Nighttime Israeli arrests haunt Palestinian kids, families





Israel Palestinians Child Arrests

Yousef Mesheh, 15, points to damage to a wall when Israeli forces stormed into his home at 3.a.m., in the Balata Refugee Camp in the northern West Bank, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. A report to be released next Monday by Israeli human rights organization HaMoked found that the Israeli military arrested and interrogated hundreds of Palestinian teenagers in 2022 in the occupied West Bank, without ever issuing a summons or notifying their families.

(AP Photo/ Maya Alleruzzo)

ISABEL DEBRE
Fri, January 13, 2023

BALATA REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank (AP) — Yousef Mesheh was sleeping in his bunk bed when Israeli forces stormed into his home at 3 a.m.

Within moments, the 15-year-old Palestinian said he was lying on the floor as troops punched him, shouting insults. A soldier struck his mother’s chest with his rifle butt and locked her in the bedroom, where she screamed for her sons.

Yousef and his 16-year-old brother, Wael, were hauled out of their home in Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank. Yousef was in a sleeveless undershirt and couldn’t see without his glasses.

“I can’t forget that night,” Yousef told The Associated Press from his living room, decorated with photos of Wael, who remains in detention. “When I go to sleep I still hear the shooting and screaming.”

The Israeli military arrested and interrogated hundreds of Palestinian teenagers in 2022 in the occupied West Bank, without ever issuing a summons or notifying their families, according to an upcoming report by the Israeli human rights organization HaMoked.

The charges against those being arrested ranged from being in Israel without a permit to throwing stones or Molotov cocktails. Some teens say they were arrested to obtain information about neighbors or family members.

In the vast majority of the military's pre-planned arrests of minors last year, children were taken from their homes in the dead of the night, HaMoked said. After being yanked out of bed, children as young as 14 were interrogated while sleep-deprived and disoriented. Water, food and access to toilets were often withheld. Yousef said soldiers beat him when he asked to relieve himself during his seven-hour journey to the detention center.

The Israeli army argues it has the legal authority to arrest minors at its discretion during late-night raids.

Lawyers and advocates say the tactic runs counter to Israel’s legal promises to alert parents about their children’s alleged offenses.

“We started demanding that the night arrests of children be the last resort,” said Jessica Montell, director of HaMoked.

The rights group said there had been some improvement two years ago when the Israeli government, in response to a Supreme Court petition by HaMoked, asked that the military call on parents to bring their children for interrogation. But according to figures reported to the Supreme Court, the army summoned Palestinian parents to question their children only a handful of times.

Last year, not a single family received a summons in nearly 300 cases HaMoked tracked in the West Bank. Petty offenses and cases where children were released without charge — as happened to Yousef — were no exception. HaMoked said the numbers are incomplete because it believes scores of similar cases are never reported.

“They are not implementing the procedure they created themselves,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability program director for Defense for Children International in the Palestinian territories. “It’s part of the philosophy of the interrogation that children are terrified and exhausted.”

In response to a request for comment, the Israeli military said it tries to summon Palestinian children suspected of minor offenses who have no history of serious criminal convictions. But, the army argued, this policy does not apply to serious offenses or “when a summons to an investigation would harm its purpose.”

The army would not comment on Yousef's arrest, but said his brother, Wael, faces charges related to “serious financial crimes,” including “contacting the enemy,” “illegally bringing in money” and helping “an illegal organization.” These charges typically reflect cases of Palestinians communicating with people in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Although HaMoked found most cases were soon dropped, the late-night arrests haunted children long after.

Since his Nov. 7 arrest, Yousef “is not like he was before,” said his mother, Hanadi Mesheh, who also recounted her ordeal to the AP. He can’t focus in school. He no longer plays soccer. She sleeps beside him some nights, holding him during his nightmares.

“I feel like I’m always being watched,” Yousef said. “I'm frightened when my mother wakes me in the morning for school.”

Similar stories abound in the area. The northern city of Nablus emerged as a major flashpoint for violence last year after Israel began a crackdown in the West Bank in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks in Israel.

Last year Israeli forces killed at least 146 Palestinians, including 34 children, the Israeli rights group B'Tselem reported, making 2022 the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank in 18 years. According to the Israeli army, most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed. Palestinian attacks, meanwhile, killed at least 31 Israelis last year.

Israel says the operations are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians have decried the raids as collective punishment aimed at cementing Israel’s open-ended 55-year-old occupation of lands they want for a future state. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Nighttime arrest raids are not limited to the West Bank. Israeli police also carry out regular raids in Palestinian neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.

Last fall in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, Rania Elias heard pounding on the door before dawn. Her youngest son, 16-year-old Shadi Khoury, was sleeping in his underwear. Israeli police burst into their home, shoved Khoury to the floor and pummeled his face. Blood was everywhere, she said, as police dragged him to a Jerusalem detention center for interrogation.

“You can’t imagine what it’s like to feel helpless to save your child,” Elias said.

In response to a request for comment, the Israeli police said they charged Khoury with being part of a group that threw stones at a Jewish family's car on Oct. 12, wounding a passenger.

Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new ultra-nationalist government, parents say they fear for their children more than ever. Some of the most powerful ministers are Israeli settlers who promise a hard-line stance against the Palestinians.

“This is the darkest moment,” said activist Murad Shitawi, whose 17-year-old son Khaled was arrested last March in a night raid on their home in the West Bank town of Kfar Qaddum. “I’m worried for my sons."

___

Associated Press writer Sam McNeil in Balata refugee camp, West Bank, contributed to this report.

Together they can: In Palestinian village, a model of self-sufficiency

Taylor Luck

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Wed, January 11, 2023 

Pausing to reflect as she tends to sprouting tomato plants, Hanin Rizaqallah, a 40-something mother of two, says she never imagined she would become a farmer.

But standing in the 100-square-foot, plastic-canopied greenhouse behind her traditional stone-and-concrete home, she says she now feels a connection to her land, her village, and her “elders.”

“I never thought I would be farming like my grandparents, but having a home garden is not only economical, it is something that is ours,” she says, speaking over the moos of her neighbor’s cow from behind the fence.

Last season she sold 11,000 pounds of molokhiya, a leafy green obtained from jute plants, supplying her village and several area markets with the Palestinian staple. And she is constantly studying village and market needs for the next season, with her dutiful husband, Maher, working alongside, under her watchful eye.

Part traditional farmer, part entrepreneur, in two short years Ms. Rizaqallah has become a pillar of her village community and a provider of food for dozens of households.

“We all contribute. To depend on yourself and your neighbors for food and income is something powerful,” she says as she and her husband check on their current tomato crop. “This is a safety net if one of our neighbors’ crops fails. Here, we can count on each other.”

In Farkha, you are never far from a helping hand.

In this West Bank village, residents are building on centuries of rural, small-town cooperation – blended with modern concepts of volunteering – to create their own model: social solidarity for self-sufficiency.

It’s an ambitious model that has helped Farkha make communitywide improvements while enhancing its autonomy by relying less on Israel and the inefficient and distrusted Palestinian Authority.

“Stronger together”

Just as in the old days, everyone here pitches in when a neighbor needs to patch a roof, a farmer is struggling to finish his harvest, or the girls’ school needs a new coat of paint – tapping into the Palestinian concept of al Ouneh, or collective philanthropy.

But today in this village, 21 miles northwest of Ramallah, all community works are highly organized, drawing on corporate efficiency and the participatory spirit of town hall democracy.

The coordination can be seen in the 230 home gardens that have popped up in the past few years. Residents like Ms. Rizaqallah and her husband grow crops and raise livestock in their backyards and distribute to one another on a rotation, so everyone’s food needs are met.

