UK

Iraqi Kurdish journalist facing deportation fears being killed if sent home

Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab told MEE he faces retribution over his reporting in Iraq's Kurdistan region if he is removed from UK

Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab attends a demonstration against Kurdish Prime Minister Masrour Barzani outside Chatham House in London in April 2022 (Twitter)

By Alex MacDonald
Published date: 29 June 2023 

An Iraqi Kurdish journalist has said he fears being killed in his home country if he is deported from the UK on Saturday as planned.

On Monday, Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab went to the Dallas Court Reporting Centre in Salford, Manchester, where he was making a regular visit as is required of him while his asylum claim is processed.

He was then detained and told he would be deported to Jordan on 1 July, and from there onto neighbouring Iraq.

Zorab spoke to Middle East Eye on a Nokia phone from Brook House immigration removal centre in London, after his smartphone was taken off him by security officials, and said he was in a "terrible situation", terrified of being returned to northern Iraq.

"I would be persecuted, I would be killed, I would be imprisoned. Killing, kidnapping, any kind of punishment," he said.

As a reporter for numerous Kurdish and English-language publications, including Ekurd and the Word newspaper, he had incurred the wrath of the ruling Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq's northern region and came to the UK for safety in 2019, after receiving numerous death threats.

"I would be persecuted, I would be killed, I would be imprisoned'

- Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab

After an initial application for asylum was rejected in 2020, he appealed the decision through the courts, and was in the process of organising documents for the appeal when he was detained.

Though he made a fresh claim for asylum on Tuesday, while his solicitor has applied for immigration bail to have him released from detention, the uncertainty is taking a terrible toll.

"There is a flight booked for 1 July to remove me. I’m receiving treatment at the moment for health issues. In this condition, it makes me worried about the next steps, what will happen," he said.

"This is a terrible situation, it should not be like this - journalists should be treated like journalists, not like somebody to be removed."

Dangers in Kurdistan

Although Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region has cultivated a reputation for relative openness and stability compared to its southern region, there are still substantial threats to journalists, campaigners and politicians who are critical of the ruling establishment, especially the dominant Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

The International Federation of Journalists recorded at least 73 cases of media and rights violations in Iraqi Kurdistan in 2022 and said arbitrary arrests and attacks by security forces were a regular occurrence. Iraq as a whole is ranked 167 out of 180 countries for media freedom by Reporters Without Borders, with reporters facing a constant threat of violence, kidnapping and imprisonment.

'Journalists are killed in the KRG, journalists are kidnapped in the KRG'

- Ghazi Ghareeb Zorab

"Journalists are killed in the KRG, journalists are kidnapped in the KRG, they are imprisoned because of what they say against the government and what they say against the KDP and PUK," said Zorab.

He said he had been outspoken about the “brutality of the Kurdish political parties" both in Iraq and internationally. He had used a visa to travel to the UK for a conference where he had criticised the state of human rights in his homeland in 2019.

Upon returning to the Kurdistan region, he received multiple death threats and so quickly returned on that same visa to the UK, where he has remained ever since.

In the UK he has taken part in numerous campaigns for the rights of political prisoners in Iraqi Kurdistan and justice for murdered journalists like Sardasht Osman, who was found shot dead in Mosul in 2010 after reportedly receiving threats to stop writing damaging reports about KRG officials.

In 2022, Zorab was part of a protest outside the Chatham House think tank in London where KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani was giving a speech.

He had found the ability to speak out in the UK refreshing.

"[In the KRG] you can’t do this, you can’t be critical of the political parties, speak in public," he explained.

But his current ordeal has, unsurprisingly, soured that mood.

"I was feeling well until the time this happened. This detention is not…there is no good reason to behave like that against a journalist."
'Not so severe'

The UK government's track record on refugees has come under severe criticism in recent years. The ruling Conservative Party has attempted to implement legislation forcibly removing refugees arriving by "illegal" means such as crossing the English Channel in small boats from France, a policy denounced as "obscene" by rights groups.

This is combined with a backlog of asylum claims that has led to asylum seekers being placed on what have been branded "floating prisons" off the coast of the UK.

