Activists decry 'glaring injustice' of Iran protester's execution

TYRANTS USE THE DEATH PENALTY

Paris (AFP) – The execution of the ninth man to be hanged over protests that swept Iran in 2022 marks a new stage in Tehran's rampant use of the death penalty, rights groups say.

Issued on: 24/01/2024 - 

Ghobadlou was the ninth person to be executed over the protests 

The groups argue that Mohammad Ghobadlou had mental health issues and that his original death sentence had been overturned.

Ghobadlou, 23, was put to death early Tuesday in Ghezel Hesar prison in the city of Karaj outside Tehran.

He had been convicted over the death of a police officer who the authorities say was run over by a car during the protests in September 2022.

"The killing of Mohammad Ghobadlou in Iran, who struggled with mental illness, stands as a glaring injustice, a murder carried out under the guise of a judicial process that lacks any semblance of fairness," said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran

The Instagram account of 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who is in Tehran's Evin prison, said 61 women political prisoners there would go on hunger strike on Thursday to protest against executions in Iran.

Ghobadlou's hanging took place "under circumstances where even a final verdict for execution did not exist", the post said. It was not immediately clear how long the hunger strike would last.

There has been a surge in executions in Iran in recent months, which activists say is aimed at instilling fear in the population.

According to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO, 51 people have been executed in the first weeks of 2024 alone. IHR and other groups say Ghobadlou was the ninth man to be executed over the protests.

The protests erupted in September 2022 following the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly flouting the strict dress code for women, and were seen as one of the biggest challenges to the clerical leadership in decades.

'Extrajudicial killing'

Rights groups expressed particular shock at the hanging given that the death sentence for Ghobadlou had been essentially overturned in February 2023, when the Supreme Court granted a stay of execution and later referred his case to a new jurisdiction to deal with issues relating to his mental health.

"Mohammad Ghobadlou's execution is an extrajudicial killing according to international law and the Islamic Republic's own laws," said the executive director of IHR, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

It said his lawyers had only been notified after office hours on Monday that the execution would take place on Tuesday morning.

Harrowing footage posted on social media showed his family wailing with grief at the gates of the prison when his execution was confirmed and hours later lying prostrate on his grave.

"The arbitrary execution of Mohammad Ghobadlou dumbfounded his loved ones and lawyer, who were awaiting his retrial" said Diana Eltahawy, rights group Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Amnesty said documents published by Iranian media show judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei had personally intervened to annul the order for a retrial and allow the execution to go ahead.
'New realms of cruelty'

According to Amnesty, Ghobadlou had been under the supervision of a psychiatric hospital for bipolar disorder since the age of 15, and had stopped taking his medication ahead of the incident.

Before Ghobadlou's hanging Iran had already executed eight men in cases related to the protests, with rights groups accusing Tehran of using capital punishment as a way to instil fear into the people.

Also executed at the same prison on Wednesday was Kurdish-Iranian Farhad Salimi, one of seven men sentenced to death and held in prison for one-and-a-half decades in a case linked to a Muslim cleric's killing in 2008.

Salimi is the fourth of the men to be hanged in the case in recent months, with rights groups warning that the lives of the other three are now at imminent risk.

The executions of Ghobadlou and Salimi "after egregiously unfair trials mark a harrowing descent into new realms of cruelty", Amnesty said.

© 2024 AFP

 Victims of ‘political violence’: The Tunisian opposition figures behind bars

Issued on: 24/01/2024 - 

02:07 Video by: Lilia BLAISE

In Tunisia, more than 50 people have been in prison without trial for months for alleged conspiracy against state security or under a decree punishing the spreading of false information. Most of them are political opponents of President Kais Saied and the Ministry of justice has not been commenting on the cases publicly. For the families and lawyers of the prisoners, waiting for trials is becoming more and more trying. Lilia Blaise, Hamdi Tlili and Fadil Aliriza report.

Scores dead in Mali gold mine collapse

More than 70 people were killed after a tunnel collapsed at a Malian gold mining site last week, a local gold mining group leader and a local official told AFP on Wednesday.


