Spiritual Politics

Why the Equality Act is no big threat to religious freedom

If push comes to shove, expect the Supreme Court to step in.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, center, speaks about the Congress Equality Act on Feb. 25, 2021, with, from left, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Sen. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.; Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I.; Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.; and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

March 25, 2021

By 

Mark Silk

(RNS) — Listen to its opponents and you’d think the Equality Act, which the House of Representatives passed Feb. 25, is designed to destroy the free exercise of religion in America.

“No person of faith or religious institution, whether school, church, synagogue, mosque, business, or non-profit, will escape the Orwellian reach of the Equality Act,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

The act, claim the Catholic bishops, “codifies the new ideology of ‘gender’ in federal law, dismissing sexual difference and falsely presenting ‘gender’ as only a social construct” as well as riding “roughshod over religious liberty.”

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RELATED: The Supreme Court ups the ante on religious liberty

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It would, according to the Heritage Foundation, “make mainstream beliefs about marriage, biological facts about sex differences, and many sincerely held beliefs punishable under the law.”

And my favorite, from Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values: “If bigots were bent on eliminating Orthodox Judaism from American soil, it is difficult to imagine a more ruthlessly efficient tool than the Equality Act.”

Woah. As the current guy says, here’s the deal:

The Equality Act would prevent discrimination against LGBT people by amending the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to explicitly include sexual preference and gender identity along with sex. Such discrimination would be prohibited in employment, housing, public accommodation, education, federally funded programs, credit and jury service.

Let it be noted that the Supreme Court, in last year’s 6-3 Bostock decision, determined that the Civil Rights Act’s existing prohibition of employment discrimination on grounds of sex already extends to sexual preference and gender identity. It’s also worth noting that the vast majority of Americans (including two-thirds of Republicans) support laws banning discrimination against LGBT people.

Here’s the issue, however: The Equality Act stipulates that the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act cannot be used to obtain an exemption from the Equality Act’s discrimination prohibitions. RFRA, it states, “shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under, a covered title, or provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of a covered title.”

How big a deal is this?

RFRA requires courts to employ the standard of review known as “strict scrutiny” when a plaintiff claims that the federal government has violated the plaintiff’s religious freedom. That means the government must prove that a law or ordinance advances a “compelling” government interest and that it does so by “the least restrictive means.” 

Under the Equality Act (i.e., without recourse to RFRA), a plaintiff wishing, say, to refuse wedding services to a same-sex couple on religious grounds would be faced with a different constitutional standard, one enunciated by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), in which two drug rehab employees claimed taking hallucinatory peyote was a ritual of their Native American faith.

Smith, the court’s worst free-exercise decision ever, did not just do away with the court’s existing strict scrutiny standard of review; it didn’t even employ weaker established tests of “intermediate scrutiny” (furthering an “important” government interest by “substantially related” means) or “rational basis” (furthering a “legitimate” government interest in a “rationally” related way). Smith holds, baldly, that so long as a law is “neutral” and “generally applicable” it cannot be challenged on free-exercise grounds.

Why did Scalia, a devout Roman Catholic, impose so profound a limitation on religious liberty? At the time, free-exercise cases were usually brought on behalf of small religious minorities — such as the Native Americans in Smith. While Scalia agreed that laws specifically aimed at religious practices or communities should be struck down as unconstitutional, he didn’t want courts fostering a situation where, as he wrote, “each conscience is a law unto itself.”

Religious bodies and civil libertarians were appalled. Persuaded by a large coalition of them (including the Catholic Church and the American Civil Liberties Union), a nearly unanimous Congress passed RFRA with the object of requiring the Supreme Court to reinstate strict scrutiny as its constitutional standard and thereby restore religious freedom. 

The court would eventually slap down Congress’ imposition of strict scrutiny for constitutional adjudication (you don’t get to tell us how to interpret the Constitution) but allowed RFRA to apply to federal (not state) laws and ordinances. That’s why Congress has the power to make RFRA inapplicable to anti-discrimination law.

Should the Equality Act pass the Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden (as he has promised), opponents predict a parade of horribles. Menken, for example, claims that whenever a religious body avails itself of a restaurant, catering hall, funeral home or other “public accommodation,” it would be precluded from enforcing its own gender-based rules — such as, in the case of Orthodox Judaism, same-sex seating.