A letter leaked to the Guardian last month suggested that 20,000 Iranian and Iraq asylum applicants were to have their claims fast-tracked in an attempt by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to clear up the backlog of 92,601 asylum cases submitted before June 2022.

Poland-Belarus: Iraqi Kurdish refugees reject offer to return to hardship at home

Read More »

More than 51,661 Iraqis have applied for asylum in the UK since the 2003 invasion that overthrew longtime ruler Saddam Hussein. Of those, more than 6,000 arrived in 2022.

However, the majority of asylum claims by Iraqis have been refused, with only a fifth being granted some form of leave to remain in the country and one tenth given refugee status.

Despite repeated warnings from rights groups about routine torture, attacks by armed groups and state repression, the government's official humanitarian situation report on Iraq states that "in general, the humanitarian situation in Iraq is not so severe that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk that conditions amount to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment" and that there are "parts of the country where it will be reasonable for a person to relocate".

In the past three years, thousands of Kurds have left the Middle East, comprising the largest single ethnic group during the 2021 migrant "crisis" that developed on the borders of Europe.

Kurdish migrants - primarily from Iraq - ended up congregating in huge numbers on the Poland-Belarus borders, enduring freezing conditions after travel agencies in Iraqi Kurdistan began offering package deals to Belarus.

The UK's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in a statement expressed "grave concern" over Zorab's deportation.

"If returned to Iraq, the NUJ believes the UK government will be facilitating the persecution of Zorab and putting his life at risk, and urges the Home Office to urgently reconsider this case in light of the safety risks posed to him because of his work as a journalist," said the statement.

India: Dalit journalists give a voice to the marginalized

Adil Bhat in New Delhi
06/29/2023June 29, 2023

India's 300 million Dalits are largely unrepresented in mainstream media. But Dalit journalists are changing that with news platforms dedicated to telling their stories.

Meena Kotwal runs a Dalit news platform with a team of 14 journalists

Image: Adil Bhat


Meena Kotwal comes from a family of manual laborers and grew up in a Dalit neighborhood in the Indian capital of New Delhi.

She became a journalist and worked for several mainstream media outlets. However, her experiences as a young journalist made her realize that a major part of Indian society was being overlooked.

"I realized the burden of my Dalit identity in mainstream Indian newsrooms where rampant caste blindness was normalized," she told DW.

"This gap pushed me to start my own media platform that would tell the stories from the [caste] margins of India," she said.

In 2019, Kotwal launched an online news platform called Mooknayak, which means "leader of the voiceless." Along with 14 journalists coming from diverse social groups in India, Kotwal aims to highlight stories of Dalits and other marginalized groups that go unreported in mainstream media.

The name for the platform was inspired by the architect of India's constitution B.R. Ambedkar. She runs her newsroom on the donations that she receives from crowdfunding. Recently, she secured funding from the Google News Initiative.

The news outlet publishes articles in both Hindi and English for wider reach. They shoot videos for their YouTube channel, aiming to cover stories that others do not, including atrocities and social injustices faced by Dalits.

Kotwal runs her news platform from Pushpa Bhawan, the same Dalit neighborhood in Delhi where she grew up.

India's caste-based newsrooms

The Hindu caste system dates back thousands of years and places around 300 million Dalits at the bottom of a social hierarchy.

The upper castes use the disparaging term "untouchables" to refer to Dalits. While the practice of untouchability in India has since been prohibited by the constitution, Dalits are still subjected to caste-based discrimination and violence.

Ashok Das says he faced discrimination as a Dalit while working in mainstream media

Image: Suresh K Pandey

A report released in October 2022 by Oxfam and the Indian digital news outlet, Newslaundry, revealed the glaring disproportionate representation of Dalits in Indian newsrooms.

According to the report, nearly 88% of journalists in India were from the general category or upper caste in 2019. Today, that percentage remains nearly unchanged.

Another Dalit journalist, Ashoka Das, founded the monthly magazine and news portal Dalit Dastak, which aims to spread awareness about Dalit society through news and mass media.

"The upper-caste gatekeeping is pervasive in Indian institutions, including, judiciary, and academia. Media is no exception here," Das told DW.