Issued on: 24/01/2024 - 

Mali, which is among the world’s poorest countries, is one of Africa’s leading gold producers.

“It started with a noise. The earth started to shake. There were over 200 gold miners in the field. The search is over now. We’ve found 73 bodies,” Oumar Sidibe, an official for gold miners in the southwestern town of Kangaba, told AFP, of the incident on Friday.

The same toll was confirmed by a local councillor.

Mali’s ministry of mines in a statement on Tuesday had announced the death of several miners but did not give precise figures.

The government offered its “deepest condolences to the grieving families and to the Malian people”.

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It also called on “communities living near mining sites and gold miners to scrupulously respect safety requirements and to work only within the perimeters dedicated to gold panning”.

Mali, which is among the world’s poorest countries, is one of Africa’s leading gold producers.

Gold mining sites are regularly the scene of deadly landslides and authorities struggle to control artisanal mining of the metal.

Mali produced 72.2 tonnes of gold in 2022 and the metal contributed 25 percent of the national budget, 75 percent of export earnings and 10 percent of GDP, the then minister of mines Lamine Seydou Traore said in March last year.

(AFP)

 

Thousands of Argentinian workers expected to protest Milei's budget cuts

Issued on: 24/01/2024 - 

Elon Musk Visits Auschwitz, Twists Holocaust Into Excuse to Make Money

Victor Tangermann
Tue, January 23, 2024 

HE READ ARBEIT MACT FREI AND AGREED

Multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk is no stranger to spreading conspiracy theories, giving neo-Nazis a platform on the internet, and endorsing vicious antisemitic propaganda.

After landing in hot water for an "abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate," as the White House put it in its statement last year denouncing him for promoting horrid antisemitism, Musk is continuing on his apology tour.

First, he flew to Israel in an apparent attempt to quell a growing advertiser exodus fuelled by his hateful antics.

Now, he's using a visit to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau to clear his name. Worse yet, he's spinning the trip into a self-serving and asinine argument for why his social media company X-formerly-Twitter is important.

According to a video presentation that played before Musk took the stage at an event in the nearby Polish city of Krakow, had social media existed in the 1930s, the Holocaust would've never happened — a blindingly ignorant argument.

Musk was joined by right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro for a conversation following the video. The pair even went as far as to show photoshopped pictures of fake tweets, showing verified accounts alerting people of the atrocities taking place in Auschwitz in the 1940s.

One fake Community Notes comment pointed out that the "Jewish community in Auschwitz is striving for food, not thriving" — an inconceivable attempt to make light of one of the darkest chapters in history.

And no, we're not making this up.

"There are a million things you can say here but the most obvious one is before Nazi Germany built death camps they revoked the rights of free movement for Jewish people," author Aaron Gordon wrote in a post on Bluesky, "and even if they could leave most countries barred all but a token number of refugee Jews from entry."

"Cartoon history shit," he added.

Beyond spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories on his social media network, Musk has also argued that Black students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) shouldn't become pilots, as he claimed their IQs aren't high enough.

"It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE," he tweeted earlier this month, intentionally mixing up the letters of the acronym for "diversity, equity, and inclusion."

The racist outburst was met with outrage from civil rights groups.

"The only thing anyone needs to hear from Musk about diversity in the workplace is an apology," Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, told NBC News, calling his statements "abhorrent and pathetic" at the time.

Meanwhile, Musk is still fumbling in trying to clear his name.

"Two-thirds of my friends are Jewish," he told audiences at the event in Krakow, as quoted by the New York Times. "I’m Jewish by association. I’m aspirationally Jewish."

According to Musk, he had never heard about antisemitism "at dinner conversations" and called it "like an absurdity — at least in my friend circles."

That's rich, coming from a man who's thrown his considerable weight behind antisemitic conspiracy theories.

More on Musk: Elon Musk Cosigns Racist Claim That Black Students Have Low IQs

LUNAR MISSIONS

Japan Trying to Bring Dead Moon Lander Back to Life

Victor Tangermann
Mon, January 22, 2024 


Bring Me to Life

Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) lander had to be shut down just three hours after touching down on the lunar surface last week.

