa

In South Africa, the movement's other major slogan, "Black Lives Matter", has a special resonance in a country scarred by apartheid and still torn apart by sharp racial inequalities.

On June 8, at the call of the radical-left party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), more than 100 people gathered outside the US Embassy in Pretoria to protest racism, police violence and the US President Donald Trump.

The EFF now kneeling outside the USA Embassy in Pretoria for 8 minutes and 40 seconds against the death #GeorgeFloyd in America at the hands of White Police officers. The #CollinsKhosa family is also here. #sabcnews pic.twitter.com/MetKNxrgc9— #TheLordOfTheMedia (@samkelemaseko) June 8, 2020

EFF supporters paid tribute to Floyd by taking a knee and observing 8 minutes and 46 seconds of silence, the time it took for him to die under the knee of a police officer. "Enough with police brutality on our black bodies," EFF leader Julius Malema told the crowd, standing next to the wife of a man recently killed by the South African Army enforcing the Covid-19 lockdown.

Kenya against police violence

In Kenya, portraits of George Floyd plaster the walls of Nairobi. And on the same day as in South Africa, about 200 people demonstrated against police violence in the Mathare slum in the capital. Police violence has claimed at least 15 lives in Kenya since a curfew was imposed to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The crowd consisted mainly of young people and mothers carrying placards with the names of friends, neighbours or sons killed in recent years in police operations. "Stop Killer Cops," or "Save Our Future," were their slogans.

#JustIn |√ #Kenya: Demonstrators attend a Black Lives Matter protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.#BlackLivesMatter#Nairobi#GeorgeFloydFuneral #GeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/2oIbjwb244— JUST IN | World (@justinbroadcast) June 10, 2020

The Kenyan police are regularly accused by human rights groups of excessive use of force and extrajudicial executions, particularly in poor neighbourhoods. In April, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the police of imposing curfews "in a chaotic and violent manner, from the beginning", sometimes by whipping, beating or using tear gas to force people off the streets.

The organisation cited the case of a 13-year-old boy, Yassin Hussein Moyo, who died in Nairobi on March 31 after he was shot while standing on his balcony by police enforcing curfew in the street below his house.

A new scandal erupted on June 10 with the viral release of a video in which a woman suspected of stealing was tied up and dragged behind a motorcycle. Three policemen were arrested.

Another rogue officer:

IPOA launches probe into assault of a suspect in Olenguruone. Video shows woman being dragged, tied on a motorcycle.

Police claim Mercy Cherono was assaulted by a mob.

Mercy said to be a member of a gang that stole from officer’s house #JKLive pic.twitter.com/wsZMjXI0Qk— Citizen TV Kenya (@citizentvkenya) June 10, 2020

"Three officers were yesterday arrested ... following circulation of a video depicting a woman being whipped & dragged on a motorbike in Kuresoi South Sub-County," the Directorate of Criminal Investigations said in a statement.

"The suspects are in lawful custody helping with further investigations into the matter," it added.

Ghana and Senegal pay tribute to George Floyd

On the Corniche des Almadies in Dakar, facing the ocean that separates Africa from the United States, 50 people - the maximum allowed because of Covid-19 - representing various associations of Senegalese civil society, gathered to pay tribute to George Floyd in this highly symbolic place: the Corniche is soon to house the Slavery Memorial.

Senegalese kneel during a Black Lives Matter gathering following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, in Dakar, Senegal June 9. REUTERS/ Zohra Bensemr#GeorgeFloyd#blacklifematters pic.twitter.com/BK9l3eApdz— Abdulsatar Bochnak (@AbdulsatarBoch1) June 10, 2020

The President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, was one of the first heads of state to respond to the murder of George Floyd.

"Black people, the world over, are shocked and distraught by the killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, by a white police officer in the United States of America.... It cannot be right that, in the 21st century, the United States, this great bastion of democracy, continues to grapple with the problem of systemic racism," he wrote in a statement posted on Twitter on June 1 with Floyd’s face on a black background. "We hope that the unfortunate, tragic death of George Floyd will inspire a lasting change in how America confronts head on the problems of hate and racism."

#GeorgeFloyd #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd pic.twitter.com/LOIcKLcB5i— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) June 1, 2020

Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou said Thursday that the death of George Floyd was "the symbol of the old world that must be changed", during a video conference with his peers in the African Union. “Our conference must condemn this heinous act without reservation.”

The African Union addresses the problem

The Chadian Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, was very quick to react to George Floyd's death, calling it a "murder" as early as May 29. In a statement, he said he "strongly condemns the murder of George Floyd that occurred in the United States at the hands of law enforcement officers".

“Recalling the historic Organisation of Africa Unity (OAU) Resolution on Racial Discrimination in the United States of America made by African Heads of State and Government, at the OAU’s First Assembly Meeting held in Cairo, Egypt from 17 to 24 July 1964, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission firmly reaffirms and reiterates the African Union’s rejection of the continuing discriminatory practices against Black citizens of the United States of America,” the statement continued.

On behalf of the entire @_AfricanUnion family, I condemn in the strongest terms the murder of #GeorgeFloyd at the hands of law enforcement officers in the United States of America. See my full statement here: https://t.co/LslbVFrWHN— Moussa Faki Mahamat (@AUC_MoussaFaki) May 29, 2020

The Chadian diplomat was referring to the very first OAU conference of July 1964 in Cairo, in which the iconic leader of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, participated as an observer. He delivered a pan-African speech to "his African brothers and sisters" on the discrimination suffered by African-Americans on the other side of the Atlantic at that time.

Some intellectuals, however, see it as opportunistic for the continent's leaders to take up the problem in this way. Among them is the Cameroonian economist Célestin Monga, who called on African politicians to put their own houses in order first.

While he commended the "(anger and indignation) of African political leaders over the assassination of George Floyd and police brutality in [the United States]" in a tweet, he said he wished "they would be just as quick to issue condemnations when our police and soldiers are martyring our citizens on a daily basis".