His experience as a Dalit journalist in upper-caste-dominated Indian newsrooms made Das realize how his identity created limitations.

"You don't rise above a certain rank. Your promotion is delayed. And this is clearly because of your caste identity," he said.

The challenges for Dalit media

In 2012, Das launched Dalit Dastak to provide a space for Dalit issues that were absent in mainstream media. Since then, the platform has risen in popularity, but faces lingering challenges like finding funding and maintaining a stable team.

Apart from these alternative Dalit media outlets, there is an emergence of other media initiatives, like Round Table India, and The Dalit Voice, which report extensively on Dalit issues with the purpose of raising awareness and consciousness among the citizens of India.

According to the Oxfam-Newslaundry report, of the 121 newsroom leadership positions examined, including editor-in-chief, managing editor, executive editor, bureau chief and input/output editor, 106 are held by upper-caste journalists.

Only five are held by other castes, and six by journalists from the minority communities. The identity of the remaining four individuals was unknown.

Is India's justice system failing low-caste Dalit women?  03:46

Harish Wankhede, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi whose research focuses on caste in Indian media, said the coverage on Dalit issues by mainstream media is "disturbing."

"The rise of Dalit media as an alternative is very crucial and important to challenge the dominant narrative of the mainstream media that always buries the coverage of Dalit atrocities and Dalit perspectives in their stories," he told DW.

He added that Dalit media faces a considerable challenge in competing with well-funded competitors.

"To compete with mainstream media that is run by the upper caste businessmen, Dalit media is almost insignificant and has a long way to go."

Back in Pushpa Bhawan, Kotwal is busy at her desk thinking of how to arrange financing before the start of the next month. She hopes crowdfunding will come through. Her team is motivated and ready.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn

Adil Bhat TV reporter and correspondent with a special focus on politics, conflict and human-interest stories.

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LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

FOLLOWERS OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

Iraq: Climate change also threatens religious diversity


The case of the Sabei and Mandei, whose lives are linked to the course of rivers: their survival in the country is at risk. A demographic imbalance risks triggering social and political chaos, fuelling conflicts. The role of Turkey and Iran in the exploitation of rivers. The process of desertification has reached 70% of Iraqi territory.

Baghdad (AsiaNews) - Drought, sandstorms, a crisis in the agricultural sector: climate change is hitting Iraq particularly hard, a nation where the process of desertification has now reached 70% of the territory.

However, global warming is also having an impact on the demographic balance and distribution of the Arab country's population, especially the Sabeans and Mandaeans whose lives are closely linked to the course of the rivers, who are increasingly forced to migrate internally or flee abroad, substantially - and perhaps irreversibly - changing their population.

Several Iraqi government agencies have recently raised the alarm against this further threat linked to the global change (and overheating) of climate and temperatures, which have never been so high, resulting in rivers drying up, lack of rain and dust storms.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) notes that 'rising temperatures, low rainfall, salinity, successive sand and dust storms' are 'challenges' facing the country that will 'adversely affect food supplies, water, social security and health'.

There are several factors at play, not least of which is the demographics of a nation made up of different ethnic groups and religions, often at odds with each other. Desertification and rising temperatures have pushed several communities to abandon rural areas and move to urban centres, because the fields have become parched and unusable for sowing and harvesting.

This is a paradox for ancient Mesopotamia, considered in the distant past the 'fertile crescent' thanks to the course of its two main rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Those who suffer most from the upheavals are the weaker sections of the population, particularly the Sabeans and Mandeans, who have already been subjected to persecution and violence in recent decades. These two communities, in fact, are famous for celebrating rituals - above all baptism, which holds great significance and is a pillar of worship and entry into the community - along the banks of rivers.

Sabei and Mandei, the experts explain, are closely connected to rivers, their rituals are celebrated and are linked to fresh water, but they are continually regressing to the point of forcing populations to migrate.

The emergency also extends to the marshy areas in southern Iraq, which are considered among the most important for habitat and biodiversity in all of western Asia (and the Middle East), as well as being a Unesco World Heritage Site.

