Uganda's Museveni conditionally backs controversial anti-gay laws

By Philip Andrew Churm
with AP Last updated: 3 hours ago
UGANDA


Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has backed a controversial bill with some of the world's harshest anti-LGBTQ legislation but will pass it back to parliament to include provisions for gay people to be rehabilitated.

However, at a National Resistance Movement (NRM) meeting on Friday, Museveni praised the lawmakers for approving the bill and insisted he would never bow to international condemnation.

“I want to congratulate the honourable members of parliament on your stand on the “Ebitingwa,” [Runyankore word for gay men]," he said

"Congratulations, I congratulate you for that strong stand. It is good that you rejected the pressure from the imperialists.”

The bill, which prescribes the death penalty in some cases, was passed last month and has already triggered a wave of arrests and attacks against LGBTQ Ugandans.

But Museveni rejected criticism from human rights groups.

“Europe is lost. So they also want us to be lost, but in order to fight we must be patriotic.

"If we are parasitic in mind, mind of a parasite, there is no way you can fight, that’s how you become a prostitute because you feared sacrifice, you fear difficulties. Somebody says I will give you money if you become a prostitute. And that’s what they want us to be.

"They want Africa to be prostitutes. Do what we don’t believe in because we want money.”

Those who advocate or promote the rights of LGBTQ people can be jailed for up to 20 years and be sentenced to death for an offence of “aggravated homosexuality.”

The U.S. has warned of economic consequences if the legislation is enacted. A group of U.N. experts has described the bill, if enacted, as “an egregious violation of human rights.”

World's 'oldest' tree able to reveal planet's secrets

The Conversation
April 22, 2023, 

Antonio Lara, a researcher at Austral University, studies the 5,000-year-old Great Grandfather Fitzroya tree © MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP

In a forest in southern Chile, a giant tree has survived for thousands of years and is in the process of being recognized as the oldest in the world.

Known as the "Great Grandfather," the trunk of this tree measuring four meters (13 feet) in diameter and 28 meters tall is also believed to contain scientific information that could shed light on how the planet has adapted to climatic changes.

Believed to be more than 5,000 years old, it is on the brink of replacing Methuselah, a 4,850-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine found in California in the United States, as the oldest tree on the planet.

"It's a survivor, there are no others that have had the opportunity to live so long," said Antonio Lara, a researcher at Austral University and Chile's center for climate science and resilience, who is part of the team measuring the tree's age.

The Great Grandfather lies on the edge of a ravine in a forest in the southern Los Rios region, 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the south of the capital Santiago.

It is a Fitzroya cupressoides, a type of cypress tree that is endemic to the south of the continent.

In recent years, tourists have walked an hour through the forest to the spot to be photographed beside the new "oldest tree in the world."

Due to its growing fame, the national forestry body has had to increase the number of park rangers and restrict access to protect the Great Grandfather.

By contrast, the exact location of Methuselah is kept a secret.

Also known as the Patagonian cypress, it is the largest tree species in South America.

It lives alongside other tree species, such as coigue, plum pine and tepa, Darwin's frogs, lizards, and birds such as the chucao tapaculo and Chilean hawk.

For centuries its thick trunk has been chopped down to build houses and ships, and it was heavily logged during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Excitement in scientific community

Park warden Anibal Henriquez discovered the tree while patrolling the forest in 1972. He died of a heart attack 16 years later while patrolling the same forest on horseback.

"He didn't want people and tourists to know (where it was) because he knew it was very valuable," said his daughter Nancy Henriquez, herself a park warden.

Henrique's nephew, Jonathan Barichivich, grew up playing amongst the Fitzroya and is now one of the scientists studying the species.

In 2020, Barichivich and Lara managed to extract a sample from the Great Grandfather using the longest manual drill that exists, but they did not reach the center.

They estimated that their sample was 2,400 years old and used a predictive model to calculate the full age of the tree.

Barichivich said that "80 percent of the possible trajectories show the tree would be 5,000 years old."

He hopes to soon publish the results.

The study has created excitement within the scientific community given that dendrochronology -- the method of dating tree rings to when they were formed -- is less accurate when it comes to older trees as many have a rotten core.

'Symbols of resistance'

This is about more than just a competition to enter the record books though, as the Great Grandfather is a font of valuable information.

"There are many other reasons that give value and sense to this tree and the need to protect it," said Lara.

There are very few thousands-years-old trees on the planet.

"The ancient trees have genes and a very special history because they are symbols of resistance and adaptation. They are nature's best athletes," said Barichivich.

"They are like an open book and we are like the readers who read every one of their rings," said Carmen Gloria Rodriguez, an assistant researcher at the dendrochronology and global change laboratory at Austral University.

Those pages show dry and rainy years, depending on the width of the rings.

Fires and earthquakes are also recorded in those rings, such as the most powerful tremor in history that hit this area in 1960.

The Great Grandfather is also considered a time capsule that can offer a window into the past.

"If these trees disappear, so too will disappear an important key about how life adapts to changes on the planet," said Barichivich.

Brazil celebrates its giant trees on Earth Day 2023

By Philip Andrew Churm
with AP

Imperial Palms form an avenue in Rio's botanical garden and organisers are hoping, by establishing their own trail of giant trees, it will help to promote awareness of their environment.

These trees - and the animals which rely on them - are threatened and botanists are keen that everyone joins in the effort to preserve the country’s unique forests, inside and outside the Amazon.

Botanists calculating the carbon content of the garden studied 4633 trees, bushes and palm trees and discovered where the tallest were.

To catalogue the volume of the trees, the botanists used lidar technology which stands for ‘light detecting and ranging’.

It is used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US and is a combined laser, scanner and GPS receiver which generates accurate 3D information.

Marcus Nadruz is one of the botanists at Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden explains how computer-aided mapping can help measure the trees.

"Depending on the colour, the more yellow, the higher is the tree. You can see the yellow colour much more intensely here, which is precisely the location of the highest tree in the botanical garden, measuring almost fifty metres."

The garden was originally created in 1808 to acclimatise plant species from other continents.

At the time Brazil was searching for new crops to boost the economy after gold production had been depleted.

Another botanist, Rafaella Forzza, works regularly in the Amazon where she became familiar with Brazil's recently discovered largest tree, the red angelim or Dinizia excelsa.

The largest tree measuring 88 metres was first discovered 4 years ago using lidar and it was only reached by land last September 2022.

"Once you reach the foot of the tree, it is hard to see, because the canopy of the forest obstructs the top of the tree, you cannot see," she explains.

"The branches of the angelim or the sumauma begin to branch out above the normal canopy of the forest."

The grand imperial palms are the second highest trees in the garden. One original palm tree has reached 48.1 metres in height.

The garden is also home to a Tasmanian eucalyptus, known commonly as a blue gum which is 39.5 metres tall. It can reach up to 45 metres in its natural habitat.

Many of these trees are threatened, the samauma is used to make plywood and the angelim is Brazil's most exported tree.

With Earth Day 2023 falling on April 22nd the botanists are hoping these giants will not go unnoticed.

The Word for World Is Forest

The Anarchist Library

https://theanarchistlibrary.org › library › ursula-k-le-g...

Written in the glare of the United States' war on Indochina, and first published as a separate book in that war's dire aftermath, The Word for World is Forest ...