Reviving the pan-African dream

A hundred African writers hope that the repercussions of George Floyd's murder will lead to the revival of the pan-African dream. In an open letter, they call for Africa to be a "refuge" for its diaspora.

"We ask that African governments recognize our alliance and ties with our brothers and sisters across borders, from America to Brazil and throughout the rest of the diaspora. Let them offer those who choose it a refuge, a home and citizenship in the name of pan-Africanism," the African authors urged.

"We note with dismay that what Malcolm X said in Ghana in 1964, namely that 'for the 20 million of us in America who are of African descent, this is not the American dream, this is the American nightmare', remains true for 37 million (African-Americans) in 2020."

This article has been translated from the original in French.

‘Black and treated as such’: France’s anti-racism protests expose myth of colour-blind Republic

EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM 
IS THE SOURCE OF ALL ARYAN RACISM

Issued on: 10/06/2020 - FRANCE24/AFP

Protesters attend a rally against racism and police brutality in Nantes, western France, on June 8, 2020. © Stéphane Mahé, REUTERS Text by:Benjamin DODMAN

The unprecedented wave of protests that swept French cities over the past week has exposed cracks in the country’s universalist model, lifting long-standing taboos and fuelling calls to shed the “myth” of a Republic immune to racism
Maelle B. dithered at length before heading to the Paris courthouse to protest against racism and police brutality. Sporting a broad face mask, the 23-year-old student from the Paris suburbs carried milk and eye drops in her rucksack to ease the sting from teargas.

“We’re black, Arab, white etc. This is the reality. And we need to stop pretending that blacks and others are not discriminated against,” she said, holding up a sign that read: “It’s not black vs white. It’s everyone vs racists”.

Maelle was among more than 20,000 people who rallied in northern Paris on June 2 to vent their anger and frustration over discriminations that have been allowed to fester unchallenged for decades. Inspired by the global protest movement triggered by the George Floyd killing in the US, the Paris gathering was France’s largest such rally in decades.

“Of course France and America are very different countries, but they have a common enemy in racism,” said Maelle. “Nothing will ever change until people are educated about racism.”

White privilege

The June 2 gathering was just the first in a wave of rallies that have swept French cities in recent days, surprising even their organisers by the size and diversity of the crowds. It reignited a longstanding dispute about policing in the immigrant-rich suburbs of France’s largest cities, forcing the government into a rare admission that “there are racist police officers” and that such deviance cannot be tolerated.

Rokhaya Diallo, a prominent anti-racism campaigner who attended the Paris rally, said she had never seen such a large gathering before. In an interview with FRANCE 24, she credited the impressive mobilisation with helping to lift entrenched taboos.

“Racism and police brutality were largely hushed by the media before,” Diallo explained. “The coverage now is still often skewed against the protesters, but at least these subjects are considered worthy of debate.”


For Maelle M. (right) and her friend Aline, tackling racism is they key to healing the fraught relationship between police and youths in the suburbs. © Benjamin Dodman, FRANCE 24

Beyond the issue of policing, the mobilisation has led to a new bout of soul-searching about the long-neglected cracks in the French Republic’s universalist model, which undermine its cherished principles of égalité and fraternité. Mirroring debates taking place in the US, it has prompted talk of “white privilege” — a notion France’s nominally colour-blind Republic is deeply uncomfortable with.

In a searing letter read out on France Inter radio on June 4, prominent novelist Virginie Despentes compared treatment of racial minorities with the relative privilege of being white.

“In France we are [supposedly] not racist, and yet the last time a waiter refused to serve me I was with an Arab; the last time I was told to show my ID, I was with an Arab; the last time a person I was waiting for almost missed a train because police stopped her, she was black,” Despentes wrote.

She added: “A white person like me can move freely through the city without even noticing the police. [...] I cannot forget I am a woman. But I can forget I am white. That’s what it means to be white. To think about it or not, depending on your mood. In France, we are not racist, but I don’t know a single black or Arab person who has such a choice.”

Republican ‘mythology’

The racialised nature of inequality in France is a no-brainer for Maboula Soumahoro, a specialist of African diaspora studies at the University of Tours.

“I am black and I am treated as such,” Soumahoro told FRANCE 24 in a televised interview earlier this year. She said France’s reluctance to address such matters derives in part from a misreading of its history.

“France is not blind to racism. France thinks it’s blind to racism,” she explained, arguing that French colonialism and slave trade had “produced race” throughout the world, but outside mainland France.

“Because slavery was illegal on the mainland, people in France have the impression that this hyper-racialised history that is characteristic of the modern world only concerns the Americas, when in fact we have our own history,” Soumahoro said.

According to Diallo, denial of racism is a legacy of the French Republic’s “mythology”.

“We are fed the story of a country that is blind to colour and impermeable to racism, but this is merely a mystification,” she said. In a perverse effect, she argued, this denial prevents the country from addressing the problem in the first place.

“France won’t give itself the means to measure and address racial discriminations,” Diallo explained. “The country continues to view racism from a moral and individual standpoint. In doing so, it excludes the possibility of enacting broad policies that can tackle the structural problem of racism.”

Social and racial divides

While France famously doesn’t compile official statistics based on faith, ethnicity or skin colour, racial discrimination in all spheres of public life has been widely documented, frequently overlapping with socio-economic inequality.

The intersecting social and racial disparities were glaringly exposed during the nationwide lockdown imposed in mid-March to stem the spread of the coronavirus. The immigrant-rich Seine-Saint-Denis department northeast of Paris – France’s poorest – accounted for a disproportionately high number of both fatalities from Covid-19 and fines handed out for breaching the lockdown rules.

There are obvious reasons for this. The combination of large families in cramped quarters and a lack of doctors and hospital beds left the local population particularly exposed to the virus. And while many Parisians fled to countryside residences or switched to working from home, the capital’s poorer suburbs supplied most of the frontline workers who kept the metropolis running.