The lander, which technically speaking still managed to make Japan the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, didn't quite stick the landing. For hours, teams at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency struggled to get the spacecraft to charge its batteries using its solar panels.

As it turns out, the issue is that the panels were pointing west and away from the Sun.


While that may sound like the small spacecraft's fate is sealed, JAXA isn't ready to give up just yet. There's still a chance SLIM may jump back to life, giving it a potentially new lease on life.

"If sunlight hits the Moon from the west in the future, we believe there's a possibility of power generation, and we're currently preparing for restoration," JAXA wrote in a new statement.
Going Under

At first, the mission appeared to go as planned, with the spacecraft making a controlled descent to the Moon's cratered surface. Several hours of radio silence from JAXA followed, triggering speculation about the lander's fate.

Behind the scenes, teams had to act quickly as battery capacity was diminishing quickly.

"The battery was disconnected according to our procedures with 12 percent power remaining, in order to avoid a situation where the restart (of the lander) would be hampered," the latest statement reads.

Scientists are now poring over the data SLIM managed to collect before it went dark.

"We were able to complete the transmission of technical and image data acquired during the descent and on the lunar surface before the power was switched off," JAXA said. "We’re relieved and beginning to get excited after confirming a lot of data has been obtained."

It's a glimmer of hope — with the possibility of the Sun charging the spacecraft's solar panels still on the table, scientists are eager to have SLIM jump back into action.

And even if it doesn't, it's still a considerable feat that's worth celebrating, especially considering all of the failed landing attempts that preceded it.

"The post-landing posture didn’t go as planned, but we may be able to produce plenty of results and we’re happy that the landing succeeded," JAXA's statement reads.

More on the mission: Japanese Moon Lander Dying After Touching Down on Lunar Surface
Sunlight May Reignite Japan’s Struggling 'Lunar Sniper' on the Moon
George Dvorsky
Mon, January 22, 2024


Artistic depiction of SLIM on the Moon.

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, achieved a historic soft landing with SLIM on Friday morning, but the lander ran into instant trouble by not being able to collect solar energy and generate electricity. Hopeful for some westerly sunshine, JAXA is cautiously optimistic that SLIM could spring back to life in a couple of weeks.

Shortly after its landing on Friday, January 19, JAXA reported issues with SLIM’s solar cells, which were not generating sufficient electricity. On Monday, JAXA revealed that it had shut down the system approximately three hours after landing to conserve its remaining power, as the space agency noted on X. The decision was made when SLIM’s battery level fell to 12 percent, as this low battery level threatened to cause issues for future recovery if mission controllers didn’t disconnect it in time.

Despite these challenges, there is some positive news from JAXA. The agency reported that technical and image data acquired during SLIM’s descent and active time on the lunar surface were successfully transmitted back to Earth before power was switched off. JAXA plans to release more details by the end of the week, including word on whether SLIM managed to land within its constrained target area. We’re looking forward to seeing the photos taken from the surface as well.

In addition to its primary mission (the precision landing), SLIM carried two smaller rovers, which preliminary data suggests were ejected as planned before the lander touched down. It also housed various scientific instruments, including an infrared camera, thermometer, and radiation detector. The success of these elements of the mission remains to be fully assessed.

This milestone for JAXA comes in the wake of a recent setback in lunar exploration when Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander failed shortly after reaching space due to a propellant leak. Landing on the Moon remains an incredibly challenging endeavor, even with 21st-century technology.

Japanese lunar lander touches down and Axiom space launches its third mission with SpaceX

Aria Alamalhodaei
Mon, January 22, 2024 

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. What a week! For the second week in a row, we have lunar lander news to report on. Plus, a final update on Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, news on the Artemis program and the first crewed launch of the year.

Want to reach out with a tip? Email Aria at aria.techcrunch@gmail.com or send me a message on Signal at 512-937-3988. You can also send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at tips@techcrunch.com. For more secure communications, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and links to encrypted messaging apps.
Story of the week

How could the story of the week be anything other than SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon), the Japanese lunar lander that touched down on the moon on Friday?