‎On What the Road to Hell Is... · ‎Chapter One · ‎Chapter Two · ‎Chapter Five

Iran’s storytelling tradition spans centuries. A woman in Tehrangeles has revolutionized it

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

BY DEBORAH NETBURNSTAFF

 WRITER APRIL 22, 2023

In a lavish West Hollywood banquet hall adorned with the colors of spring, the Iranian epic storyteller Gordafarid strides across the stage like a mythical heroine, dressed in a white embroidered vest, black bell sleeves and white knee-high boots. A silver beaded scarf is arranged like a crown on top of her long, dark hair.

It is Nowruz — the Persian New Year — and the Iranian American Jewish Federation has invited the 46-year-old to perform along with other Iranian female artists — drummers, dancers and singers. The event and fundraiser is a celebration of the country’s cultural heritage and a tribute to the female artists back home who are forbidden by the government to sing, dance or play music in public.

The audience falls quiet as Gordafarid’s commanding, raspy alto fills the room with melodic Persian. With a mixture of prose, poetry, stomping and pantomime, she captivates the audience as she has others for more than 25 years, with tales from the Shahnameh — the national epic poem of Iran completed by the poet Ferdowsi in the year 1010.

For centuries, skilled Iranian storytellers known as Naqqals have transfixed audiences in traditional coffeehouses with stories from the 50,000-verse Shahnameh, but historically it was an art performed by men, for men. Gordafarid, whose life story is an epic in itself, is the first known female Naqqal to have learned the craft the traditional way, from the Morsheds, or Naqqali masters.

Gordafarid’s fearlessness and determination have made her a beacon of inspiration to Iranian audiences around the world at a time when female-led protests have erupted across her homeland after the death in custody last year of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not covering her hair properly.


CALIFORNIA
Iranian women at home and abroad cut their hair to protest Mahsa Amini’s death
Oct. 6, 2022

“When you hear a young lady like Gordafarid, who is so devoted to preserving the heritage that the Islamic Republic has tried very hard to annihilate over the years, it is reminiscent of what we’re seeing from the youngsters on the streets of Iran,” said Zohreh Mizrahi, an immigration lawyer in L.A. who served as emcee for the Nowruz event. “People feel like there is hope, and we see that hope in her.”

Los Angeles resident Gordafarid is the first known woman to have mastered the ancient Iranian storytelling art of Naqqali.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Gordafarid moved to Los Angeles from Tehran in 2010, after the government banned her from speaking in public. People often cry when they see her perform.

“I think I touch their heart with my energy because I am onstage with all of myself, all of my soul, in every word,” she said.

The night of the Nowruz celebration she explained the origins of the festival as a tribute to Jamshid, whom the Shanameh describes as the greatest Iranian king. Then she told the story of another ancient king who stumbled across a beautiful palace while searching for his mythical horse, Rakhsh. In rhyming couplets, she described the wonders of the castle, speaking faster and faster until the audience stood on its feet, applauding with awe.

“It’s incredible, just incredible,” said Saleh Mishael of West Hollywood, who was wearing a deep V-neck top and black leather skirt. “The way she was saying all the adjectives and that she memorized it all, it was incredible.”

After a buffet dinner, Gordafarid returned to the stage to tell the story of her namesake — the female warrior Gordafarid, who rode into battle to defend her country when the men were too afraid to fight.

Even a non-Persian speaker could make out the key elements of the tale — Gordafarid donning a helmet to obscure her femininity, riding her horse fearlessly into battle, sending her arrows flying through the wind. When her attacker finally removes her helmet with a spear, he is stunned to discover his adversary is a beautiful young woman with long, flowing hair.

“Like Joan of Arc in Western culture, Gordafarid epitomizes the character and strength of women from ancient times,” Mizrahi said. “Any time you deal with a woman who is very strong and very determined, and not afraid of anything, we call her a Gordafarid.”

A few weeks after the performance, the modern-day Gordafarid (she officially changed her name to Gord Afarid after receiving U.S. citizenship) pushed a basket of flatbread to the side at a Persian restaurant near her home in Encino and apologized. “It’s not fresh,” she said. “I don’t know why.”

Then she opened Google Translate on a silver laptop to help her more accurately express herself in English as she prepared to tell her own story.

It begins in the city of Ahvaz in the southwest of Iran, where she grew up the daughter of a farmer and a homemaker, the eldest of five children. The 1979 Islamic Revolution began two years after she was born, and for the next nine years, Ahvaz, which sits near the Iraqi border, was engulfed in war. On her computer she calls up photos of tanks in city streets, men with large guns, piles of rubble where buildings once stood.

“I think I touch their heart with my energy because I am onstage with all of myself, all of my soul, in every word,” Gordafarid says.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“I remember all of this,” she said, scrolling through the images. “A lot of rockets, a lot of people died; some of my family died. That’s why I say, my city was so beautiful, but after the war. … I remember all these things.”

Her family members, most of whom still live in Ahvaz, are Muslim, but in her teens she decided she didn’t like religion. When her father tried to force her to marry at 15, she refused. She rebelled at school, but always loved theater and tales of adventure.

Many Iranians grow up hearing the stories of the Shahnameh, known in English as the Book of Kings, from their parents. But Gordafarid knew only the few tales she learned at school. It wasn’t until 1998, when she was a university student in Tehran, that she saw her first Naqqali performance. She was drawn to it instantly.

“In its own way, it is a one-person theater,” she said, stirring a pat of butter into her white- and saffron-colored Persian rice. “A Naqqal edits his own scripts, directs the performance himself, and creates various characters. He does not hesitate to imitate the lion’s roar, the horse’s neigh, and the roar of the dragon.”

She asked the performer — a student himself — to teach her Naqqali, and after just a few lessons she was invited to perform at a private salon for 300 people. A friend introduced her, and let the spectators know they were about to witness something historic: The first woman known to perform Naqqali before an audience.

Gordafarid remembers stepping quickly onto the stage and beginning with a traditional song, from which she took courage. Then she recited from the Shahnameh for the next half-hour.

Nowruz celebrants applaud Gordafarid at her performance in West Hollywood.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“It was my first time in front of people, and they were shocked because I memorized 30 minutes of Shahnameh,” she said. “They clapped for me, and then they got my phone number.”

She met her mentor, the late Naqqali master Morshed Torabi, a few months later. She had been invited to give a public Naqqali performance for Nowruz, but because reporters and news cameras were going to be present, this time she felt she needed help.

The men at the theater building where Torabi worked refused to give her his phone number because she is a woman. “They were closed-minded,” Gordafarid said. “They made excuses, like, ‘He doesn’t have a phone.’” Eventually she found his number and called him. “His voice was warm and scratchy,” she said. “A rusty voice.”

She told him she needed a toomar, or traditional Naqqali script, that would be appropriate for Nowruz. He told her she must recite the story of Jamshid and how the festival came about. She asked if she could come meet him, and he agreed.

She traveled across town to the same theater building where she had originally been turned away. They spoke for a few minutes, and then he handed her a few lines written on a piece of paper — a brief outline of what she should say.


Iranians urge their children to flee: ‘I want them to be safe’
March 16, 2023

“Morshed said, based on this summary of explanations, ‘You write, you edit, you organize your own toomar,’” Gordafarid said. “He was very rough and tough.”

Soon she was following Torabi around the city, silently taking notes on his performances in the all-male spaces where Naqqali is traditionally done. Although he let her know where he would be, he did not offer to teach her. “He was very impatient, so I didn’t ask him any questions,” she said. “I was very patient, and I had a lot of respect for him.”

One day an old man at a traditional coffeehouse asked the Naqqal about the girl in the corner. Torabi thought and thought. “She is my student,” he said at last.

“It was hard for him because it is taboo,” she said. “But he admitted he had never seen so much follow-up, effort and respect from his male students.”