The experts are therefore appealing to government authorities to take action to deal with an emergency that is as much a climate emergency as it is a demographic, environmental and social one, as well as having a strong impact on the economy.

At the same time, there is also an appeal to the communities themselves, starting with the Sabeans and Mandeans, who will be the first to find forms of 'adaptation' to an evolving reality, to seek new inland areas that are suitable for relocation, safeguarding as much as possible their cults and traditions.

On the international front, there is finally a call to neighbouring nations such as Turkey and Iran whose policies strongly affect Iraq's water resources.

Pressure and intervention are needed on the governments of Tehran (which is also grappling with a 'water war' with Afghanistan) and Ankara to increase the release of water and stop the construction of new dams, now dozens of which are scattered along the course of the rivers, without taking into account the balance between different needs.

After all, the demographic balance is functional to the political and social balance; its disruption will end up generating - or fuelling - chaos in the region, with further wars and migrations.

 

Texas heat wave invigorates calls for worker heat protections

RACHEL FRAZIN

Updated June 29, 2023

When he works at his job as a painter in Texas’s extreme heat, Maynor Alvarez can feel the toll the weather takes on him.

He and his colleagues have suffered symptoms from cramps to headaches, feeling like they’re going to throw up. He’s felt his heart racing and needed to take breaks.

“All of us who have worked outside have experienced this heat exhaustion,” he told The Hill in an interview conducted in Spanish.

Ultimately, Alvarez said, whether he’s allowed a break may be up to a site’s foreman. He said there have been instances where he’s tried to pause and ends up getting sent home — losing a large portion of the day’s pay.

There are no national rules that require employers to give workers like Alvarez breaks because of the heat, and only a few states have regulations of their own.

An ongoing heat wave, which has sent temperatures in Texas into the triple digits, is fueling calls from advocates and others for worker protections, especially as climate change is expected to exacerbate such conditions in the years to come.

Exposure to extreme heat can cause heat stroke, heat exhaustion and cramps, according to The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The institute has also said that people who work outside in industries like agriculture or construction are susceptible to severe illness or death from heat stress.

However, federal regulations could be years away, and the Lone Star State recently passed a bill that could strip what few local protections exist within its borders.

“It’s unconscionable that Texas would strip labor protections from workers as they face record-setting temperatures,” tweeted Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) last week.

“Workers deserve protection from extreme heat which is now more common due to climate change,” added the congressman, who is the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee and former chairman of the Progressive Caucus.

The Biden administration has publicly endorsed national rules aimed at preventing heat-related illnesses in the workplace — saying nearly two years ago that it planned to develop a rule aimed at preventing occupational heat illness and death.

And while the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an October 2021 “advanced notice” that it would propose a rule, that hasn’t happened yet.

Juley Fulcher, a worker health and safety advocate at Public Citizen, which has pushed for national standards, said her organization had hoped that a rule could be finalized before the end of Biden’s first term. But now she said she doesn’t think there is enough time, and if Biden’s not reelected, the next administration may not continue the process.

“We have been pushing all along for them to move faster than that,” she said. “Anything can happen in elections, and obviously if a different administration decides to shelve this rulemaking … it could just stop in its tracks for another four to eight years.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA, did not respond to questions from The Hill about the timeline.

A spokesperson for the Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA, provided The Hill with a written statement after publication saying that the safety agency “know[s] that extreme heat is a long-term problem and recognize[s] the urgency to address its immediate impacts.”

The statement, provided by spokesperson Victoria Godinez, notes that OSHA is continuing to work toward a potential heat illness standard and plans to hold Small Business Advocacy Review Panel meetings this summer, the next step in the standard development process.

The statement did not answer The Hill’s questions about when a rule might be proposed or finalized. It did note that other OSHA standards, including those related to sanitation and medical services, may provide some protections for people who work in hot environments.

Meanwhile, Texas, which has so far experienced the brunt of a heat wave that could shift eastward, does not have statewide protections. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) recently signed a bill that takes power away from cities and therefore could wipe out heat protections for workers in Dallas and Austin.

The move was sharply critiqued by labor advocates.