I’m not so sure about that. What I’d be prepared to put money on, however, is that if such a parade actually started, the Supreme Court would step in, very likely reversing Smith and restoring strict scrutiny as its free-exercise test. But we shouldn’t imagine that things would then revert to the status quo ante.

Prior to Smith, the justices were pretty deferential to the government when it wanted to declare a compelling interest in a free-exercise case. In 1986, for example, an Orthodox Jewish Air Force chaplain was denied the right to wear a yarmulke on base because of the military’s asserted need to “foster instinctive obedience, unity, commitment, and esprit de corps.”

More relevant to the Equality Act is the court’s 1983 decision upholding the IRS’ revocation of Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status for refusing to permit interracial dating or marriage on the grounds that this was forbidden by the Bible.

Since then, the court’s deference has shifted to the religious side, as in its unanimous 2012 Hosanna Tabor decision that federal anti-discrimination laws do not apply to religious organizations’ selection of religious leaders — a decision that did not rely on RFRA at all. The readiness of the court to overturn state restrictions on in-person worship since the arrival of Amy Coney Barrett on the bench puts an exclamation point on this trend.

Under the circumstances, it might be wise for proponents of the Equality Act to consider compromising on an alternative bill, the Fairness for All Act, which was introduced in 2019 and again this year by U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart.

Modeled on a Utah law passed in 2015 with the support of both The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and gay rights leaders in the state, it would write protections for LGBT people into the Civil Rights Act while explicitly protecting the possibility of religious exemptions under RFRA. 

Partisans on both sides of the Equality Act hate the Fairness for All Act. So don’t be holding your breath.

Convictions upheld for British pagans who trespassed at Stonehenge
Lawyers for Lisa Mead, Maryam Halcrow and Angel Grace argued the trio had a ‘reasonable excuse’ to enter a restricted area at the prehistoric monument, based on their religious beliefs

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The World Heritage Site of Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, England, in 2013. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

MARCH 11,2021

By Emily McFarlan Miller

(RNS) — Three British pagans have lost their High Court appeal to overturn their convictions for breaching protections at Stonehenge, the iconic stone monument aligned with the movements of the sun on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England.

Lawyers for Lisa Mead, Maryam Halcrow and Angel Grace argued the trio had a “reasonable excuse” to enter a restricted area at the prehistoric monument, based on their religious beliefs.

RELATED: Solstice celebrations kick off tonight, the darkest night of the year

Mead, a druid, has said she needs access to the stones to “charge her crystals to work in healing,” according to the Evening Standard. Halcrow, described by the Swindon Advertiser as a “solitary hedge witch,” reportedly told police she was there to “worship at her temple.”

Mead and Halcrow crossed a rope barrier and “no entry” sign to enter the stone circle on Feb. 4, 2018, according to a report in the Evening Standard.

On a second occasion, Mead, Halcrow and Grace, who also identifies as a druid, unlawfully entered the circle on May 6, 2018.

They were convicted in November 2018, which they appealed, eventually reaching the High Court. Lawyers claimed the convictions infringed on their freedoms of religion, expression and lawful protest.

The Evening Standard reported that the High Court ruling Wednesday (March 10) acknowledged the women’s “religious beliefs in paganism, druidism and ‘light working.’” But, it said, unrestricted access to the site “would inevitably have an adverse effect on Stonehenge to the detriment of current and future generations.”

English Heritage, which oversees Stonehenge, describes it as “a wonder of the world, a spiritual place and a source of inspiration.”

During general admission hours, entry to Stonehenge is ticketed and the stone circle is off-limits. Visitors are not allowed to touch the stones.

The World Heritage Site also hosts “managed open access days” for the summer and winter solstice and autumnal and vernal equinox, and small groups can reserve access to the stone circle outside of general admission hours. Mead has objected to the “party mood” of open access days, and Grace to the “prohibitive” cost of reserving the site, according to the Swindon Advertiser.

RELATED: Yule traditions new and old wish good riddance to 2020 at the winter solstice

Mead, Halcrow and Grace were given conditional discharges following their initial convictions, according to the BBC.