A certificate signed by four famous Naqqals declares Gordafarid the first female Naqqal in history.
(Courtesy of Gordafarid)

Two years later, at the famous City Theater in Tehran, Torabi presented Gordafarid with his sturdy wooden cane — a public acknowledgment that she was not just his student, but his heir.

“Always when I have a goal, I focus on it with all my cells,” she said. “Everything. And maybe I don’t care if it is a taboo or not. Several times I broke taboos, not just this. I fought with my father, the city, school rules, because everywhere was a dictatorship.”

As a scholar and performer of Naqqali, she traveled across Iran to study with other teachers. She spent four hours a day strengthening her voice and taught Naqqali to others. She performed in front of audiences of tens of thousands and received a certificate signed by the top Naqqals in the country declaring her to be the first female Naqqal in Iranian history.

Naqqali was placed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding in 2011; photos and video of Gordafarid’s performances were included alongside those of other masters.

But around 2009 and 2010 she found it increasingly difficult to find work in Iran. In addition to performing Naqqali, she also worked as a writer, programmer and presenter for television and radio. Along with many other women, she was banned from working in those fields by an increasingly conservative government.

“In that time it was forbidden for a woman to raise her voice in public, and I did, a lot,” she said.

Falling into a depression, she decided to move to Los Angeles, wondering if she would have to take a job at McDonald’s.

Instead, she started getting Naqqali work in L.A., which is home to more than 130,000 Iranians, the largest population outside of Iran. She was invited to perform at museums, universities, for cultural federations. She toured Europe and Canada.

“That was good,” she said, as she cut into the sweet and sticky zoolbia, a crispy fried dough dessert at the Encino restaurant. “I thought maybe they will forget me in history, but no.”

Last year, Gordafarid was commissioned by the Farhang Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to celebrating and promoting Iranian art and culture, to make a video in honor of the Iranian winter solstice holiday, Shab-e Yalda.

In the video, released on YouTube at the end of December, she is dressed in form-fitting black velvet with her signature bell sleeves and a thick belt around her waist. Images appear behind her to illustrate a different tale from the Shahnameh: The story of the malevolent King Zahhak, who falls under the sway of an evil spirit who curses him. The spirit makes two serpents grow out of his shoulders; they must feast each day on the brains of young people.

For some, the story serves as a gruesome metaphor for the Iranian government’s deadly crackdown on the many young people who took to the streets last fall to protest the country’s restrictive clerical rule after Amini’s death. Government agents were responsible for the deaths of at least 44 children during the months-long uprising, with hundreds more detained, according to Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

Gordafarid whispers conspiratorially when she speaks as the flattering evil spirit. When she is Zahhak, her arms turn into two vicious snakes that hiss at the air.

“It’s really a David and Goliath story, and it is very relatable to what is going on in Iran,” said Alireza Ardekani, executive director of the Farhang Foundation. “The great thing about the epic Book of Kings is there’s always a story that can be relatable to anything in life.”

Gordafarid says she can never go back to Iran. “I would love to go, but I’m sure if I go there — straight to jail,” she said.

She misses her home country, but she has made a life for herself in Los Angeles. When she is not performing Naqqali, she works as an occasional instructor for UCLA Extension, where she teaches Persian language, Naqqali and the Shahnameh. Recently, she was hired by Disney as a mythologist to advise writers on a project due out in 2024. And she makes ends meet by working as a medical assistant at an inpatient anorexia clinic.

In the meantime, she is an inspiration to a new generation of female Iranian artists, some of whom are incorporating the art of Naqqali into their own performances.

They may study her work on YouTube rather than at the traditional coffeehouses of Iran, but they, too, are learning the ancient art of Naqqali from a master.

Deborah Netburn covers faith, spirituality and joy for the Los Angeles Times. She started at The Times in 2006 and has worked across a wide range of sections including entertainment, home and garden, national news, technology and science.

ICRC: Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Show Signs of ‘Accelerated Ageing’


TEHRAN (FNA)- Prisoners who have been held for years by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility are showing signs of “accelerated ageing”, a senior official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said.

Patrick Hamilton, the ICRC’s head of delegation for the US and Canada, said on Friday that the “physical and mental health needs are growing and becoming increasingly challenging” for those still imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, Al-Jazeera reported.

“We’re calling on the US administration and Congress to work together to find adequate and sustainable solutions to address these issues,” Hamilton said in a statement.

“Action should be taken as a matter of priority,” he added.

The Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba was established by US Republican Party President George W Bush in 2002 to house foreign suspects following the 2001 plane attacks on New York and the Pentagon, which killed some 3,000 people.

The camp came to symbolise the brutality of the US’s so-called “war on terror” because of harsh interrogation methods that critics have said amounted to torture.

Hamilton’s comments on the health of the prisoners came after a visit to the facility in March following a 20-year hiatus. He said he was “struck by how those who are still detained today are experiencing the symptoms of accelerated ageing, worsened by the cumulative effects of their experiences and years spent in detention”.

He called for detainees to receive adequate mental and physical healthcare as well as more frequent family contact.

The US defence department “is currently reviewing the report”, a Pentagon spokesperson told the Reuters news agency.

There were 40 detainees at Guantanamo when US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, took office in 2021. The Biden administration has said it wants to close the facility but has not presented a plan for doing so. About 30 detainees remain at the prison.

Two Pakistani brothers held at Guantanamo Bay without trial for more than 20 years were freed by the US in February and returned home. Abdul, 55, and Mohammed Rabbani, 53, were reunited with their families after a formal questioning by Pakistani authorities.

Hamilton called on Washington to resolve the fate of the detainees, urging action to transfer out those eligible.

US releases Algerian detainee from Guantanamo Bay prison

The New Arab Staff & Agencies
22 April, 2023

Bakush's release from the notorious Cuban prison brings down Guantanamo Bay's population to 30 detainees.

The US military said on Thursday that it had released an Algerian held at the Guantanamo prison for two decades, leaving 30 men still held extrajudicially at the US navy base in Cuba.

The Pentagon said Said bin Brahim bin Umran Bakush was transferred to Algeria after an official decision on his release was made earlier this year.

Detaining Bakush, 52, was deemed "no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the national security of the United States," the Pentagon said in a statement.

Bakush was apprehended in 2002 in Faisalabad, Pakistan as the US swept up hundreds of suspected Al-Qaeda operatives and fighters in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attack on the United States by the group.

Although never seen as more than a low-level Al-Qaeda fighter not directly connected to the 9/11 plot, he was nevertheless held since then at the prison on the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Like fellow prisoners, he was deemed an enemy combatant without recourse to the US justice system.

With Bakush's release, 30 detainees remain at Guantanamo, down from a peak of nearly 800.

RELATED

Vigils for closure of Guantanamo held across the world

World

Brooke Anderson

Of them 16 are eligible for transfer and the Pentagon and State Department are seeking countries to accept them.

Another three are eligible for a Periodic Review Board assessment, while nine are facing charges under military commissions and two have been convicted in such commissions.

Guantanamo Bay detainee transferred to Algeria, fuelling hopes of facility's closure

Brooke Anderson
Washington, D.C.
22 April, 2023

The US has transferred a detainee from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre to his home country of Algeria, fuelling hopes that the controversial facility could soon be closed.


A longtime Guantanamo Bay detainee from Algeria has been transferred to his home country, fuelling hopes the controversial facility could soon be closed.

News of the release of Said bin Brahim bin Umran Bakush, also known as Abdul Razak Ali, has highlighted the ongoing debate over the continued use of the detention facility in Cuba which has symbolised US hypocrisy on its human rights record.