“We know that rest breaks save lives,” said Daniela Hernandez, state legislative coordinator at Workers Defense Project.

“We are concerned that with the rollback of these … very few protections that they have, we’re going to see more workers passing out at job sites from heat exhaustion and even potentially dying,” Hernandez said.

But, in a written statement shared with The Hill, Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris stressed the state’s commitment to safety.

“Ensuring the safety of Texans is a top priority as our state experiences high summer heat,” he said, adding that the law will “not inhibit people from taking water breaks.”

Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers union, said that Texas’s actions reinforce the need for the federal government to act.

“The recent actions of Gov. Greg Abbott to unilaterally dismantle the protections for outdoor workers that Texas did have just shows how important it is to have a federal standard to protect workers even in places where the state governments are adopting anti-worker policies that put workers’ lives at risk,” he said.

Meanwhile, Alvarez said the lack of government actions to protect him from the heat is evidence that the people in power lack concern for workers like him.

“It’s disappointing that the laws of a First-World country are so outdated for workers,” he said.

— Updated at 4:33 p.m. June 29

Three French airports paralyzed by strike over working conditions


Protesters attend a demonstration against the French government’s pension reform plan, as part of the eighth day of national strike and protests, in Escaudoeuvres, France, on March 15, 2023. (Reuters)

AFP, Paris

Published: 29 June ,2023

France’s civil air authority said Thursday it had ordered airlines to cancel flights to and from three airports because of a strike by air traffic controllers.

The airports include Beauvais - the main French hub for Irish carrier Ryanair and other budget airlines - as well as Brest, in the far west of the country, and Carcassonne, in the south.

The DGAC air authority had asked Wednesday for half the Beauvais flights to be canceled, but Thursday called for a complete grounding of planes “given the widespread support for the strike seen at air traffic controller unions in Beauvais, Brest and Carcassonne.”

The strike, over working conditions, follows sporadic stoppages by air traffic controllers seen between March and May in protest against the government’s reform of the French pensions system.

Thursday’s strike did not affect the main French airports, the DGAC said, or carriers flying over France.

Beauvais, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Paris, is France’s 10th busiest airport with 4.6 million passengers in 2022.

19 progressive Democrats call for US to block Israel from Visa Waiver Program

Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar sign on to letter spearheaded by Rep. Jonathan Jackson accusing Israel of discriminating against Arabs at airport

By RON KAMPEAS

29 June 2023

Passengers at the arrival hall in Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv on February 6, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Nineteen progressive Democrats in US Congress urged the departments of State and Homeland Security to keep Israel from joining a coveted program that would enable its citizens to travel to the United States without a visa, saying Israel profiles Muslim, Arab and particularly Palestinian Americans.

The letter sent Tuesday to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is the latest salvo in Congress over Israel’s long-standing hopes of getting into the Visa Waiver Program. Last week, 65 US senators urged Israel’s rapid entry into the program, while in May, 14 US senators urged that Israel enter only if it complies with all of the program’s provisions.

Currently, Israelis who do not hold citizenship in any of the 40 countries in the waiver program must apply for permission to travel to the United States, a process that typically results in a visa but can be extensive.

“Arab Americans, particularly Palestinian Americans, and those that have advocated on behalf of the Palestinian people routinely face discrimination, harassment, and denial when traveling to and from Israel and the” West Bank, the letter, spearheaded by Rep. Jonathan Jackson, the son of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, says. The waiver program, which currently has 40 participating countries, bans profiling based on ethnicity, religion or national origin.

“American citizens are frequently detained and questioned for hours, subjected to invasive searches of their personal electronic devices, and arbitrarily denied entry,” the letter says. “This same harassment often occurs as these same American citizens are departing from Israel on their return to the US.”

Two of the letter’s signatories, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, are cited in the letter as examples of Muslim Americans who have been denied entry because of their background. Tlaib is Palestinian American; Omar is a Somali American.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, right, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, at a news conference, August 19, 2019 at the State Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota, after their planned trip to Jerusalem and the West Bank was blocked by Israel. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

“Both Representative Rashida Tlaib and Representative Ilhan Omar have previously been barred by Israel from entering for a planned visit to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the letter said. “The extraordinary decision by Israel to prevent democratically elected representatives from entering the country makes plain Israel’s enforcement of discrimination against political views at the border and rejection of the democratic value of freedom of speech.”

