Monday, January 23, 2023

Interview
Friend of Satan: how Lucien Greaves and his Satanic Temple are fighting the religious right


Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves: ‘Right now we have a minority, religious theocratic movement, so entrenched in politics and getting away with whatever they want.’ 

They have protested against a homophobic church and opposed prayer in classrooms. Now this minority religion is defending the right to abortion

Adam Gabbatt
@adamgabbattWed 4 Jan 2023 

A statue of Baphomet – a pagan idol used in popular culture as a representation of the devil, with the head, horns and feet of a goat, the torso of a man and the wings of an angel – is the centrepiece of the Satanic Temple’s headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts.

More than 8ft (2.4 metres) tall, jet black and altogether unnerving, Baphomet serves as a reminder of what brought the Satanic Temple to fame. In 2013, the group, which is acknowledged as a religion by the US government, responded to the installation of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capitol building – seemingly a flagrant abuse of the US constitution’s separation of church and state – by demanding that its own Baphomet statue also be positioned in the grounds. According to the first amendment, which protects freedom of religion, public spaces should be open to all religions or none, it argued.

It turned out that Republican politicians did not want a big statue of a goat-headed pagan deity on capitol grounds. Amid lawsuits, the Oklahoma supreme court eventually ordered that the Ten Commandments monument should be removed.

The tactic, with its wry and anarchic undertones, is typical of the Satanic Temple’s battle against the religious right in the US. In the decade since the spat over the statue, the Temple has tackled prayer in classrooms, religious holiday displays and the distribution of Bibles in schools.

Now, it is taking on another fundamental issue: the right to abortion.

The overturning of Roe v Wade last June opened the door for more than half of US states to effectively ban abortion or restrict access to it, horrifying supporters of reproductive rights. The Satanic Temple – and many other observers – believe the decision of the supreme court was made on the basis of religion: specifically the extreme form of Christianity that has come to dominate Republican politics in the US.

The Temple has “seven fundamental tenets”, one of which states: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.” This, it believes, offers a way around these draconian new laws. It is arguing that its members are exempt from bans or restrictions on abortion, due to their right to a “Satanic Temple religious abortion ritual”, more of which later. With lawsuits already filed in Indiana, Idaho, Texas and Missouri, the Satanic Temple is about to find out whether US courts agree.

Lucien Greaves in Hail Satan?, a documentary about the Satanic Temple. 
Photograph: Magnolia Pictures

Legal battles are long-running, expensive and frustrating for people desperate for immediate change. But Lucien Greaves, who co-founded the Satanic Temple in 2012, points to the success the Republican party has had in overturning Roe v Wade – a decision brought before the court through decades of lobbying and legislating.


“I get messages from people denigrating us for taking legal action to assert our rights, saying: ‘You can’t change the system from within the system,’” Greaves says.

“And I keep asking them: ‘What the fuck do you think you just saw happen? That’s what they just did.’”

Tall, slim, pale and dressed in black, Greaves is a fitting frontman for a group that is regularly demonised by its Christian opponents. A leather strap wrapped around his wrist, his thin blond ponytail tied up with black bands, he could be in one of the heavy metal bands that terrified neurotic parents in the 1980s and 90s.

“We have to play the long game,” Greaves says. “They spent generations doing this.”

Satanists don’t believe in Satan in a literal, demonic sense, Greaves explains, but rather as a symbol of rebellion and opposition to authoritarianism. According to the Satanic Temple’s website: “To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions.”


The Satanic Temple held its first public activity in January 2013, and a decade on it has more than 700,000 members, with congregations in 24 states and six countries, including the UK, Germany and Finland.
The Satanic Temple stands out among Salem’s traditional cream or white-painted buildings. 

The organisation is recognised by the US Internal Revenue Service as a “church or a convention or association of churches” and, as such, it is able to highlight, and attempt to tackle, the disparity in how Christianity is treated compared with other religious groups in the US.

“Right now, we have a minority religious theocratic movement, so entrenched in politics and getting away with whatever they want,” Greaves says. “Now they’ve got the courts on their side and everything – and they don’t need to bend to the will of the majority.”

He is speaking to the Guardian at the Satanic Temple’s headquarters, a three-storey former funeral parlour ringed by neatly trimmed lawns and topiary. The building is not hard to spot. In a residential area where most of the traditional, clapboard homes are cream or white, it is painted black.

The interior matches the gothic exterior. The walls are covered with dark, velvety wallpaper, and daylight is shut out by floor-length crimson curtains. Baphomet lurks in one room, ready to be summoned once more. A gift shop sells “Friend of Satan” mugs, “Hail Satan” T-shirts, and “Satanic Temple official hot sauce”, which comes in four flavours and costs $12 (£10) a bottle. Upstairs, a chandelier-lit throne room features grand mahogany chairs flanked by Norse helmets. The space is also available as a wedding venue, and newlyweds can spend the night in a vampiric-looking bedroom suite.

The statue of Baphomet is now housed in the Satanic Temple. 

Greaves, who uses a pseudonym as a result of threats, somewhat reluctantly became the Satanic Temple’s spokesperson in 2013, the year after it was founded. The organisation quickly became known for its anarchic activities. That same year, it praised the governor of Florida for having signed a bill allowing students to lead prayer at school assemblies. The decision, the Temple said, was exciting – “because now our Satanic children could pray to Satan in school”. Faced with the threat of litigation from civil rights organisations, it is unclear if any school districts ever took up the student-led prayer option.

That same year, the group held a mocking “pink mass” to protest against the notoriously homophobic Westboro Baptist Church, and specifically its founder, Fred Phelps. The mass featured two men kissing over the grave of Phelps’ mother.

In 2016, in response to hundreds of schools hosting after-class Bible study groups (mostly promoted by the Good News Club, a weekly Christian programme for children), the group announced it would offer its own after-school Satan clubs. The clubs, which are “designed to promote intellectual and emotional development”, are still around: last year there was much purse-clutching when a school in Ohio gave the go-ahead for an After School Satan club.

In recent years, though, the Temple has moved beyond physical stunts, and into the courtroom, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal efforts to secure abortion rights, ensure the right to free speech and protect children from abuse.

The gallery space at the Satanic Temple.

“It’s getting really frustrating now with the overturn of Roe v Wade, when people are still treating us not like we’re a minority religion – which we are – but more like, we’re just this kind of clever tactic that may or may not work,” Greaves says.

“That gets to be really tedious, because I think people aren’t terribly invested in the outcomes of the Satanic Temple’s lawsuits. And it shows that they don’t understand that the outcomes of what the Satanic Temple is doing have ramifications for everybody: all minority religious organisations, all different types of viewpoint positions that might be outside the Christian nationalist perspective.”