This revival of al Ouneh is thanks to a generation of millennial and Generation Z residents entering local politics. After years of volunteering, these young leftists and political independents are merging a passion for community service with a reverence for a lost way of farming life in the West Bank that was once sustainable and self-reliant.

“Others may say volunteering will only take a bit of your time, but in Farkha that is not the case,” says Farkha’s youthful mayor, Mustafa Hammad.

“In this village, volunteering means work, time, and effort. But at the end of the day there are real results, and everyone is stronger together.”
Volunteering roots

Farkha’s modern volunteerism dates to the 1980s, when village youths who participated in volunteer camps organized by then-Nazareth Mayor Tawfiq Zayed, a communist and champion of community work, launched their own volunteering “festival.”

Since 1991, thousands have taken part in the Farkha International Youth Festival, during which volunteers carry out public works across the village, learn new skills, and eat food home-cooked by grateful families.

Beginning in 2017, young men who grew up taking part in and organizing the festival started running for the local village council, winning seats and applying their volunteer experience on a wider scale in the form of public policy.

Under their municipal volunteer scheme, Farkha’s village council lists weekly projects, and within hours people pledge their time, funds, and materials to carry them out.

For the past five years, the maintenance of schools and streets has been conducted year-round and self-funded by the community; residents no longer wait for the lethargic Palestinian Authority to act.

The program has transformed the look of the village: Residents have renovated Farkha’s historical center and Ottoman stone houses, rebuilt part of a high school, created a football pitch, built the village’s first children’s center, and developed an eco-farm.

“When people started to feel the value of their public spaces and facilities, they started to take care of them. They began to realize that ‘private’ property is not more important than ‘public’ property,’ but in fact public spaces are more important,” says Mr. Hammad. “Volunteering has become a culture here.”

When COVID-19 and its lockdowns hit, the young village council members provided residents with saplings and seedlings to manage food shortages and encourage a return to their farming roots.

While some grow spinach and potatoes, today other residents raise chickens or sheep and provide eggs and milk to one another, harking back to a time before the first intifada 35 years ago when the village was completely self-reliant for food.

Independence bid

There is a deeper purpose to this revival of social solidarity.

Farkha still relies on the Palestinian Authority and Israel for a large portion of its water.

The high price and taxes imposed on water from Israel and the Palestinian Authority have raised costs for farmers, many of whom say they have turned their backs on commercial farming as economically noncompetitive.

Instead, many work on Israeli settlements within the West Bank, where they can make three times the income.

To help people return to farming, the Farkha village council took over the distribution of water to farmers directly, without the service fees the Palestinian Authority normally charges.

It has already made an impact.

Ghazi al-Sharif, a 20-something agricultural engineer, did his own economic feasibility study and found that with the new lowered water costs, growing vegetables in a plastic hothouse could be profitable. He acted.

“To be able to practice what I studied in my home village is something special,” he says as he prunes a tomato vine in his hothouse. “Some of my friends think I am crazy, but I am making a living from our own land and selling to my neighbors. We are becoming more connected.”

Now, the village council is focusing on building two large artesian wells, in compliance with Israeli restrictions to complement home wells, to make the village completely water independent. The new wells are expected to cut water costs for Farkha farmers and residents by half; a solar energy project is planned that aims to take Farkha off-grid.

“We cannot become 100% self-sufficient in all areas within the next four years, but we can become completely self-sufficient in some areas,” says Mr. Hammad.

“If you can cut water costs for people, you will encourage people to farm. If you encourage people to farm, you will have food security and a source of income, so people don’t feel like their only choice is to work in settlements on occupied land.”
Community in a bottle of oil

This community-first ethos can be found even in Farkha’s olive oil.

To lower farmers’ costs and encourage residents to process their olive oil in line with European Union standards, the village council and nearby voluntary associations came together and built their very own olive press.

After learning about certified organic and environment-friendly production methods of extra-virgin olive oil at Farkha’s community eco-farm, the village now exports to France and Belgium.

At the communal olive press on a late October night, farmers backed their trucks in to unload hundreds of pounds of freshly picked olives and stayed with one another until everyone’s press was done.

“We have all helped picked each other’s trees; now we press oil together,” says Mohammed, a Farkha resident. “My harvest is not finished until all our harvests are finished.”

Farkha’s young visionaries have larger plans: spreading their al Ouneh-based model to other Palestinian communities.

They have established a West Bank volunteer network, with a second branch in Tulkarm – founded by young men and women who participated in Farkha’s festival – and a third in Ramallah.

Under the new network, democratic local councils will identify and organize public works, just as in Farkha.

“Topography and geography do not make a village,” Mr. Hammad says. “Social cohesion is what makes a village.”

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LGBTQ Muslims are becoming more visible in America despite a history of being shunned

Deena Yellin, 

The Bergen Record
Thu, January 12, 2023

Growing up in a traditional Muslim family in Coney Island, Kandeel Javid often prayed at his local mosque. But it rarely brought him peace.

Javid was living with a secret: He was gay but couldn't tell anyone in his family or faith community, where homosexuality was shunned. His parents were immigrants from Pakistan, where same-sex relationships are banned. He knew they would have difficulty accepting a gay lifestyle.

Going into a mosque required him to hide a part of himself. "Many of them are closed off to LGBTQ conversations, while others have a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," he said.

He sought an oasis where he could find support but, as a teen in the early 2000s, found few resources. "There was no place where I could own my sexual orientation and not fear getting bullied, hated on or being told that I would burn in hell," he recalled. "I had to stay closeted."

For Muslim members of the LGBTQ community, Pride Month offers a bittersweet reality. The faith remains officially unwelcoming, with homosexuality banned in some Islamic countries.

But there are signs of change, with individual families and support groups opening their arms.

A growing number of organizations for LGBTQ Muslims have cropped up around the country to offer support, social events, Quran study sessions and communal iftars — the meal held to break the daily fast during Ramadan — to try to eradicate the isolation felt by those often shunned by their loved ones and community.

Kandeel Javid

Mosques that opened in Chicago and Toronto in recent years tout themselves as LGBTQ-friendly, welcoming everyone without the need to hide sexual orientation or gender identities.

Javid finally felt comfortable coming out of the closet in 2016, at age 26, after joining Muslims for Progressive Values, a Los Angeles-based group that promotes LGBTQ rights and has 25,000 members around the globe.

Today, the 32-year-old-engineer lives in Boston with his partner. Although he's been out for six years, his parents still have not come to terms with his gay identity, he said.

"It's been years of disconnect," he said. But some friends and relatives, including his brother, "were very accepting and told me, 'I will always love you no matter what.'"

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Islam's harsh perspective on homosexuality has its roots in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is found in the Quran and the Bible. According to the story as many Muslims interpret it, Lot warned the people of his city against immorality for engaging in sexual acts with men. When his protests were rejected, the city was destroyed in an act of divine punishment.

Islam generally considers same-gender sex a grave sin, and many Muslim majority countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, have implemented anti-LGBTQ laws with punishments up to prison or death. Numerous LGBTQ Muslims contacted for this story declined to be interviewed for fear of what would happen to them if their identities were revealed.

"The official position of Islam is that we don't approve of homosexuality," said Imam Moutaz Charaf of the El-Zahra Islamic Center of Midland Park. "But our mosque is open to all people. We don't try to ask people what they do or don't do in their home. We pray to Allah to guide them and help them. We emphasize that we need to be kind to all people whether they hold to the religion or not."

But not everyone shares that perspective. "Amongst Islamic scholars, there is a wide range of interpretations of homosexuality," said Sylvia Chan-Malik, an associate professor of American studies at Rutgers University.