End-of-pandemic hopes rise, just in time for pagan holiday Osta

Buzz on social media is forecasting a more robust celebration this year for Ostara, the pagan holiday adapted as Easter by Christian

Photo by Arno Smit/Unsplash/Creative Commons
March 19, 2021
By


(RNS) — For many of Laurie Cabot’s neighbors in Salem, Massachusetts, the vernal equinox, the first day of spring, is a sign of hope that warmer weather will soon bring relief from a long pandemic winter spent mostly apart. For Cabot, the official witch of Salem, the day known in pagan communities as the festival of Ostara will have a more profound meaning.

Cabot is one of the trailblazers who brought the practice of witchcraft “out of the broom closet” nearly 50 years ago, in part by publishing several books, including, “Celebrate the Earth: A Year of Holidays in the Pagan Tradition,” that demystified earth-based practices.

As the founder in 2010 of the Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple — the “first federally recognized Temple of Witchcraft in the history of Salem, Massachusetts,” according to its website, Cabot has also presided over decades of Ostara rituals. But this year’s festivities will be different.

RELATED: Natural by nature, pagans expect some digital rituals to survive the pandemic

The Wheel of the Year, with eight sabbats. Image via the Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple

Ostara is one of eight sabbats, or holidays, in the Wheel of the Year, the pagan spiritual calendar. It is a time of balance — with equal hours of light and dark — and renewal. As vaccination numbers climb and pandemic restrictions are eased, this year’s celebrations will look forward to a collective re-emergence from lockdowns and quarantines. The suffocating nature of too-close quarters, loneliness and days spent staring out of windows are coming to an end.

“Ostara is a time to spring into action and sow the seeds for the rewards of the months to come,” Cabot said. “The world can see the relevance as we step forward into rebirth and a reinvention of what was. The balance comes in stepping forward with compassion, kindness, and bringing forth all of the other aspects of consciousness that give us strength and bring us closer together.”

Chas Clifton, author of “Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America” and a pagan practitioner for more than 40 years, expects this year’s Ostara to be celebrated with more feeling. “Largely through pagan social media, I have seen indications that this year’s Ostara will carry some extra power,” said Clifton, who is also editor of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. “Emergence from what has felt like a year of shadow life, combined with the fact that Ostara falls on a weekend this year, may make for a more robust celebration of this normally low-key festival.”

Although Christians adapted several Easter symbols from Ostara — such as bunnies and decorated eggs — it is normally one of the lesser-known pagan holidays.

Image by Rebekka D/Pixalbay/Creative Commons

“The name is a variation of “Eostre,” Clifton explained, “which, according to the English monastic chronicler Bede, was the name of a Germanic goddess who was celebrated by the pagan Anglo-Saxon people in the spring during ‘Easturmonath’ and associated with springtime and the dawn.”

Historians think that Bede may have mistaken a Germanic dawn goddess related to the Greek “Eos” for a seasonal goddess, noted Clifton. He explained that while other Christian cultures took the name for Easter from the Hebrew “Pesach,” or Passover, Germanic and English cultures employed a form of Easter.

Ostara rituals differ greatly among practitioners. While some adherents prefer solitary activities like meditation and springtime planting, others choose to celebrate in larger groups or covens.

The Cabot Kent Hermetic Temple is celebrating its own cyclical rebirth of a sort. Having lost access to the venue where its seasonal rituals had been held in the past few years, the temple is returning to the historic Hawthorne Hotel in downtown Salem (where a memorable episode of the ’60s sitcom “Betwitched” was filmed) for its Ostara celebration. The hotel is where Laurie Cabot taught some of her original classes in the 1970s.

“The few staff members who have remained at the Hawthorne all these years, as well as some new wonderful people, accepted us with open arms,” she said. “Out of something dark came something uplifting and wonderful.”


Laurie Cabot. Courtesy photo

The ritual, which will take place at the hotel on Saturday (March 20), will be streamed on Facebook Live. Penny Cabot, reverend and green minister high priestess of the temple, said the ritual will honor the goddess Rhiannon, a Welsh goddess of sovereignty, transformation and fertility, and her son, Pryderi.

A lifelong practicing witch, Penny believes that all people can derive meaning from Ostara’s traditions. “There is much that we can do, witch or non-witch, to share in sending out positive energy into the world on Ostara,” she said.

Central to all pagan practice is a deep reverence for nature. It is from the natural energy of the cosmos — the moon and sun, the four elements — that practitioners draw power and spiritual nourishment. On Ostara, that power is found through honoring the rites of spring.