Touching on this subject in her letter last week, Despentes noted that many commentators added insult to injury by attributing the high mortality to a lack of discipline.

“In France we are not racist, but when we were told that the death rate in Seine-Saint-Denis was 60 times higher than the national average, not only did we not care, we even had the nerve to suggest this was because ‘they don’t confine themselves properly’,” the novelist wrote.

At the June 2 rally, protesters said this mix of indifference and condescension was apparent in the way much of the media and the political establishment treated their grievances.

Divy Vasanth, a former journalist, pointed to the case of Camélia Jordana, a French singer and actress of Algerian origin who recently caused a storm by using the term “massacre” to talk of police violence in the suburbs. The ensuing backlash, he argued, was indicative of a society that ignores people so long as they live in the banlieue and expects them to be grateful and “shut up” when they are successful.

“When [protest leader] Assa Traoré speaks, she’s told to shut it because she’s from the suburbs. And when Camélia Jordana says something, she’s told she has no reason to complain,” Vasanth said. “They don’t listen to what we have to say: they mock the words we use and ignore the substance.”

Racism ‘not a priority’

Carole Reynaud-Paligot, a historian and sociologist who recently curated an exhibition on racism at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, traces the origins of France’s unspoken racism to the “contradiction” between the French Republic’s universalist principles and the reality of colonialism.

“The result of this contradiction is a form of universalism that is itself not universal, tainted by a sense of superiority and a tendency to depreciate other cultures,” she explained. “Racism is derived from this context of domination, a context that is still at play today, most notably in France’s relations with the so-called developing world.”

Over the years, French ambivalence regarding this past has translated into widely differing political initiatives. In 2001, under a Socialist government, lawmaker Christiane Taubira — one of only a handful of black politicians to have held a high-ranking ministerial portfolio under France’s five republics — sponsored a landmark bill that recognised slavery as a crime against humanity. Just four years later, a conservative administration sought to pass a law stating the “benefits” of colonisation for France’s colonial subjects, until a backlash led by historians forced it to back down.

Reynaud-Paligot said French authorities had failed to identify the legacy of racism as a threat to the unity of the French Republic and the legitimacy of its institutions.

“School programmes continue to be skittish and shy about racism, as though this were not a priority,” said the historian, for whom the situation is even worse when it comes to training civil servants.

“Studies have shown that racism has largely penetrated state institutions, particularly the police and prefectures,” she said, referring to administrative bodies that represent the national government at the local level. “A huge training effort is required in such institutions, but this is not seen as a priority.”

Instead, she added, officials “have been obsessed with the threat of radicalisation ever since the recent wave of terrorist attacks,” neglecting the widespread discrimination that has provided the Republic’s foes with such fertile terrain.

Though born out of legitimate concerns, “the psychosis over radicalisation in turn amplified racial prejudice,” said Diallo, pointing to a “climate of suspicion that only increased the existing racism against minorities perceived to be of Muslim faith", giving free reign to an already prejudiced security apparatus.

Documentarians turn cameras on protests, despite dangers

By LINDSEY BAHR and MARCELA ISAZA

This combination photo shows filmmakers Alexandra Pelosi, left, and Steve James. Documentarians, from “Hoop Dreams” director Steve James to “Outside the Bubble's” Alexandra Pelosi, are bringing out their cameras to capture the historic nationwide protests, despite the danger, the pandemic and even the lack of a plan for how to use the footage. (AP Photo)Christopher Frierson wasn’t expecting to be tear-gassed at a recent protest in Brooklyn, but he’s glad his camera was on. The documentary filmmaker has covered many protests and he’s never experienced anything like he did that day when a thrown water bottle was met with that kind of police response.

Frierson was not deterred, however. In fact, he went back the next day to interview the officers who sprayed him and the others in the crowd.

He’s one of a handful of documentarians, from Steve James (“Hoop Dreams”) to Alexandra Pelosi (“Outside the Bubble”), who have brought out their cameras to capture the historic nationwide protests, despite the danger, the pandemic and even the lack of a plan for how to ultimately use the footage.

“When there is something happening in your environment, you have to shoot it,” said Frierson, whose “Don’t Try to Understand: A Year in the Life of Earl ‘DMX’ Simmons” was supposed to premiere this spring. “If you have a camera, you got to shoot it.”

That was James’ thought too. He had actually finished and debuted a few episodes of “City So Real,” a mosaic of present-day Chicago, at the Sundance Film Festival a few months earlier but re-started filming when the pandemic began. He thought maybe a postscript would be useful. When the unrest erupted after George Floyd’s death, he pivoted again.

His son, Jackson James, a cinematographer on the series, has been shooting some of the protests there. James has also been out, although not as much as he’d like, and doing more interviews remotely when possible.

“I’m being very careful about what takes us out to film,” James said. “Normally I would have been out doing a lot more.”

The decision to film on the ground is not one that any are taking lightly. Pelosi decided to film a protest outside of the White House last week on the evening President Donald Trump decided to walk out the White House gates for the first time. It took a turn when she says officers on horseback started shooting what she described as chemical bullets at the peaceful gathering, and she found herself in the line of non-lethal fire.

“I couldn’t see for like five minutes because I got shot by this thing,” said Pelosi, the daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and director of more than a dozen documentaries.

Filmmaker Ashley O’Shay was putting the finishing touches on her documentary “Unapologetic,” about the Movement for Black Lives in Chicago through the lens of two young women who are queer and black, when the Floyd protests began. She hesitated to venture out in Chicago because of the pandemic.

“I was concerned about my safety and health,” she said. “(But) it’s important for me that we have black artists, people of color artists, behind the camera to capture these stories, to make sure that the people closest to the community are the ones that are deciding how the story is told.”

O’Shay said she isn’t likely to add to her film, but she does hope that it can be used to help as a historical document.

“My film is about a movement that is very much so living and ongoing,” she said. “I don’t want people in this moment to forget about black women and forget about trans voices and gender non-conforming voices and people (who) are even further on the margins than black men themselves.”