"People have this impression that Islam is intolerant or that LGBTQ people are not welcomed within the Muslim community, but it's no less so than in our broader community," said Chan-Malik, who also authored "Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam."

The voices heard most predominantly in the Muslim community have been male and straight, but that's changing, said Ani Zonneveld, president of Muslims for Progressive Values. She believes there's been progress, with LGBTQ Muslims "becoming more visible." More mosques today "have a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," which is a shift from "You are not welcome and you are going to hell," she said.

Zonneveld's group has worked to make a progressive interpretation of the Quran more mainstream. She officiates at gay Islamic weddings, which she says is permissible, based on her interpretation of the Quran.

Growing up in an insulated Muslim family in India, Mohammed Shaik Hussain Ali knew he was attracted to people of the same gender before he heard the word "gay."

“I thought I was the only one in the world," said Ali, who now lives in Manhattan. He was elated when, in his early teens, he discovered he wasn't alone.

He came to America when he was in his early 20s to earn his engineering degree, and got a job as a software engineer. He subsequently became active in several LGBTQ advocacy organizations.

But when Ali came out to his parents at age 28, during one of their visits to America, they told him they wished he had never been born. Whenever he was with them afterward, it was like "a funeral,” he said. He cut off ties with them to maintain his sanity, but they've since reconciled.

When Mohammed Shaik Hussain Ali told his parents he was gay at age 28, they told him they wished he had never been born, but have since reconciled. Photo credit Mapisak Studio.

Ali is the producer of an award-winning feature film, "Evening Shadows," which premiered in 2018 and won a series of awards. It was aired on Netflix for three years until recently. "It's a bit autobiographical but with a happier ending," Ali said.

The story focuses on a mother in a patriarchal conservative society in South India who is faced with a dilemma when her son reveals that he is gay. She has to deal with her intolerant husband and fight her own demons as she comes to grips with her son's truth.

After his family watched the movie, the reconciliation process began. "My mother told me she understood what she should have done differently," Ali said, adding that his father understood what he shouldn't have done.

The 38-year-old, who is a published author and is single, considers himself a religious Muslim. He prays regularly at a mosque near his Hell's Kitchen apartment. "I've read every holy book and couldn't find any reference that demonized me," he said, adding that though Muslims are generally hostile towards homosexuals, the way that he understands the Quran, it doesn't ban that kind of love.

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When he goes to the mosque, he wears his rainbow pin. "They look at it, but nobody bothers me," he said.

“I am a South Asian Indian Muslim gay. I'm not one of the identities. I'm all the identities," Ali said. "People have to take all of me or none of me. I do not come in pieces."

American Muslims, a group estimated to include almost 4 million people, have become more accepting of homosexuality, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey. The poll found that 52% said society should accept homosexuality, up from 27% in 2007.

Aruna Rao of Edison founded Desi Rainbow Parents and Allies, an advocacy organization for parents of LGBTQ children, because of her own need for support.

"My child came out as queer eight years ago, and I didn't have an understanding of how to respond," she said. Desi Rainbow focuses on being culturally sensitive to parents who come from South Asian countries. Many are Muslim, and the group celebrates Eid and Ramadan, in addition to holding events highlighting the experiences of LGBTQ Muslims.

Membership in the group has soared. What began with a handful of people seven years ago has grown to a mailing list of over 2,000, she said.

Rao grew up in South India and came to the U.S. as a graduate student 30 years ago. When her elementary school child told her in 2016that "he wasn't a girl, although he was an assigned female at birth, I thought I had a tomboy who'd grow out of it."

Shenaaz Janmohamed

Instead, he came out as queer, which was something that took her a while to grapple with. She did, and "today, he's a successful and happy adult," she said.

Shenaaz Janmohamed grew up in Sacramento, California, knowing she was different, not only because she was a Shiite Muslim, but because she was gay.

Her parents, who were devout Muslims, fasted on Ramadan and took the word of the Quran seriously. So when she told them she was gay, they couldn't reconcile it with their image of a good Muslim.

"We haven't reckoned with the ways that patriarchy and misogyny have influenced Islam," she said.

Janmohamed moved 12 years ago to Oakland, where she lives with her partner of 12 years and their 6-year-old daughter.

"We continue to have a journey," she said about her parents. "It's beautiful to see how much they love our child. It's healing to see the way she's accepted in ways I still don't feel accepted by my parents."

"I don't have relationships with my relatives and broader community," she said. "I wish it were different."

Janmohamed started Queer Crescent, a social justice organization focused on connecting to spiritual practice and power within the LGBTQ and Muslim community, in 2017. The group organizes cultural and political events and raises funds for marginalized Muslims, such as those with disabilities or who are incarcerated, she said.

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It started with a handful of people, and it grew. When the pandemic hit, the group went virtual, which allowed it to reach more people around the country. Queer Crescent's newsletter now has more than 900 subscribers.

The group is currently conducting a nationwide online survey of LGBTQ Muslims in America. The goal is to recognize the needs of LGBTQ Muslims, who are often removed from the broader Muslim community, Janmohamed said.

"There are so many ways to be a Muslim," she said. "I think Allah loves me as I am."

Deena Yellin covers religion for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to her work covering how the spiritual intersects with our daily lives, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: yellin@northjersey.com

Twitter: @deenayellin

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com

Google warns U$ Supreme Court against ‘gutting’ controversial tech provision



Rebecca Klar
Thu, January 12, 2023 

Google argued that if the Supreme Court rules to scale back a liability shield for internet companies, the decision could lead to more censorship and hate speech online, according to a brief filed Thursday.

The filing showcases Google’s argument in a case facing the high court that centers around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a controversial provision that protects companies from being sued over content posted by third parties.

“Gutting Section 230 … would upend the internet and perversely encourage both wide-ranging suppression of speech and the proliferation of more offensive speech,” the filing states.

Sites with resources to take down objectionable content could “become beholden to heckler’s vetoes, removing anything anyone found objectionable,” while other sides could take “the see-no-evil approach” and disable filtering to “avoid any interference of constructive knowledge of third-party content,” the company argued.

The case is based on allegations against Google raised by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen killed in a 2015 Islamic State Terror Attack in France. Gonzalez’s family alleges Google-owned video-sharing site YouTube provided a platform for terrorist content and recommended content inciting violence and recruiting potential Islamic State supporters through YouTube’s recommendation algorithm.

At the crux of the case is a question of whether Section 230 protects Google against the allegations.

Oral arguments before the Supreme Court are scheduled for Feb. 21.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been pushing for reforms to Section 230, but for different reasons, meaning there is likely to be little consensus by way of policy reform.

President Biden doubled down on his calls to reform Section 230 in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

Democrats argue the provision leads to more hate speech and misinformation online, since it protects tech platforms from being legally responsible for such content. Meanwhile, Republicans argue it allows platforms to censor content with anti-conservative biases.

The Justice Department filed a brief in the case last month warning the Supreme Court against an “overly broad” interpretation of Section 230. The department argued that the provision protects YouTube over liability for hosting or “failing to remove” ISIS-related content, but not over claims based on YouTube’s “own conduct in designing and implementing its targeted-recommendation algorithms.”

The Hill.

WHERE SATIRE IS ILLEGAL
Mexico's buck-toothed cartoon president ruled 'electoral violation'



 Supporter of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attends a protest rally in Mexico City

Wed, January 11, 2023

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A buck-toothed cartoon version of Mexico's president constitutes an "electoral violation," the country's electoral tribunal ruled Wednesday, arguing use of the popular caricature in official propaganda gave party candidates an unfair advantage.

The tribunal said it was sanctioning President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's ruling Morena party for "using the caricature of the President of the Republic in its propaganda, which violates the constitutional principles of neutrality and fair contest."