Many Ostara rituals, accordingly, involve seeds and flowers. Penny Cabot suggested gathering fresh flowers, faerie cakes (or muffins), dried cranberries (to represent winter), wildflower seeds and faerie wine (a mixture of milk, cinnamon and honey).

RELATED: In lockdown, our longing for the world could be the antidote to our spiritual anorexia

“Step into your comfortable place, either outdoors or in the sunshine,” she instructed. “Bring all of your items and place them in front of you on a table or on the ground. Raise your right hand to the sky and walk, counterclockwise, in a circular motion. Say these words: ‘I bring harmony to this place.’”

After dividing the offerings into four parts, she pours four bits of faerie milk onto the ground. (If indoors, she recommends putting the parts in four small cups.) She then says, “I bring prosperity and abundance into my world. I send balance and compassion into the universe for the good of all. So it is done.”

Clifton pointed to a similar ritual from the Druid tradition composed by pagan author and priest John Beckett, which “begins with offerings of bread and water to one’s ‘ancestors of blood and spirit,’ to the land spirits, and to the Celtic mother goddess Danu.”

At the heart of the ritual is the planting of seeds. The petitioner pledges to “join in your great work creating and nurturing life and love.”

Pagan sues Panera Bread Company alleging religious discrimination

A former baker for the chain said she was told that she 'needed to find God,' according to a court filing.

A former employee of the Panera Bread in Pleasant Hills, Pennsylvania, is suing the company on grounds of religious discrimination. Screenshot from Google Maps

March 27, 2021
By Heather Greene

(RNS) — A Pennsylvania woman filed a lawsuit Wednesday (March 24) against Panera Bread Company, alleging that she was discriminated against and fired due to her pagan beliefs.

Tammy McCoy, of Clairton, Pennsylvania, was hired as a baker at the Panera location in nearby Pleasant Hills, a Pittsburgh suburb, in October 2019. According to the filing, she “never discussed her religion or religious beliefs at work” because she felt the subject was private.

Paganism is an umbrella term used for a number of different growing religious and spiritual practices centered on nature and magic.

According to the lawsuit, the subject of McCoy’s religion came up in late May of 2020, when McCoy was on break with the store’s assistant manager, Lori Dubs, and the manager, Kerri Ann Show. Show asked McCoy what her religion was, and Tammy responded, “I am Pagan.”

Show reportedly responded by telling McCoy that she was going to hell, and Dubs “vigorously nodded her head in agreement.”

The lawsuit then goes on to describe a series of other discriminatory actions. Among the complaints are that McCoy’s hours were cut, and when she asked why, she was told that she “needed to find God” before returning to her “previous schedule.” She was reportedly docked pay for breaks that she did not take.

McCoy alleged that she asked to be transferred to a different store, to which the district manager reportedly said, “No,” and, “We’re probably going to get rid of you anyways.”

A call to Panera’s corporate human resources went unanswered.

According to the lawsuit, the threats continued and turned violent at times, allegedly creating a “hostile work environment.”

On July 27, McCoy said she was told to give notice that she was leaving her job. Both she and her husband, who also worked at Panera and was not otherwise mentioned in the case, were fired, according to the suit.

The lawsuit, which was filed in a Pennsylvania federal court, states that McCoy’s civil rights were violated under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

McCoy declined an interview. Panera did not answer a request for comment.

The Rev. Selena Fox, executive director of the pagan civil rights organization Lady Liberty League and senior minister of Circle Sanctuary, has reached out to both McCoy and Panera Bread Company.

“Pagans are continuing the quest for full equality, liberty and justice in the U.S.A. and other parts of the world,” Fox said.

“Although there have been a variety of pagan rights legal victories, unfortunately, anti-pagan prejudice, harassment, discrimination and defamation still happen.”

Lady Liberty League (LLL) was founded in 1985 during the “Satanic Panic,” when pagans were regularly confronted with similar situations at work and in their communities. “It is essential to stand up to anti-pagan hate and attacks whenever and wherever they occur,” Fox said.

Most typically, Lady Liberty League fields complaints related to “child custody, business, zoning, housing and job discrimination.”

Fox added that there has been a noticeable uptick in discrimination over the past four years.

The LLL team is “in the early stages of looking into the case,” she said, and they are concerned for McCoy and for the greater community. “Discrimination against pagans not only harms the individuals directly impacted in a case, but pagan people and society as a whole,” Fox said.