She and other filmmakers are hoping to capture the context that isn’t seen on the evening news. O’Shay filmed moments of the aid and the community efforts happening on the ground on Chicago’s South and Westside. James went back to check in with some of his subjects, from a business owner reopening his barber shop to a mayoral candidate delivering groceries to relatives. And Frierson went back to talk to the cops who tear-gassed him. What he found was contrition, remorse and a dialogue.

“The majority of those people are good people. And that goes against the narrative that everybody wants me to say or whatever. But it comes down to communication with them,” he said.

A black female cop told him, “’We’re not all bad actors, just like you are not all bad actors...’ And then she said, ‘Vote. If you want things to change, vote.’”

Although few have specific plans for how to use their footage, James expects there will be a number of documentaries about this moment. He said many were already out filming around the pandemic and exploring issues of race and equality.

Organizations are also stepping up to help documentarians brave the moment. The national nonprofit organization American Documentary is creating a fund to support the mental health wellness of black, indigenous and people of color artists who work in the documentary space. It launches June 15.

Who gets to tell the story of the moment is a delicate matter for some. Firelight Media executive director Stanley Nelson said in a recent interview with Indiewire that filmmakers of color should tell their own stories, and that, “It’s incumbent on white filmmakers to help them do that.”

James agreed with Nelson’s sentiment.

“We always need more opportunity for black and people of color filmmakers to be telling stories,” James said. “But this is also a story of America writ large and what needs to change in America writ large. And for that, we kind of need all hands-on deck as far as I’m concerned.”

Pandemic leads to a bicycle boom, and shortage, around world

By DAVID SHARP and KELVIN CHAN

1 of 5
In this Tuesday, June 9, 2020 photo, Harvey Curtis, left, discusses repair plans with customer Jack Matheson outside Sidecountry Sports, a bike shop in Rockland, Maine. Matheson is looking forward to getting his 40-year-old Raleigh back on the road. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Fitness junkies locked out of gyms, commuters fearful of public transit, and families going stir crazy inside their homes during the coronavirus pandemic have created a boom in bicycle sales unseen in decades.

In the United States, bicycle aisles at mass merchandisers like Walmart and Target have been swept clean, and independent shops are doing a brisk business and are selling out of affordable “family” bikes.

Bicycle sales over the past two months saw their biggest spike in the U.S. since the oil crisis of the 1970s, said Jay Townley, who analyzes cycling industry trends at Human Powered Solutions.

“People quite frankly have panicked, and they’re buying bikes like toilet paper,” Townley said, referring to the rush to buy essentials like toilet paper and hand sanitizer that stores saw at the beginning of the pandemic.

The trend is mirrored around the globe, as cities better known for car-clogged streets, like Manila and Rome, install bike lanes to accommodate surging interest in cycling while public transport remains curtailed. In London, municipal authorities plan to go further by banning cars from some central thoroughfares.


FILE-In this May 20, 2020 photo, a bicyclist wears a pandemic mask while riding in Portland, Maine. A bicycle rush kicked off mid-March around the time countries were shutting their borders, businesses were closing and stay-at-home orders were being imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic in which millions have been infected and nearly 400,000 have died. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)


Bike shop owners in the Philippine capital say demand is stronger than at Christmas. Financial incentives are boosting sales in Italy, where the government’s post-lockdown stimulus last month included a 500-euro ($575) “bici bonus” rebate for up to 60% of the cost of a bike.

But that’s if you can get your hands on one. The craze has led to shortages that will take some weeks, maybe months, to resolve, particularly in the U.S., which relies on China for about 90% of its bicycles, Townley said. Production there was largely shut down due to the coronavirus and is just resuming.

The bicycle rush kicked off in mid-March around the time countries were shutting their borders, businesses were closing, and stay-at-home orders were being imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus that has infected millions of people and killed more than 450,000.

Sales of adult leisure bikes tripled in April while overall U.S. bike sales, including kids’ and electric-assist bicycles, doubled from the year before, according to market research firm NPD Group, which tracks retail bike sales.

It’s a far cry from what was anticipated in the U.S. The $6 billion industry had projected lower sales based on lower volume in 2019 in which punitive tariffs on bicycles produced in China reached 25%.


FILE-In this Thursday, June 11, 2020, photo, bicycle display racks are empty at a Target in Milford, Mass. A bicycle rush has been brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. In the U.S., bicycle aisles at mass merchandisers like Walmart and Target have been swept clean, officials say, and independent shops are doing a brisk business and are selling out of low- to mid-range "family" bikes. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)




FILE-In this Tuesday, June 9, 2020 photo, bike display racks are empty at a Walmart in Falmouth, Maine. A bicycle rush has been brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. In the U.S., bicycle aisles at mass merchandisers like Walmart and Target have been swept clean, officials say, and independent shops are doing a brisk business and are selling out of low- to mid-range "family" bikes. (AP Photo/David Sharp)

There are multiple reasons for the pandemic bicycle boom.

Around the world, many workers were looking for an alternative to buses and subways. People unable to go to their gyms looked for another way to exercise. And shut-in families scrambled to find a way to keep kids active during stay-at-home orders.

“Kids are looking for something to do. They’ve probably reached the end of the internet by now, so you’ve got to get out and do something,” said Dave Palese at Gorham Bike and Ski, a Maine shop where there are slim pickings for family-oriented, leisure bikes.

Bar Harbor restaurateur Brian Smith bought a new bike for one of his daughters, a competitive swimmer, who was unable to get into the pool. On a recent day, he was heading back to his local bike shop to outfit his youngest daughter, who’d just learned how to ride.

His three daughters use their bikes every day, and the entire family goes for rides a couple of times a week. The fact that they’re getting exercise and enjoying fresh air is a bonus.

“It’s fun. Maybe that’s the bottom line. It’s really fun to ride bikes,” Smith said as he and his 7-year-old daughter, Ellery, pedaled to the bicycle shop.