Designed by Mexican caricaturist Jose Hernandez, the image of the 69-year-old head of state with tousled gray hair, two large, protruding front teeth and an affable childlike grin giving a thumbs-up gesture, was popularized during Lopez Obrador's first presidential bid ahead of the 2006 elections.

Affectionately known as "Amlito" - a diminutive reference to the president's initials, AMLO - the cartoon has since been reproduced on dolls, key chains, baked goods, banners and, crucially, a May 2022 post on Morena's Twitter account promoting six party candidates for local gubernatorial elections

The tribunal's upper chamber ruled there was "constitutional and legal basis" to sanction the message, arguing the image of the popular head of state should not have been used as propaganda for a contest in which he was not a candidate.

It argued "capitalizing on the image" of the president, whose approval rating hovers around 60%, gave his party's candidates an undue advantage.

The chamber called on "political-electoral propaganda campaigns" to limit themselves to candidates, their proposals, party ideology and platforms. Morena had earlier appealed, arguing there was no legal ban in force on using the caricature.

"Now the (electoral tribunal) has confirmed the action was illegal and sanctioned them," Jorge Alvarez, an opposition party organizer who filed the complaint, said in a tweet. "We will continue the fight through legal channels."

(Reporting by Sarah Morland; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

TORY ANTI-SEMITISM

UK's Conservatives ditch lawmaker for comparing COVID vaccines to Holocaust

WHERE IS THE BRIT ZIONIST OUTCRY


Andrew Bridgen  British politician (born 1964)

Wed, January 11, 2023 

LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's governing Conservative Party expelled a lawmaker from its parliamentary bloc on Wednesday for comparing COVID-19 vaccines to the Holocaust.

"Andrew Bridgen has crossed a line, causing great offence in the process," said Simon Hart, the chief whip, or head of party discipline, for the Conservatives.

"Misinformation about the vaccine causes harm and costs lives. I am therefore removing the whip from Andrew Bridgen with immediate effect, pending a formal investigation."

Bridgen, a longstanding critic of COVID-19 vaccines, had earlier on Wednesday tweeted a link to an article on vaccine side effects, adding the comment: "As one consultant cardiologist said to me this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust."

Speaking in parliament, Sunak later told lawmakers: "It is utterly unacceptable to make linkages and use language like that, and I'm determined that the scourge of anti-Semitism is eradicated. It has absolutely no place in our society."

Asked about the charge of anti-Semitism, Bridgen later apologised.

"In relation to my tweet this morning, the use of the Holocaust as a reference was insensitive, for which I apologise. I have deleted the offending tweet," he said.

"However, this must not be used to distract from valid concerns related to the vaccine. The article I tweeted presents the work of a Jewish Israeli researcher."

Sunak's party considers the fast roll-out of vaccines in 2021 to be one of its major achievements in power, and says the vaccine saved countless lives during the pandemic and allowed the country to end lockdowns quickly.

Bridgen is currently suspended from parliament's lower chamber the House of Commons for five days after being found to have breached rules on paid lobbying and on declaring financial interests.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Farouq Suleiman; Writing by William James; Editing by Peter Graff and Alex Richardson)

Conservative MP stripped of party whip after he linked Covid vaccine to Holocaust


Andrew Bridgen  British politician 

Kate Devlin
Wed, January 11, 2023

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen has been stripped of the party whip after he appeared to link the rollout of Covid vaccinations to the Holocaust.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak denounced the comments as “completely unacceptable”.

The party’s chief whip Simon Hart said Mr Bridgen had “crossed a line” and had “caused great offence in the process”.

Mr Bridgen claimed that Covid vaccines were “causing serious harms” and said he had been told the programme was “the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust”.

Mr Hart said: “The vaccine is the best defence against Covid that we have. Misinformation about the vaccine causes harm and costs lives. I am therefore removing the Whip from Andrew Bridgen with immediate effect, pending a formal investigation.”

On Wednesday Mr Bridgen tweeted an article on vaccines, adding: “As one consultant cardiologist said to me, this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust.”

Earlier this week the North West Leicestershire MP was suspended from the Commons for five days. MPs backed the measure after he was found to have displayed a "very cavalier" attitude to the rules in a series of lobbying breaches.

Will Moy, chief executive at anti-misinformation site Full Fact, said “Andrew Bridgen has put lives at risk for months by being enabled to peddle health misinformation in Parliament.

“It is right that the Conservative Party took action after Andrew Bridgen’s shameful comments online earlier today. But it is unacceptable that an MP has been allowed to repeatedly make dangerous, false claims about vaccines for months without consequence.

“Globally, we have seen what happens when we empower conspiracy theorists to spread dangerous health misinformation, which costs lives.

“Are the Conservative Party seriously going to consider endorsing an MP who behaves like this at the next election?”

TC OWES ALBERTA TAXPAYERS $1BL
Keystone pipeline may be 'unsaleable' after spill; analyst pushes other asset sales

TC Energy CEO says "there are no sacred cows" when it comes to shedding assets

Jeff Lagerquist
Thu, January 12, 2023 

Emergency crews work to clean up the largest U.S. crude oil spill in nearly a decade, following the leak at the Keystone pipeline operated by TC Energy in rural Washington County, Kansas, U.S., December 9, 2022. REUTERS/Drone Base

TC Energy’s (TRP.TO)(TRP) Keystone crude oil pipeline may be “unsaleable” in 2023 after its 14,000-barrel spill last year. That’s according to a RBC Capital Markets analyst calling for management to double or triple the size of the company's plan to sell off billions in assets this year.

On Monday, the Calgary-based energy and infrastructure firm said it’s too early to estimate the cost of the Dec. 7 pipeline rupture, as clean-up efforts continue in Kansas. While the 622,000 barrel-per-day artery resumed service in late December, RBC’s Robert Kwan says the incident could put Keystone “out of the picture” as TC Energy looks to sell $5 billion in assets.

“We wonder if the Keystone spill will effectively render that asset as unsaleable in 2023,” he wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday. “Instead, we turn our attention to selling a 49 per cent stake in NGTL (the Nova Gas Transmission Line).”

Speaking at TC Energy’s investor day in December, chief executive officer Francois Poirier said “there are no sacred cows” when it comes to shedding assets to bankroll growth and pay down debt in 2023.

While the company is best-known for its Keystone oil pipeline system, a Canada-U.S. artery that grabbed headlines for an expansion project that ultimately failed, natural gas distribution is a larger part of TC Energy’s business.

Kwan says selling a 49 per cent non-controlling stake in NGTL could be worth $12 billion. According to TC Energy, the 24,494 km line connects most of the natural gas production in western Canada to domestic and export markets.

“We think the time has come to go big and leave no doubt, and based on our discussions with investors, we believe this may be a path to share price outperformance in 2023,” he wrote. “We believe an asset monetization program in the $10 to $15 billion range could provide numerous benefits to the company.”

Toronto-listed TC Energy shares added 1.51 per cent on Thursday to 56.64 at 12:29 p.m. ET. The stock has fallen about 10 per cent in the past 12 months, bucking the trend as Canadian energy stocks benefited from higher commodity prices in 2022.

Kwan maintains an “outperform” rating on TC Energy’s stock, with a $73 per share price target.

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

Brazil police find draft decree in ex-minister's house to revert election -source

Brazil's Minister of Justice and Public Security Anderson Torres walks on the day of a news conference at Headquarters of the Federal Highway Police in Brasilia

Thu, January 12, 2023 
By Ricardo Brito

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazilian police found a draft decree in the home of former President Jair Bolsonaro's justice minister that appears to be a proposal to interfere in the result of the October election he lost, two people familiar with the investigation said on Thursday.