Like former President Barack Obama, Joe Biden promised to close the notorious detention centre while campaigning for office.

Guantanamo held 684 detainees in June 2003, but the outflow of detainees has seen their number shrink to just 30 - a fact critics of the facility hope means its end is near.

According to recent news reports, Biden has been looking at options for finally closing Guantanamo Bay down before the end of his current presidential term.

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20 years on, US must close 'ugly' Guantanamo chapter: UN

World

The New Arab Staff & Agencies

Bakush was captured in Pakistan in March 2002. He was living at a house linked with several men affiliated with Al Qaeda. He claims he was the victim of mistaken identity.

The US government determined last April that he was cleared for transfer, following its Periodic Review Board process.

"We welcome this latest transfer and continue to urge the Biden administration to finally close this symbol of injustice that has stained the international reputation of our nation for far too long," said Robert McCaw, government affairs director with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in a public statement.

"Only the release of all cleared detainees and the closure of the entire facility will end this dark chapter in American history," he added.

More Than 100 Human Rights Groups Warn UN Against Antisemitism Definition


TEHRAN (FNA)- More than 100 human rights and civil rights organizations warned the United Nations against the use of a definition of antisemitism that could be exploited to restrict criticism of the Israeli occupation and undermine support for Palestinian rights.

The letter, signed by groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, voiced strong support for the UN’s commitment to the fight against antisemitism in line with international human rights standards and raised concerns of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) working definition of the ideology, presstv reported.

The letter said those who use the IHRA definition and terminology tend to rely on a set of 11 contemporary examples of antisemitism, seven of which refer to the “state of Israel”.

The signatories said antisemitism "poses real harm to Jewish communities around the world" but the IHRA's use of the word could "inadvertently embolden or endorse policies and laws that undermine fundamental human rights”.

The rights groups warned that if the UN adopts the IHRA definition, governments and courts could misuse it to silence criticism of the policies of the hardline Israeli cabinet, creating "a chilling effect on freedom of expression.”

The letter stressed that Ken Stern, the main drafter of the IHRA definition, raised his own concerns about institutions adopting the terminology, which he said has been used as "a blunt instrument to label anyone an antisemite.”

Such terminology "opens the door" to labeling as antisemitic criticism of the Israeli policies and practices by human rights organizations that the regime’s authorities are committing various crimes against Palestinians, according to the groups.

"The UN should ensure that its vital efforts to combat antisemitism do not inadvertently embolden or endorse policies and laws that undermine fundamental human rights, including the right to speak and organize in support of Palestinian rights and to criticize Israeli policies," the letter said.

The signatories added that the terminology could also be used to label as antisemitic documentation showing that the illegal entity’s founding involved dispossessing Palestinians.

In 2017, after the British government adapted the IHRA definition on a national level, at least two universities in the country banned activities planned for "Israel Apartheid Week", including a talk at the University of Central Lancashire on boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

In February 2020, Israeli advocacy groups in the US attempted to disrupt a Palestinian film screening at Pitzer and Pomona College, citing "clear indicators of antisemitism under the examples listed by the IHRA”.

Panamanian tribe to be relocated from coastal island due to climate change: "There's no other option"


BY MANUEL BOJORQUEZ, KERRY BREEN
APRIL 22, 2023 / CBS NEWS

For hundreds of years, the ocean has protected the Guna Yala culture on Cardi Sugdub, or Crab Island, located off the coast of Panama.

On the island, every square inch is occupied by about a thousand members of the Guna Yala tribe. There are no cars or motorcycles, people dress in traditional attire, and residents still speak their native tongue. Generations ago, members of the tribe settled on the island to escape aggression from Spanish colonizers and the Panamanian government.

But now, things are changing: Rising water levels are threatening the island and other nearby sites, forcing one of the largest migrations due to climate change in modern history.

Flooding on the low-lying islands has become more frequent due to the effects of sea level rise.

Magdalena Martinez, a resident of the island, told CBS News in Spanish that the flooding is a "sad reality" of life on the island. But in 30 years, scientists predict the islands will be completely underwater. Overpopulation is also an issue, but climate change is hte biggest threat, said Laurel Avila, a member of Panama's Ministry of the Environment.

  

Cardi Sugdub, or Crab Island.CBS SATURDAY MORNINGS

Avila explained that increased carbon emissions have raised the earth's temperature and caused glaciers to melt. This means water molecules expand, eventually leading to flooding like the kind seen on Crab Island. In the 1960s, the water around the islands rose at a rate of around 1 millimeter per year. Now, though, it's rising at about 3.5 millimeters a year, according to tide-gauge data from the Panama Canal Authority and satellite data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"(The tribe has) to be moved. There's no other option," Avila said. "The rise of the sea level is not going to stop."

It's a reality that the island's residents have only recently started to accept, after years of putting up a fight. Some members of the tribe see the move as a problem caused by the industrialized world unfairly bearing down on them and the culture they've defended.

Some residents, including Augusto Boyd, have put up a fight by using rocks and remnants of coral reefs to try to expand the island and keep the water at bay. However, he's realized it's a losing battle and the only option is to leave it all behind.

"Filling, filling, filling all the time, because the water doesn't stop. It keeps going up," he told CBS News in Spanish. "It's difficult. Everything you did here stays behind."

There is a place for the tribe to relocate to, but it's a stark, cookie-cutter subdivision with rows of houses that could not be more different than life on Cardi Sugdub. It's being built on land owned by the tribe, with the majority of the funding coming from the Panamanian government.

While life will be different on the mainland, Martinez says she knows the tribe's traditions will carry on.

"We carry that here, inside," she said.

Why Trump as Jesus Christ makes perfect sense to US evangelists

Hamid Dabashi
18 April 2023 

A growing movement analogising the 45th president with the martyred son of God taps into Christian fundamentalist convictions about a divine US dispensation

Murals of Jesus and former US President Donald Trump on a building owned by a commissioner in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, US, 6 December 2022 (Reuters)

“Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government. There have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical corrupt governments and it’s beginning today in New York City.”

So said Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, sharing her heartfelt theological concerns over the arraignment of former US President Donald Trump earlier this month in New York.

Episcopal Bishop Reginald T Jackson, who oversees more than 500 churches in Greene’s home state of Georgia, did not care for the analogy and considered it “blasphemous and disgusting”, but Greene had countless other Americans supporting her sentiments.

Trump was arraigned in Manhattan because of allegations of corruption based on hush money he reportedly paid a porn star to keep her relationship with him secret so as not to damage his reputation as he was running for office.

Those allegations do not seem to bother his evangelical base, devoted as it is to the former US president's image as a devout Christian, to the extent that the sanctity of the figure of Christ is affixed to him. The roots and manifestations of this peculiar version of evangelical theology are extremely important for any understanding of American politics.

Soon after the Iranian revolution of 1977-1979, I began collecting evidence of the visual iconography of the revolution in whatever form and shape I could find.

My colleague, Peter Chelkowski, later joined me and together we wrote a book, Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran (1999), in which we offered a detailed interpretation of the visual iconography of the revolution.

A central theme in that iconography was of course the Shia martyrology that identified Ayatollah Khomeini and a whole generation of the victims of the Iran-Iraq war with Shia holy men.

Trump as Jesus Christ

Reminiscent of that Islamic martyrology we documented four decades ago in Iran, the patently Christian art now gathering momentum around the cultic figure of Trump is something quite serious. It would be a mistake to dismiss it with the usual arrogance of the liberal corporate media, which has generated much anger among the millions of people who consider themselves besieged and beleaguered “white Christian Americans”.