In recent years, Republicans have ushered in a wave of discriminatory, pro-Christian legislation in states across the country. Conservatives have targeted LGBTQ+ people, in particular, with efforts to prevent transgender people using certain bathrooms, and to prevent LGBTQ+ couples from adopting children. Many of these bills are lifted from model legislation drafted by Christian lobbying organisations under an effort known as “Project Blitz”.

It is this religious crusade that ultimately resulted in the supreme court’s 6-3 conservative majority overturning Roe v Wade, with its Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which held that the constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion.

Inside the Satanic Temple. 


That is where the Satanic Temple is hoping to find some leeway. It has insisted that its members do have a religious right to receive abortions, as part of its “Satanic abortion ritual”. The Temple’s “fundamental tenet” that “one’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone” is a position that contradicts people being denied the right to end a pregnancy.


During the ritual, the person having the abortion looks at their reflection, before taking deep breaths and reciting two of the seven tenets. Once the abortion is complete, the person must recite the “personal affirmation”: “By my body, my blood, by my will, it is done.” The ritual is conceived to serve an “affirmative function of assuring membership that their decision is their own”, the group says, while also offering a kind of counselling effect.

Once someone determines they want to undergo the abortion ritual, the Satanic Temple believes that the state has no right to intervene in what is essentially a religious practice.

“States are passing laws premised on this idea that foetal tissue has personhood, or is a unique and distinct human life. We don’t agree with that position. We believe it’s a religious position, and we don’t believe states have any right to put any impositions on us,” Greaves says.

Opinion polls, and results such as last August’s Kansas ballot – in which a majority voted in favour of keeping abortion legal in the state – show that most Americans think abortion should be legal, and the Roe v Wade decision sparked protests across the country. This might have buoyed those involved, but Greaves – speaking in a personal capacity, rather than on behalf of the Satanic Temple – thinks it is unlikely to change the opinions of rightwing politicians and courts.

“You’re not going to wave signs now and shame the Republicans into acting rationally,” he says.

The documentary Hail Satan?, released in 2019, helped increase the Temple’s popularity and membership, but exposure has also brought problems.

In June, the Satanic Temple headquarters was subject to an arson attack . A man wearing a T-shirt that read “God” walked up to the front porch, poured an unknown accelerant over it, then set it on fire. The Satanic Temple’s door cam recorded the whole thing. A man was arrested the same night, and has been charged with arson, destruction of a place of worship and civil rights violation charges. If he was genuinely trying to burn down the building, it was a lamentable effort, but the incident was a reminder of the risks the Satanic Temple faces. As the organisation’s visible figurehead, Greaves is particularly – and literally – in the line of fire.

“I honestly felt like I was committing suicide at the point where I was being the public face of satanism, because I’ve seen people’s lives totally ruined on accusations of satanism,” he says.
Lucien Greaves at the Satanic Temple.

Greaves recently came to the attention of the Sovereign Citizens, a loose group of Americans who do not believe they are under the jurisdiction of the federal government, and are not subject to US law. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the movement is “rooted in racism and antisemitism” and “some sovereign citizens have turned to violence”.

In late 2021, Greaves received a message from the group that informed him he was to be deported from the US.

After finding a Zoom link for a Sovereign Citizens assembly meeting, Greaves gatecrashed it, and managed to derail the meeting almost immediately by taking on a chairman role and calling it to order. “I suppose you’re all wondering why I gathered you here today,” Greaves said, before being told to “Shut your damn mouth,” by a Sovereign Citizen.

Greaves was eventually ejected from the meeting, which bore all the professionalism of a parish council get-together. Soon after, he says, a $100,000 bounty was placed on his head. A notice on the American Herald news site stated Greaves was wanted “dead or alive”, and called him “a domestic and international terrorist”.

People who post death threats in plain sight could seem like harmless cranks, but Greaves points out that plenty of violence has been committed in the name of quackery: “I don’t know how to distinguish what is more and less serious unless somebody actually comes in and does something.” If a person does attack him, Greaves says: “It’s gonna be someone this dumb.”

He is forced to take precautions nowadays. Last year he moved – “very secretly”, he says – and he tries to keep personal details as personal as possible. But he and his fellow satanists are undeterred. The Satanic Temple will keep chipping away at the inroads the Christian right have made. This religion, one of the most curious churches in a country full of them, is in it for the long haul.

“We have a lot of work to do to bring shit back to a reasonable level. And we’re not close to that right now,” Greaves says.

“It’s going to take many years to undo the damage that has been done. But that’s the opposite of an excuse to give up. There’s no excuse to not be engaged right now.”


Photograph: Tony Luong/The Guardian
YO LIBERTARIANS
Lizzo calls for reproductive rights on 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade: 'My body is nobody's business'


Erin Donnelly
Sun, January 22, 2023 

Lizzo is speaking out for reproductive rights in a new Yitty campaign coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling.
 (Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz)

Some six months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June, Lizzo is marking the 50th anniversary of the 1973 landmark ruling legalizing abortion with a new campaign for her shapewear brand, Yitty.

On Sunday, the singer posted a video about the fight for body autonomy, alongside images in which she and a handful of models — all wearing Yitty — speak out on reproductive and trans rights.


"Fifty years later we're still fighting the same fight for reproductive rights," the Grammy winner says in the video, in which she wears an off-white Yitty bra. "We at Yitty are about body autonomy. We don't want to just liberate bodies through clothing; we want to liberate bodies through our voices. We believe that only you should have a say on what you do and how you feel about your body, and you should have access to reproductive health.

"As a brand committed to uplifting all people, we are devastated by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, and we want to highlight these incredible activists and people who are fighting the fight on the front lines," she continued. "Because your body is nobody's business."

One "model" included in the campaign is Chloe, who says she was denied the right to an abortion, ultimately giving birth to a baby who died two days later.


"It's not fair to keep someone pregnant who does not want to be, whose baby has medical issues ... they deserve to have the choice," reads Chloe's quote, while another woman, Macy, addresses being screamed at as she sought out an abortion at age 17.

The Roe v. Wade anniversary, which falls one day after Saturday's March for Life demonstration in Washington, D.C., has also drawn reflections from political figures including Vice President Kamala Harris, who pledged to fight to "protect reproductive freedom," and celebrities like Busy Philipps, who have been outspoken about their own experiences with abortion.


"GET YOUR RELIGION OUT OF OUR BODIES," the actress wrote on Instagram.




