‘Unlike anything we’ve seen in modern history’: Attacks against journalists soar during Black Lives Matter protests

Arrests of US journalists halfway through 2020 outnumber similar arrests in China in 2019
Alex WoodwardNew York The Independent JULY 9,2020

At least 50 journalists in the US have been arrested during Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the US, while dozens of others have also been injured by rubber bullets, pepper spray and tear gas.

The US Press Freedom Tracker has collected more than 500 incidents from 382 reports, from the unrest in Minneapolis in the wake of George Floyd‘s killing by police in late May, to demonstrations in more than 70 cities across 35 states since.

At least 46 journalists were arrested between the end of May and the beginning of June, according to data collected by the organisation. Dozens of others reported injuries from law enforcement, firing “less lethal” projectiles, tear gas canisters and other weapons into crowds or directly at reporters during demonstrations, even when they had identified themselves and shown credentials, the organisation reports.

Two reporters have suffered permanent eye injuries.

The latest reports mark a significant spike since the end of May, when nationwide protests started, at which point the organisation had recorded only five arrests and 26 attacks for the entire year by that point.

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Attacks on American journalists have become severe and dangerous

Trump said journalists ‘should be executed’, ex-aide Bolton claims

But by the end of the month, the number of attacks had increased nearly five times, after more than a month of nightly protests, vigils and other demonstrations against police violence and racial injustice.

“The importance of documenting these – and doing it as quickly as we can – is not lost: the conversations and reckoning that lie ahead of us as a country are taking shape right now,” Press Freedom Tracker managing editor Kristin McCudden said in a statement.


“No matter where we’re talking about it, the message is the same: what’s happened in 70 cities in more than 30 states across the nation in one month is unlike anything we’ve seen in modern history and surpasses the Tracker’s entire three-year history of documentation.”

Minneapolis has had 71 reported incidents against reporters, followed by Washington DC with 33, New York with 27, and Los Angeles with 20, the Press Freedom Tracker reports.

By the Fourth of July weekend, demonstrations had been going for more than 40 days, from memorials and rallies for victims of police violence to groups of people attempting to dislodge monuments to Confederates and slaveholders, including prominent US figures and former presidents.

Reporters used social media to capture several of these incidents, while news networks were devoting significant live coverage to protests in the first weeks of demonstrations and finding themselves targets.

CNN correspondent Omar Jiminez spent an hour in custody after he was arrested live on television while covering the aftermath of protests in Minneapolis in May.

“Put us back where you want us, we are getting out of your way, just let us know,” he told police in riot gear as the camera captured his arrest.

CNN reporter Omar Jimenez arrested live on TV at Minneapolis protest

That same day, a local television reporter in Louisville, Kentucky covering unrest after the police killing of Breonna Taylor captured an officer appear to take aim and fire a pepper ball directly into her camera.

Photojournalist Linda Tirado, who recently testified to a congressional committee about police violence at protests, had pulled her camera away from her face for a brief moment while shooting images in Minneapolis when she was hit by what she believes was a rubber bullet.

The impact permanently blinded her left eye.

On 1 July Andrew Buncombe, chief US correspondent with The Independent, was arrested in Seattle while covering the police clearance of the so-called CHOP protest zone. He was charged with failure to disperse despite repeatedly identifying himself as a journalist and held for at least eight hours before being released.

As journalists continue to report police violence against them in the field, which press advocates argue underlines the diminishing trust among law enforcement for the news media, Donald Trump‘s message to his supporters remains the same.

The president has broadly derided journalists as “fake news” at his own press conferences while encouraging supporters at his rallies to mock the ”enemy of the people” in the room. Amid his 2020 re-election campaign fury on Independence Day, he attacked reporters as part of a “far-left fascism” staging a mutiny against him.

His attacks against the press have been derided as a creeping threat of authoritarianism, as arrests of journalists under his administration have begun outpacing those under authoritarian regimes.

In its 2019 survey, the Committee to Protect Journalists discovered that at least 250 journalists worldwide were jailed in retaliation for their work that year. Its annual survey found 255 reporters were jailed in 2018.

The highest number of journalists imprisoned in any year since the organisation began its annual survey was 273 in 2016.

But the numbers of arrests of journalists in other countries in 2019 pales in comparison to the number of reporters arrested in the US only halfway through 2020.

More than 60 journalists in the US have been arrested within the first six months of the year.

Last year, at least 48 journalists were jailed in China, followed by 26 in Saudi Arabia and 26 in Egypt, the organisation reported.

The US currently ranks 45th among 180 counties on the 2020 World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders.

The scale of attacks on journalists in the US has alarmed international human rights groups, which called on city and state officials and law enforcement to immediately halt the arrests of reporters and to appoint independent commissions to investigate assaults.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/journalist-attacks-black-lives-matter-protests-usa-blm-police-brutality-a9607036.html

Seattle’s CHAZ: Inside the occupied vegan paradise – and Trump’s ‘ugly anarchist’ hell

‘The president’s claims, as usual, are false’

Andrew Buncombe Seattle Friday 12 June 2020 

IS THIS WHY COPS BUSTED INDEPENDENT REPORTER ANDREW BUNCOMBE 
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/07/i-was-arrested-jailed-and-assaulted-by.html

There were activists with bullhorns, and artists painting designs on the street.

Stalls collected donations for the homeless and others offered vegan curry. There were people posing for images in front of a boarded-up police station, while others sat on the grass. There were people of colour, and there were white people, lots of white people.

But the “ugly anarchists” denounced by Donald Trump on Twitter that very morning? Could it be they existed only in his imagination?

The Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, six city blocks close to the centre of Seattle that has become the focus of a protest in the wake of the death of George Floyd, may be many things. Yet an attempt to take over, or occupy the city it is not.

“I think that is a ridiculous circumstance by which they even presented the narrative. This is not an autonomous zone. We’re not trying to secede from the United States,” said a protester called Maurice, asked about the president’s comments.