Yes, there are profound elements of white supremacy and racism in this Trump cult. But not all of this diehard Christian piety can be explained away thus.

There is genuine pain and evident hurt, some of it economic, some of it emotional, mixed with a sense of anomie and alienation. Some people who identify as white, Christian and conservative feel that their country, their culture and their religion are all under attack by coloured people, non-Christian people, radical liberals and the left. They are trying to “get their country back”.

Trump and the myth of American democracy

Read More »

People like Trump bank on such feelings and exploit them to their political advantage. Visionary but defeated statesmen such as Bernie Sanders were aware of such facts and sought to address them. But the dominant ideologues of the Democratic Party, represented by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, were entirely complicit in their root causes and unable to address them.

It was only quite recently that a sizable industry of Christian iconography surrounding the figure of Trump emerged. Identification of Trump with the figure of Christ as he is perceived in the evangelical imagination is a key component of this political iconography.

“Since late 2020,” according to Snopes, a US fact-checking website, “a rather curious and controversial image has been floating around the internet. It's an image of a painting that shows former US President Donald Trump crucified like Jesus, with an American flag serving as the loin cloth worn by Jesus in most artistic depictions of the crucifixion.”

The iconography is complete with the figure of the former speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, piercing Trump's side with a spear while, Mary-like, Melania Trump sits at his feet, crying.

Trump has a history of comparing himself to Jesus Christ. “Someone said to me the other day,” he said back in 2020, “‘You’re the most famous person in the world by far’. I said, ‘No, I’m not’… they said, ‘Who’s more famous?’ I said: ‘Jesus Christ.'”

Connecting with his evangelical base and abusing their faith, while fulfilling his insatiable thirst for fame and fortune, are the common staples of Trump's political parlance.

Evangelical imperialism

The Christian Zionism embedded in this ideology has not been lost on either Trump or, of course, on Israeli propagandists. Trump has declared himself "the king of Israel" or "the chosen one", while his followers have not shied away from calling him “the second coming of God”.

When Trump moved the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem, the Israelis were ecstatic, actively comparing him to Cyrus the Great and minting a coin in his honour. According to Associated Press, “the Mikdash Educational Centre said the 'Temple Coin' features Trump alongside King Cyrus, who 2,500 years ago allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem from their exile in Babylon.”

Woman with a painting of Jesus wearing a 'Make America Great Again' baseball cap at a rally for Donald Trump in New York City, October 25 2020 (AFP)

The full dimensions of Evangelical imperialism gathering momentum around the mythic figure of Trump, however, goes far beyond the delusional attempts of Israelis to hang to any straw in their futile attempt to steal the entirety of Palestine.

In this figure of Trump as Christ, we are facing a Christian nationalism of much deeper and bolder proportions - the evidence of an imperial imagination that connects US warmongering around the globe with the Christian zeal of the conquistadors at the time of Christopher Columbus.

It is the Holy Roman Empire that this political theology fathoms, with Trump as the figure of not Just Christ but, in fact, Charlemagne.

That missionary zeal has now found a widely popular artist to give it artistic panache.
Lucrative market

“Conservative artist Jon McNaughton doesn't care about the haters, he just wants to paint Trump and Jesus.” That is the title of a piece detailing how Christian pop artist McNaughton has emerged at the centre of this renewed burst of Christology around the figure of Trump.

McNaughton is a Utah-based political artist devoted to a conservative and Christian perspective - and in the persona of Trump he has found his deepest inspirations. It is evidently a lucrative market, too.

A key aspect of this hugely popular art is that it goes viral on the internet. Central to its popularity is the mixing of biblical and American histories to forge a mythic space where Americans feel connected to a divine dispensation - and thus their proverbial sense of “exceptionalism” is theologically reasserted.

There is a deeply rooted Christian Republic, with its imperial imagination bursting to come out from within the American political culture

McNaughton's most recent painting, we learn, titled "Crossing the Swamp", went viral for its recasting of Emanuel Leutze's "Washington Crossing the Delaware" with members of the Trump administration.

We learn that the "painting depicts Trump as Washington, while paddling through a swamp outside the US Capitol building surrounded by National Security Adviser John Bolton holding a hunting rifle a la Elmer Fudd, Vice President Mike Pence holding the American flag, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson apparently paddling in the wrong direction”.

The politics of this art form is self-evident, with Trump and his MAGA diehards the last remaining bastions in the battle to save America from powerful liberal establishment forces.

But what McNaughton is doing is far more than a contemporary political act. He is actively reimagining American history in unabashedly evangelical, white supremacist and racist images.

There is a deeply rooted Christian republic, with its imperial imagination bursting to come out from within the American political culture - with a potent antisemitism and now Islamophobia as its key manifestations.

When he wrote his now classic book, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century (2006), Kevin Phillips was fully aware of this fact and had seen the George W Bush presidency as the epitome of it.

Almost two decades later, the prospect of a rank charlatan taking hold of this deep-rooted, blindfolded evangelical vision of the world in the US is ever stronger.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he teaches Comparative Literature, World Cinema, and Postcolonial Theory. His latest books include The Future of Two Illusions: Islam after the West (2022); The Last Muslim Intellectual: The Life and Legacy of Jalal Al-e Ahmad (2021); Reversing the Colonial Gaze: Persian Travelers Abroad (2020), and The Emperor is Naked: On the Inevitable Demise of the Nation-State (2020). His books and essays have been translated into many languages.

Christian nationalist and pro-Trump pastor insists 'believers' should 'be the ones writing the laws'

Maya Boddie, Alternet
April 22, 2023

Twitter

Sean Feucht, a proud MAGA preacher, expressed his bold and controversial Christian nationalist views during an appearance earlier this week at a church led by former President Donald Trump supporter, Jackson Lahmeyer, Rolling Stone reports.

Per Rolling Stone, Lahmeyer is not only the pastor of Sheridan Church, but also the founder of Pastors for Trump.

During his speech, Feucht, who "once prayed over Trump in the Oval Office," insisted church and state should not be separate by saying, "America should be governed according to biblical law for the benefit of believers, as a way to prepare for the second coming of Christ," according to Rolling Stone.

"It's all part of The King coming back," Feucht said to the congregation. "That's what we're practicing for," he said, adding, "That's why we get called 'Christian nationalists.'"
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Rolling Stone reports:

Feucht is currently on a fifty-state worship tour to bring his now-open brand of Christian nationalism to every state capitol in the land. That tour has the backing of Turning Point USA, the far-right political shop headed by Charlie Kirk. Its initiative TPUSAFaith has partnered with Fuecht's Let Us Worship project to stage the Kingdom to the Capitol tour. TPUSAFaith's website tells visitors: 'TOGETHER WE CAN RESTORE AMERICA’S BIBLICAL VALUES.'

The tour kicked off in Washington, D.C., last month, with a prayer service in the Capitol rotunda, surreptitiously organized by Boehbert.

Additionally, during his appearance, the right-wing evangelical leader performed "an imaginary dialogue" before the Sheridan Church audience, mocking "secular critics," asking, "You want The Kingdom to be the government?"

He then answered himself: "Yes!"

Feucht continued, "You want God to come on over and take over the government?"


Again, he replied, "Yes!"

The MAGA minister then proclaimed — referring to Christian nationalists like himself — "We want God to be in control of everything! We want believers to be the ones writing the laws! Yes! Guilty as charged."