This makes Japan the fifth country to put a lander on the moon, joining the ranks of the United States, China, Russia and India. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed that they had received telemetry data from SLIM just after 10:20 AM EST.

While the landing was a success, not all went to plan, unfortunately: JAXA later said that the lander's solar cells are not currently generating electricity, which means that the mission lifetime will be greatly reduced. There's a small chance that the solar cells could charge as the angle of the sun changes, but that depends on whether the cause is due to a pointing issue or some other anomaly, JAXA officials said in a press conference.

But even with the issue, the mission achieved a huge portion of its goal, which was to demonstrate a soft lunar landing using optical navigation technology. This new type of technology can help ensure "pinpoint" landings, or landings with an accuracy of around 100 meters, as opposed to many kilometers.

Image Credits: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Launch highlights

We saw our first crewed mission this year – but even more notably, it was a completely private mission (as in not a NASA astronaut mission). Axiom Space launched its third mission with launch partner SpaceX on Thursday, with the crew successfully docking with the International Space Station at 5:42 AM EST on Saturday, January 20.

Axiom's plan is to continue flying these private missions to the ISS at a pace of around two missions per year through 2026, which is when the company hopes to launch its first commercial space station module, Derek Hassmann, chief of mission integration and operations at Axiom Space, said during a prelaunch press conference. Axiom's fourth flight, Ax-4, is scheduled for later this year, though a specific launch window has not been announced.

axiom 3 mission
Image credit: SpaceX

Loren Grush very nicely lays out some of NASA's forward-thinking strategy with its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program: accept some risk. The program was established to help kickstart the development of payload delivery surfaces to the moon's surface, and it stands in sharp contrast to NASA's standard quo.

Astrobotic's Peregrine lander, which suffered a fatal propulsion leak that prevented the spacecraft from having any chance of landing on the moon, is the result of a CLPS award. While Astrobotic did not complete the mission, Grush describes how NASA designed the program to be more risk-tolerant than its other endeavors.

peregrine astrobotic ula vulcan. lunar laner loaded in nose of rocket
Astrobotic Peregrine Lunar Lander

This week in space history

Thirty-two years ago this week, microgravity research was born. In 1992, NASA launched the first International Microgravity Laboratory on board the space shuttle Discovery, and it carried a number of scientific research and experiments looking into the effects of zero G on materials and living organisms. The lab was pressurized, so the mission also carried a crew of seven; they returned to Earth after eight days in space.

Crew of STS-42
Image credit: NASA


NASA bounces laser off 'Oreo-sized' mirror on the moon for 1st time, paving the way for high-precision lunar landings

Harry Baker
Mon, January 22, 2024 

The Chandrayaan 3 mission's Vikram lander photographed on the moon's surface by the Pragyan rover.

NASA has successfully bounced a laser beam off of an "Oreo-sized" mirror on India's historic lunar lander and back to the orbiting spacecraft that fired it. This feat is the first time that such a maneuver has ever been carried out, and it could help facilitate high-precision landings during future missions to the moon.

In August 2023, India became the fourth nation to land a spacecraft on Earth's largest satellite when the country’s Chandrayaan-3 mission deployed the Vikram lunar lander near the Manzinus crater in the moon's south pole region. The lander, which was also carrying the Pragyan rover, spent weeks collecting data on the moon — including valuable evidence of moonquakes — but failed to wake up after a scheduled power down in September. But the defunct lander is still of great interest to NASA.

Before the misssion began, the agency arranged to have a small, multi-sided mirror, known as a laser reflector array or retroreflector, attached to the lander. The 2-inch-wide (5 centimeters) device, which is made from eight quartz-corner-cube prisms set into a dome-shaped aluminum frame, is designed to reflect lasers to orbiting spacecraft from almost any incoming angle.

Related: Humanity's future on the moon: Why Russia, India and other countries are racing to the lunar south pole

Ever since the lander went offline, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which is the only laser-armed spacecraft currently circling the moon, has repeatedly tried to bounce lasers off the retroreflector with no success. But on Dec. 12, 2023, after eight failed attempts, LRO finally hit the array from 62 miles (100 kilometers) away and received a laser ping in return.