As of Friday, the organization has not spoken to McCoy or received a response from Panera’s corporate headquarters.

LLL is chiefly interested in speaking with the company’s diversity officers, said Fox, who added that she “understands an unwillingness for a company to discuss particulars of a lawsuit that is in process.

“It is our hope to be able to have direct dialogue with Panera Bread at the corporate level about the importance of stopping and preventing discrimination against pagan workers. We have had positive experiences with such conversations with other corporations and institutions we have contacted over the years.”

McCoy’s lawsuit claims that she was fully qualified to do her job and that the harassment and firing were solely due to her Pagan religious beliefs.

The series of actions taken by the store’s managers, and later by the district manager, as stated in the filing, were “committed with intentional and reckless disregard for (McCoy’s) protected rights.”

McCoy’s lawyer, Michael J. Bruzzese, is asking the federal court for a jury trial.

Suez Canal: Giant container ship Ever Given partially refloated

Sisi hails success, as local authorities say the vessel is 80 percent corrected and tugging efforts are planned to continue

It remains unclear whether the waterway would be open on Monday (Reuters)

By MEE and agencies

Published date: 29 March 2021 

A giant container ship that has blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week has been refloated, raising hopes that the international waterway will soon be clear.

The 400-metre long Ever Given had been dislodged from the banks of the Suez Canal on Monday morning, marine services company Inchcape said in a tweet.

"The MV Ever Given was successfully re-floated at 04:30," said Inchcape.

"She is being secured at the moment."

Local authorities added that the vessel was 80 percent clear, and that the next step would be to continue tugging efforts to free the vessel and direct it to a waiting area.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Monday that Egyptians had succeeded in ending the crisis of the container ship stranded in the Suez Canal.

“And by restoring matters to their normal course, with Egyptian hands, the whole world can be assured of the path of its goods and needs that are carried through this navigational artery,” Sisi said on his official Twitter account.


'By restoring matters to their normal course, with Egyptian hands, the whole world can be assured of the path of its goods and needs that are carried through this navigational artery'

- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

Admiral Omar Rabie, who heads the Suez Canal Authority, said on Facebook that the next steps would be to manoeuvre the ship during a high tide on Monday which will lead to the "full restoration of the vessel’s direction so it is positioned in the middle of the navigable waterway".

The Ever Given container ship, which is the size of four football pitches, has blocked the Suez Canal for the past six days, crippling international trade and causing losses worth billions of dollars.

The blockage has stopped traffic coming from both directions and forced companies to consider taking a more expensive route that diverts vessels past South Africa's Cape of Good Hope.

Rabie said that the blockage had held up more than 320 ships on either side of the canal. He added that the waterway's closure meant the Egyptians had lost at least $12m-$14m in revenue.

Lloyd's List, a shipping data and news company, said it had also seen a "surge" in vessels opting to go around Africa instead of waiting for the canal to be cleared.

Lloyd’s estimated the canal’s westbound traffic to be valued at roughly $5.1bn a day, and eastbound traffic at around $4.5bn a day.

The 200,000-tonne MV Ever Given veered off course in the Suez Canal last Tuesday, an incident officials blamed on high wind speeds and sandstorms.

But Rabie on Saturday acknowledged that "technical or human errors" led to the Panama-registered super container ship's grounding.

HATE SPEECH AGAINST DEMOCRATS AND WITCHES

Several University of Michigan deans condemn comments made by GOP chairman

3/28/2021

University of Michigan Board of Regents member Ron Weiser smiles during the University of Michigan Board of Regents annual budget meeting on Thursday, June 15, 2017. Matt Weigand | The Ann Arbor News Thursday, June 15, 2017. Matt Weigand 

By Steve Marowski | smarowski@mlive.com


ANN ARBOR, MI — Several deans at the University of Michigan signed a letter sent to the university community Sunday condemning comments made by Michigan GOP Chair and UM Regent Ron Weiser.

Weiser came under fire following comments he made during an event for the North Oakland Republic Club Thursday, March 26, when Weiser called Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson the “three witches” and said the GOP needs to make sure “they are ready for the burning at the stake.”

His comments were captured in a video shared on social media.