The pandemic is also driving a boom in electric-assist bikes, called e-bikes, which were a niche part of the overall market until now. Most e-bikes require a cyclist to pedal, but electric motors provide extra oomph.

VanMoof, a Dutch e-bike maker, is seeing “unlimited demand” since the pandemic began, resulting in a 10-week order backlog for its commuter electric bikes, compared with typical one-day delivery time, said co-founder Taco Carlier.

The company’s sales surged 138% in the U.S. and rocketed 184% in Britain in the February-April period over last year, with big gains in other European countries. The company is scrambling to ramp up production as fast as it can, but it will take two to three months to meet the demand, Carlier said.

“We did have some issues with our supply chain back in January, February when the crisis hit first in Asia,” said Carlier. But “the issue is now with demand, not supply.”

Sales at Cowboy, a Belgian e-bike maker, tripled in the January-April period from last year. Notably, they spiked in Britain and France at around the same time in May that those countries started easing lockdown restrictions, said Chief Marketing Officer Benoit Simeray.

“It’s now becoming very obvious for most of us living in and around cities that we don’t want to go back into public transportation,” said Simeray. But people may still need to buy groceries or commute to the office one or two days a week, so “then they’re starting to really, really think about electric bikes as the only solution they’ve got.”

In Maine, Kate Worcester, a physician’s assistant, bought e-bikes for herself and her 12-year-old son so they could have fun at a time when she couldn’t travel far from the hospital where she worked.

Every night, she and her son ride 20 miles or 30 miles (30 or 50 kilometers) around Acadia National Park.

“It’s by far the best fun I’ve had with him,” she said. “That’s been the biggest silver lining in this terrible pandemic — to be able to leave work and still do an activity and talk and enjoy each other.”

Joe Minutolo, co-owner of Bar Harbor Bicycle Shop, said he hopes the sales surge translates into long-term change.

“People are having a chance to rethink things,” he said. “Maybe we’ll all learn something out of this, and something really good will happen.”

___

Chan reported from London. Joeal Calupitan in Manila and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this story.





Taiwan pedals faster to meet global pandemic demand for bikes

Issued on: 15/06/2020

It is boom time for Taiwan's bike manufacturer thanks to soaring demand during the coronavirus pandemic Sam YEH AFP/File

Taichung (Taiwan) (AFP)

Deserted streets, cabin fever and worries over COVID-enabling commutes in Europe and America have sent demand for bikes into high gear -- with factories in Taiwan racing to push out new units and scrambling to find parts.

The deadly virus has sparked a global recession and hammered many industries, but it is boom time in the bike world and a major bonus for Taiwan, which is a leading bicycle producer and has managed to avoid mass lockdowns by defeating the coronavirus early on.

At Giant, the world's largest bike company, it has been a dizzying few months, according to CEO Bonnie Tu.

"We saw what happened and then we reacted quickly," Tu told AFP in an interview last week at their new headquarters in the industrial city of Taichung.

"We mobilise our companies, including our factories and sales company... in order to meet the consumer demand."

The orders have kept on coming, with reports of empty bike racks at dealers and long waits for resupply across Europe and North America.

In Britain, the Association of Cycle Traders said some 20,000 bikes awaiting manufacturing and delivery had already been sold or reserved.

"We've seen a mixture of everybody to be honest," Lincoln Romain, director of Brixton Cycles, in London, told AFP last month.

"People that commute all the time, we've seen new cyclists, we've seen people that have to get in so they have bikes that have been in the shed a little while."

- Waiting for suppliers -

Across the Atlantic, demand has also rocketed.

Year-on-year sales of commuter and fitness bikes increased 66 percent in March, leisure bikes leaped 121 percent and electric bikes rose 85 percent, according to market research firm The NPD Group.

Giant's Tu said demand in both the US and Europe has centred on the more affordable "$1,000 and under" category of bikes.

While Giant's factories in Taiwan kept rolling, many of their facilities on the Chinese mainland had to temporarily shut down when the virus first spread from the central city of Wuhan.

A return to full capacity has been slowed by struggles to get parts from suppliers as they refill factory floors and restock inventories.

"We have to wait for them," Tu said. "So it is actually quite difficult, but we manage."

For Europe, Giant will soon benefit from a large factory it has built in Hungary, part of a gradual shift many Taiwanese manufacturers are making to diversify away from China and be closer to consumer markets.

Gina Chang, secretary-general of the Taiwan Bicycle Association, said manufacturers initially suffered in the first quarter from cancelled or postponed orders when the virus first spread. But since then, demand has roared back.

"We are seeing rush orders or even panic buying," she told AFP. "Taiwan's top two bike makers have orders lined up till the end of this year."

- Taiwanese renaissance -

The coronavirus boom is the latest chapter in a renaissance for Taiwan's bike industry.

The self-ruled island had for years been the world's number-one bike producer until the 1990s, when mainland China's economic reforms saw firms -- including many Taiwanese manufacturers -- take advantage of a vast, cheap labour force.

But while Chinese factories continue to play a dominant role in terms of sheer numbers, Taiwan production is bouncing back, especially when it comes to higher-quality models and in the rapidly growing electric bike market.

Last year, Taiwan exported $1.36 billion in non-electric bicycles, down from $1.5 billion the year before.

But electric bike production is soaring.

In 2019, electric bike exports totalled $863 million, up from $377 million in 2018, with most heading to Europe.

Export of electric bikes from January to April this year reached a record high of $301 million, up 23.6 percent from the same period last year.

And the bikes made in Taiwanese factories tend to be higher quality models that fetch a higher price.

Tu says she hopes the pandemic will help encourage people to adopt bikes as a form of transport long after the threat of the virus has receded, something many European governments are keen on.

"While riding bicycles, you can have fresh air... you cannot be too close otherwise you will crash," she laughed. "So it is natural social distancing."