The long-awaited success is an important proof-of-concept for NASA, which is planning to use more retroreflectors in future missions to the moon, including the upcoming Artemis missions.

"We've showed that we can locate our retroreflector on the surface from the Moon's orbit," Xiaoli Sun, a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who led the mission, said in a statement. "The next step is to improve the technique so that it can become routine for missions that want to use these retroreflectors in the future."

A gold colored semi-sphere covered with 8 round mirrors

This is not the first time scientists have bounced lasers off the moon. In the past, NASA has successfully reflected Earth-fired lasers off reflective panels that were left behind on the lunar surface during the Apollo missions. This has revealed that the moon is slowly moving away from Earth by about 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) every year.

However, the new retroreflectors were designed with a more practical use in mind. NASA plans to use the devices to help unmanned spacecraft land next to existing objects on the moon by being able to measure exactly how far away they are from the surface (based on how long it takes for the lasers to bounce back to the spacecraft).

This would be important for building future lunar bases and could also allow astronauts to land in complete darkness on the far side of the moon. Similar "precision markers" help incoming astronaut capsules and cargo pods to dock with the International Space Station's airlocks.

Related: 15 incredible images of Earth's moon

An aerial view of the Vikram lunar lander from orbit

It took LRO multiple attempts to successfully reflect lasers off the Vikram lander because the orbiter was not designed with such precise maneuvers in mind. The spacecraft, which is currently operating 13 years past its original mission parameters, was designed to map the lunar surface. To do this, it fires bursts of thin laser lines toward the moon and measures how long it takes for them to bounce back to the spacecraft. But because these lines are spaced far apart, it made it hard to accurately hit such a small target.

Future spacecraft that target the retroreflectors will have more precise lasers and likely be firing them from much closer distances. So, in theory, they should be able to hit their tiny targets every time, according to NASA.

related stories

—NASA's 1st successful 2-way laser experiment is a giant leap for moon and Mars communications

—South Korea's lunar orbiter unveils jaw-dropping images of Earth and the moon

—Earth receives laser-beam message from 10 million miles away in new NASA experiment

NASA is planning to put more retroreflectors on the moon to run similar experiments in the future. However, their last few attempts have not gone well.

One of their proposed retroreflectors was onboard the privately-owned Peregrine lunar lander, which recently burned up in Earth's atmosphere after suffering a catastrophic propellant leak shortly after launching on Jan. 8. Another was attached to Japan's SLIM lander, which successfully landed on the moon on Jan. 19 but may already be dead after a problem with its power source. (It is currently unclear if the retroreflector on the SLIM lander could still be used by NASA.)

These issues may have set back NASA's research into retroreflectors. But since the first manned Artemis mission has been delayed until 2026, they will likely get several more chances before those missions come around.

Albertans have a message for UCP

LEAVE OUR PENSIONS ALONE!

 

Members of the provincial government will be back in the Legislature soon, but right now they are supposed to be in their local communities hearing from their constituents like you.

Albertans have a message for them. You can help make sure it’s loud and clear - LEAVE OUR PENSIONS ALONE!

There are so many urgent priorities for our communities right now, like fixing our buckling health system and reducing cost of living. It doesn’t make any sense to spend public resources promoting a scheme that will put our pensions at risk. We have to tell this government to stop trying to fix something that isn’t broken and focus on solutions to real problems.

On January 28th and 29th, take a post-it-note or a piece of paper (or many!) along with painters’ tape (or masking tape) to stick on your local MLA's office window or door telling them to keep their "HANDS OFF OUR CPP!"

Leave your email address on your note if you’d like to hear back from your MLA. Some will respond.

Don't forget to post a photo using the hashtag #HandsOffOurCPP

Los Angeles Times to lay off 20% of newsroom, one of the largest staff reductions in paper's history

3/12

LA Times-Layoffs
The Los Angeles Times newspaper headquarters is located in El Segundo, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. The Los Angeles Times plans to lay off 94 newsroom employees starting Tuesday, according to the head of the journalists' union who said the number, while substantial, is less than feared. 

LA Times Walkout
Members of the Los Angeles Times Guild carry signs and chant slogans in front of Los Angeles City Hall on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881.