The proposed decree, elaborated after Bolsonaro's narrow defeat by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, would establish an emergency "state of defense" for the national election authority, the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), opening the door to altering the result, the sources said.

The document was found on Tuesday when police searched the home of Anderson Torres, who became security chief for Brasilia after Lula took office on Jan. 1, the people said.

A Supreme Court justice ordered the arrest of Torres in connection with the security failures that allowed Bolsonaro supporters to storm government buildings on Sunday trying to provoke a military coup that would oust Lula.

The discovery of the document was first reported by Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

Torres, who left Brazil for Florida after becoming Brasilia security chief, said on social media that the reported document was likely among others in a stack being thrown out and was "leaked" in his absence to create a "false narrative."

"I respect Brazilian democracy. My conscience is clear regarding my actions as minister," Torres wrote.

Analysts said the measures proposed in the document would amount to an unconstitutional conspiracy to meddle in the election.

A lawyer for the former justice minister, Demostenes Torres told Reuters he was not aware of the document, but noted that it was "impossible" to change the election result.

The lawyer said his client would return to Brasilia on Friday to prepare his defense against the arrest warrant relating to Sunday's insurrection in the capital.

The document was ready for presidential signature, the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Bolsonaro, who also flew to Florida 48 hours before his term ended, has still not conceded defeat by Lula.

He briefly posted a video this week on social media suggesting Lula had in fact lost the election. In the run-up to the election, Bolsonaro insisted that Brazil's electronic voting system was vulnerable to fraud, although he has never provided evidence to support his claims.

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito; Writing by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Brad Haynes and Alistair Bell)

Revoke Bolsonaro's visa, 41 U.S. Democrats urge Biden administration


Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in Florida

Thu, January 12, 2023 
By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Forty-one Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives asked President Joe Biden's administration on Thursday to cooperate with Brazil's investigation into violent protests in Brasilia and revoke any U.S. visas held by former President Jair Bolsonaro.

They sent a letter calling on the administration to support democracy and the rule of law in Brazil. "Furthermore, we must not allow Mr. Bolsonaro or any other former Brazilian officials to take refuge in the United States to escape justice for any crimes they may have committed when in office," the letter said.

Far-right Bolsonaro flew to Florida two days before his term ended on Jan. 1 and leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office.


Supporters of Bolsonaro ransacked Brazil's Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace on Sunday, calling for a military coup to overturn the October election that Lula won.

State Department and White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

The State Department has said repeatedly its policy is not to discuss specific visa cases. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington had not received any specific requests from Brazil over Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro has said on social media that he would return to Brazil earlier than planned for medical reasons. He has denied inciting his supporters and said the rioters "crossed the line."

The letter was led by U.S. Representatives Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat and former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Joaquin Castro, Ruben Gallego, Chuy Garcia and Susan Wild.

Biden joined other world leaders in condemning Sunday's violence in Brazil.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Congress Ramps Up Pressure to Kick Out Bolsonaro as US Bides Time



Courtney McBride
Thu, January 12, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Congressional Democrats added to pressure on President Joe Biden to kick Jair Bolsonaro out of the country, even as US officials stick to a wait-and-see approach in hopes that the former Brazilian president will make good on a promise to return home on his own.

In a letter dated Thursday, 46 congressional Democrats urged Biden to remove Bolsonaro in light of the Jan. 8 attacks by his supporters on government buildings in Brasilia, the capital. They said the violence was “built upon months of pre- and post-election fabrications by Mr. Bolsonaro and his allies” about the October election that Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva narrowly won.

“The United States must not provide shelter for him, or any authoritarian who has inspired such violence against democratic institutions,” the lawmakers wrote, calling on the US to “cooperate fully with any investigation by the Brazilian government into their actions, if requested.”

The letter added to pressure on Biden to do something about Bolsonaro, who traveled to Florida days before Lula’s inauguration on what he said was a vacation. Bolsonaro was seen eating at a KFC and strolling through a Publix supermarket in Florida after he arrived on Dec. 30.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin joined the chorus Thursday evening, urging Biden to rescind authorization for Bolsonaro to remain in the country.

“The United States must not be a safe haven for those who seek to undermine free and fair democratic elections or the peaceful democratic transfer of power, particularly by inciting violence, regardless of the position of power they previously held,” Durbin wrote in his letter to the president.

A former Bolsonaro spokesperson, who remains a friend of his family, didn’t immediately reply to a message seeking more information on the former president’s intentions.

What was initially seen as a bizarre quirk of Brazilian post-election politics became much more serious after last Sunday’s riots by Bolsonaro supporters, and the Biden administration began to assess whether it ought to intervene in some way. That quandary appeared to take care of itself when Bolsonaro, who was briefly hospitalized near Orlando for abdominal pains, told CNN Brasil he would cut short his trip and return home.

But Bolsonaro still hasn’t gone back to Brazil, and the Biden administration is again facing questions about what to do — and whether trying to expel him out would touch off a messy legal battle. It’s believed Bolsonaro came to the US on a diplomatic visa, given that he was still in office at the time of his arrival. The State Department, which wouldn’t comment on Bolsonaro’s specific case, says an individual has 30 days to depart the US or change visa status after leaving government service.

Biden could have the authority to declare Bolsonaro persona non grata and order him out of the country. But that measure is generally used for a foreign diplomat, not a head of state, and it’s not clear if it applies in this case. If Bolsonaro believed he faced the risk of jail by returning home, he could seek asylum or challenge a move to extradite him in US courts.

“This is very complicated and it has to do with international law, the US law, the Vienna Conventions, international customary law and the Constitution,” said Denyse Sabagh, a partner at Duane Morris LLP who specializes in immigration and nationality law.

“You can see many different avenues where, depending on what the US did, his lawyers would argue that he would be entitled to some relief here in the United States,” she said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken declined even to say Bolsonaro’s name when asked about his case at a briefing on Wednesday.

“We’re talking now about people who are private citizens,” Blinken said. “We’ve heard various public statements that have been made by those individuals about their plans, but we really don’t have anything to add.”

Blinken pointed out that Lula has called for an investigation into the riots but that the US hadn’t received “any specific requests from Brazilian authorities” — indicating that so far Brazilian authorities hadn’t sought to extradite Bolsonaro.

“Of course, if and when we do, we’ll work expeditiously to respond, as we always do,” Blinken said.

Another question is whether Lula even wants Bolsonaro to return to Brazil.

Bolsonaro’s presence could “have a destabilizing impact on not only the country, but also on the ability for Lula to govern,” Jason Marczak, director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said in an interview.

Bolsonaro could use his supporters’ anger “to try to continue his relevance and his power in Brazil,” Marczak said. “I think he will try to make it increasingly politically problematic to levy charges against him.”

Although Bolsonaro criticized the riots, he also has continued to feed the disinformation that supporters who participated have embraced, sharing a video of voter fraud conspiracies on Facebook that was deleted hours later.

--With assistance from Daniel Carvalho.

Brazil reckons with artistic treasures ruined in riot









Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, storm the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. Planalto is the official workplace of the president of Brazil.

 (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)


MARIO LOBAO and DAVID BILLER
Thu, January 12, 2023 at 5:28 PM MST·2 min read

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — The horde of rioters who invaded government buildings on Jan. 8 in an attack on Brazil's democracy left behind a trail of destruction whose full scope is only now coming into full view.

Following a painstaking survey of the ruins, the national artistic heritage institute on Thursday night released a 50-page report, the bulk of which is a photographic catalog of the damages. They go far beyond the shattered glass on the exteriors of the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court, all architectural icons.