Tlaib in 2019 sought to lead a group of lawmakers on a tour of Israel and the West Bank to counter a similar biennial tour organized by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Israel’s government, under pressure from then-president Donald Trump, denied them entry. That sparked a backlash from Jewish groups, including AIPAC, who said it was untoward for Israel to ban entry to elected officials.

A number of Biden administration officials, chief among them Tom Nides, the soon-to-depart ambassador to Israel, have been lobbying intensely for Israel’s entry into the waiver program and have proposed a compromise whereby Israel would ease some of its restrictions.

That’s not enough for Arab American groups, and Jackson unveiled the letter on Wednesday in a Zoom meeting convened by the Arab American Institute.

“We do believe in measuring human rights by one yardstick,” Jackson told the call. “That’s a core principle that we have, as it relates to the visa waiver program. All American citizens have to be treated equally and fairly. That’s nonnegotiable.”

Other signatories include Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, who is Jewish, and who is chief deputy whip of the Democrats in the House; and Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a senior whip and the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

A number of centrist and right-wing pro-Israel groups, led by AIPAC, are pressing for Israel’s accelerated entry into the waiver program. Liberal Jewish Middle East policy groups like J Street and Americans for Peace Now also back entry into the program, but only if Israel fully complies with its provisions.

Amazon Reportedly Facing Big Antitrust Suit From Lina Khan's FTC

The FTC chair, who has led the agency to file several suits against Amazon, is reportedly gearing up for a big lawsuit.

David LumbMobile Reporter

David Lumb is a mobile reporter covering how on-the-go gadgets like phones, tablets and smartwatches change our lives. Over the last decade, he's reviewed phones for TechRadar as well as covered tech, gaming, and culture for Engadget, Popular Mechanics, NBC Asian America, Increment, Fast Company and others. As a true Californian, he lives for coffee, beaches and burritos.

Expertisesmartphones, smartwatches, tablets, telecom industry, mobile semiconductors, mobile gaming

See full bio

David Lumb

June 29, 2023

FTC chair Lina Khan.

Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images

The Federal Trade Commission under chair Lina Khan is gearing up to file a "far-reaching" antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, Bloomberg reported Thursday. 

The FTC is expected to file the suit in the coming weeks, which sources tell Bloomberg will allege the tech giant pressures online merchants to use its in-house logistics service by rewarding those who do use it and punishing those who don't. 

News of the potential FTC suit comes just two weeks before Amazon Prime Day, with third-party retailers using its marketplace also able to tap into the Prime Day sales.

Khan has been an outspoken advocate for antitrust enforcement of Big Tech since her appointment as FTC chair in mid-2021. As she outlined in her vision for the agency's consumer protection mission, the FTC would be taking "a holistic approach to identifying harms" that attacked root causes of corporate behaviors that negatively affected consumers. 

Despite Amazon accusing Khan of bias for publishing a widely cited essay (PDF) about the tech company and antitrust while at Yale Law School, she has guided the agency to file several consumer protection lawsuits against Amazon since assuming her role at the FTC. 

In its consumer protection capacity, Khan's FTC has also scrutinized Amazon's acquisitions and mergers, like when it sought to buy iRobot, the maker of Roomba robot vacuums, for $1.7 billion last September -- a deal that still hasn't cleared regulators. Most recently, the agency sued Amazon for signing customers up for Prime memberships without their consent, with Khan elaborating in a tweet that the company intentionally obstructed consumers from canceling. 

The FTC declined to comment. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.

First published on June 29, 2023

Belarusian Prosecutor Seeks 10 Years In Prison For Son Of Former Presidential Hopeful Babaryka

Eduard Babaryka, who along with his father was arrested in June 2020, went on trial on May 22. He rejects all charges as politically motivated.