 












By Eric Frank Russell. Published June 1951 in Astounding Science Fiction ... All I could get out of him at the finish was 'myob,' whatever that means.”.
My Mother’s Fight For Abortion Access Can Teach Us About Reproductive Justice Today

Felicia Kornbluh
Sat, January 21, 2023 

Three generations apart but together on their stand on abortion, Adelle Thomas, 67 (L), her daughter, Marie Higgins, 47 (center), and her daughter, Catherine Starr, 17 (R), join in the picket line here May 24, 1973, which marched around City Hall. The pickets were protesting Mayor John Poelker's refusal to allow city hospitals to perform abortions, despite two court rulings outlawing Mo.’s anti-abortion laws. 
Credit - Bettmann Archive/ Getty Images

Justice Harry Blackmun published his opinion for the Supreme Court majority in Roe v. Wade 50 years ago on Jan. 22, 1973. Since Justice Blackmun’s ruling was overturned on June 24, 2022, it has been mourned and vilified, far more preciously held (by some) and defiled (by others) than the case whose holding has replaced it, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health. As the results of last November’s midterm elections make clear, Roe—no longer good law but hardly forgotten—continues to remake our politics.

Although Roe continues to be a hyper-visible landmark in our political landscape, there is much we do not know about it. This is a history people committed to reproductive autonomy need to get right as we face the thorny post-Roe future. We must marshal every resource to recover what’s been lost since Dobbs while taking an unlooked-for opportunity to rebuild on more solid foundations for the future of reproductive rights.


Read More: How the Fall of Roe v. Wade Has Changed Dating in the U.S.

For the longest time, all roads led to Roe. This includes the road that winds through my own family history. My late mother, a labor lawyer and volunteer with the National Organization for Women (NOW) named Beatrice Kornbluh Braun, wrote the first version of the law that decriminalized abortion in New York State—almost five years before Roe. Once the state legislature finished amending and passing it, in April 1970, N.Y.’s law was less sweeping than my mother’s draft but still the most liberal state statute on abortion in the United States. (It was liberalized further by the state’s Reproductive Health Act of 2019.)

It allowed people to end their pregnancies through their 24th week, or roughly the end of the second trimester, with no gatekeepers to decide if they deserved access to this medical service. Most remarkably, N.Y.’s law included no residency requirement. As soon as it was implemented, people arrived in N.Y. from every corner of the country seeking safe, legal, and relatively affordable abortion care. This law, a version of my mother’s spade-work, was a model and a launching point for what Justice Blackmun did in Roe.

The first thing we’ve missed about Roe is that it was merely the final scene in a drama whose origins lay far from the U.S. Supreme Court. Its true authors were members of a movement that resembled the movement for abortion rights today, centered on policy change in individual states and localities. Legal historian Stan Katz, who in the years just before Roe, volunteered with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, told me he “never expected the Supreme Court to bail us out.” He believed that the way to secure abortion rights was to change votes in state legislatures and not to pull new constitutional interpretations from the courts—although the movement’s efforts wound up doing both.

Sarah Weddington, one of the two lead lawyers in Roe, was so unconvinced that an abortion-friendly reading of the Constitution was in the offing that she ran for a legislative seat in Texas while waiting for the decision. She introduced a bill much like my mother’s just three days before the Supreme Court ruled in her favor. Now that a raft of far-conservative judicial appointments and the Dobbs ruling have made the federal courts so unfriendly to reproductive rights, advocates should make obsessive study of our predecessors’ state legislature-focused strategies.

The next forgotten dimension of Roe’s past is the degree to which it depended on diverse grassroots activists working across their differences. The foot soldiers who waged local battles to decriminalize abortion didn’t censor their political views, but they learned to focus more on their common goals than on what divided them. My mother was a liberal lawyer who believed that abortion access was a necessary linchpin of women’s rights—to education, employment, and political participation, as well as to personal bodily autonomy. The reproductive rights activist who by coincidence lived next door to her in Manhattan, Puerto Rican physician Helen Rodríguez-Trías, believed reproductive rights could not be separated from questions about racial justice, economic justice, and sovereignty for territories, like Puerto Rico, that were (and still are) under U.S. imperial control.

Dr. Rodríguez-Trías saw the abortion rights struggle as just one part of a larger struggle for reproductive freedom. But she believed it was an integral part of that bigger whole. She advocated abortion rights while also working to improve public hospitals like the one where she worked, Lincoln Hospital, in the South Bronx neighborhood. She cofounded an organization called CESA, the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse, which fought the coercion and lack of informed consent that many Latinas, Black women, young and poor women experienced in the 1960s and 1970s around their decisions to have sterilization surgeries (typically, tubal ligations). For Rodríguez-Trías, the fight against sterilization abuse, too, was at the heart of the struggle for reproductive rights.

From looking at how the law of abortion changed 50 years ago, we also see that the grassroots action of people like my mother and Rodríguez-Trías served a vital role in public education and even changed public opinion. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled in a way that matched a transformation in public opinion – and that transformation was itself a product of popular agitation and legislative campaigns like the one in N.Y. A New York Times newspaper clipping that I found in Justice Blackmun’s papers reports on a finding from the August 1972, edition of the Gallup Poll that “64% of the public and even a majority of Roman Catholics” believed “that the decision to have an abortion should be left solely to the woman and her doctor.” It seems that either Justice Blackmun or his clerks emphasized the data with heavy underlining.

Read More: More People Are Relying on Abortion Funds 6 Months After the Fall of Roe v. Wade

Even the reaction to the N.Y. law helped spur the Supreme Court to act as it did in Roe v. Wade. Immediately after its passage, a Fordham Law School professor named Robert Byrn, an activist in the still-rising movement for the “right to life,” challenged the N.Y. law in court. Byrn, who had served on a commission N.Y. Governor Nelson Rockefeller established to consider reforming the abortion law and would soon submit a “friend of the court” brief in Roe for the National Right to Life Committee, argued that embryos and fetuses above four weeks of gestation should be treated as people who possessed all of the rights of citizens under the U.S. Constitution—the first time such a claim for fetal personhood had been made in American courts. New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, rejected his arguments—and Justice Blackmun’s opinion cited that judgment when he, too, rejected the claim that the rights of gestating beings trumped the privacy rights of pregnant adults in the first two trimesters of a pregnancy. Another artifact I stumbled across in Justice Blackmun’s archives was a copy of an essay from the journal Science News, published in January, 1972, which argued that the ongoing ferment over abortion regulation in places like New York—symbolized by the Byrn challenge and despite improved maternal health and lowered costs for abortion since a version of my mother’s law went into effect—made it “clear that a definitive ruling from the Supreme Court is necessary.”