Modernist furniture was burned, portraits defaced, sculptures decapitated and ceramics smashed. Carpets were found soaked with water from the buildings' sprinkler systems, as well as with urine.

The rioters — die-hard supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his election defeat — marred the iconic marble ramp leading up the presidential palace with scratches, some stretching two feet in length, according to the report. Into a historic wooden table at the Supreme Court they carved “Supreme are the people” — a phrase popular among backers of Bolsonaro, who often strained against the checks of the top court.

Among the artworks destroyed was a 17th-century clock made by Balthazar Martinot and that the French royal court gifted to the Portuguese King. The only other Martinot clock in existence is in France’s Palace of Versailles, though is half the size, Brazil's presidency said in a statement. A 60-year-old bronze sculpture of a flautist by Bruno Giorgi was also thrashed (should this be trashed?), and its pieces found spread across a room on the presidential palace's third floor.

Vandals pitched rocks through the canvas of a mural by Emiliano Di Calvalcanti. The presidential palace said in its statement that the painting, “As Mulatas”, is valued at some $1.5 million, though works of that size tend to fetch quintuple that amount at auction.

“The damage was not random, it was obviously deliberate," Rogerio Carvalho, the presidential palace's curator, said in an interview while sitting before the disfigured painting. The work "was perforated in seven places using rocks taken from the square with a pickaxe. Which is to say, there is a movement of intolerance toward what this palace represents.”

The total cost of the destruction hasn't yet been established. Senate president Rodrigo Pacheco placed the damage in his congressional chamber alone in the millions.

The day after the uprising, Justice Minister Flávio Dino said Federal Police surveys will enable the attorney-general's office to hold perpetrators financially responsible.

This collection “is an artistic treasure of the Brazilian people, which belongs to the nation and whose integrity needs to be respected,” Brazil’s culture minister, Margareth Menezes, told reporters on Tuesday. “The idea is to create a memorial about this violence we suffered, so that it never happens again.”

__

AP writer Biller reported from Rio de Janeiro

BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY DID

Brazil rioters plotted openly online, pitched huge 'party'





Protesters, supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, clash with police as they storm the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. Planalto is the official workplace of the president of Brazil. 

(AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

JOSHUA GOODMAN and DAVID KLEPPER
Wed, January 11, 2023 

MIAMI (AP) — The map was called “Beach Trip” and was blasted out to more than 18,000 members of a public Telegram channel called, in Portuguese, “Hunting and Fishing.”

But instead of outdoor recreation tips, the 43 pins spread across the map of Brazil pointed to cities where bus transportation to the capital could be found for what promoters promised would a huge “party” on Jan. 8.

“Children and the elderly aren’t invited,” according to the post circulated on the Telegram channel, which has since been removed. “Only adults willing to participate in all the games, including target shooting of police and robbers, musical chairs, indigenous dancing, tag, and others.”

The post was one of several thinly coded messages circulating on social media ahead of Sunday's violent attack on the capital by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro looking to restore the far-right leader to power.


It’s also now a potentially vital lead in a fledgling criminal investigation about how the rampage was organized and how officials missed clues to a conspiracy that, like the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol two years ago, appears to have been organized and carried out in plain view.

And like the attack in the U.S., the Brazilian riots demonstrate how social media makes it easier than ever for anti-democratic groups to recruit followers and transform online rhetoric into offline action.

On YouTube, rioters livestreaming the mayhem racked up hundreds of thousands of views before a Brazilian judge ordered social media platforms to remove such content. Misleading claims about the election and the uprising also could be found on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms.

But even before Sunday's riot, social media and private messaging networks in Brazil were being flooded with calls for one final push to overturn the October election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — something authorities appear to have inexplicably missed or ignored.

Most of the online chatter referred to the planned gathering at Brasilia's Three Powers Plaza as “Selma’s party” — a play on the Portuguese word for “selva,” a battle cry used by Brazil’s military.

Participants were told to bring their own mask to protect against “pepper pie in the face” — or pepper spray fired by security forces. They also were told to dress in the green and yellow of Brazil’s flag — and not the red preferred by Lula's Workers’ Party.

“Get ready guests, the party will be a blast,” the widely-circulated post said.

“It was all in the open,” said David Nemer, a Brazil native and University of Virginia professor who studies social media. “They listed the people responsible for buses, with their full names and contact information. They weren’t trying to hide anything.”

Still, it's unclear to what extent social media was responsible for the worst attack on Brazil’s democracy in decades. Only a handful of far-right activists showed up at gas terminals and refineries that were also pinpointed on the “Beach Trip” map as locations for demonstrations planned for Sunday.

Bruno Fonseca, a journalist for Agencia Publica, a digital investigative journalism outlet, has tracked the online activities of pro-Bolsonaro groups for years. He said the activists live in a state of constant confrontation but sometimes, their frequent calls to mobilize fall flat.

“It's difficult to know when something will jump out from social media and not,” said Fonseca, who in a report this week traced the spread of the “Selma's Party” post to users who appear to be bots.

Still, he said, authorities could have paired the online activity with other intelligence-gathering tools to investigate, for example, a surge in bus traffic to the capital before the attacks. He said their inaction may reflect negligence or the deep support for Bolsonaro among security forces.

One gnawing question is why, on the day of the chaos, Anderson Torres, a Bolsonaro ally who had just been named the top security official in Brasilia, was reportedly in Florida — where his former boss was on a retreat. Torres was swiftly fired and Brazil's Supreme Court has ordered his arrest pending an investigation. Torres denied any wrongdoing and said he would return to Brazil and present his defense.

Sunday's violence came after Brazilian voters were bombarded by a flood of false and misleading claims before last fall’s vote. Much of the content focused on unfounded concerns about electronic voting, and some featured threats of violent retaliation if Bolsonaro was defeated.

One of the most popular rallying cries used by Bolsonaro's supporters was #BrazilianSpring, a term coined by former Trump aide Steve Bannon in the hours after Bolsonaro's defeat to Lula.

“We all know that this Brazilian election was going to be contentious,” said Flora Rebello Arduini, a London-based campaign director with SumOfUs, a nonprofit that tracked extremist content before and after Brazil’s election. “Social media platforms played a vital role in amplifying far-right extremist voices and even calls for violent uprising. If we can identify this kind of content, then so can they (the companies). Incompetence is not an excuse.”

Brazil’s capital city steeled itself Wednesday for the possibility of new attacks fueled by social media posts, including one circulating on Telegram calling for a “mega protest to retake power.” But those protests fizzled.

In response to the criticism, spokespeople for Telegram, YouTube and Facebook said their companies were working to remove content urging more violence.

“Telegram is a platform for free speech and peaceful protest,” Telegram spokesman Remi Vaughn wrote in a statement to the AP. “Calls to violence are explicitly forbidden and dozens of public communities where such calls were being made have been blocked in Brazil in the past week — both proactively as per our Terms of Service as well as in response to court orders.”

A YouTube spokeswoman said the platform has removed more than 2,500 channels and more than 10,000 videos related to the election in Brazil.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has prioritized efforts to combat harmful content about Brazil's election, a company spokesman told The Associated Press.

—

Klepper reported from Washington, D.C.

Blame the voting machines: Brazil riots fit global pattern


Anuj Chopra, with Luiza Queiroz in Sao Paulo and Rossen Bossev in Sofia
Wed, January 11, 2023


Mobs of rioters who stormed Brazil's seats of power raised conspiracy-laden slogans against voting machines, a prime target of disinformation campaigns seeking to undermine trust in electoral systems around the world.

Far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro's supporters, who invaded the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in the capital Brasilia on Sunday, demanded access to the "source code" of electronic voting machines.