George Floyd death: Minneapolis protests erupt in the streets
Show all 30





“None of us are anarchists, as we’re trying to use legislative processes to change the mayor’s narrative for our community. We’re attempting to gain equity. We don’t have guns. There’s very few people who are utilising their second amendment rights.”

The death in police custody last month of Floyd, 46, an unarmed African American man, has sparked protests, most of them overwhelmingly peaceful, across the nation and around the world.

Four police officers involved in the arrest of Floyd were fired from the Minneapolis Police Department. One was charged with second degree murder, while the others with aiding his death.

Meanwhile, as communities across America have tried to reform their police departments and make them truly answerable to the police they are supposed to serve, Mr Trump has sought to project himself as being the “law and order president”. Having been criticised for suggesting Floyd might be looking down haply from heaven at recent employment numbers, the president has also gone head to head with mayors and governors he believes are being to soft on protesters.

Among those he attacked was Washington state governor Jay Inslee, and Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan, both Democrats. Two weeks ago, a peaceful protest in the centre of Seattle turned violent and more than 50 people were arrested after damage was done to a series of buildings.

The mayor imposed a curfew and then proceeded to work with police and community leaders to try and secure calm.

More recently, Ms Durkan told the city police chief, Carmen Best, an African American woman, to withdraw uniformed officers from the so-called East Precinct, which covers Capitol Hill, a rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood known for its buzzy bars and nightlife.

Thus was born Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, (CHAZ), a cross between a sit-in, a protest and summer festival. The zone claims to have no direct leaders, although it has a website.

In recent days, protesters have been organising teach-ins, and showing Ava DuVernay’s 13th, a 2016 documentary that explores the history of race relations in the US, and takes its name from 13th amendment to the constitution, which abolished slavery.

“Radical Left Governor @JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stopped IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST,” Mr Trump had tweeted.

George Floyd’s brother testifies at US Committee and asks for law enforcement to be the solution, not the problem

Ms Durkan was quick to respond. “Make us all safe. Go back to your bunker,” she said.

A spokesperson for Mr Inslee told The Independent of Mr Trump’s comments: “The president’s claims, as usual, are false.”

Felisha Tyson, a personal trainer, said she been struck by the number of white people who were at the protest, and said it had started to “feel like a block party”.

Yet she said people of colour had a number of white allies in Seattle, just as there were white people who choose to look the other way. “There are going to be a lot of new organisers working in the days ahead,” she said.

Her friend, Ronelle Wheeler, said the city and state had a long history of racism. Yet many people acted as though they were not impacted by it, or its consequences

Ms Tyson added: “My dad and my uncle tell me crazy stories from the Seventies, with police brutality by the Seattle Police Department.”

Silas Korvjund-Zacharov, 23, a metal worker, was sitting outside a tent close to a community garden that had been established in the ground of park.

He was white, and wanted to show his solidarity with the protesters, he said.

Asked about the president’s description of the protesters as anarchists, he said: “My problem with that is anarchy means chaos, are we creating chaos here or are we creating more of a sense of unity.”

He added: “Unfortunately, Donald Trump is one of the biggest morons I’ve ever heard of. He does not know the proper definitions of most things he says. Anarchy is chaos. What we are here trying to do is promote equality and unity in the community.”

I was arrested, jailed and assaulted by a guard. 

My ‘crime’? Being a journalist in Trump’s America

In his 30-year career, The Independent’s Chief US Correspondent Andrew Buncombe has filed dispatches from across the world. Last week, while reporting on protests in Seattle, he was arrested for the first time. What he saw next throws the spotlight on a broken criminal justice system


Independent's Chief US Correspondent charged with 'failure to disperse' ( King County )

FEATURE ARTICLE LONG READ

Seattle’s protest in support of Black Lives Matter was established just days after the killing of George Floyd. To the participants and their supporters, the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) was a living experiment in how a community might exist without police. To their detractors, most vocally Donald Trump, who denounced them as anarchists and terrorists, the protesters and the six city blocks they had been ceded were proof of liberals gone mad. It was quirky and it was controversial.

For a month, as demonstrators marched in cities around the world, demanding racial justice and the defunding of police departments, Seattle’s protesters existed in an uneasy half-life, partly tolerated by a mayor keen to avoid more violence, and despised by those who thought the police had been wrong to abandon the area.

Then, on July 1, the city decided the experiment was over. It was time to clear the protesters.

How badly did Seattle need to retake those streets? Enough to arrest a journalist covering the operation?


Watch more

Journalist with Independent arrested covering clearance of protest

Were the authorities so deaf to what protesters had been saying about police overreach and use of excessive force they were prepared to shackle that reporter, charge him with “failure to disperse” and then assault him?

Were they so oblivious to how jails across the nation had become hotspots for coronavirus they would put that person in a dirty, overcrowded cell where efforts to counter the disease were minimal?

Apparently so.

As police swept through Cal Anderson Park and the streets around it, officers with long sticks, backed up by armoured vehicles, were retaking the buildings of the East Precinct. They arrested dozens of people. I was among them.

“Enough is enough,” Seattle Police Department (SPD) chief Carmen Best said later that day. “Our job is to protect and to serve the community, our job is to support peaceful demonstrations, but what has happened here… is lawless and… brutal.”
Officers armed with sticks BATONS clear Seattle’s Cal Anderson Park (AP)

City officials may have had good cause to retake the area “ceded” last month by mayor Jenny Durkan in an attempt to defuse protests triggered by the killing of George Floyd. While days in the zone had been overwhelmingly peaceful, at night there had been a number of criminal incidents, including six shootings, two of them fatal, with one of those deaths being of a 16-year-old. But the way the officers went about it, wielding sticks and mace, pressing people’s faces into the streets as they forced their hands into handcuffs, appeared heavy-handed at least.

Given how police from Washington DC to Minneapolis had dealt with protesters this spring, with tear gas, riot shields and rubber bullets, it may have been naive to think Seattle would be different. In comparison to the police in other cities, perhaps the SPD went easy.