A half century on, Roe v. Wade is as important as it ever was, even if the Supreme Court majority no longer embraces it as a statement of our constitutional law. As we face the post-Dobbs v. Jackson landscape, it is vital for us to learn the lessons of Roe’s past and repeat what our predecessors got right. Much as they did, advocates and activists today need to fight local and state-level battles before we can restore national rights; we need to work together across gulfs of difference without silencing or marginalizing those differences; and we need to build from the grassroots up to the highest political or legal forums—never expecting the Supreme Court to bail us out.

WHEN PROGRESSIVES RUN CITY HALL
L.A. City Council votes to dramatically expand tenant protections ahead of deadline


Julia Wick
Fri, January 20, 2023

LA City Hall.

With pressure mounting and the clock ticking, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Friday to dramatically expand protections for renters, heading off what advocates had feared could become a wave of evictions.

The vote comes just 11 days before the city's long-standing COVID-19 anti-eviction rules were set to expire. The new policy is expected to go into effect before the Jan. 31 deadline.


Friday's vote underscores the growing political might of the council's progressive bloc, which successfully championed a more aggressive set of policies. The new legislation is also widely viewed as a victory for tenant rights advocates.


The COVID-19 emergency rules were passed amid unprecedented disruption at the start of the pandemic, along with similar measures at other levels of government. But Los Angeles’ anti-eviction protections remained in place even as other measures expired, with local leaders wary of exacerbating homelessness and overcrowding problems that had already reached crisis proportions.

The council's action was preceded by more than two hours of public comment, with dozens of renters elucidating fears and making impassioned pleas to the council to pass a muscular policy before the emergency order sunsets.

"I'm in a wheelchair. I'm 67 years old. And as soon as you guys lift the protections, I'll be out on the street. ... We are human beings and we deserve to live with dignity," Maria Briones told the council, imploring members to pass the legislation.

Numerous opponents also spoke out against the proposal, with some arguing that the soon-to-expire emergency rules had already unduly burdened small landlords and that the new regulations could further harm their ability to stay afloat.

"The city can no longer ignore the needs of landlords or further burden them with the task of solving the city's housing crisis," Valley Industry & Commerce Assn. representative Abby King told the council by phone.

The new policy will establish a minimum threshold for eviction for tenants who fall behind on rent, and require landlords to pay relocation fees in some situations in which a large rent increase would result in the tenant’s displacement.

Landlords will no longer be allowed to evict tenants in any rental property, including single-family homes, unless there was unpaid rent, documented lease violations, owner move-ins or other specific reasons. That provision will go into effect after six months or when a lease expires, whichever comes first.

Some renters, including those in rent-stabilized units, already have “just cause” eviction protections, but making them universal expands the protections to about 400,000 additional units, according to the city's Housing Department.

The new policy will also block evictions until February 2024 for tenants who have unauthorized pets or who added residents who aren’t listed on leases, and create a new timeline for paying rent owed from the emergency period. Tenants would have until Aug. 1 to pay back-rent accumulated between March 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021, and until Feb. 1, 2024, to pay back-rent accumulated between Oct. 1, 2021, and Jan. 31, 2023.

The council also voted to direct city departments to report back within 30 days with recommendations for the establishment of a new relief assistance program for mom-and-pop landlords.

Mayor Karen Bass plans to sign the ordinance in the coming days.

"I want to congratulate our City Council — especially the Chair of the Housing and Homelessness Committee Councilmember Nithya Raman — on passing these important protections, which are crucial to combatting a potential spike in homelessness in our city," Bass said in a statement. "In order to confront this crisis, we must continue [to] get people housed but we also must stop people from becoming homeless in the first place."

The new policy will be particularly significant for tenants who live in apartments that don’t fall under the city’s rent stabilization ordinance, which generally applies only to apartments built before October 1978.

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez — who has described himself as the only tenant on the City Council — at one point during the meeting held up a copy of the two-page lease for his own East Hollywood apartment.

"There's a reason why I'm not afraid. It's because I'm in an RSO unit — I have those protections," Soto-Martínez said, referring to just-cause eviction protections.

What the council was really talking about, Soto-Martínez said, was the question of whom voters had tasked their elected officials with protecting. The answer, he argued, was vulnerable working people at risk of falling into homelessness, and not "corporate landlords."

Soto-Martínez's comments came during a heated back-and-forth about when the expanded just-cause eviction protections should go into effect.

Raising objections about potential unintended negative effects on short-term rentals, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield had fought successfully during a Wednesday committee meeting to have the protections kick in when a lease expires, or after 12 months, whichever comes first, rather than immediately.

That provision was subject to vigorous debate on the council floor Friday, with Blumenfield arguing that the council was "splitting hairs." Other council members contended that the new time frame would leave more tenants vulnerable and create unnecessary confusion, since there is no similar waiting period for rent-stabilized units.

"We are splitting hairs, but these are thousands of people and families," Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said, echoing a point also made by Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson.

A representative from the city's housing department estimated that there were about 80,000 households in the city who've been in their units for less than a year, meaning they wouldn't immediately be covered by the just-cause protections.

The council ultimately settled on a six-month compromise.

Councilmembers John Lee and Traci Park both raised concerns about possible legal problems that the new regulations could create for the city. They and other council members also underscored the burdens faced by small landlords, with several raising fears that they might leave the market altogether.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
THE MAGE IN THE KREMLIN
A Hit French Novel Tries to Explain Putin. Too Well, Some Critics Say.

Constant Méheut
Sat, January 21, 2023 

"The Wizard of the Kremlin" by Giuliano da Empoli, on display in Paris, Jan. 10, 2023
 (Dmitry Kostyukov/The New York Times)

PARIS — There are “two things that Russians require from the state: internal order and external power.”

So says a fictional President Vladimir Putin in “Le Mage du Kremlin,” or “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” a novel exploring the inner workings of his government that has captivated France, winning prizes and selling more than 430,000 copies.

Published shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last February, the novel has become a popular guide for understanding Putin’s motives. It has also turned its Swiss Italian author, Giuliano da Empoli, into a coveted “Kremlinologist,” invited to lunch with the French prime minister and to France’s top morning news show to analyze the war’s developments.

The success has illustrated the continued power of literature in France, where novels have long shaped public debate. Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister, said through a spokesperson that she “really enjoyed his book, which mixes fiction and reality and echoes international current events and the war in Ukraine.”

But in a country where literary hits are a kind of Rorschach test, the novel’s success has also raised concerns about whether it is shaping France’s views on Russia. Its detractors say the book conveys a largely sympathetic portrayal of Putin that may influence policy in a country that is already chastised as too forgiving of the Russian leader.