© 2020 AFP

Protests held across California for third straight weekend 

THIS WEEKEND ALL BLACK LIVES MATTER LGBTQ RALLIES

People gather in Hollywood for an "All Black Lives Matter" march, organized by black members of the LGBTQ+ community in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles Sunday, June 14, 2020. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — For the third weekend in a row, protesters took to the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco and other communities across California to demand racial justice in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by police in Minneapolis.

Sunday’s demonstrations were promoted as non-violent calls for change in law enforcement.

In the Bay Area, protesters shut down the upper deck of the Bay Bridge in the late afternoon, causing San Francisco-bound traffic to backup for miles. At Civic Center, a Buddhist sit-in called for complete silence.

In Hollywood, thousands of peaceful protesters marched under blazing sunshine along a stretch of Hollywood Boulevard where the words “All Black Lives Matter” were painted on the pavement in rainbow colors. Demonstrators listened to speeches by activists in support of gay and transgender people of color.

A lesbian couple organized a similar march on San Francisco’s coastal Great Highway in solidarity with the racial justice movement. Protesters observed nine minutes of silence to honor Floyd and recognize the length of time a white police officer knelt on his neck before he died.

Greg Austin, 31, said huge marches like the one in Hollywood are evidence of a growing desire for police reform.

“We’re not saying that every cop is bad. We just wish they would follow a different method,” Austin told the Los Angeles Times. “This is an eye-opener for everyone. I’m hoping that this will show that the police need better training for their officers.”

Most protesters wore face coverings because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Police said there were no arrests or reports of problems.

Tenants behind on rent in pandemic face harassment, eviction

By REGINA GARCIA CANO and MICHAEL CASEY

1 of 3
FILE - In this May 20, 2020, file photo, signs that read "No Job No Rent" hang from the windows of an apartment building during the coronavirus pandemic in Northwest Washington. The pandemic has shut housing courts and prompted authorities around the U.S. to initiate policies protecting renters from eviction. But not everyone is covered, and some landlords are turning to threats and harassment to force tenants out. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

BALTIMORE (AP) — Jeremy Rooks works the evening shift at a Georgia fast-food restaurant these days to avoid being on the street past dusk. He needs somewhere to go at night: He and his wife are homeless after the extended-stay motel where they had lived since Thanksgiving evicted them in April when they couldn’t pay their rent.

They should have been protected because the state’s Supreme Court has effectively halted evictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. But Rooks said the owner still sent a man posing as a sheriff’s deputy, armed with a gun, to throw the couple out a few days after rent was due.

The pandemic has shut housing courts and prompted most states and federal authorities to initiate policies protecting renters from eviction. But not everyone is covered and a number of landlords -- some desperate to pay their mortgages themselves -- are turning to threats and harassment to force tenants out.

“Every day, they tried to basically get us out of there. It was basically like a game to them,” said Rooks, who wasn’t able to make his rent at the Marietta, Georgia, motel after his employer paid him late and his wife was laid off in the pandemic. “One of us had to stay in a room at all times because they wouldn’t redo the keys for us.”

The evictions threaten to exacerbate a problem that has plagued people of color like Rooks long before the pandemic, when landlords across the U.S. were filing about 300,000 eviction requests every month.

The data and analytics real estate firm Amherst projects that 28 million renters, or about 22.5% of all households, are at risk of eviction. Tenant advocates expect that number to increase significantly unless protections are put in place, and project that many of those affected will be African Americans and households led by women, both of which historically are more likely to be evicted.

FILE - In this May 21, 2020, file photo, people from a support organization for immigrant and working class communities unfold banners, including one advocating rent cancelation, on a subway platform in the Queens borough of New York during a vigil memorializing people who died from coronavirus. The pandemic has shut housing courts and prompted authorities around the U.S. to initiate policies protecting renters from eviction. But not everyone is covered, and some landlords are turning to threats and harassment to force tenants out. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)

In a sign of what could happen nationally, Virginia has seen a crush of proceedings since eviction hearings resumed May 18. About 700 cases already have been heard statewide, according to Christie Marra, director of housing advocacy for the Virginia Poverty Law Center. On top of that, 2,200 cases are on the docket for the end of June and early July in Richmond, which has one of the country’s highest eviction rates.

Rachel Garland, an attorney at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, said her group has experienced a spike in calls from tenants who lost their jobs due to the lockdown and fear being evicted. Philadelphia had the fourth-highest eviction rate in the country.

“Even if they can’t be evicted right now, if the courts are closed, the landlords are sending threatening emails, text messages, asking for rent, threatening to lock tenants out,” Garland said.

Alieza Durana of Princeton University’s Eviction Lab said affected tenants face high rates of depression and suicide from the stress, along with mounting debt and homelessness. Additionally, court judgments and debt collection actions against renters are reported to credit bureaus, affecting their ability to access housing for years.

Jose Ortiz, deputy director of Essex/Newark Legal Services, which includes New Jersey’s largest city, said he’s heard complaints from tenants who have been asked to exchange sex for rent and instances where landlords have threatened to alert immigration authorities about tenants living in the country without legal permission if they don’t pay their rent.

“They are not working. They don’t have the income to pay their bills and they are afraid about what will happen once the eviction ban is lifted,” Ortiz said. “Are they going to be displaced? Is there going to be a mad rush to the courthouse to get these tenants evicted?”

Tenants also are complaining about landlords locking them out and shutting off utilities.

Unable to pay her April rent in full on her townhouse in Millersville, Maryland, Dawn McBride said she began getting texts from her landlord suggesting she find work at Walmart or Costco. She said the landlord then tried to get her to sign a rent-deferral agreement, but wouldn’t let her fully read it. She ultimately was handed a 30-day notice to vacate because her lease was month-to-month, a strategy landlords increasingly are using.

“Honestly, it stresses me out a lot because it’s me and my children,” said McBride, who lost her pet-sitting job. “And, you know, I’m just like, `Where are we going to go?’”

Some tenants facing eviction have turned the table on landlords and are organizing rent strikes. From New York to Chicago to San Francisco, tenants are banding together and demanding landlords negotiate with an eye toward forgiving their rent entirely until the pandemic ends.