Rolling Stone reports:

After this story was first published, Lahmeyer sent an email to supporters titled, 'The Rolling Stone Is After Me, Sheridan.Church & Sean Feucht… AGAIN!' In the body of the email, Lahmeyer characterized this article as part of 'the constant attack' waged against 'authentic Christianity' in America. He called on the faithful 'to engage to preserve our Christian Nation' by acting to 'make sure that President Trump is elected for a third time in 2024' — a reference to the baseless conspiracy theory that Trump won the 2020 election. Lahmeyer insisted that ex-'President Trump has proven to be a friend of the Church in America.'

According to The Christian Post, Feucht has vocalized his opposition to COVID-19 vaccinations and precautions, saying he was "'shocked with the number of pastors and other leaders who complied with the mandates' after government officials restricted or banned public gatherings and worship services in cities across California and around the country."

The Christian Post reports:

Feucht then started a 'Let Us Worship' petition to keep churches open amid the pandemic. After the petition garnered more than 100,000 signatures, Feucht held his first open worship at the Golden Gate Bridge in July 2020.

Iraq: Evangicals spark outrage by praying 'to break power' of Yazidi temple

A video posted by the Light a Candle organisation appeared to show activists praying against the 'Satanic curse' of the temple

An activist from Light a Candle prays at a Yazidi temple in Iraq (screenshot)

By Alex MacDonald
Published date: 21 April 2023

A video apparently showing evangelical Christians praying at what they brand a "Satanic" Yazidi temple in northern Iraq has sparked outrage.

Light A Candle, an organisation that professes to "shine the light and love of Jesus by preaching the Gospel", on Thursday posted a story on its Instagram page showing a number of its missionaries praying outside the temple overlayed with a caption reading "We see chains broken and the enemy's power defeated.

"So right now we just break the power of this temple, we break the power of the Satanic curse that it places on people who enter Jesus... and we curse all of the enemy that is attached to this, we say it will come to nothing," one of the activists can be heard saying in the video.

Social media users identified the temple as being near the Yazidi-majority town of Ba'adre, which is located in a region disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), though the latter is currently in control of the town.

Middle East Eye could not independently verify the location, however.

Yazidis have for centuries faced persecution from other Abrahamic religions which claim that Melek Taus, the central figure in the Yazidi religion, is analogous to Satan.

Accusations of Satanism have been used to justify numerous attacks on the group, including the massacre of thousands of Yazidi men, and the enslavement of thousands more Yazidi women, by the Islamic State group in 2014.

Online outrage

The video sparked outrage online with many questioning why the local authorities had allowed the visit to take place.

MEE contacted Light a Candle to ask if they stood by the implication of the Yazidi religion as akin to Satanism, but had received no response at time of publication.

Narin Briar, a Kurdish human right activist, said that the act was particularly offensive considering the "centuries of genocide and erasure" that Yazidis had faced.

'American Christian missionaries are hunting Yazidis , falsely labelling them as "Satanic" in their social media posts, in hopes of forcefully converting them and erasing their ancient culture even further'

- Narin Briar, activist

"Just recently, the Yazidis fled the Ezidi Genocide at the hands of [the Islamic State]" she told MEE.

"Now, through an organisation called Light a Candle, American Christian missionaries are hunting Yazidis , falsely labelling them as 'Satanic' in their social media posts, in hopes of forcefully converting them and erasing their ancient culture even further."

Light a Candle was founded by Sean Feucht, a singer-songwriter and activist who claims to have had four number one albums in the Christian Worship section of iTunes.

The group has been involved in distributing aid to displaced people in northern Iraq, including Yazidis, but has also been accused of attempting to recruit Christian converts during their visits.

In the pinned tweet of his Twitter account, Feucht claims leftists have "hijacked" the minds of the younger generation and calls for "REVIVAL" as the solution, while lambasting such policies as student loan forgiveness, "open borders", abortion and LGBTQ rights and the "mutilation of children’s bodies".

A profile in Rolling Stone characterised Feucht as having a "far-right Christian nationalist agenda" and being a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump. It also suggested he had made considerable sums of money out of his work, owning homes in the US valued at over $2m.

MEE also contacted the KRG for comment, but had received no response at the time of publication.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for YEZEDI 

'Threatened to burn mosque down': Canadian Muslims reel after botched attack in Markham

The attack on the Islamic Society of Markham is the latest in a number of Islamophobic incidents in Canada

The Islamic Society of Markham held a press conference on 10 April 2023 in Markham, Ontario, Canada (Courtesy Islamic Society of Markham)

By Azad Essa
Published date: 10 April 2023 

Muslims in Canada are calling for more protection and a serious engagement with Islamophobia after a man entered a mosque brandishing a weapon, threatened congregants, damaged mosque property, and tried to run over worshippers in the parking lot.

At a press conference at the Islamic Society of Markham on Monday, Qasir Nasir Khan, the mosque's president, said the incident had shocked the community.

“It was shocking. It could have resulted in serious injury or, God forbid, even fatalities,” Khan said. “Make no mistake, we could have been at a funeral today," Khan said.

"He threatened to burn the mosque down," Khan added.

The incident, which took place late last week, is just the latest in a spate of Islamophobic attacks in Canada that has left experts and observers pondering over the rise of hate-based crimes in the US.

"Those who frequent this Markham mosque, and their loved ones, have been deeply anxious this weekend. We must do all we can to counter the hate that threatens our rights and freedoms and hold perpetrators accountable," Amira Elghawaby, the country's newly appointed special representative on combating Islamophobia, said in a statement.

On Sunday, local police said it had charged 28-year-old Sharan Karunakaran with several criminal offences after a suspected hate-motivated incident.

Several commentators have speculated that Karunakaran has ties with Hindu far-right groups, but the police have so far said they didn't believe the suspect had links to such groups.

Nadia Hassan, from the Islamic Society of Markham, reiterated that the connections were mere speculation and that "police were still investigating all angles".

"They have faced other incidents and threats but nothing quite like this," Hassan told Middle East Eye.

York regional police did not reply to MEE's request for comment.

 
Calls for accountability

The attack on the mosque, located around 30km from Toronto, also prompted condemnations from several elected officials.

On Monday, Helena Jaczek, the member of parliament for Markham, said she was "appalled to hear of the violent hate crime the Islamic Society of Markham was subject to, especially during the holy month of Ramadan. Muslim Canadians deserve to feel safe in our community".

Likewise, Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng said she was "deeply disturbed to hear of the violent hate crimes and racist behaviour at the Islamic Society of Markham. To Muslims in Markham and Canada, I stand with you."

Assault in Toronto mosque highlights alarming rise of Islamophobia in Canada

Read More »

The incident comes just days after police opened a case into a possible hate crime in Toronto, after a local mosque was vandalised, raising additional questions over the safety of Muslims in the country.

There has been a rise in Islamophobic incidents in Canada in recent years. Observers say that the rising Islamophobia has exposed the myth of Canadian multiculturalism.

In August 2022, government agency Statistics Canada reported that hate crimes against Muslim communities across Canada had increased by 71 percent in 2021 alone.

In June 2021, four members of a Muslim family were killed when a 2o-year-old man ran them over with his pick-up truck in London, Ontario.

In 2020, a mosque caretaker was killed in the Toronto area, while three years earlier, a gunman killed six Muslim men at a mosque in Quebec City.

Following the attack on worshippers at the Quebec City Mosque in 2017, the Canadian parliament passed Motion 103, a non-binding resolution, that condemned Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism.

Navigating hate and death threats: What it's like working for Ilhan Omar

Azad Essa, Umar A Farooq
8 March 2023 | Last update: 2 days 10 hours ago

The Black and visibly Muslim Congresswoman continues to face a deluge of abuse even after the end of the Trump presidency, with her young staff often caught in the crosshairs

In Representative Ilhan Omar's office, the answering machine is something of an albatross.