“The Wizard of the Kremlin,” which at times reads like an essay, is built around a fictionalized account of a powerful longtime Putin aide musing on Western decadence, the U.S.’ goal of bringing Russia to “its knees” and Russians’ preference for a strong leader — typical Kremlin talking points that critics say go unchallenged throughout the pages.

At best, the book’s popularity echoes what Gérard Araud, the former French ambassador to the United States, called “a kind of French fascination with Russia” fueled by a shared history of revolution, empire and cultural masterpieces.

At worst, critics say, it signals lenient views of Putin that are enduring in France and may shape the country’s stance on the war, as reflected in President Emmanuel Macron’s calls not to humiliate Russia.

“The book conveys the clichés of Russian propaganda, with a few small nuances,” said Cécile Vaissié, a political scientist specializing in Russia at Rennes 2 University. “When I see its success, that worries me.”

Dissecting politics was nothing new to da Empoli. A former deputy mayor of Florence, Italy, and adviser to an Italian prime minister, he has already published a dozen political essays in Italian and French, including one on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential run.

But da Empoli wanted to try fiction and had a “fascination” with the way Russian power is projected. So he modeled his debut novel’s narrator on one of the country’s most intriguing figures, Vladislav Surkov.

“The challenge of the book is to take the devil’s point of view,” da Empoli said.

Until recently, Surkov was Putin’s chief ideologist and one of the architects of the extreme centralized control exerted by Putin, earning him a reputation as a puppet master and the title “Putin’s Rasputin.”

“The character’s rather novelistic nature struck me,” said da Empoli, a soft-spoken, restrained 49-year-old who now teaches at Sciences Po university in Paris. He added that he had visited Russia four times and had read numerous essays on the country’s politics and the Putin regime during his research.

The narrator chronicles the inner workings of Putin’s government. He crosses paths with real-life Kremlin players like Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the infamous Wagner mercenary group, with whom he sets up troll farms to spread disinformation and division in the West.

Da Empoli handed in his manuscript to Gallimard, his publisher, two years ago. He said he did not expect much for his first attempt at fiction.

Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The novel, which had long been scheduled for publication in the spring, was one of the first new looks at Putin. It soon became the talk of the town.

“I don’t go to a dinner or a lunch without offering the book,” said Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, a specialist in Russian history who has condemned the war but who has also previously defended Putin. “It’s a key to understanding Putin.”

Hubert Védrine, a former French foreign minister, said that “the word-of-mouth was so good” that he felt compelled to read the novel, which he described as “incredibly credible.”

“The Wizard of the Kremlin” was the fifth bestselling book in France in 2022. It received a prize from the Académie Française and fell short of the Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary award, by only one vote after an extraordinary 14 rounds of voting.

Top politicians and diplomats publicly praised the novel. Édouard Philippe, a former prime minister, hailed it as a great “meditation on power.” Da Empoli was invited on every talk show to analyze the current conflict.

“Circumstances have obviously changed the way the book was received,” said da Empoli, who sees his novel more as political fiction than as a guide to understanding Russia. “I didn’t necessarily expect that.”

He was not the only one surprised.

Several Russia experts have expressed dismay at the novel’s enthusiastic reception. They say the book is mostly indulgent about Putin, portraying him as fighting oligarchs for the good of the people and “putting Russia back on its feet” in the face of Western contempt.

In one passage, the narrator describes the pride of Russians upon learning that Putin had paid a surprise visit to troops fighting in Chechnya on Jan. 1, 2000, his first day as president. “There was a leader in charge again,” he says.

Françoise Thom, a professor of Russian history at the Sorbonne, said these descriptions “completely conceal the sordid dimension of the Putin reality” and are “very close to the Russian propaganda image.”

Vaissié, the political scientist, put it more bluntly. “It’s a bit like Russia Today for Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” she said, referring to the Kremlin-funded television channel and the Paris redoubt of the French literary elite.

Several French diplomats disagreed, arguing that the novel, if anything, is a useful look into the thinking of the Putin government.

“We have to hear this speech, too,” said Sylvie Bermann, a former French ambassador in Moscow. “It doesn’t mean that we agree with it.”

French right-wing groups have long sung Putin’s praises. And prominent intellectuals, like Carrère d’Encausse, have endorsed the Kremlin’s view that the West humiliated Russia after the end of the Cold War.

Under normal circumstances, “The Wizard of the Kremlin” might have fueled a harmless literary quarrel of the sort that periodically grips France.

But not in a time of war.

The arguments over the book are occurring just when divisions persist in Europe over how to deal with Putin. While Eastern European countries like Poland say he must be defeated outright, Western European nations like France have wavered between unequivocal financial and military support of Ukraine and reaching out to Putin.

“This book has become almost a textbook of history and politics for French leaders,” said Alexandre Melnik, a former Russian diplomat who opposes Putin. He pointed to Macron’s remarks that appeared sympathetic to Russia’s grievances.

Three presidential advisers declined to say, or said they did not know, whether Macron had read the novel.

Védrine, the former foreign minister, who has sometimes advised Macron on Russia, acknowledged that if the French president read the book, it would not lead him to adopt an aggressive stance toward Russia. He added that he saw a medium-term benefit to the book’s popularity: making the case for reaching out to Putin, “when it will be acceptable.”

“The Wizard of the Kremlin” was released in Italian this past summer, selling about 20,000 copies and earning praise in Italy as a great novel. Nearly 30 translations have been released or are on their way, including into English, but not into Russian or Ukrainian, so far.

Da Empoli said that his only aim was to write a “credible” novel, nothing more. “The book, once it’s out,” he said, “has its own life.”

© 2023 The New York Times Company
AKA SWAZILAND
Gunmen kill Eswatini opposition politician: spokesman

Sun, January 22, 2023 


Gunmen in Eswatini killed a prominent opposition politician and human rights lawyer at his home, a spokesman told AFP on Sunday, hours after the country's absolute monarch challenged activists opposed to his rule.

Thulani Maseko was shot dead on Saturday night by unknown attackers in Luhleko, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the capital Mbabane, opposition spokesman Sikelela Dlamini said.

He was told that "assassins shot him through the window while he was inside (the) house with his family", he said.

"Details are still scant (and), owing to the trauma his family members are undergoing, they are not yet ready to speak," Dlamini added.

The government sent condolences to the family, saying Maseko's death was a "loss for the nation" and that police were searching for the killers.

Maseko was a leading human rights lawyer and columnist in Eswatini who had a pending court battle with King Mswati III over the monarch's decision to rename the country Eswatini by decree.

The country's name was changed from Swaziland to Eswatini to mark the 50th anniversary of its independence from Britain in 2018.