It did not feel that way. Five minutes after having arrived the park, dispatched by my editors to cover the police operation and speak to protesters, I was arrested at its northern edge by an officer standing on a slight rise and behind black and yellow tape that read “Police line – Do not cross”. I was the other side of that tape. I did not cross it. At no point did I try to cross the police line.

The officer told me the park was out of bounds, and I needed to step back. I held up my State Department-issued press badge and told him I wanted to get some photographs of what was happening.


The officer again told me to retreat and said he was going to arrest me if I did not. I again told him I was a member of the media and intended to stay and do my work. He then grabbed me and marched me towards several of his colleagues, who pinned my hands behind my back.

Read more

George Floyd and how police began treating America like a war zone

All the officers were armed, one with an automatic rifle, a detail that may shock readers from nations whose police forces are not kitted out routinely with such a degree of weaponry, but not anyone in the US, where police departments are massively militarised.

The officers took my phone, and told me I was under arrest. I requested several times that they tell me what I was being charged with, and read me my rights. They told me I had the “right to remain silent”, but were unable or unwilling to tell me the charge.

They then handcuffed me, shackled my ankles and loaded me into a van. The police van set off to the West Precinct, stopping to collect arrested protesters. One man spent the journey shouting “Black Lives Matter”; a woman sobbed.
The CHOP, which sprang up in the wake of the killing of George Floyd (AFP via Getty Images)

At the precinct, I again informed people I was a journalist, and asked to call my lawyer, my editor and the British embassy. I asked them to contact my local congresswoman. They took my photograph and told me I was being charged with “failure to disperse”, under a Washington state law that requires the accused to have been part of a group of four or more. I had been standing by myself. The maximum penalty is 364 days in jail and a fine of $5,000.

After an hour in a holding cell, the handcuffs still on, somebody again put leg irons around my ankles, and connected the two with a piece of chain pulled tight around my stomach. Were we heading to Guantanamo Bay? A woman also under arrest kept saying she did not speak English and requested a Navajo translator. “I think you speak English just fine,” mocked one officer.


In the van, the woman insisted on lying lengthways in the compartment she was in. I was squeezed into a tiny, claustrophobic section, perched on a narrow bench, trying not to slip off as the van sped through the city’s boarded-up downtown, towards the jail. By this point, the so-called “belly chain” had become so tight I could not fully exhale. It felt obscene and preposterous to have to inform the officers I could not properly breathe, that phrase having become weighted with such power and resonance during the Black Lives Matter movement, echoing the gut-wrenching final words of George Floyd. But that was the situation. I could not properly breathe.

One of the officers responded: “If you can speak, you can breathe.”
More prisoners than any other nation

The United States arrests and incarcerates more people than any other country.

The Brennan Centre’s Lauren-Brooke Eisen said while it accounts for 5 per cent of the world’s population, America is home to 25 per cent of those incarcerated, around 2.2 million. Around 95 per cent are in jail for non-violent offences.
Protesters talk to Seattle police officers on 1 July (REUTERS)

There are more than 6,000 jails and prisons, at local, state and federal level, along with immigration detention facilities. People of colour are vastly over-represented, accounting for 32 per cent of the population but 56 per cent of prisoners. (My presence contributed to the white population of jails.)


Many say the system is broken. Others suggest the system may be in need of reform but that it does precisely what it was intended to do – namely to repress black and brown Americans, and the poor. Historians such as Carol Anderson, professor of African American studies at Emory University and author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, trace a direct line through the end of slavery to the establishment of the Jim Crow era and the current criminal justice system.

In her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander says today’s system, large parts of it privatised, overtly targets black men and decimates black communities. “In each generation, new tactics have been used for achieving the same goals – goals shared by the founding fathers,” she writes. “Denying African Americans citizenship was deemed essential to the formation of the original union. Hundreds of years later, America is still not an egalitarian democracy.”
He just yanked you down and threw you back in your cell

Both the SPD and King County, which operates the Seattle jail where I found myself, have long been a part of that system. As recently as 2011, the Department of Justice accused the SPD of racial bias and use of excessive force. The appointment of Carmen Best, who is African American, as its chief in 2018 was part of an undertaking to reform.

King County, which has its own police force, has a similar record of disproportionate arrest and detention of black and indigenous people. One issue repeatedly pointed out by activists is the large number black and brown youths locked up. A report from 2016 showed half of youths in detention were black, whereas the black population of the county was 13 per cent.
‘Get back in the cell. You’ve lost your chance’

Seattle’s jail is located on 5th Avenue, a short distance from the waters of Elliott Bay. The area is known as the first place occupied by white settlers, in 1850, though for many centuries before it was home to indigenous Duwamish people.

By the time I arrived, the processing area was crowded with protesters rounded up that morning. I assumed that once jail officials had been informed I was a reporter, I’d simply be let go. At the West Precinct station I spotted several FBI officers who appeared to have been part of the operation. I yelled to them that I was a reporter. The First Amendment, guaranteeing the freedom of the press, is, after all, a federal issue, a constitutional right. I could not hear their entire response but they seemed to indicate the SPD were handling matters.

Momentarily, it appeared the situation was about to improve. The shackles and handcuffs were removed, but only so I could be ordered to remove all my clothes, and put on a blood-red prison “uniform” of trousers and jacket, and orange flip-flops. I protested this and protested too the demand I hand over my wedding ring. (One official said it could be stolen from me by another prisoner.)

The King County jail on Seattle’s 5th Avenue (Shutterstock / Rey Rodriguez)

In the end, I was permitted to keep the ring, but forced to wear the red outfit. Its impact was startling; immediately I felt out of place, disorientated and disempowered. It even started to make me feel guilty, as if I had done something wrong.

This, surely, was the purpose of treating the protesters in much the same manner as if they had been charged with armed robbery. The aggression displayed by police and prison guards was surely intentional, part punishment and part deterrent, even for individuals charged with minor crimes, and none of them yet tried or found guilty. Also disorientating was the absence of clocks, just as in casinos, and surely equally intended so that people lose track of time.