Many like Diana Hou, who lost her job with a political campaign and has helped organized a rent strike in her Brooklyn building with her half-dozen roommates. are pushing for legislation at the state and federal level to provide rent and mortgage relief.

“Many of us are worried about our prospects of securing housing without income and with a looming debt of unpaid rent. For the majority of the house, not being able to secure housing would mean homelessness in the middle of a pandemic,” Hou said.

FILE - In this May 30, 2020, file photo, a car caravan calling for the cancellation of rents during the coronavirus pandemic prepares to parade through Boston. The pandemic has shut housing courts and prompted authorities around the U.S. to initiate policies protecting renters from eviction. But not everyone is covered, and some landlords are turning to threats and harassment to force tenants out. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

Jay Martin, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, which represents 4,000 building owners in New York, said he doesn’t condone rent strikes but sympathizes with tenants’ plight.

“Renters need a bailout,” Martin said, adding that landlords are supporting federal proposals that would cover back rent and future payments. Without those measures, he predicted a drop in property and real estate taxes that would sap state and city budgets.

The federal government’s $2.2 trillion coronavirus rescue package includes eviction moratoriums for most people living in federally subsidized apartments, as well as homes covered by federally backed mortgages. A second $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed in May by the U.S. House would provide about $175 billion to pay rents and mortgages, but has almost no chance of passing in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate.

State and local lawmakers across the country also are stepping in with assistance and proposals aimed at averting a wave of evictions.

New Jersey lawmakers passed a $100 million rent relief bill, while in Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf signed legislation directing $175 million of the federal coronavirus rescue package to rent and mortgage relief. Boston is providing $8 million for rental assistance, Baltimore has designated $13 million in federal coronavirus relief funding to start a rental assistance program, and Philadelphia provided $10 million to help about 13,000 people with their rent.

Other proposals would offer long-term payment plans for those unable to afford rent and programs like mediation before cases head to housing court.

“We have to do something,” said Philadelphia Council member Helen Gym, whose bill would prevent evictions until two months after the state’s emergency order was lifted.

“We can’t go back to business as usual in a city that evicts 18,000 people a year,” she said. “That is just not sustainable.”

USA 

Grim blame game over COVID deaths in besieged nursing homes

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

In this April 17, 2020, file photo, a patient is wheeled into Cobble Hill Health Center by emergency medical workers in the Brooklyn borough of New York. A grim blame game with partisan overtones is breaking out over COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents, a tiny slice of the population that represents a shockingly high proportion of Americans who have perished in the pandemic. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A grim blame game with partisan overtones is breaking out over COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents, a tiny slice of the population that represents a shockingly high proportion of Americans who have perished in the pandemic.

The Trump administration has been pointing to a segment of the industry — facilities with low federal ratings for infection control — and to some Democratic governors who required nursing homes to take recovering coronavirus patients.

Homes that followed federal infection control guidelines were largely able to contain the virus, asserts Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, which sets standards and pays the bills. “Trying to finger-point and blame the federal government is absolutely ridiculous,” she says.

Verma says data collected by her agency suggest a connection between low ratings on safety inspections and COVID-19 outbreaks. But several academic researchers say their own work has found no such link.

Advocates for the elderly say the federal government hasn’t provided needed virus testing and sufficient protective gear to allow nursing homes to operate safely. A White House directive to test all residents and staff has been met with an uneven response.

“The lack of federal coordination certainly has impeded facilities’ ability to identify infected persons and to provide care,” Eric Carlson, a long-term care expert with the advocacy group Justice in Aging, told lawmakers. “That absence remains important as facilities are attempting to open up, which requires an extensive reliance on testing.”

Democrats are critical of the Trump administration response.

“We need action,” says Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. “We need a plan from CMS and we need resources to stop the spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes.”

Nationwide, more than 45,500 residents and staff have died from coronavirus outbreaks at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to a running count by The Associated Press. That’s about 40% of more than 115,000 total deaths. Nursing home residents are less than 1% of the U.S. population.

It’s a sensitive election-year issue for President Donald Trump, who’s trying to hang on to support from older voters. A recent CNN poll found that 54% of adults 65 and older said they disapproved of how Trump is handling his job as president, while 44% approved.

With more coronavirus legislation possible this year, congressional Democrats are pressing for a national testing plan and additional resources for nursing homes. Republicans are mainly seconding the administration’s arguments.

During a recent briefing for lawmakers, Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, blamed New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the high numbers of deaths in his state. A since-rescinded state directive that nursing homes had to accept recovering coronavirus patients “ended up being a death sentence” in New York and several states with similar policies, Scalise said.

Scalise echoed earlier, less forceful, comments from CMS head Verma, who has said such state orders were “not appropriate” and “may have contributed to this issue as well.”

But Harvard researcher David Grabowski, who serves on a nonpartisan commission advising Congress about Medicare, says neither state policies, nor “bad apples” among nursing homes, have driven the outbreak.

Instead, Grabowski says it’s simpler: Because the virus can be spread by people who show no symptoms, that means if it’s already in a community, the staff can unwittingly bring it into the nursing home. Once inside it easily spreads among frail residents living in close quarters.

“The secret weapon behind COVID is that is spreads in the absence of any symptoms,” Grabowski told lawmakers at a recent briefing. “If COVID is in a community where staff lives, it is soon to be in the facility where they work.”

He proposed a federal effort to regularly test nursing home staff and residents, along with greater supplies of masks, gowns and other protective gear.

“The federal government needs to own this issue,” said Grabowski.

He said his own research, along with studies by experts at Brown University and the University of Chicago did not find a relationship between facilities with low federal ratings and COVID-19 outbreaks.

CMS head Verma said her agency has been on top of things from the beginning, issuing numerous safety guidelines for nursing homes, setting new coronavirus reporting requirements, and providing Medicare payment for testing residents. She says states have money from the federal government that they can use to support testing of nursing home staff.