 (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Associated Press Finance
Tue, January 23, 2024 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Times said it planned to lay off at least 115 employees — more than 20% of the newsroom — starting Tuesday, one of the largest staff cuts in the newspaper's 143-year history.

The announcement came after the LA Times Guild walked off the job last Friday to protest the imminent layoffs, the institution's first ever newsroom union work stoppage.

Matt Pearce, president of the Media Guild of the West, which encompasses the Times' union, called Tuesday a “dark day.” He said at least 94 union members would be let go.

“Many departments and clusters across the newsroom will be heavily hit,” Pearce said in a statement. “This total, while devastating, is nonetheless far lower than the number of layoffs the Bargaining Committee was expecting last week.”

He said some of those selected for layoffs by management may be eligible for buyouts under the union contract.

Senior editors, photographers and members of the video unit were also part of the purge, the Times said.

The cuts were necessary because the Times could no longer lose up to $40 million a year without boosting advertising and subscription revenue, the paper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, said Tuesday.

“Today’s decision is painful for all, but it is imperative that we act urgently and take steps to build a sustainable and thriving paper for the next generation. We are committed to doing so,” Soon-Shiong said.

Layoffs and buyouts have hit a wide swath of the news industry over the past year. The Washington Post, NPR, CNN and Vox Media are among the many companies hit.

An estimated 2,681 news industry jobs were lost through the end of November, according to the employment firm of Challenger, Gray and Christmas. That was more than the full years of 2022 and 2021.

The latest round of job cutting at the LA Times comes after more than 70 positions — about 13% of the newsroom — were slashed last June.

“This staffing cut is the fruit of years of middling strategy, the absence of a publisher, and no clear direction,” the union said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “We remain grateful for the Soon-Shiong family’s investment in the newspaper, and we remain committed to be good-faith partners in the business and at the bargaining table. But it’s clear that those entrusted to steward his family’s largesse have failed him — not the rank-and-file staff members with no say in editorial priorities.”

Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire, acquired the Times in 2018, returning it to local ownership two decades after it was sold to Tribune Co. The purchase raised hopes after years of cutbacks, circulation declines and leadership changes.

Earlier this month, Executive Editor Kevin Merida abruptly left after a 2 1/2-year tenure.

Pearce said the union's bargaining committee would meet with Times management on Wednesday to start discussions about the layoffs as set out by the contract

Staff and supporters of the Los Angeles Times carry signs and chant slogans during a rally in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Matt Hamilton, an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, talks to staff and supporters during a rally in downtown Los Angeles on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Staff and supporters of the Los Angeles Times carry signs across the street from Los Angeles City Hall during a rally on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times have participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Staff and supporters of the Los Angeles Times carry signs and chant slogans across the street from Los Angeles City Hall during a rally on Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times have participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Georgia Geen, multiplatform editor for the Los Angeles Times, joins other staffers and supporter carrying signs and chanting slogans in front of City Hall, Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, in Los Angeles, Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Myung Chun, center and Irfan Khan, right, photographers for Los Angeles Times, join a rally in downtown Los Angeles. Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

Sonja Sharp, Metro reporter for the Los Angeles Times, talks during a rally in downtown Los Angeles, Friday, Jan. 19, 2024. Guild members of the Los Angeles Times participated in one-day walkout to protest imminent layoffs. The job action Friday is the first newsroom union work stoppage in the history of the newspaper, which began printing in 1881. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

THE BOSS(PARAPHRASING)TOLD THEM

ARYAN FASCISM

India's Ayodhya Temple Is a Huge Monument to Hindu Supremacy

Audrey Truschke
Mon, January 22, 2024

On Jan. 22, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate a three-story monument made of marble, sandstone, and teak that features 44 gates and 392 intricately-carved pillars. But the structure, built on a vast 70-acre plot, may be the least remarkable part of the new Ayodhya temple. Its controversial inauguration atop the ruins of a 16th-century mosque marks the culmination of a three-decade promise made by Modi, his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and other Hindu nationalist groups—and serves as the biggest political testament yet to Hindu supremacy over Indian Muslims.