The letter was signed by six female deans at the university — Anne Curzan of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts; Patricia Hurn of the School of Nursing; Laurie McCauley of the School of Dentistry; Elizabeth Birr Moje of the School of Education; Lori Ploutz-Snyder of the School of Kinesiology; and Lynn Videka of the School of Social Work — and more than a dozen other deans signed in solidarity.

“We find your comments about elected leaders in the state of Michigan to be insulting, demeaning to women, and contrary to the democratic values of our state and country,” the letter reads. “While your remarks may have been motivated by your personal views, they are damaging to the community of the University of Michigan and the schools and colleges that we lead given your role as a regent.

“Your words do damage and disrespect not only to women in leadership positions, whether elected or appointed, but also to young women who will lead in the future. We must speak out in protest when women are threatened with violence because of the decisions they have made. We believe that sexist name calling and threats of violence, especially from those in positions of power, simply are not acceptable. This is not a context-dependent question: they are not acceptable.

“We feel strongly that your comments do not support the university’s and our units’ values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. Nor do your comments support robust civil debate and democratic engagement. The latter point is particularly saddening and ironic because you have been a champion of democratic values through institutions you have supported on our campus.

“Whether or not you are speaking in your official capacity as a regent, you remain a representative of the university, and you have a responsibility to the university community you lead.

“We call on you to repair the serious harm you have caused,” the letter concludes.

Provost Susan Collins responded to the letter in full support of the deans and said she found Weiser’s remarks to be demeaning to women and “contrary to the democratic values of our state and country.”

“Further, I am particularly concerned that his remarks were antithetical to our university’s focus on creating a culture that is based on shared values, and to our long-standing commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion,” Collins said. “Our speech and our behavior determine our culture (and vice versa). Leadership has a critical role to play in ensuring that we stand by our commitments.

“As provost, I reaffirm that:

All members of our community can and should expect respect. This most certainly includes women and those from marginalized groups.
Violent references and images are never acceptable ways to counter those with whom we disagree.”

Since Weiser’s comments, other UM regents have spoken out and some have called for Weiser’s resignation from the board, including Mark Bernstein and Jordan Acker.

In a series of tweets on March 26, Board Chair Denise Illitch called Weiser’s language “repugnant” and his comments “crosses a line that is inconsistent with what should be our shared values,” but she did not call on him to resign.

Related: Some University of Michigan regents call on Weiser to resign following ‘three witches,’ assassination comments

UM President Mark Schlissel issued a statement on March 27 condemning any suggestion of violence against a duly elected state or federal official. He added that elected officials must adhere to a higher standard, regardless of the context of their remarks.

In a statement made on Saturday, Weiser apologized to those he offended “for the flippant analogy about three women who are elected officials and for the off-hand comments about two other leaders. I have never advocated for violence and never will.”

“While I will always fight for the people and policies I believe in, I pledge to be part of a respectful political dialogue going forward,” Weiser said.

Related: Michigan GOP chairman apologizes for assassination comments, calling top Democratic women ‘three witches’

Nessel responded to Weiser on Twitter Sunday morning with the following statement: “This is not an apology. This is Ron Weiser trying to salvage his relationship with @UMich. If Ron’s comments inspired assasination attempts against the 5 officials he threatened, Ron would be fine with it as long as the university named another hall after him.”

Weiser faced pressure to resign in January from University of Michigan faculty and students who cited his “complicity” in the violence at the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6.

He was elected to the board in 2016. Weiser’s board term runs through 2025.

Michigan Republican Party
leader “jokes” about killing 

Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans

Kevin Reed
WSWS

In comments before a meeting of supporters last Thursday, Michigan Republican Party Chairman Ron Weiser “joked” that the top three elected Democrats in the state are “three witches” that the GOP needs to “take out,” “soften up” and get ready “for the burning at the stake.”

Weiser was speaking about Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson at a meeting of the North Oakland Republican Club. He referred to them multiple times as “the three witches.”

The state chair made his comments—which were recorded on a smartphone video and shared on multiple social media platforms—in the course of reviewing Republican Party plans for the 2022 elections.

Ron Weiser (Image credit Facebook/ronweiserGOP)

His two statements were, “I made the decision to continue to serve to make sure we have an opportunity to take out those three witches in two years from now,” and, “Our job now is to soften up those three witches and make sure that when we have good candidates to run against them that they are ready for the burning at the stake.” Weiser then added, “And maybe the press heard that too.”