Beneath the daily questions and concerns from constituents, selected praise from the well wishers, and the usual requests for meetings from lobbyists, lies a bottomless pit of hateful messages.

"I'll put a bullet in your f***ing head. I'll f***ing kill you," says one.

"Ilhan Omar!!! You will not be going back to Washington, your life will end before your 'vacation' starts ... They say we can't get the Somali stink out of the clean Minnesota air, but we are going to enjoy the adventure," says another.

On a daily basis, the Black and visibly Muslim legislator is inundated with obscene, racist and hate-filled messages at her Capitol Hill offices.

One congressional aide, who asked not to be named, told Middle East Eye that some of the language in the voicemails were so vicious and outrageous they ought "not to be repeated".

But as is protocol, her staff, made of up mostly women, listen through every single one. Before disconnecting. And narrating them to senior staff. Several senior staff interviewed by Middle East Eye say that four years since Omar came to office, the threats simply won't dissipate.

And while much of the media's attention has naturally focused on Omar, given the threat to her life, the aide admits that the abuse can be difficult for staff to shake off.

The level of hate has become so noxious that a fair share of their work has revolved around developing systems and strategies to protect their younger colleagues, especially the women and men of colour, often on the front lines, to the abuse meted out over the phone, on social media or on the answering machine.

"There have been times where it's been challenging for me personally and depressing to carry these messages," the aide added.

"It definitely has made me disappointed at times, sad that this is the state of our world, and depressed that our interns are also answering those calls," the congressional aide added.

Constant state of worry

In January 2019, Omar became the first Somali-American and one of two Muslim women to be sworn into Congress.

Her meteoric rise to Congress was marked by a commitment to improving the lives and economic opportunities of working-class Americans.

But the moment she entered Congress, she would come to be defined by her trenchant criticism of US militarism and other aspects of US foreign policy.

As a result, she's been the subject of relentless attacks from right-wing commentators, Republicans, and even members of her own Democratic Party.

'Getting a death threat is pretty disturbing. You can't just pick up and pivot and go off and do your work'

- Mona Lena Krook, Rutgers University

As one of the historic progressive entries into Congress known as the Squad, following the election of Donald Trump, Omar became a lightning rod for conservatives.

Her every move scrutinised. Her every comment facing deliberate distortion by conservative media outlets, and Trump himself.

Trump used Omar as the very embodiment of the enemy that had to be defeated for him to "Make America Great Again".

"She would like to make the government of our country just like the country from where she came - Somalia. No government, no safety, no police, no nothing, just anarchy," Trump said in one of his rants about the US lawmaker in 2020. In other barb, he called her a "hate-filled, America-bashing socialist".

Omar's aides declined to get into specifics, but told MEE that the representative had received thousands of threats since entering office in 2019.

Omar said at the time that Trump's vitriol had directly led to an increase in death threats.

In December 2021, Omar publicly shared an example of a message received by the office which she blamed emphatically on Republican rhetoric.

"We see you, you Muslim sand n***** b****," the message began.

"Don't worry, there are plenty who would love the opportunity to take you off the face of this f***ing earth," the voicemail continued. "You will not live much longer b****, I can almost guarantee you that."

The threat was one of several Omar publicly shared.

'Historically high'

Threats against members of Congress have risen sharply in recent years, according to data provided by the United States Capitol Police, a law enforcement agency charged with protecting US legislators.

In October, Reuters reported that cases related to "concerning statements and threats" increased from 3,939 in 2017 to 9,625 in 2021.

The Capitol Police told MEE that for security reasons it can't divulge information regarding specific threats against members of Congress, but the number of cases was "historically high".

It added that while the department is expanding its resources to investigate these threats, "continuing to decrease violent political rhetoric across the country is the best way to keep everyone safe".

Connor McNutt, Omar's chief of staff since 2019, told MEE that violent threats were documented and reported to Capitol Police and the Sergeant at Arms, who are in charge of protecting members of Congress, but the entire process was incredibly time-consuming.

"Sadly, reporting these threats, corresponding with Capitol Police and other law enforcement, and communicating with prosecutors is an all too frequent occurrence and a part of my regular - sometimes daily - duties," McNutt said.

"That's not to mention the staff who answer phones throughout the day and have to listen to routinely violent rhetoric or death threats against the Congresswoman."

Congresswoman Ilhan Omar in a meeting with members of her staff 

(Courtesy of Omar's office)

Mona Lena Krook, an American political scientist based at Rutgers University, told MEE that aides to lawmakers often face the brunt of assaults.

Add in the dimension of America's erratic and toxic gun culture and the fears are in no way exaggerated or unwarranted. And an attack on a member of Congress has happened before.

In 2011, then-US representative Gabby Gifford was shot in the face as she spoke outside Congress. Gifford miraculously survived, and is now a major anti-gun advocate.

Omar's team was naturally horrified in September 2020 to see then-Republican candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene pose with an assault rifle along with images of Omar and her congressional colleagues, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, as part of a campaign ad titled: "Squad's Worst Nightmare".

Marjorie Taylor Greene's Campaign ad in September 2020

The inciteful ad leaned directly into right-wing talking points that utilised any opportunity to characterise these three powerful women of colour as outsiders or enemies of the white state.

It also underscored how a candidate like Taylor-Greene - now a sitting member of Congress - was prepared to use violent imagery to oppose their presence in the House.

Taylor-Greene's office did not reply to MEE's request for comment.

Krook says that whereas it was Omar or Tlaib or Ocasio-Cortez's images on the advertisements, it is often their staff members who have to navigate the daily salvos of hate hurled at their bosses.

"Staffers [are] the ones who do a lot of the work. They're drafting the speeches, they're writing the drafts of legislation. I can't imagine the kind of impact it has on their own mental state of having abuse rain down on you," Krook said.

"Getting a death threat is pretty disturbing. You can't just pick up and pivot and go off and do your work," she added.

"It's the kind of thing that sort of nags at you and makes you lose sleep," Krook said.

But the hateful rhetoric spouted on nightly television segments on right-wing television shows like Fox News’s Tucker Carlson had another consequence for Omar's staff: it made their job harder.
Subject of ridicule

McNutt, Omar's chief of staff, said the abuse made it considerably more difficult to get lawmakers from across the aisle to sign onto legislation, even if they believed in it.

"We, probably more than any other Democratic member of Congress, have a harder time getting a Republican to cosponsor legislation with us, even if it's an idea that they support.

"It's just by virtue of not wanting to be on a bill with the congresswoman," he told MEE.

Krook noted that she had worked with Congresswoman Tlaib's office on a resolution opposing violence against women.

In 2021, when Tlaib along with Omar and other women lawmakers tried to get Republican co-sponsors, no other congresswomen joined.

"It was really sad to see that even on that issue, like basic issues like safety of officials, they just couldn't do it," Krook said.

McNutt, who has worked with Omar since 2016, when he joined her team when she was a state legislator in Minnesota, says he knew early on that working with Omar was likely to be eventful.

Barely weeks into his new role as aide to the new and exciting Minnesota legislator, McNutt watched as his new boss would face a dizzying array of personal and professional insults that just didn’t seem to end.

They ranged from false smears to the absurd.

Later they would become terrifying.

Is anyone more hated?

As a state legislator, Omar was accused of marrying her own brother in order to facilitate his US citizenship. She was then accused of financial irregularities in the state legislature.

Both allegations were rubbished by Omar and state officials, and it was assumed they were laid to rest.