Maseko's position was that the king had not followed the constitution in the process.

- 'No surprise' -


In 2014, he and the editor of The Nation magazine, Bheki Makhubu, were jailed for contempt of court over articles critical of the government and judiciary.

Maseko was the founder of MSF, a coalition of opposition parties, associations and churches.

His death comes just hours after the king challenged activists fighting to end Africa's last absolute monarchy.

"People should not shed tears and complain about mercenaries killing them," King Mswati had said.

"These people started the violence first but when the state institutes a crackdown on them for their actions, they make a lot of noise blaming King Mswati for bringing in mercenaries," he said.

Last week, the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) alleged that the king had hired mercenaries, mainly white Afrikaners from neighbouring South Africa, to help Eswatini's security forces suppress rising opposition to his regime.

But government spokesman Alpheous Nxumalo said "no hitmen have been hired".

Rights group Freedom Under Law, which operates across southern Africa, pointed a finger at the government.

"Somehow the stunning news that Thulani Maseko has been gunned down in cold blood comes as no surprise," it said in a statement.

"A ceaseless and fearless human-rights lawyer, an outspoken critic of the regime in his beloved Eswatini, Thulani had all too long suffered at the hands of a heedless regime."

- 'Powerful voice' -

"No-one can be misled by the cynical message of condolence put out on behalf of the government," it added.

The US Embassy at Mbabane expressed its "profound sadness" and extended "deepest condolences to Mr. Maseko's family, friends and admirers around the world".

"Eswatini and the world have lost a powerful voice for non violence and human rights," the US Embassy statement added.

King Mswati, who has ruled since 1986, is regularly accused of human rights violations.

The king, who can dissolve parliament, the government and appoint or dismiss judges, also commands the police and army.

In June 2021, pro-democracy protests descended into violence resulting in several deaths.

str-ger/ea/jj


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eswatini

Eswatini officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland (/ˈswɑːzilænd/ SWAH-zee-land; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked country ...

https://www.britannica.com/place/Eswatini

Eswatini, officially Kingdom of Eswatini, Swati Umbuso weSwatini, previously called Kingdom of Swaziland, landlocked country in the eastern flank of South ...

https://www.state.gov/countries-areas/eswatini

The official name of the Kingdom of Swaziland was changed to the Kingdom of Eswatini, or Eswatini, in April 2018. The U.S. and Eswatini have had good bilateral ...

IT WAS SOMEONE WITH THE INITIALS; V.T.
Inside the Supreme Court Inquiry: Seized Phones, Affidavits and Distrust


Jodi Kantor
Sun, January 22, 2023 

The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, on Friday, Jan. 20, 2022. 
(Shuran Huang/The New York Times)

Last spring and summer, employees of the Supreme Court were drawn into an investigation that turned into an uncomfortable awakening.

As the court marshal’s office looked into who had leaked the draft opinion of the decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, law clerks who had secured coveted perches at the top of the judiciary scrambled for legal advice and navigated quandaries including whether to surrender their personal cellphones to investigators.

The “court family” soon realized that its sloppy security might make it impossible to ever identify the culprit: 82 people, in addition to the justices, had access to the draft opinion. “Burn bags” holding sensitive documents headed for destruction sat around for days. Internal doors swung open with numerical codes that were shared widely and went unchanged for months.

Perhaps most painful, some employees found themselves questioning the integrity of the institution they had pledged to serve, according to interviews with almost two dozen current and former employees, former law clerks, advisers to last year’s clerkship class and others close to them, who provided previously undisclosed details about the investigation.

Inside the court, justices are treated with such day-to-day deference that junior aides assist them in putting on their black robes. As staff members were grilled, some grew concerned about the fairness of the inquiry, worried that the nine most powerful people at the court were not being questioned rigorously like everyone else.

The investigation was an attempt by Chief Justice John Roberts to right the institution and its image after a grievous breach and slide in public trust. Instead, it may have lowered confidence inside the court and out.

On Thursday, the court issued a 20-page report disclosing that the marshal’s monthslong search for the leaker had been fruitless, and detailing embarrassing gaps in internal policies and security. While noting that 97 workers had been formally interviewed, the report did not say whether the justices or their spouses had been.

Public reaction was scathing: “Not even a sentence explaining why they were or weren’t questioned,” tweeted Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, a conservative magazine.

A day later, the court was forced to issue a second statement saying that the marshal had in fact conferred with the justices, but on very different terms from others at the institution. Lower-level employees had been formally interrogated, recorded, pressed to sign affidavits denying any involvement and warned that they could lose their jobs if they failed to answer questions fully, according to interviews and the report.

In contrast, conversations with the justices had been a two-way “iterative process” in which they asked as well as answered questions, the marshal, Gail Curley, wrote. She had seen no need for them to sign affidavits, she said.

Instead of putting the matter to rest, Friday’s statement heightened concerns about a double standard for justices.

“They weren’t subjected to the same level of scrutiny,” said one court worker on Friday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the court’s confidentiality rules. “It’s hard to imagine any of them suffering meaningful consequences even if they were implicated in the leak.”

Internal examinations can build or sap an organization’s authority, said Glenn Fine, a former inspector general for the Justice Department who has conducted such inquiries, and more recently, has argued that the court needs a similar figure.

“Leak investigations are a double-edged sword,” Fine said in an interview. A thorough investigation can be a deterrent, but “an investigation that doesn’t solve a leak may embolden more leakers in the future.”

Failing to fully scrutinize the justices “just completely undermines the court’s credibility,” said Mark Zaid, a lawyer who often handles government investigations. “It sends a message of superiority that does not exist under the eyes of the law.”

Besides, “justices have a long history of being the ultimate source of leaks,” Aaron Tang, a law professor and former clerk to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote in an Opinion essay in The New York Times.

In interviews, some employees said the leak and investigation further tainted the atmosphere inside a court that had already grown tense with disagreement. The leak spurred finger pointing, they said, with many conservatives convinced that a liberal had engineered the breach and vice versa. Just as the justices have grown more divided, so has their staff, eroding trust. Voices are more hushed now, the employees said, and doors that used to be open are closed.

Interrogating the Staff

In December 2021, after an early vote by the justices, word of the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization began to circulate in the court. The new conservative supermajority was about to overturn Roe v. Wade, removing a right in force for nearly a half-century. Wrenching for some on the staff and welcome for others, the outcome would have to be closely guarded by the court for six months.

In February, the draft opinion was emailed to a list of 70 clerks and employees; it eventually was seen by a dozen more, the report said. Some employees discussed the results with confidants in the building, and a few later admitted that they told their spouses, according to the report.