June 29, 2023
By RFE/RL's Belarus Service

MINSK -- The prosecutor in a high-profile trial in Minsk has asked a court to convict and sentence to 10 years in prison Eduard Babaryka, the son of former would-be Belarusian presidential candidate Viktar Babaryka, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2021.

Eduard Babaryka was a member of his father's election campaign staff when the two were arrested two months before the August 2020 presidential vote and Viktar Babaryka was unable to officially register as a presidential candidate.

Vyasna (Spring) human rights group says Prosecutor Alyaksandr Karol on June 28 asked the Minsk regional court to find Eduard Babaryka guilty of all charges, including tax evasion, money laundering, assisting in the organizing of mass disorder, and inciting hatred, adding that the defendant must be handed a 10-year prison term.

Judge Uladzimer Areshka is expected to pronounce the verdict and sentence on July 5, Vyasna said.

Eduard Babaryka, who along with his father was arrested in June 2020, went on trial on May 22. He rejects all charges as politically motivated.

SEE ALSO:
Africa Or Death? Prigozhin Unlikely To Remain In Belarus For Long

In July 2021, the 59-year-old Viktar Babaryka, the former head of the Russian-owned Belgazprombank, was sentenced to 14 years in prison on charges of bribe-taking and money laundering that he and his supporters have called political retribution for challenging authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

Last month, Telegram channel Rabochy Rukh (Labor Movement) cited sources as saying Viktar Babaryka was rushed from a penal colony to a hospital in the northern city of Navapolatsk with a collapsed lung and signs of multiple beatings. His exact whereabouts have not been known since late April.

Lukashenka was declared the victor of the August 2020 election, triggering protests by tens of thousands of Belarusians who say the balloting was rigged. The demonstrations lasted for months as Belarusians demanded Lukashenka, in power since 1994, step down and hold fresh elections.

SEE ALSO:
Belarusian Journalist Goes On Trial On Extremism Charge Amid Crackdown

At Lukashenka's direction, security officials cracked down hard on demonstrators, arresting thousands and pushing most leading opposition figures out of the country.

Several protesters were killed in the violence, and rights organizations say there is credible evidence of torture being used against some of those detained.

Lukashenka denies voter fraud and has refused to negotiate with the opposition led by Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who supporters say actually won the August 2020 election.

The European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize Lukashenka, 68, as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have slapped him and senior Belarusian officials with sanctions in response to the "falsification" of the vote and postelection crackdown.

Two Jailed Iranian Journalists Awarded Golden Pen of Freedom
JUNE 29, 2023

Elahe Mohammadi and Niloofar Hamedi, two journalists jailed in Iran over their coverage of Mahsa Amini’s death, have been awarded the World Association of News Publishers’ 2023 Golden Pen of Freedom

Elahe Mohammadi and Niloofar Hamedi, two journalists jailed in Iran over their coverage of Mahsa Amini’s death, have been awarded the World Association of News Publishers’ 2023 Golden Pen of Freedom.

The 22-year-old Amini died while in police custody in September last year after she had been detained for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic’s strict headscarf rules. Her death sparked months of nationwide protests against Iran’s clerical establishment.

The security forces cracked down hard on the women-led protest movement, killing more than 520 people during demonstrations and unlawfully detaining over 20,000 others, including dozens of journalists, activists say. Following biased trials, the judiciary has handed down stiff sentences, including the death penalty, to protesters.

Martha Ramos, president of the World Editors Forum, announced the 2023 Golden Pen of Freedom award on June 28, during the 2023 World News Media Congress in Taipei, Taiwan, saying it recognizes the bravery and determination “of two courageous young women whose journalism kept sight of truth as the Iranian regime attempted to rewrite history.”

“What both women were doing is precisely their job as journalists,” Ramos said. “The Iranian people will not remain in a state of denial or servitude to tyrants, totalitarians and those who deny basic human dignity.”

The Golden Pen of Freedom recognizes individuals or organizations that have made an outstanding contribution to the defense and promotion of press freedom.

Mohammadi and Hamedi went on trial last month on charges including collaborating with the "hostile" government of the United States, colluding to commit crimes against national security, and engaging in propaganda activities against the regime. The charges could carry the death penalty.