Before being allowed to use the phone, an officer needed to re-enter my details. I was called out of the holding cell, told to stand before a desk and spell my name. The officer could not hear me, so I explained it may have been my accent (I am British). For reasons that were unclear, the woman took offence. “Get back in the cell. You’ve lost your chance. You’re being condescending.”

Seattle police clear CHOP protest zone

I tried again to spell my name but they were having none of it. Out of nowhere, a male prison guard leapt at me from behind, yanked hard on the collar of my jacket, pulling it with sufficient force into my throat to make me gasp. He then manhandled me into the cell. I made a note of the man’s name, along with several officers who witnessed what he did.

A 53-year-old protester, Gina Hicks, saw what happened. “There was no attempt to have a conversation with you,” she later told me. “He just yanked you down and threw you back in the cell.”

‘Just keep your mask on and you’ll be fine’

Pasted on to the glass of every cell was information issued by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on how best to avoid contracting coronavirus. It talked about social distancing, frequent washing of hands with soap, and wearing a mask.

The only option to wash my hands during the six or seven hours I spent in the jail was to use the drinking fountain, situated above the toilet, itself located behind a low brick wall that offered no privacy. The toilet was filthy, the room stank, one protester became ill and vomited in it. I requested some soap, and asked one of the officers what was the capacity for the cell.

Seattle police brings in teams to clear the area ‘ceded’ to demonstrators (Reuters)

What did I mean? Well, you know, you have signs about avoiding the coronavirus and yet there are 10 men in here, barely a foot apart. What is the capacity?

I had a similar conversation with a nurse from King County health department, an agency that has performed dogged work to counter the spread of coronavirus in Washington state, where the first case of Covid-19 in the US was reported in late January. The nurses were required to perform a basic medical on each of the people arrested.

She asked if I felt suicidal. Mental health is a major problem here, she said. I said I was most concerned about becoming dehydrated, having been told the only drinking water available was from that tap, from which I refused to drink, and getting infected with Covid. (She let me drink as many cups of water as I needed from the far more sanitary sink in the medical room.)

The fear of being infected is not paranoia. Eric Reinhart, a social anthropologist who teaches at Harvard, has studied how the constant arresting and processing of people for minor charges has acted to further spread the disease. Many jails, including Rikers Island in New York, and San Quentin in San Francisco, have been hotspots.

In 30 years as a journalist, this was the third time I had been detained. The first was in Cuba, the second in Pakistan, outside Bin Laden’s compound

Like many experts, he has called for the release of offenders charged with minor crimes, as a short-term fix.

Examining data from Chicago’s Cook County jail, which started testing new arrivals earlier this spring, Reinhart found one in six of all cases of Covid-19 in Chicago and the state of Illinois was linked to people jailed and released from this one establishment. He and a colleague, Daniel Chen, calculated that for each person cycled through the jail, an additional 2.1 infections were reported in that individual’s neighbourhood within a month. Around 60 per cent were in black-majority ZIP codes.

“This association between jail cycling and community spread of Covid-19 is particularly strong in communities of colour,” he told me.


Yet, Reinhart said, the focus on the overcrowded and unsanitary nature of prisons distracted from a broader truth about the racist underpinnings of the criminal justice system.

“There’s no other country that believes it’s necessary to arrest and incarcerate as many people as the US does. And it’s clear this does not produce more effective deterrence,” he said. He estimated the high arrest rate had added tens of thousands of Covid deaths to the total of more than 130,000.

He said there was “an exceptional historical opportunity to make clear to Americans who may have been resistant to recognising the problems in their criminal justice system”.

‘Take your hands out or I will punch you in the head’

After several hours, my feelings of bewilderment and anger were replaced by journalistic curiosity. Without intending to, Seattle’s law enforcement machine had provided with me with a rare insight into its workings. It was a brief, partial window into a criminal justice system seemingly bereft of humanity or equity: not for one second do I think what happened to me is comparable to the abuses enacted in this nation every moment on people without my white-skinned, press-badge privilege. Yet had I been allowed to remain in Cal Anderson Park and cover the police operation, I would not have seen or experienced what I did.

There was a tiny piece of pencil in the cell and I used it to make copious notes on scraps of paper. Among those in the cell was a young African American man called Kai. He had been at the protest site for 30 days and was arrested that morning. He said officers had kneeled on his back as they did so.

He also said he had been threatened by a female jail official, who told him to take his hands out of his trousers or she would “punch him in the head”.

When she came into our cell, another protester asked her if it was true she had threatened Kai. “That’s right, I did,” she replied. They asked for her badge number. A moment later she reappeared with a Post-It note, on which she had written her name and badge number with a smiley face. It felt like a flagrant display of swagger. Here, take my badge number. There’s nothing you can do to me.

Like everyone else, Kai had been charged with a minor offence, failure to disperse. Another man, Josh, 29, had not even been at the protest but was detained when he set off to get food from a local restaurant, and turned the wrong corner.25%

of people incarcerated globally are in the US

He was charged with “pedestrian obstruction”. Another man, Daniel, who had been chanting “Black Lives Matter” in the prison van, was arrested in his car and charged with “vehicular obstruction”.

All were minor offences, so-called misdemeanours, for which bail was available, especially if you had no criminal history. The most serious charge I heard of that day was one handed to a man known as Trumpeter, whom I had seen at the protests a month earlier playing a guitar. He had been charged with “malicious mischief”, a more serious charge, for which he had been told he could not receive bail. Police claimed he had snipped through their “Do not cross” tape.

In 30 years as journalist, this was the third time I had been detained by the authorities. The first was in Cuba in 2006, while covering the announcement by Fidel Castro that he was standing aside. The second was in 2011 in Pakistan, while taking photographs outside Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, six months after he had been killed by US Special Forces.

My encounter with Seattle police was the first time I had been arrested. I had no criminal record. As a result, I was released at 6pm after signing a piece of paper saying I would show up for court.