The nursing home industry says just one-time testing for every resident and staffer would cost $440 million, and facilities struggling financially would not be able to bear the expense of regular staff testing.

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking House Democrat and chairman of a special panel on the pandemic, says the crisis in nursing homes should not be a partisan issue.

“Nursing home residents have died from the coronavirus in states governed by Republicans and Democrats, in big cities and in small towns, in rural and urban communities,” Clyburn said.

Appearing before Clyburn’s committee last week, Alison Lolley of Monroe, Louisiana., told of losing her 81-year-old mother, Cheryl, to COVID-19 in a nursing home outbreak this spring. The family was not allowed to be with her.

“My family was robbed,” Lolley said. “Mama was trapped in a petri dish, and we were shut out. Mama died alone and our family will forever be scarred by this tragedy.”
___

AP investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

An EMT Suspended For Supporting Protesters While In Uniform Said She Shouldn't Have To Hold Back

"They wanted to me to be able to separate the personal from the professional," EMT Taylor Varela told BuzzFeed News. "Now is not the time to separate anything."

Olivia NilandBuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on June 11, 2020, at 8:09 p.m. ET

Scott Heins via Twitter

"Black Lives Matter. Get home safe, stay together, we fucking matter. Black Lives Matter!"

This was the message that New York EMT Taylor Varela used her ambulance radio to broadcast at a protest against police brutality in downtown Brooklyn last Thursday. Leaning out of the window as her boyfriend, paramedic Anthony Davis, drove, the 24-year-old received rousing support from protesters gathering around the ambulance.

Scott Heins@scottheins

Ambulance EMT just got on her radio to cheer on the Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Brooklyn. People flipping out

12:29 AM - 05 Jun 2020

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In the days leading up to the video, Varela had emailed her employer, SeniorCare EMS, to request that the company speak up about the Black Lives Matter movement and the police brutality protests sweeping the country in response to George Floyd's death — with no response.

But the same night the video of her participating in the Brooklyn protest was tweeted by journalist Scott Heins, SeniorCare EMS CEO Michael Vatch contacted Varela to let her know that she'd been suspended.

"The CEO called me and asked why was I screaming obscenities over the PA system. The first thing that he asked was something that was so far from my mind," Varela said. "He said at some point I should think about the fact that I’m at work, and supposed to be professional. His initial reaction was that he was definitely very upset."

Vatch and SeniorCare EMS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Following the news that she'd been suspended, Varela received overwhelming messages of support from coworkers, and from the public. Her coworkers even created a Change.org petition calling for SeniorCare EMS to lift her suspension, and for the company to not take any further disciplinary action against her. It's since received more than 5,300 signatures.

tay@taylorbri_ann

3,500+ of you showing an incomprehensible amount of love and support. i am truly humbled and SO thankful to have been backed by all you beautiful people. unreal. thank you all so so much. I DID NOT GET FIRED. https://t.co/eRAnBFefkE

06:48 PM - 08 Jun 2020

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"Taylor and her partner are an exceptional medic team who adhere to the SeniorCare values of clinical excellence and outstanding customer service. Their support during the Black Lives Matter protest shows their care for all of their patients, a large number of whom are Black community members," the petition states. "As a community of future and past patients, fellow healthcare workers, and neighbors, we request that you recognize that we are living through unprecedented times and that we must stand together against violence."

On Monday, Varela said she was called into a meeting with SeniorCare EMS executives, where management explained that the issue was not with her message, but the fact that she had participated in the protest on company time, using a company vehicle.

"Their biggest concern was safety, because I was hanging out of the window, and the safety of everyone else around the ambulance," Varela said. "I understand where they’re coming from. The problem wasn’t the message that I was saying, but more how it looks from a company."

During the meeting, the company again took issue with her professionalism, given that she was in uniform and representing SeniorCare EMS, Varela said.

"The guys I met with said they understood why I said what I did, personally, but they wanted me to be able to separate the personal from the professional," Varela said. "Now is not the time to separate anything."

As a result of the meeting, Varela's suspension was extended, for a total of three missed shifts. Her partner was not suspended.

Varela is set to return to work Tuesday, and said while she understands the company's response to her actions, she's still calling for SeniorCare EMS — where she's been employed for about three years — to take a stronger position on racial injustice.

"The day after that video, the CEO released some kind of statement, but it was very general, it felt like he wrote it just because he knew what happened the day before," Varela said. "On Monday, he released another email that was a little bit better, it wasn’t as general as 'racism is bad,' but it’s still too generalized for my liking. There was no plan of action to change or do anything differently."

tay@taylorbri_ann

i emailed the ceo of the company i work for demanding that he AT LEAST release a statement of solidarity and i haven’t gotten a response yet. i’m giving him 24 hours (so about 5 more) but if it goes ignored i’m bringing all info here. PLEASE RUN HIS SHIT UP.

03:57 PM - 03 Jun 2020

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tay@taylorbri_ann

this is the weak ass email the ceo finally sent only after that video has gone viral lol 🥱

08:32 PM - 05 Jun 2020

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A general email from SeniorCare EMS also referenced the company's policy on employees' use of social media whether on- or off-duty. It states that the company reserves "the right to monitor social networking activity" and "act on matters which are inconsistent with our values" or "represent the company in a negative light."

Despite the policy, Varela doesn't plan to change her own social media use.

"I don’t think I should have to censor myself because the company may or may not agree with me, I don’t hold back on what I say," Varela said. "There’s been a lot of support from coworkers letting me know that they had my back."

Ultimately, Varela said she wants SeniorCare to use its platform as a company to support the fight against racial injustice, and to not inhibit employees from doing the same.

"I just felt like there are so many Black employees at the company, and for all of the things that have been going on in the country, for the CEO to not release anything regarding what was going on, it felt like a slap in the face," Varela said. "This is a very successful company, and I would like to see donations to credible organizations that are pushing the cause. I feel like they have to show some kind of support, and to educate themselves and educate their colleagues."