But the publication of the full draft opinion in Politico on May 2 was a shock felt almost physically at the court: Protesters roared outside the building, so loud they could be heard from some bathrooms. Over the years, information had occasionally dribbled out about pending decisions. But the court’s opinion was not yet final, and the leak seemed calculated to interfere with deliberations: “a grave assault on the judicial process,” as the marshal’s report would put it.

By the time the chief justice summoned the three dozen clerks for a mandatory meeting about the breach, many of the pedigreed young lawyers were worried. On the internet, accusers on the right were attacking the liberal justices’ clerks, posting names and photos and wild whodunit theories. One clerk had been quoted in a Politico article years before. Another had a master’s degree in gender studies, had written about reproductive rights and was married to a reporter. The tweets went viral, with tens of thousands of likes. (Later the court’s investigators found “nothing to substantiate” those accusations.)

The chief had assigned the investigation to Curley, the marshal, whose best-known task was crying “Oyez, oyez, oyez!” as justices entered the courtroom. She was a respected former Army lawyer, but her division had little of the investigative muscle of other government agencies, no subpoena power and a staff only partly devoted to security. Others on her team dealt with court administrative tasks such as staffing events and handling mail.

But Roberts was a staunch defender of the court’s independence, reluctant to let outsiders interfere. “The Judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs,” he had written months before, “insulates courts from inappropriate political influence and is crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and co-equal branch of government.”

As interviews of clerks began, a dilemma emerged. No one wanted to seem uncooperative, as if they had something to hide. The court’s written code of conduct states that the justices “expect and require complete loyalty from their own law clerks and the clerks of all other Justices.” Rifts between a clerk and his or her justice could have immediate and lasting implications, according to interviews with those who have held the one-year positions as well as advisers to last year’s class. The job rested on intimacy with justices, the ability to channel the bosses’ voices and views in drafting opinions.

The advantages accrued in one year at the court can compound for decades. For those who move on to law firms, the signing bonuses can be as high as $450,000, according to several lawyers at firms that recruit and hire them. The justices have powerful alumni networks that include reunions. A justice’s endorsement can be decisive for a federal judgeship or a law professor post. Many clerks join appellate practices, where, after a mandatory short break from court business, they spend the rest of their careers being paid handsomely to read and influence the justices’ minds.

But the marshal’s search was broad. The interview questions, and the affidavits the clerks were asked to sign, were sweeping, and lying to federal investigators was a crime. Investigators collected the clerks’ court-issued electronic devices and requested their personal ones. The group feared what one person called “spillage” — outed details, such as stray comments about justices or cases, that had nothing to do with the leak but could prove damaging.

The request to hand over personal cellphones caused some to seek legal counsel. It is unclear the degree to which clerks agreed to share the physical devices. But the report said that employees “voluntarily provided call and text detail records and billing statements,” suggesting that at least some may have reached a compromise: Investigators could view records and numbers but did not have access to other personal material.

The Inquiry Expands, and Deflates

In June and July, the inquiry proceeded to other workers, few of whom had the connections or potential earning power of the clerks. Some were long-serving employees who had protected the court’s secrets for years; others were just out of college.

As they sat for interviews, a stenographer and an audio technician captured every word. Some conversations were short and cursory, according to some who were questioned; others were far more detailed. A few employees were brought back for repeat interrogations, according to the report. The marshal’s office interviewed almost 100 workers in all, the report noted. Even the marshal’s aides, junior employees who have limited access to draft opinions, were questioned.

In the course of the investigation, the marshal’s office and other employees realized just how lax the court’s rules and protections had been. The question of whether court material could be brought home was fuzzy. Though employees weren’t supposed to tell anyone about the justices’ decisions, some told their spouses. For all its majesty, the Supreme Court is a porous and somewhat antiquated organization, lacking the armor of other government bodies that handle sensitive information.

In a May 2022 speech, Justice Clarence Thomas described how the leak had changed the atmosphere at the court. “You begin to look over your shoulder,” he said. “It’s like kind of an infidelity. You can explain it, but you can’t undo it.”

But in interviews, employees raised questions about whether the justices themselves have contributed to a decline in trust inside and outside the court.

Periodically, employees receive a stern memo reminding them that they may not participate in partisan political activities — no events, fundraising, bumper stickers or statements on social media. So some bristled when four justices attended a 40th anniversary dinner for the Federalist Society, an influential conservative group that focuses on the judiciary, in November.

Last spring, Thomas declined to recuse himself from cases involving attempts to overthrow the 2020 election, even though Virginia Thomas, his wife, had been involved in those efforts. Months later, a former leader of the anti-abortion movement wrote to the chief justice to report an alleged earlier breach, of a 2014 contraception decision, that he said stemmed from a donor’s meal with Justice Samuel Alito and his wife. The court never responded.

In recent months, as the court has completed its report, new clerks have taken their places in the chambers. Security is tightening. Further protocol changes are promised. And with the release of the report, a growing recognition has taken hold, some employees say: The best chance of understanding who leaked the most consequential decision in generations, and what that person was trying to achieve, is fading away.

© 2023 The New York Times Company
HITLERS GERMANY HAD ELECTIONS
Turkish elections to be held on May 14 -Erdogan

Turkish President Erdogan addresses lawmakers of his AK Party during a meeting at the parliament in Ankara











Sun, January 22, 2023 

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey would hold elections on May 14, a month earlier than scheduled, setting up a tight test of his leadership after two decades in power.

The president's office released video footage on Sunday of Erdogan announcing the date during a meeting with young voters in the northwestern province of Bursa late on Saturday.

"I am grateful to god that we will be walking side by side with you, our first-time voting youth, in the elections that will be held on May 14," Erdogan told the group.

Opinion polls show the parliamentary and presidential elections will be tight, and will mark Erdogan's biggest test in his two decades at the reins of the regional military power, NATO member and major emerging market economy.

Turkey's presidential and parliamentary elections were scheduled to be held on June 18 but President Erdogan previously signalled that the vote could be brought forward. An official of his AK Party has previously said that an election in June would coincide with the summer holiday season when people are travelling.

(Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun and Omer Berberoglu; Editing by Susan Fenton)

 
 


 
 


THAT SUMS IT UP
In Mexico, a reporter published a story. The next day he was dead

Sat, January 21, 2023 
By Sarah Kinosian

MEXICO CITY, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Just after sunset on Thursday, February 10th, two men in a white Dodge Ram pickup pulled up in front of Heber Lopez Vasquez's small radio studio in southern Mexico. One man got out, walked inside and shot the 42-year-old journalist dead. Lopez's 12-year-old son Oscar, the only person with him, hid, Lopez's brother told Reuters.