Ayodhya is a town in northern India that, for centuries, was home to the Babri Masjid. The mosque was built in 1527 by a general associated with the Mughal Emperor Babur and was a rare surviving example of the architecture of the early Mughal Empire, which ruled parts of India from the 16th to 19th centuries. Muslims, India’s largest religious minority, worshipped in the mosque for more than 300 years without issue.

In the 1850s, when India was largely under British colonial rule, the first signs of trouble arose as the Babri Masjid emerged as a key site of Hindu nationalist attempts to rectify perceived historical wrongs by Muslims, an idea inherited from British colonialists. Hindus claimed that Lord Ram, a major god and mythological hero, had been born at the very spot on which the mosque stood. Competing claims of Ram’s birthplace were once attached to many sites in Ayodhya, but the Babri Masjid drew particular fervor because it was a mosque. Some imagined further historical wrongs associated with the Babri Masjid, including claiming that the mosque was built after Babur’s general destroyed a Hindu temple at that location.

None of these claims stand up to historical scrutiny. But in the 1980s, Hindu nationalist groups began tapping into these claims to argue that the mosque needed to be destroyed to clear the way for a new Hindu temple, declaring Mandir wahi banayenge (“The temple will be built right there!”). After years of agitation, their efforts resulted in an explosion of Islamophobic violence on Dec. 6, 1992, when a Hindu mob numbering at least 75,000 descended on Ayodhya and dismantled the Babri Masjid, brick-by-brick. The mob’s anti-Muslim iconoclasm extended to people, and many Muslims in Ayodhya fled the city that day, fearing for their lives. In the days that followed, communal riots that rocked various Indian cities claimed about 2,000 lives, most of them Muslim. A subsequent report commissioned by the Indian government found dozens of people—many of whom are now BJP political leaders—responsible for orchestrating and encouraging the attacks.

The BJP benefited from stirring up Hindu nationalism around the Babri Masjid, and in 2014 swept into power, displacing the more pluralistic Indian Congress Party. The BJP then began to remake democratic India into a Hindu supremacist state. Following a second BJP national victory in 2019, India’s Supreme Court—whose autonomy has been undercut by the Modi government—issued its final judgment that decided the fate of the Babri Masjid site. The court called the mosque’s destruction “an egregious violation of the rule of law,” but nonetheless ruled that a Hindu temple could be built on the mosque’s rubble. Modi laid the foundation stone at a groundbreaking ceremony in August 2020, and will finish what the BJP and other Hindu supremacists began more than 30 years ago by consecrating the Ayodhya temple surrounded by his Hindu nationalist peers.

A local man looks on through barricade on street near Hanmuna Gadhi temple in Ayodhya on Nov. 9, 2019, ahead of a Supreme Court verdict on the future of the Ram Temple. Ritesh Shukla—NurPhoto/Getty Images

Still, the event will be marked by conspicuous absences. Leaders of the opposition Congress party will skip the festivities, in protest over what they rightly see as a consecration that is more a political ploy than a religious ceremony. Even some Hindu leaders agree, arguing that the Ayodhya temple cannot be consecrated since it remains incomplete, and therefore violates Hindu scriptures. They also object to the participation of divisive political figures like Modi.

Yet the Indian Prime Minister is pressing ahead with inaugurating an incomplete temple—even at the price of alienating Hindu religious leaders—because of India’s May 2024 general election in which the BJP hopes to secure another national victory. If history is any guide, this tactic of harnessing majoritarian sentiment for political gain may well succeed.

The Ayodhya temple’s inauguration portends dark times ahead not just for India’s Muslims but also many Hindus who remain committed to pluralism and tolerance. Hindu supremacists have long sought to reduce the broad-based Hindu religious tradition to their hateful political ideology. The Ayodhya temple is a sizeable step toward that goal.

Muslims are second-class citizens in Modi’s India, regularly subjected to human rights violations. Freedom House now classifies India—once heralded as the world’s largest democracy—only “partly free” on account of the “rise in persecution affecting the Muslim population.” And there are signs that the Ayodhya temple may only mark a new era of the Hindu supremacist war on mosques. There are numerous cases in Indian courts seeking to demolish more of them in favor of building Hindu temples in Varanasi, Mathura, and other cities. Such demolitions may unleash more violence on India’s beleaguered Muslim minority, and further cement the feeling that the country is for Hindus, and Hindus alone.