These “jokes” were made less than six months since 14 men were arrested by the FBI for plotting to kidnap and kill Governor Whitmer and overthrow the government in Michigan. The group of individuals are part of a right-wing paramilitary group calling themselves the Wolverine Watchmen.

Although reports about the ongoing case against the conspirators had virtually disappeared from the corporate news coverage, a hearing for the three leaders of the plot that began on March 3 showed that one of the men planned to “hogtie” the governor and “put her on display.”

In testimony given by an FBI informant placed within the Wolverine Watchmen group, it was also revealed that the individuals worked with other right-wing organizations in Ohio and Wisconsin and were planning to kick-off a “boogaloo”—a civil war—that would result in “installing” the Wolverine Watchmen as the new government. The informant said the plot included plans to target Attorney General Nessel and Michigan Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist, who is African-American.

Several of the Wolverine Watchmen involved in the plot to kidnap and murder the Democratic Party leaders are from the towns of Lake Orion and Clarkston in Oakland County where the Thursday’s Republican Party meeting was held.

Weiser used similar blood-soaked language Thursday in discussing plans to remove Michigan Representatives Fred Upton of St. Joseph and Peter Meijer of Grand Rapids Township, two of the ten Republicans who voted for the impeachment of then-President Trump on January 13.

In response to a question about what the Michigan Republicans were going to do about them, Weiser said, “Ma’am, other than assassination, I have no other way of even voting that, OK?” To this comment someone in the audience can be heard saying, “Don’t say that too loudly.”

These comments were also made less than three months after the storming of the US Capitol by a mob that was planning to kidnap and/or murder top congressional Democrats and the Republican Vice President Mike Pence.

That the leader of the Michigan Republican party is making supposed jokes about assassinating “disloyal” members of his own party and murdering leading Democrats—as well as the enthusiasm with which these comments were received by his audience—is further evidence that the GOP is being converted into a party of the fascist ultra-right.

In predictable fashion, the pro-Republican wing of the media gave Weiser a pass on his comments and allowed the party leader to excuse himself by saying that while he should have chosen his words more carefully, “anyone who knows me understands I would never advocate for violence.” Assurances such as these are worthless in the present environment in which the Republican Party is responsible for the growth of the increasingly open assault on constitutional and democratic rights within the US.

Weiser also said he spoke to Representatives Upton and Meijer and told them that his “off the cuff remarks” received “more scrutiny from the media and leftists in the last 24 hours than the governor’s handling of COVID, the deaths she caused in nursing homes and unemployment issues impacting too many hard-working Michiganders to this day.” Meijer and Upton declined to comment on Weiser’s statements.

Other Republicans openly defended Weiser’s threats. Co-Chair of the Michigan Republicans Meshawn Maddock tweeted, “Too bad all the snowflakes in the mainstream media see misogyny where it doesn't exist. Calling someone a witch is NOT misogynist. This is more of the same from the left—instantly label everything as ‘misogyny’ or ‘racist.’ This hurts real efforts to become a more just society.”

Meanwhile, various Democratic Party officials issued statements of protest. Mark Bernstein, a fellow University of Michigan Board of Regents member with Weiser, told the media that the comments were “blatantly sexist,” “dangerous” and “damaging to our state and the University of Michigan” and called on the Republican to resign from the board of regents.

The Republicans are taking an aggressive posture against Whitmer in an environment where the right-wing policies of the Democrats are completely exposed. Weiser is raising the nursing home deaths just as the Republicans in the state legislature have authorized funds to be used by any county prosecutor in Michigan who wants to prosecute the governor over the high number of COVID-19 fatalities in the state’s nursing homes, a result of Whitmer’s order to transfer elderly patients diagnosed with coronavirus from hospitals back to nursing homes.

Following the lead of President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly called for Democratic Party “unity” with the Republican right, Gretchen Whitmer’s press secretary Bobby Leddy told the media, “As the governor has said repeatedly, it’s time for people of good will on both sides of the aisle to bring down the heat and reject this kind of divisive rhetoric, because we need to stay focused on what really matters, and that's working together to get things done for Michigan's working families.”

A spokesperson for Secretary Benson said only that the three female state officials have “experienced firsthand how this rhetoric is later used as justification for very real threats made against government officials, election administrators and democracy itself.”