Lopez was one of 13 Mexican journalists killed in 2022, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based rights group. It was the deadliest year on record for journalists in Mexico, now the most dangerous country for reporters in the world outside the war in Ukraine, where CPJ says 15 reporters were killed last year.

A day earlier, Lopez–who ran two online news sites in the southern Oaxaca state–had published a story on Facebook accusing local politician Arminda Espinosa Cartas of corruption related to her re-election efforts.

As he lay dead, a nearby patrol car responded to an emergency call, intercepted the pickup and arrested the two men. One of them, it later emerged, was the brother of Espinosa, the politician in Lopez's story.

Espinosa has not been charged in connection with Lopez's killing. She did not respond to multiple requests for comment and Reuters could not find any previous comment she made about her role in corruption or on Lopez's story.

Her brother and the other man remain detained but have yet to be tried. Their lawyer did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

"I already stopped covering drug trafficking and corruption and Heber's death still scares me," said Hiram Moreno, a veteran Oaxacan journalist who was shot three times in 2019, sustaining injuries in the leg and back, after writing about drug deals by local crime groups. His assailant was never identified. "You cannot count on the government. Self-censorship is the only thing that will keep you safe."

It is a pattern of fear and intimidation playing out across Mexico, as years of violence and impunity have created what academics call "silence zones" where killing and corruption go unchecked and undocumented.

"In silence zones people don't get access to basic information to conduct their lives," said Jan-Albert Hootsen, CPJ's Mexico representative. "They don't know who to vote for because there are no corruption investigations. They don't know which areas are violent, what they can say and not say, so they stay silent."

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about attacks on the media.

Since the start of Mexico's drug war in 2006, 133 reporters have been killed for motives related to their work, CPJ determined, and another 13 for undetermined reasons. In that time Mexico has registered over 360,000 homicides.

Aggression against journalists has spread in recent years to previously less hostile areas–such as Oaxaca and Chiapas–threatening to turn more parts of Mexico into information dead zones, say rights groups like Reporters Without Borders and 10 local journalists.

Lopez was the second journalist since mid-2021 to be murdered in Salina Cruz, a Pacific port in Oaxaca. It nestles in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a skinny stretch of land connecting the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific that has become a landing spot for precursor chemicals to make fentanyl and meth, according to three security analysts and a DEA source.

Lopez's last story, one of several he wrote about Espinosa, covered the politician's alleged efforts to get a company constructing a breakwater in Salina Cruz's port to threaten workers to cast their vote for her re-election or else be fired.

The infrastructure was a part of the Interoceanic Corridor–one of Lopez Obrador's flagship development projects in southern Mexico.

Jose Ignacio Martinez, a crime reporter in the isthmus, and nine of Lopez's fellow journalists say since his murder they are more afraid to publish stories delving into the corridor project, drug trafficking and state collusion with organized crime.

One outlet Reuters spoke to, which asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said it had done an investigation on the corridor, but did not feel safe to publish after Lopez's death.

Lopez Obrador's spokesman did not respond to a request for comment about corruption accusations related to the corridor.

THE MECHANISM

In 2012 the government established the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists.

Known simply as the Mechanism, the body provides journalists with protections such as panic buttons, surveillance equipment, home police watch, armed guards and relocation. Since 2017, nine Mechanism-protected reporters have been murdered, CPJ found.

Journalists and activists may request protection from the Mechanism, which evaluates their case along with a group of human rights defenders, journalists and representatives of nonprofits, as well as officials from various government agencies that make up a governing board. Not all those who request protection receive it, based on the analysis.

At present there are 1,600 people enrolled in the Mechanism, including 500 journalists.

One of those killed was Gustavo Sanchez, a journalist shot at close range in June 2021 by two motorcycle-riding hitmen. Sanchez, who had written critical articles about politicians and criminal groups, enrolled in the Mechanism for a third time after surviving an assassination attempt in 2020. Protection never arrived.

Oaxaca's prosecutor at the time said Sanchez's coverage of local elections would be a primary line of investigation into his murder. No one has been charged in the case.

Sanchez's killing triggered Mexico's human rights commission to produce a 100-page investigation into authorities' failings. Evidence "revealed omissions, delays, negligence and breach of duties by at least 15 public servants," said the report.

Enrique Irazoque, head of the Interior Ministry's department for the Defense of Human Rights, said the Mechanism accepted the findings, but highlighted the role local authorities played in the protection lag.

Fifteen people within government and civil society told Reuters the Mechanism is under-resourced given the scope of the problem. Irazoque agreed, though he noted its staff of 40 increased last year to a staff of 70. Its 2023 budget increased to around $28.8 million from $20 million in 2022.

In addition to the shortage of funding, Irazoque said that local authorities, state governments and courts need to do more, but there was a lack of political will.

"The Mechanism is absorbing all the problems, but the issues are not federal, they are local," he said in an interview with Reuters.

More convictions are what Irazoque believes are most needed, saying the lack of legal repercussions for public officials encourages corruption.

Impunity for journalist killings hovers around 89%, a 2021 report from the Interior Ministry, which oversees the Mechanism, showed. Local public servants were the biggest source of violence against journalists, ahead of organized crime, the report found.

"You would think the biggest enemy would be armed groups and organized crime," said journalist Patricia Mayorga, who fled Mexico after investigating corruption. "But really it's the ties between those groups and the state officials that are the problem."

Many Mexican journalists killed worked for small, independent, digital outlets that sometimes only published on Facebook, noted Irazoque, saying their stories dug deep into local political issues.

Mexico's National Association of Mayors (ANAC) and its National Conference of Governors (CONAGO) did not respond to requests for comment about the role of state and local governments in journalist killings or allegations of corrupt ties to crime groups.

President Lopez Obrador frequently pillories the press, calling out reporters critical of his administration and holding a weekly segment in his daily news conference dedicated to the "lies of the week." He condemns the murders, while accusing adversaries of talking up the violence to discredit him.

Irazoque says he has no evidence the president's verbal attacks have led to violence against journalists. Lopez Obrador's spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

"What type of life is this?," journalist Rodolfo Montes said, eyeing security footage from inside his home where the Mechanism, in which he first enrolled in 2017, had installed cameras with eyes on the garage, street and entryway.

Years earlier, a cartel rolled a bullet under the door as a threat, and he has been on edge ever since. An entire archive box of threats spread over a decade sat in the corner. Looking down at his phone after a cartel threatened his 24-year-old daughter just a few days before, he said, "I'm living, but I'm dead, you know?"

(Editing by Claudia Parsons and Dave Graham; Additional reporting by Pepe Cortes in Oaxaca)