That slogan effectively questioned the reliability of voting equipment after a bitterly contested election that saw Bolsonaro defeated by his leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.


The right-wing rage was the latest illustration of the impact of disinformation campaigns that have sought to cast doubt on voting machines from the United States to France, Bulgaria and the Philippines.

"This scenario of rioting and insurrection over baseless theories fueled by technology opacity are very dangerous for the stability of global democracies," Gregory Miller, the co-founder of the nonpartisan nonprofit OSET Institute, told AFP.

Brazil has used voting machines in its elections since 1996, but they only recently became mired in controversy, with Bolsonaro leading allegations that they were plagued by fraud.

No major security flaw has ever been detected, with political parties, the judiciary and the military allowed to inspect the source code and tests conducted by technology experts to protect against hacking.

- Trumpian playbook -

The Brazilian riots bore chilling similarities to the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 by supporters of former president Donald Trump, who claimed the 2020 election had been stolen from him.

Far-right campaigns falsely asserted that voting machines manipulated votes away from Trump in 2020. Voting technology companies have filed a flurry of lawsuits against Trump allies and media outlets for false claims that they rigged the vote.

Still, ahead of the 2022 midterm elections in the United States, conspiracy-endorsing Republican politicians amped up their rhetoric against the machines as two swing state counties moved to allow hand counting.

The contentious push for hand counting came even though US experts warned that it is often less accurate than machine counting and prone to delays.

A 2018 study published in the Election Law Journal analyzed two statewide recounts in Wisconsin, including the 2016 presidential election. It found that "vote counts originally conducted by computerized scanners were, on average, more accurate."

But the rhetoric against the machines continued after the widely anticipated Republican "red wave" failed to materialize in the November midterms.

Steve Bannon, Trump's former aide who has been sentenced to four months prison for disobeying a subpoena to testify on the January 6 Capitol attack, was closely involved with the Bolsonaro team's spread of misinformation.

In November, Bannon pushed the baseless claim that electronic voting machines were used in Brazil "to steal elections." On Sunday, Bannon lauded the Brazilian rioters on social media as "freedom fighters."

- 'Robust checks' -

Citing the examples of the United States and Brazil, far-right French politician Florian Philippot tweeted earlier this week that electronic voting bred "doubt, fraud, chaos."

His comments followed a series of online claims that bugs affecting electronic voting machines favored Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the 2022 presidential election, which he won.

The claims were widely dismissed by media watchdogs such as NewsGuard and AFP's factcheckers debunked several false claims about the reliability of voting equipment in France.

But Philippot still cast doubt on electronic voting.

"Let's eliminate all machine voting in France," the politician wrote on Twitter.

Similar distrust has been rampant in Bulgaria.

In 2021, Bulgaria's parliament passed a law to introduce machine voting amid widespread suspicion of fraud with paper ballots.

However, paper ballots were returned the following year after sustained disinformation campaigns eroded public trust in the machines. Traditional parties implied, without offering consistent evidence, that the machines were unreliable and prone to manipulation.

To eliminate such fears, Miller argued for an "urgent" need for democracies to make election infrastructure fully transparent to the public.

Experts such as Pamela Smith also called on countries to collate "hard election evidence" to boost public confidence in machine voting.

"We advocate for a physical record of voter intent, used in robust post-election checks on the machine-reported outcome, with plenty of transparency," Smith, president of the nonpartisan nonprofit Verified Voting, told AFP.

"Every country should work toward that goal. An election outcome... should not be subverted by whoever shouts the loudest."

burs-ac/bgs/mlm

First to fall after Brasilia riots: the Bolsonarista running capital security


 Brazil's Minister of Justice Anderson Torres looks on next to Brazil's President and candidate for re-election Jair Bolsonaro during a news conference at the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia

Wed, January 11, 2023
By Gabriel Stargardter and Brad Haynes

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - When Brazilian rioters stormed government buildings in Brasilia on Sunday, the man tasked with keeping the city safe was a continent away in Florida - the same state his ex-boss, former President Jair Bolsonaro, had relocated to after losing last year's election.

Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro's justice minister from 2021 to 2022, took a job as Brasilia security chief after leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office on Jan. 1.

He did not last long. Within hours of the Jan. 8 invasion of Brazil's presidential palace, Supreme Court and Congress by election-denying Bolsonaro supporters, Torres had lost his new gig - becoming the first to fall in recriminations after the worst assault on Brazil's institutions since the country's return to democracy in the 1980s.

"This was a structured sabotage operation, commanded by Bolsonaro's ex-minister Anderson Torres," Ricardo Cappelli, the official leading a post-invasion federal intervention into Brasilia's public security, told CNN Brasil.

"Torres took over as secretary for security (in Brasilia), dismissed the whole chain of command and then took a trip. If that's not sabotage, I don't know what is."

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued an arrest warrant for Torres on Tuesday. It was not immediately clear what the charges were, but Moraes cited alleged "omission" and "connivance" by Torres.

Later on Tuesday, Torres said he would return to Brazil, hand himself over to authorities and prepare his defense.

"My actions have always been driven by ethics and legality," he wrote on Twitter.

Ibaneis Rocha, the governor of the federal district, sacked Torres amid the chaos on Sunday afternoon, just hours before a Supreme Court order suspended Rocha from office for 90 days.

The shakeup of capital security highlights a wider challenge facing Lula, whose new government must now deal with a sweeping criminal investigation of the Brasilia riots while establishing a fresh chain of command among police and security forces.

Many rank-and-file officers have long sympathized with the law-and-order appeal of Bolsonaro's hard-right politics, and the former president spent the past four years stacking federal law enforcement organs with loyalists.

For example, the appointment of Torres, 47, at the Justice Ministry followed years of friendly relations with Bolsonaro's family.

As police dug into graft allegations against Bolsonaro's sons early in his term, then-Justice Minister Sergio Moro accused the president of trying to swap the head of the federal police to protect them. Bolsonaro denied any such interference.

When Moro quit in April 2020 over the alleged meddling, Brazilian media reported that the president had suggested Torres to run the federal police, but his former colleagues there resisted the idea due to his lack of seniority.

At the time, Torres was in his first stint as security chief for the federal district under Rocha, where he remained until the president tapped him for the Justice Ministry in March 2021.

Within a week, Torres, with Bolsonaro's approval, replaced the head of the federal police. He also replaced the head of the federal highway police (PRF) with Silvinei Vasques, whose name would hang over last year's election.

During the Oct. 30 runoff between Lula and Bolsonaro, the PRF faced accusations of conducting illegal highway roadblocks in Lula strongholds in northeastern Brazil, in what critics said amounted to voter suppression efforts.

Vasques, who had campaigned openly for Bolsonaro on social media, was charged in November with abusing his role to favor Bolsonaro politically and was dismissed last month.

Torres came under fire for his close involvement with PRF operations during the election but did not face charges.

Formally questioned by the Supreme Court about allegations of voter suppression, Torres denied interfering in the election.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter in Rio de Janeiro and Brad Haynes in Sao Paulo; Additional reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasilia; Editing by Bradley Perrett)

Brazil government acts against Bolsonaro backers, new protest fizzles





Aftermath of Brazil's anti-democratic riots

Wed, January 11, 2023
By Ricardo Brito and Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazilian federal prosecutors on Wednesday requested the investigation of three congressional allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly inciting the worst attack on the country's democratic institutions in decades.

The call for the probe came as the government of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had prepared stepped-up security measures to face renewed protests on Wednesday, but mass demonstrations proposed on pro-Bolsonaro social media to "retake power" failed to materialize.