Police officers work to clear Seattle’s CHOP (Rex Features)

Among the 30-odd people discharged with me that evening was a young African American man who said he had spent an entire year in jail after being charged with resisting arrest. He said he had been unable to make bail. He was far from alone. Campaigners say hundreds of thousands of people, not actually convicted of a crime, are sitting in America’s jails because they do not have the means to pay a bond agency.
Journalism is not a crime

Seattle’s Cal Anderson Park was established 100 years ago but given its current name in 2003 to honour Washington state’s first openly gay legislator, who died from Aids in 1995. In the years since, it has become a place for both protests and celebrations, along with simply sitting in the sun enjoying a picnic. Most years, July 4th will see it packed with people watching fireworks.

On Saturday, my wrists still sore from the handcuffs and my throat tender after having the jacket tugged down hard on it, I donned a face mask and cycled around the park’s perimeter, shut off with tape. At each entrance was a small group of police officers. At the East Precinct building, workmen were repairing damage caused during the protests. A few Black Lives Matter logos appeared from various shop windows, but the protesters were gone, a small number that day marching outside the West Precinct.

Read more

Press freedom is more precious than ever in a time of autocrats

When US journalists are under attack, global press freedom is at risk

UK photographer arrested at US protests in 'affront to press freedom'

The night before I’d watched Donald Trump deliver what was widely perceived as a divisive speech against the backdrop of Mount Rushmore, where among other things he accused the media of promoting a “new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance”.

Trump vowed to honour the “heroes” carved in stone, which he used for his backdrop. Among them were presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, two founding fathers of the nation, who were also slave owners. Indigenous protesters said the land was theirs and demanded Trump call off the event.

On Saturday, the president reinforced his sentiments at the White House. “And we will defend, protect and preserve the American way of life, which began in 1492 when Columbus discovered America,” he said.

This time, he was met with more protesters, some pointing to the organised killing of countless thousands of indigenous people that was also central to the nation’s development. According to reports some chanted: “Slavery, genocide and war – America was never great.” In Baltimore, a statue of Columbus was pulled down and thrown into the harbour.
Donald Trump stands in front of Mount Rushmore (AFP via Getty Images)

On my circuit around the park, I intentionally did not stop to speak to anybody. Since being released from jail, I have become increasingly sick. Headaches, a cough, exhaustion. On Monday I got a Covid test. Two days later, I was relieved when it came back negative.

I am also expecting a letter from the court, with a time and date to attend; while the mayor said last week she hoped prosecutors would drop the charges against the protesters, I have received no such message.

The SPD said it had forwarded details of my arrest to the Office of Police Accountability for review, and King County sheriff’s department said it was looking into my assertion I was assaulted by one of its officers, that a female officer threatened a protester, and that its facilities to address coronavirus were inadequate. It said it had been SPD officers who had taken me to the jail in a “belly chain”. The SPD did not not immediately respond to questions about this.

Asked to comment on my interaction with FBI officers, bureau spokesperson Steve Bernd said: “I would not be able to speculate or provide a comment regarding the incident you describe below and would refer you to the Seattle Police Department.”

The park has a reflecting pool, where people sit and read, or think or listen to music. It was also off-limits, but I did not need to spend time there to be certain that if I am charged, I will be pleading not guilty. Journalism is not a crime.

At the same time I will be trying to explain why, supported by the right afforded by the First Amendment of the Constitution, I stood my ground.

In Trump’s America, where the media is routinely cast as evil and dishonest and where an African American reporter for CNN can be arrested live on air, the need to defend journalism and its centrality to an informed democracy has never been greater. And the foundational act for journalists is to show up, either literally or else in spirt and commitment and focus.

Whether we’re covering the actions of a city council, the workings of Wall Street, or the faltering, long-overdue attempt of a nation to confront the racial inequities that underpin its creation, the most important thing is to pledge ourselves to the task of doing so, and then get on with it.

Our job is not to disperse. Our job is to be present.

Journalist with The Independent arrested covering police clearance of Seattle protest zone

Andrew Buncombe held on charges of failure to disperse despite repeatedly identifying himself as a journalist
Phil ThomasNew York @philipthomaspt The Independent  JULY 3, 2020

An Independent journalist was arrested while covering the police storming of a protest zone in Seattle, which has been criticised by Donald Trump.

Andrew Buncombe, chief US correspondent with The Independent, was detained on charges of failing to disperse shortly after 09.00 local time [GMT 01.00] on Wednesday, as police in riot gear dismantled the so-called Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (or Chop) zone close to the city centre.

Despite repeatedly identifying himself as a journalist, Mr Buncombe, 52, was taken to the King County Jail where he was put in handcuffs. He was eventually released after being finger-printed and spending almost 10 hours in custody.

The Seattle Police Department said on Twitter that 44 people had been arrested for alleged offences including failure to disperse, resisting arrest and assault.

Seattle police chief Carmen Best said officers were sent in after the mayor, Jenny Durkan, declared the zone an “unlawful assembly”.

Ms Best told reporters: “The Chop has become lawless and brutal. Four shootings – two fatal – robberies, assaults, violence and countless property crimes have occurred in this several-block area.”

She added: “I support peaceful demonstrations. Black lives matter and I too want to help propel this movement forward toward meaningful exchange in our community and meaningful change in our community.

“But enough is enough. Our job is to protect and to serve the community.”

Protesters have been occupying the zone as part of demonstrations in support of racial justice following the killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis on 25 May.

Mr Trump has referred to protesters in the Chop as “domestic terrorists” and demanded that authorities clear it.

On 11 June he tweeted: “Radical Left Governor @JayInslee and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that our great Country has never seen before. Take back your city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly Anarchists must be stopped IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST.”


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The mostly peaceful nationwide protests sparked by Mr Floyd’s death have been marked by outbursts of police violence both against demonstrators and journalists.