But not for the right wing. They were just getting started.

'There is no one on Capitol Hill who has faced as many insults, attacks and censures as Ilhan Omar'

- Connor McNutt, chief of staff for Ilhan Omar

When she became the first refugee to join the US Congress, the rate of threats and attacks on her simply escalated.

"The level of hate we were seeing increased exponentially," McNutt told MEE.

"[She] sort of became this fixation for the right-wing media - your Tucker Carlsons, your Free Beacons, The Examiner. They [turned] her into this caricature of what the right-wing sort of hates.

"There is no one on Capitol Hill who has faced as many insults, attacks and censures as Ilhan Omar," McNutt added.

Fox News did not reply to MEE's request for comment.

The accusation that Omar married her own brother continues to circulate in right-wing circles.

But where these comments looked to dehumanise and ridicule her, she faced an onslaught of other attacks from the right-wing media that made her a target. First, her comments about the September 11, 2001 attacks were distorted to make it seem like she was minimising the incident that killed 3,000 Americans.

Trump even tweeted a video in April 2019 juxtaposing Omar with footage of the twin towers falling. Omar wrote a day later that the tweet had led to an increase in death threats.

Then, her remarks about US militarism and support for Israel were deemed to be anti-American.

It was, however, a remark in February 2019 that members of the US government were being influenced by money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to support the state of Israel that brought the most criticism. Omar was immediately accused of antisemitism.

The pro-Israel lobby is known to spend millions of dollars to influence politics in the US. In the face of mounting pressure from her Democratic Party colleagues, Omar apologised.

"Antisemitism is real, and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of antisemitic tropes," Omar said. "At the same time, I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry," she added.

Pro-Israel group spent $350,000 to foil Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's re-election

Read More »

Trump called her apology "lame" and suggested she resign from the Foreign Affairs Committee.

And the accusations of antisemitism would continue to haunt her. Each time she critiqued Israel, she was accused of “having a problem with Jews".

It was on the basis of this accusation and her support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, a Palestinian civil society movement working to build international opposition to Israel’s illegal occupation and mistreatment of Palestinians that purportedly prompted her ousting from the Foreign Affairs Committee in February this year.

Omar is Muslim, a refugee, a woman, and Black. These provided a perfect recipe for the right wing to rail about.

"She's being targeted for her identity and not for what she did or said," the staff member, who asked to remain anonymous, said.

"It is as if she cannot speak up on American values or on behalf of America or for the rest of the world. People still call every day complaining and wanting her out of Congress just because of her existence as a Black woman," the aide added.

Krook, who has written a book on violence against women in politics, said that "it would be accurate to say that Omar's office receives probably some of the highest levels of threats.

"Part of it is ideological. She's a well-known progressive and unapologetic about it," she said. "But also, I think it has a lot to do with her identity, being a woman, being Muslim, being young, being of refugee background."
The role of the Democratic Party

Several observers noted that while some within the Republican Party and its acolytes have been racist towards Omar, the Democratic Party itself had a lot to answer for.

Writing in the Intercept, Akela Lacy argued that even if the vote had been split along party lines, it was the Democrats who had paved the way for the vote that would oust Omar from the House Committee.

Indeed, her own Democrat colleagues have publicly berated her for her foreign policy remarks and often chosen to stay away from her bills.

Somali. Black. Muslim. Woman. Refugee. American: The making of Ilhan Omar

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"I don’t need any of you to defend me against antisemitism. My friend Ilhan Omar and I have worked together toward the values that I treasure as an American Jew and that she treasures as an American Islamic woman, the only one on the Foreign Affairs Committee," Democratic colleague, Representative Jan Shakowsky, said ahead of the vote.

But when Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader spoke, he described Omar as having made mistakes including "using antisemitic tropes," referencing her comments in 2019 for which she had apologised at the time. Jeffries added that Omar would learn from her mistakes and pointed out that Republican Party had not disciplined their own members for their own transgressions.

McNutt acknowledged that the Democratic Party had failed her in the past.

He said he would even wager that had the vote for her ousting from the Foreign Affairs Committee taken place in 2019, Omar may not have received the support from the Democratic Party that she did in February.

The unified show of support from the party during this recent impasse showed Omar's team had made in-roads with their colleagues.

"Would we have liked to have our Democratic colleagues react differently in the past? I think we probably would have. But I think, through the work that she and the office, we were able to be really united and have full support from the Democratic Caucus," McNutt said.

"I do think this targeting of her, the spending a million dollars demonising her across the country, has really had a negative impact on how she in our office is perceived here. But that hasn't stopped us from leaning in to have those tough conversations," he added.
'We will keep speaking out'

Since coming into office in 2018, Omar has become known for championing local causes and foreign policy issues that have grated the rank and file of the Republican Party leadership as well as Democratic leaders on the other wing of the party.

Omar's dedication to economic issues has shown itself in her support for Medicare For All, in her calling for housing to be regarded as a human right, and in the expansion of benefits for working-class Americans.

She has criticised the Biden administration on its immigration policies on the southern border and urged the administration to increase the refugee cap. On Capitol Hill, her office staff are among the first to have been unionised in Congress, a move lauded by the Congressional Workers Union.

Her commitment to matters of democratic principles and human rights abroad and at home has seen her spearhead the Stop Arming Human Rights Abusers Act, and call for US President Joe Biden to pardon Daniel Hale, a military analyst who leaked government documents revealing the civilian toll of Washington's drone programme.

She also remains among the few US lawmakers to speak on the declining democratic values in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and has been a vocal proponent against Islamophobia, leading the way with the Combating International Islamophobia Act.

But her close shave with losing out to re-election in 2022 following a very tight primary in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District has prompted observers to suggest she has decided to "move into the mainstream".

Writing in the Minnesota Reformer, Doug Rossinow argued that Omar’s decision to vote for H.Res.92, a resolution condemning antisemitism and recognizing Israel as an ally, the same day she was ousted from the Foreign Affairs Committee, "mended ties" with the Democratic Party.

US: Ilhan Omar removed from foreign affairs committee for 2019 ‘antisemitic’ remarks

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The Jewish Telegraphic Agency wrote that Omar’s name was "sandwiched between the names of Reps Brad Schneider and Josh Gottheimer, two of Congress’ most vocal pro-Israel lawmakers."

Omar had previously voted for H.R4373, a foreign aid appropriations bill, containing $3.3bn in military aid to the Israeli government, in July 2021.

But Omar's staff say the Congresswoman has no intention of softening on foreign policy.

“We are always of the mind that we are working hard, but that we can always improve and do better. And I think determining whether it's good faith or bad faith is kind of a holistic approach of where is the criticism or feedback coming from."

Reflecting on his nearly seven years working with Omar, McNutt, from a small rural town in Minnesota, says he initially took the opportunity to work with Omar as a way to shine a light on neglected communities in Minnesota. He has no regrets. “It helps that she is a great boss. Of course, I am biased,” McNutt says with a laugh.

The other staff member who asked not to be named said she too had wanted to work for “somebody who represents my identities and who has the same progressive values that I do.

"That's kind of what inspired me to work for the congresswoman," the staff member said.

Despite being removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Omar remains on the Education Committee and influential Budget Committee, which focuses on government spending and fiscal policy.

According to Jackie Rogers, Omar’s deputy communications director, Omar's removal from the Foreign Affairs Committee only served to highlight her office's work on foreign policy issues.

If anything, it may have just given her team a bigger megaphone.

"This is a priority for her. She has a lived experience that we have raised, she has an important perspective. And we will keep speaking out," Rogers said.