Police said 1,159 people arrested in connection with Sunday's storming of government building in Brasilia remained in custody. Some 684 others were released for "humanitarian reasons" after detention, including elderly people, those with health issues and parents of young children, police said.

Organizers of the anti-government demonstrations have called in recent weeks on social media to block roads and refineries, bring down power lines and cause enough chaos to prompt a military coup to overturn the election that Bolsonaro lost to Lula last October.

Ricardo Cappelli, the federal official in charge of public security in the capital appointed in the wake of Sunday's riots, said all security forces had been mobilized to prevent a repeat of the rampage, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters staged protests in Brasilia, ransacking the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential offices.

"Those who lost the election and are trying to create a crisis will not succeed," Cappelli told a news conference.

Lula said on Wednesday that those involved in Sunday's attack would have the right to defend themselves but any proven wrongdoing will be punished. He also criticized Bolsonaro for not accepting the election result and called those who stormed and vandalized public buildings in the capital "crazy".

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes issued a ban on roadblocks that have been used by anti-government demonstrators to create economic disruption, and ordered local authorities to prevent the storming of public buildings.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Moraes's arrest warrant for Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro's former justice minister who oversaw public security in Brasilia during Sunday's riots. Moraes accused Torres of "negligence and connivance".

Torres was fired for his failure to stop Sunday's chaos and his arrest warrant alleged complicity with the demonstrators, who marched to the center of the capital under police escort. Torres said on Tuesday he would return to Brazil to face charges from Florida, where he has been on vacation since before the riots.

Moraes also ordered the arrest of Fabio Augusto Vieira, the head of Brasilia's military police, one of a number of officials responsible for protecting government buildings in Brasilia. Vieira hasn't made any public comment since the order was issued.

The court also upheld the 90-day removal from office of former Brasilia Governor Ibaneis Rocha, Torres's former boss.

Prosecutors have also sought to freeze Bolsonaro's assets.

Despite the threat of new protests, Brazilian financial markets closed higher, with Brazil's benchmark stock index Bovespa rising 1.5%.

"So far, despite the polarized environment, evidenced by a violent invasion of Brazil's state buildings on Jan. 8, we see reasons to believe that governability will not be an immediate issue," economists at JPMorgan said.

Bolsonaro, who left Brazil 48 hours before his term ended at the end of December and has yet to concede defeat to Lula, told media from Florida that he planned to return to Brazil earlier than planned for medical reasons, without specifying a date.

(Reporting by Ricardo Brito in Brasilia, Steven Grattan and Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo, Writing by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Brad Haynes, Chizu Nomiyama, Deepa Babington and Kenneth Maxwell)

Bolsonaro party boss says violent Brasilia protesters will be expelled

 Brazil's Liberal Party President Valdemar Costa Neto attends a news conference in Brasilia

Wed, January 11, 2023 
By Anthony Boadle and Ricardo Brito

BRASILIA (Reuters) - The leader of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro's political party said on Wednesday that any member identified in videos taking part in the ransacking of government buildings on Sunday would be immediately expelled from the party.

Valdemar Costa Neto, president of the right-wing Liberal Party, said his party, the largest in Brazil's Congress, condemned the rampage on Sunday in which Bolsonaro supporters vandalized the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace.

"If members of the party are seen on videos smashing up those government buildings, we will expel them right away," he said in an interview, adding that the vandalism was caused by an extremist minority that did not represent his party.

Bolsonaro, an anti-establishment populist who joined the party to have a electoral vehicle for last year's election, has yet to concede defeat to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. He has not publicly condemned supporters who protested his loss and called for a military coup to restore him to power.

Costa Neto's party has sought to distance itself from the violence as it seeks to lead the opposition to Lula. The party became the largest in both chambers of Congress thanks to Bolsonaro's popularity, though the far-right leader himself narrowly lost his bid for re-election.

Lula's 11-day-old government braced on Wednesday for fresh demonstrations to "retake power" called by Bolsonaro supporters.

Bolsonaro, who left Brazil for Florida 48 hours before his term ended, said on social media that he would return to Brazil earlier than planned for medical reasons.

Costa Neto told Reuters he hopes Bolsonaro will return to Brazil soon to lead Brazil's political right into local elections in 2024 and become its presidential candidate in 2026.

Party officials said Bolsonaro's absence from the country was squandering the political capital that he gained in the election, in which 58 million Brazilians voted for him.

While the PL party has recognized the election result, Bolsonaro has suggested without any evidence that the election was stolen by manipulating Brazil's electronic voting system.

Costa Neto said Bolsonaro's charisma will help the party grow further in municipal elections next year when he expects the PL to increase the number of affiliated mayors from 352 at present to at least 1,500.

"All he needs to do is appear and he draws crowds," said Costa Neto, whose party is flush with 1.2 billion reais ($232 million) from a public election fund, based on the number of seats it won in the lower chamber of Congress.

Bolsonaro, whose nationalist populism sharply polarized Brazil's electorate during his four-year term, has been named honorary president of the PL. He and his wife Michelle Bolsonaro will have offices at party headquarters with paid salaries.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Ricardo Brito; Editing by Brad Haynes and Deepa Babington)

Exclusive-U.S. and Brazil lawmakers seek to cooperate on investigation of Brasilia riots


Supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro demonstrate against President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, in Brasilia

Wed, January 11, 2023 
By Gram Slattery, Brad Haynes and Maria Carolina Marcello

WASHINGTON/BRASILIA (Reuters) -U.S. and Brazilian lawmakers are looking for ways to cooperate on an investigation into violent protests that rampaged through Brasilia this weekend, sharing lessons from inquiries into the attack on the U.S. Capitol, people familiar with the talks said.

The initial discussions occurred as more than 70 lawmakers in the two countries signed a joint statement denouncing "anti-democratic" forces trying to overturn recent elections in their nations with political violence.

Supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro ransacked Brazil's Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace on Sunday, calling for a military coup to overturn the October election won by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the recently dissolved House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, is one lawmaker whose office is discussing collaboration, according to one of the sources.

"I am extremely proud of the January 6 Select Committee's work and final report. If (it) serves as a model for similar investigations, I will help out in anyway possible," Thompson said in a written statement.

Brazil's Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco has also discussed the idea of such an exchange with the top U.S. diplomat in Brasilia, said another person familiar with the conversation.

The source, who is close to Pacheco, said the U.S. embassy's chargé d'affaires, Douglas Koneff, was receptive to the idea of sharing know-how from the investigation of then-President Donald Trump's supporters who attacked the Capitol in a failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's election win.

Pacheco's office and the U.S. embassy in Brasilia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that Washington had not received any specific requests from Brazil regarding the recent violence in Brasilia, but it would respond "expeditiously" if and when a request arrives.

Separately, a group of 74 federal lawmakers in the United States and Brazil released a joint statement on Wednesday condemning the political violence in Brasilia and Washington that came two years and two days apart.

The statement, signed mainly by progressive lawmakers in both countries, was articulated by the Washington Brazil Office, a group promoting bilateral dialogue in defense of human rights and sustainable development.

"It is no secret that ultra-right agitators in Brazil and the United States are coordinating efforts," they wrote, citing ties between associates of Trump and Bolsonaro. "Just as far right extremists are coordinating their efforts to undermine democracy, we must stand united in our efforts to protect it."

The Jan. 6 committee's final report, released last month, said Trump should face criminal charges for inciting the deadly riot. The report listed 17 specific findings, discussed the legal implications of actions by the former president and some of his associates and included criminal referrals of Trump and other individuals to the Justice Department.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Washington, Brad Haynes in Sao Paulo and Maria Carolina Marcello in Brasilia; Editing by Christian Plumb, Howard Goller and Cynthia Osterman)