The US Press Freedom Tracker said that between 26 May and 1 July there have been 112 physical attacks on journalists in the United States, 67 of them by law enforcement, plus at least 64 arrests.

In a report from the Chop demonstration last month, Mr Buncombe described the occupied area as “a cross between a sit-in, a protest and summer festival” being held in a “rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood known for its buzzy bars and nightlife”.

One of those taking part, a personal trainer called Felisha Tyson, told him that the mood felt more like a block party than the “ugly anarchist hell” described by the president. Conservative commentators, however, have pointed to violent incidents – including the fatal shootings of young men aged 19 and 16 – as evidence of a violent or anarchist undercurrent to the protests.

UN warns of ‘steady stream’ of infectious diseases unless world tackles wildlife exploitation

Zoonotic diseases have caused more than £80bn in economic losses since 2000 and coronavirus is expected to add £7.2 trillion to that amount

World Zoonoses Day, the event the report’s release coincided with, commemorates the work of French biologist Louis Pasteur. On 6 July 1885, Pasteur successfully administered the first vaccine against rabies, a zoonotic disease.
Louise Boyle New York The Independent

The UN warns that a “steady stream” of animal-borne infectious diseases are unavoidable in the future unless the world tackles the exploitation of wildlife and ecosystem destruction.

A new report, released on Monday, lays out strategies aimed at preventing future pandemics by breaking the chain of transmission for diseases which jump from animals to humans.

Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN’s Environment Programme (UNEP), said: “The science is clear that if we keep exploiting wildlife and destroying our ecosystems, then we can expect to see a steady stream of these diseases jumping from animals to humans in the years ahead.”

The Independent’s Stop The Wildlife Trade campaign was launched by its proprietor Evgeny Lebedev to call for an end to high-risk wildlife markets and for an international effort to regulate the illegal trade in wild animals to reduce our risk of future pandemics.


The coronavirus pandemic, which is believed to have originated in bats, has infected 10.7 million people and led to more than 500,000 deaths worldwide, decimating economies in its wake.

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The world has been here before: Ebola, Mers, Sars and the West Nile virus were caused by viruses that jumped from animal hosts into the human population. About 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases “jump species” from animals to people.

Some 2 million people die from zoonotic diseases in the developing world each year. Outbreaks also rip through livestock populations, trapping hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers in severe poverty.

Zoonotic diseases have caused in excess of $100bn (£80bn) in economic losses since 2000. The coronavirus pandemic is expected to add $9 trillion in damages to that amount.

The new study was conducted by the UNEP and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), a nonprofit focused on improving farming and agricultural practices in the developing world.

The emergence of zoonotic diseases are being driven by a multitude of factors, the report found, including a growing demand for animal protein on an increasingly crowded planet.

The world’s population is expected to increase by 2 billion individuals to 9.7 billion in 2050, according to a 2019 study.

Other factors driving disease emergence include intense and unsustainable farming and increased wildlife consumption and trade.

In the past 80 years, a growing agricultural industry including dams, irrigation projects and factory farms have been linked to more than half of zoonotic infectious diseases to emerge in humans.

Increasing wildlife use and exploitation also presents a serious risk. This includes the harvesting of wild animals, or “bushmeat”, as a source of protein, trophy hunting, trade in wild species for pets, zoos and medical research, and the use of animal parts for apparent ornamental or medicinal value.

The climate crisis plays a significant role. Rising temperatures can increase disease by providing more hospitable conditions for insects like mosquitoes which can transmit viruses such as chikungunya and West Nile.

Climate change: Decade's defining issue in pictures
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Climate variability is also influencing the numbers and geographic distribution of species like bats, monkeys and rodents, which are reservoirs of zoonotic pathogens.

The study notes that in Africa in 2010, an outbreak of mosquito-borne Rift Valley fever took place during higher-than-average seasonal rainfall.

A review of emerging diseases in Brazil linked infectious disease outbreaks with extreme climate events such as El Nino, La Nina, heatwaves, droughts and floods, hotter temperatures and increased rainfall. Environmental changes – habitat fragmentation, deforestation, increasing urbanization and consumption of wild meat – compounded the risks.

In the Arctic, which is particularly at risk due to the climate crisis, thawing of permafrost exposes historical burial grounds, “enabling the revival of deadly infections from the past”.

Ms Andersen said: “Pandemics are devastating to our lives and our economies, and as we have seen over the past months, it is the poorest and the most vulnerable who suffer the most. To prevent future outbreaks, we must become much more deliberate about protecting our natural environment.”

The UN/ILRI recommendations are based on a “one health” approach, bringing together public health, veterinary and environmental expertise.

The report points to Africa as a source of potential solutions. The continent has the world’s large portion of remaining intact rainforests and wild lands. It has a growing population, leading to more encounters between livestock and wildlife and in turn, the risk of zoonotic diseases.

Tourist destinations could become melting pots for coronavirus, expert warns

ILRI director-general Jimmy Smith said that the lessons learned from Ebola and other emerging diseases means that Africa had a wealth of knowledge on how to mitigate the risks.

“They are applying, for example, novel risk-based rather than rule-based approaches to disease control, which are best suited to resource-poor settings, and they are joining up human, animal and environment expertise in proactive one health initiatives,” he said.

Among the strategies recommended to governments are expanding scientific research, increasing education on the risks of infectious diseases borne by animals, along with providing resources for better healthcare.

The report also suggests better monitoring and regulation of food systems, incentivising sustainable land practices and coming up with alternatives to provide food security to limit destruction of natural habitats.

Improving biosecurity will also be key to identifying where the next zoonotic disease may emerge, it says.

THE FIRST REPORT OF "BYSTANDER EFFECT" IN ANIMALS SHINES A LIGHT ON POLICE BRUTALITY
Rats behave oddly like humans when they see a peer in distress.
NINA PULLANO JULY 8,2020

When people see others in distress, the decision about whether or not to step in and help is heavily influenced by whether or not other people are present. This idea underlies the social psychology theory known as the "bystander effect." It posits that the more people there are, the less likely a victim is to receive help.