Human rights groups and media freedom watchdogs have condemned the arrest and prosecution of Mohammadi and Hamedi, as well as the Islamic Republic’s ongoing clampdown on dissent and the media.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, sued for stealing private data

Written by Sanjana Shankar
June 29, 2023

A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed against OpenAI

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, has landed in legal trouble.The company is being sued for stealing and misusing vast amounts of sensitive user information from the internet without the "consent" of the users. The allegation is that the stolen data is being used to train AI tools.A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed against OpenAI in a California federal court.

The company is accused of stealing "private" information from millions

According to CNN, the lawsuit alleges that OpenAI products use "stolen private information, including personally identifiable information, from hundreds of millions" of users including "children of all ages" without "informed consent or knowledge."The company is claimed to have stolen "essentially every piece of data exchanged on the internet."The charges have been pressed by Clarkson, a law firm in California.

'OpenAI put everyone in a zone of risk that's incalculable'

"By collecting previously obscure personal data of millions and misappropriating it to develop a volatile, untested technology, OpenAI put everyone in a zone of risk that is incalculable-but unacceptable by any measure of responsible data protection and use," said Timothy Giordano, from Clarkson, to CNN.

Microsoft has also been mentioned as defendant in the lawsuit

The filed complaint, which runs about 160 pages long, claims that the data extraction happened at an "unprecedented scale." It further accuses OpenAI of risking "civilizational collapse."Microsoft, who is a key partner of OpenAI, has also been mentioned as a defendant in the lawsuit.Till now, neither OpenAI nor Microsoft have responded to the allegations.

UK

Staffordshire earthquake causes houses to shake

The epicentre was 7.3km below the village of Tean, according to the British Geological Survey

Aerial view of the Hanley area in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. Alamy Stock

Gillian Duncan

Jun 29, 202

People in Staffordshire described how their houses rumbled and shook after the area was hit by a 3.3-magnitude earthquake on Wednesday.

The epicentre was 7.3km below the village of Tean near Stoke, according to the British Geological Survey (BGS).

It is the largest of 21 earthquakes to hit the UK in the past two months, beating two 1.8-magnitude tremors felt on the Isle of Mull in May.

But it falls some way short of the record earthquake in the UK, which the BGS records as a 6.1-magnitude tremor in the North Sea, about 120km north-east of Great Yarmouth, on June 7, 1931.

Filey felt the strongest effects of that earthquake, resulting in the rotation of a church spire. It was, however, felt as far away as Surrey, Norway, Denmark and Germany.

The BGS said it had received reports from the area on Wednesday night, mainly from within 20km of the epicentre, describing "an initial rumbling, then a bang" with what "felt more like a shunt, like something had hit something".

One resident of the area said he heard a “tiny rumble” that got bigger.

“Was using my computer and heard a tiny rumble sound that got bigger and a sudden shaking under my feet. Its either [an] earthquake or a HUGE explosion. It felt like a small quake,” he wrote on Twitter.

Local councillor for the area, David Williams, said “quite a few people” felt it.

Writing on Twitter, he said: “Looks like quite a lot of reports coming in,” he added. “18km SE of the city.”

Mark Begg, 30, said he was at home in Uttoxeter when he felt "a very large shake".

He said he checked "around the house to see if I could see anything" and "after noticing there were no signs of damage I concluded it was most likely a mini earthquake".

Tom, 38, in Cheadle, Staffordshire, said: "I was sitting watching an episode of Only Connect with my wife on YouTube and as we opened another bottle of wine the whole house shook.

"I thought either one of the children had fallen out of bed or something else had happened."

The BGS says it detects and locates between 200 and 300 earthquakes in the UK each year.

Between 20 and 30 earthquakes are felt by people every year, while the others are recorded only by sensitive instruments.

Experts say earthquakes below a magnitude of 2 can only be detected by instruments, while anything from 2 to 2.9 may cause hanging objects to swing.

Anything between the magnitude of 3 and 3.9 creates tremors that are comparable to the vibrations of a passing lorry.

Larger quakes which register between 4 and 4.9 may break windows or cause small or unstable objects to fall.