The New York Nazis Who Loved Hitler, 

Hated Jews, and Packed MSG

Chris Vognar
Tue, January 23, 2024 

Hundreds of German Americans give the Nazi salute to young men marching in Nazi uniforms at Camp Sigfried on Long Island, NY. - Credit: Getty

On Feb. 20, 1939, more than 20,000 yelling, cheering people packed New York City’s Madison Square Garden. They weren’t there for a basketball game or a concert. They were supporters of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization that was ready for an alternative to democracy. They waved Swastika flags and raised quite a ruckus. And they were hardly alone in their mission, as the new PBS American Experience documentary Nazi Town, USA makes abundantly clear.

While most Americans identified fascism and the Third Reich as existential threats to civilization, many saw an opportunity to ride the hate toward their vision of a purified white Christian country, free of all those Blacks and Jews and foreign languages (except German, of course). Remember, this was a country that had millions of Ku Klux Klan members in the Twenties, and which considered raging antisemites Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh national heroes. Father Charles Coughlin regularly thundered against Jewishness on his popular radio broadcast. Into this milieu stormed a German immigrant named Fritz Julius Kuhn, who saw the U.S. as an ideal place to plant the Nazi flag. The Bund, based in the Upper East Side neighborhood of Yorkville, started summer camps for their aspiring Aryan offspring, including Camp Siegfried, on Long Island, where little towheaded kids frolicked and learned the ways of the so-called “master race,” and where visitors could march down Adolf Hitler Street. It can’t happen here, you say? In a sense, it already did.

American Experience puts a stable of eminent historians on the case, as it is wont to do, including Beverly Gage, William Hitchcock and Sarah Churchwell, who lay out cold, hard, and hard-to-believe facts that, upon reflection, are actually all-too-believable. Is it really that big a jump from embracing eugenics, as too much of the American scientific community did, to throwing up a Nazi salute? Nazi Town, USA argues that the U.S. was fertile ground for such social experiments, and, if you read between the lines, suggests it could be again. As Churchwell puts it, “Fascism is always homegrown.” In other words, even if Kuhn and his cohorts used Nazi ideology and symbolism to further the cause, many natives were already primed to sign up.

The black-and-white footage can be both terrifying and hilarious. You have American Nazis marching through American streets, and American flags proudly displayed alongside Swastikas (the Bund loved to wrap itself in patriotism). You also have pathetic little men in their paintbrush mustaches trying to emulate their ideological daddy, the Fuhrer. Fiction has tackled such circumstances in the past, including The Plot Against America, Philip Roth’s novel that imagines a Lindbergh presidency, and The Man in the High Castle, the Philip K. Dick novel (which became a TV series) about what happened when the Axis powers won World War II and ruled over a partitioned America. But in many ways the truth is more jarring, largely because it’s more mundane. FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, for instance, was no fan of the Bund and its ilk. But he was in no hurry to crush them; he found their staunch anti-communist crusade rather useful. Strategery! (Gage, it should be noted, is the author of a superb Hoover biography, G-Man, published in 2022).

The German American Bund march in New York City on February 20, 1939.

Of course not everyone rolled over for the American Nazis. Dorothy Thompson, the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934, sounded the alarm early, and was on hand at Madison Square Garden as a heckler, as thousands more protested outside. New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia worked up an investigation of the Bund’s finances, District Attorney Thomas Dewey got an indictment, and Kuhn was convicted of forgery and larceny, which landed him in Sing Sing. He was eventually deported. World War II over, the head of the snake exiled, the snake itself withered.

But it never really dies. Aside from capturing an overlooked chapter of 20th century American history, Nazi Town, USA is a bracing reminder to never take democracy for granted. There will always be those who see it as a threat and stand ready to uproot it, preferring the bullying rhetoric of strongman leaders. Hopefully they will never again sully the Garden.