In new research conducted in rats, scientists observed the bystander effect. This marks the first time the phenomenon has been seen in non-human animals — and possibly upends previous beliefs about why the effect even exists.

The most basic principle of the bystander effect is this: When a person is part of a group, they're less likely to help someone in need than if they're alone. The reason why humans behave this way is often explained by a diffusion of responsibility — with a larger group, people might feel less personally responsible for helping.

Researchers set up a rat experiment and found that these animals are also more likely to help a struggling peer when they're alone, compared to when they are in a group. They also discovered that the behavior of the group — namely, others' willingness to help — played a key role in whether or not an individual would step in.

This finding was published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

Peggy Mason is a neurobiologist at the University of Chicago and the lead study author. She argues that this finding suggests that humans are not actively weighing the pros and cons when deciding whether or not they are going to offer help. Instead, they are responding to biological instincts — just like the rats.

"This is not a human cultural phenomenon," Mason says. "This is part of our mammalian inheritance."

TESTING FOR THE BYSTANDER EFFECT — The bystander effect in both humans and rats hinges on how other the overall group behaves.

To test this in rats, Mason's team restrained one rat using a small device. Then, the researchers tested other rats to see how they would respond based on the behavior of others.

To create a group of rats that would not be likely to help the trapped rat, the researchers gave some of the rats categorized as "bystanders" an anti-anxiety drug similar to Valium. This was the researchers' way of ensuring that these rats would not help the rat in distress. The goal was to see whether or not a rat not on drugs would still jump in and help the rat in distress, despite guaranteed inactive bystanders.


Subsequently, the experiment revealed that when bystanders were unhelpful, rats were less likely to help the restrained rat.

"IT’S THE INDIFFERENCE OF THESE OTHER RATS THAT CHANGES THE EXPERIENCE FOR THEM."

Interestingly, rats surrounded by unhelpful bystanders weren't always dissuaded from helping. Many of them tried to help the restrained rat on the first day of the experiment. But the indifference of the other rats meant the helper didn't get any positive reinforcement for its work, and on subsequent days, the initially helpful rats did not attempt to provide aid again.

"It’s the indifference of these other rats that changes the experience for them," Mason says.

When rats were tested alone, the bystanders who had not helped at all before — and who were no longer drugged — offered aid.

But strangely, the rats who did help the restrained rat in a group, and were then tested alone, often stopped opening up the door. "They lost their audience," Mason says.



Rat helps a struggling peer.David Christopher, University of Chicago

BYSTANDER BACKGROUND — Ironically, the body of research underlying this study was inspired by a real-life example that turned out to be mostly untrue.

In 1964, newspapers originally reported that 38 neighbors watched as a woman named Kitty Genovese was murdered, over a 30-minute timespan. This report of a large group of bystanders turned out to be false, but shock elicited by reporting at the time motivated researchers to study how people behave when others are in trouble.


The bystander effect was first described in a 1968 paper. Importantly, the people in that 1968 experiment were hired by the researchers and told not to intervene, making them "confederates" — like the rats dosed with anti-anxiety medication.

While the narrative that prompted research was false, the bystander effect has been confirmed in a number of studies — although our understanding of it has become more nuanced over time. For years, the prevalent idea was that everyone experiences bystander apathy to a similar extent. Now, some scientists think bystander reactions are different because our brains process emergencies differently.

THE BIG PICTURE — These new findings could help to explain human behavior in a broader cultural context. Chilling videos of police brutality, including the murder of George Floyd, often include bystander officers neglecting to step in, while nearby civilians do attempt to help.

Police are "confederates by training," Mason explains. "They're taught not to intervene."

Conversely, the civilians who do try to help — as they did when George Floyd was killed — are untrained, like the unimpaired subjects of the rat experiment.

"Not only does this show something about the fundamental basis of an important part of our behavior," Mason says, "but it also tells you that this is going on all the time in our real lives."


This is the first time the bystander effect has been observed in a non-human animal.David Christopher, University of Chicago

Put together, analysis suggests that police violence is not a situation wrought by "bad apples," Mason says. Instead, it is a result of a complicated mix: The biologically-based bystander effect, and a police system that encourages confederate bystanders on top of that.

“We have to toss out this bad apple explanation,” Mason says. "What we have is a systemic, institutionalized problem."
Abstract: To investigate whether the classic bystander effect is unique to humans, the effect of bystanders on rat helping was studied. In the presence of rats rendered incompetent to help through pharmacological treatment, rats were less likely to help due to a reduction in reinforcement rather than to a lack of initial interest. Only incompetent helpers of a strain familiar to the helper rat exerted a detrimental effect on helping; rats helped at near control levels in the presence of incompetent helpers from an unfamiliar strain. Duos and trios of potential helper rats helped at superadditive rates, demonstrating that rats act nonindependently with helping facilitated by the presence of competent-to-help bystanders. Furthermore, helping was facilitated in rats that had previously observed other rats’ helping and were then tested individually. In sum, the influence of bystanders on helping behavior in rats features characteristics that closely resemble those observed in humans.

Electoral Interventions: a Suspiciously Naïve View of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War World

by TIMOTHY M. GILL JULY 9,2020

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

If there has been one overarching silver lining to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, it is that it has sparked a broader discussion of U.S. intervention abroad. In his new book, Rigged: America, Russia, and 100 Years of Covert Electoral Interference, David Shimer, a New York Times correspondent, pursues the ambitious agenda of examining the last century of U.S. and Soviet/Russian electoral interference. In doing so, Shimer conducted dozens of interviews with high-ranking U.S. foreign policy elites, including CIA members and individuals who served in recent U.S. presidential administrations. In the end, though, he offers up a highly naïve and suspiciously uninformed portrait of U.S. foreign policy, particularly as it involves U.S. state activities in the post-Cold War world.

In its first chapters, Shimer provides a clear view of U.S. intervention in Italy following World War II, as well as U.S. efforts to keep former Chilean President Salvador Allende from coming to power and then collaborating with opposition forces, including General Augusto Pinochet, to have him ousted in a violent coup. The elephant in the room of these discussions, however, is that U.S. intervention existed long before efforts in Italy in the 1940s. Since the inception of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the U.S. had formalized its self-proclaimed dominance over the Western Hemisphere. Shimer admittedly only sets out to examine the last century of intervention; however, there’s hardly any mention of U.S. interventionist policies particularly in Central America and the Caribbean during the early 20^th century – in places such as the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nicaragua. During the past century and before the Cold War, such policies extended even beyond the hemisphere into the Philippines and Guam. All of this is a serious omission from the text.

All together, Shimer seemingly excuses U.S. behavior during the Cold War due to existing global relations with the Soviet Union. According to him, the Soviet Union posed a serious threat to the U.S. and, as a result, the U.S. couldn’t absolutely pursue its allegedly natural interest in democracy. In doing so, he offers very little in the way of criticism of U.S. support for dictatorial governments. Instead, he opts to humanize many of the actors who manipulated elections and deceived foreign citizens abroad. This is somewhat fascinating at times, but paired with the overall tone of the book, it feels rather celebratory.

In the post-Cold War world, Shimer views the U.S. as finally able to pursue its mission all along: democracy promotion. However, there is next to no critical attention paid to the type of democracy that is promoted, what parties and individuals receive assistance, and what actors are sidelined in the process. There is no critical interrogation of U.S. agencies and their objectives, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (and its associated groups: the International Republican Institute, and the National Democratic Institute), and the U.S. Agency for International Development. There is next to no engagement with literature produced by social scientists or even by former employees of the NED/USAID, some of whom have deeply criticized the partisan nature of U.S. democracy promotion. Instead, Shimer believes that such efforts are truly non-partisan in most instances and that funding flows to any democratic actor interested in receiving it.

Research on this topic, though, has shown that funding does not simply flow to any actor interested in it. Rather, it primarily flows to actors that U.S. state elites view as maintaining a similar geopolitical worldview as the U.S. Research has also shown that the U.S. promotes a liberal form of democracy, which while it might include some form of civil and political rights, any emphases on social and economic rights are largely absent. More concretely, support has largely flowed to parties that accept or at least do not challenge U.S. global power, such as the right-wing opposition in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Shimer’s characterization of this sort of funding as “above board” and out in the open is equally suspect. The NED and USAID provide very little information to the public on what it is they do with taxpayer money abroad. In fact, I waited nearly seven years to receive all of the documents I requested from the NED through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on its activities in Venezuela. This is hardly transparency; it’s public relations management that has apparently fooled some into believing that the U.S. engages in no more covert action. Indeed, much of the discussion hinges on the term “covert,” a term that the NED surely detests what with its Cold War connotations. I know this, of course, because the group requested that the Washington Post alter a headline given to an article I published with them on NED funding in Venezuela in February 2019 initially titled “The U.S. has quietly supported the Venezuelan opposition for years.” As a result, the term “covertly” was changed to “quietly” several hours after its publication. (The link itself, however, contains the original headline.)

We can agree that the NED and USAID at least list the locations they work around the world on their respective websites and within their brochures. But, does it disclose to existing leftist governments that they are helping opposition groups develop campaign platforms? Does it disclose that they work with student groups that protest their leadership? Does it disclose they are funding rock bands to critique them? Does it disclose they are creating fake community groups, and designing all of their materials in order to change the political affiliations of poor, barrio residents?

It’s also stunning how despite the legacy of CIA deceit and lies, Shimer thinks that the former CIA employees he interviews are providing him with the truth. His conclusion from his interviews with CIA members is that the organization no longer attempts to influence electoral outcomes. His evidence, again, are his own interviews with CIA members. It’s quite a feat of naïveté to take such individuals at their word.

Only a few years ago, for instance, former CIA Director John Brennan lied to the public about the CIA domestically spying on Senate staffers investigating CIA use of torture. Earlier, he had lied about the extent of civilian casualties amid the CIA drone warfare program.

Why would any CIA officer tell Shimer the truth about their activities abroad, particularly while on the record? Why would they disclose to him whether or not they are manipulating elections? These sections involving contemporary CIA activities read like propaganda and parody: “I asked the CIA if they manipulate elections these days. Their answer? No, or perhaps very rarely. So there you have it.”

There is a rich, social scientific history involving contemporary forms of U.S. intervention abroad. It shows how the U.S. still engages in partisan forms of intervention. In my own research, members from both USAID and NED told me this: they want geopolitical allies around the world. Even if Hugo Chávez or Evo Morales are democratically elected, so what? If they oppose major aspects of U.S. foreign policy, then the U.S. democracy promotion community will work to change minds and enhance opposition parties. In the instance of Venezuela, this even included working with actors who had undemocratically sought to depose Chávez in a coup in 2002.

As for Shimer’s sections on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, there is nothing new.

It’s a deeply unfortunate book. Shimer gained access to all sorts of political elites, from Bill Clinton to several former heads of the CIA. Yet, he comes away with nothing insightful or nuanced – just a regurgitation of their carefully crafted statements, all of which you could find in their institution’s mission statements. The book has received accolades from The Guardian and the New York Times, to Leon Panetta, David Petraeus, and Hillary Clinton. The latter is not surprising. For a book all about recent intervention, there is little mention of Clinton’s own attempt to keep the democratically elected and undemocratically toppled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya from running in elections in the post-coup period.

Hillary herself sought to whitewash her memoirs by removing this information from subsequently published copies of her book. The NED carefully selects adverbs to describe its uniformly non-transparent funding. And we now get an author drinking it all in and providing a suspiciously uninformed and under-explored treatment of U.S. intervention abroad. Look elsewhere for the truth.

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More articles by:TIMOTHY M. GILL

Timothy M. Gill (@timgill924) is an Assistant Professor in the Department Sociology and Criminology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.