WHAT “GREEN BITCOIN” MAY MEAN FOR THE CRYPTO MINING INDUSTRY

SAN LEE | MAR 28, 2021 

Breaking Down What “Green Bitcoin” May Mean for the Crypto Industry

London-based cryptocurrency firm Argo Blockchain recently announced plans to create the world’s first clean energy Bitcoin mining pool. The firm confirmed its partnership with DMG Blockchain Solutions to launch the world’s first Bitcoin mining pool powered by clean energy.

Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption Continues to Skyrocket

Bitcoin’s environmental concerns are nothing new. Crypto critics have always questioned the hefty electrical consumption of miners, but as Bitcoin surged to new highs and found itself in the limelight once again, electrical consumption levels have bubbled to an astronomical figure. Simply put, rising Bitcoin prices makes mining more profitable — incentivizing mining pools to expand their operations.

According to the University of Cambridge’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, Bitcoin miners around the world currently account for 138.7 terawatts in electrical consumption — nearly 0.5% of global power usage. As Bitcoin prices increased by nearly 900% since March of last year, its estimated annualized consumption also rose by 200%. With prices recently peaking at $61,500, Bitcoin’s annual electrical consumption now exceeds that of developed nations, including Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland, among others.

THE CRYPTO MINING INDUSTRY MAY FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR FURTHER INACTION

Amid growing concerns over Bitcoin’s energy waste, governments and tech figures such as Bill Gates have questioned the utility and necessity of cryptocurrencies, even as the world continues to become more digital than ever. With governments looking to tighten regulations around the cryptocurrency industry, Bitcoin’s environmental impact cannot go unaddressed. With the precedent now set, the rest of the crypto industry must follow or risk potential political and regulatory tailwinds.

Argo Blockchain and DMG will transition their mining operations to hydroelectric energy, which is an alternative, renewable source of power. In a statement, Argo Blockchain CEO stressed the need for the mining industry to find a sustainable solution together. “We are hopeful other companies within the Bitcoin mining industry follow in our footsteps to demonstrate broader climate consciousness,” he said.

“Addressing climate change is a priority for Argo and partnering with DMG to create the first “green” bitcoin mining pool is an important step towards protecting our planet now and for generations to come”

Supporters Voice Defiance after Bid to Ban Pro-Kurdish Party in Turkey

Saturday, 20 March, 2021 -

Supporters of pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) cheer during a gathering to celebrate Newroz in Istanbul, Turkey March 20, 2021. (Reuters)

Asharq Al-Awsat

Turkish Kurds voiced anger on Saturday over a court attempt to ban a pro-Kurdish political party, turning their Newroz spring festival celebrations across the country into a show of defiance.

In the culmination of a years-long crackdown, a prosecutor filed a case this week to close the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) over alleged links to Kurdish militants. The HDP, parliament’s third-largest party, denies such ties and called the move a “political coup”.

“They know closing the HDP will not be a solution. You can close a party but you can’t close people’s minds,” Abbas Mendi, 45, said at a Newroz celebration in Istanbul, where thousands gathered at a rally amid tight police security.

The crowd waved the brightly colored flags of the HDP and other left-wing parties, played Kurdish music and danced after listening to speeches by HDP officials. It won 11.7% support, or nearly 6 million votes, in a 2018 general election.

“They closed 7-8 parties like this before and they came back stronger,” said Mendi, a 45-year-old man from Sirnak in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, describing Newroz as a “festival of peace, resistance and resurrection”.

Celebrating Newroz, the Persian New Year, has long been a mark of pride for Kurds, who make up some 20% of Turkey’s 84 million people and live mainly in the southeast. Istanbul also has a large Kurdish population.

Ridvan Aktas, 30, said he thought no ethnic group in the world had suffered as much oppression as the Kurds, and accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government of targeting anyone who opposed it. The government says it treats all citizens equally.

“If you are near to them you are good, but if you stand apart from them you are a terrorist, a traitor. The HDP is our honor and our guide. There is no way they can close it,” said Aktas, who works in the fishing industry.

Turkey has a long history of shutting down political parties that it regards as a threat and has in the past banned a series of pro-Kurdish parties.

Erdogan’s government, like the prosecutor, accuses the HDP of close ties to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, which is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. The HDP has repeatedly denied any such links.

The PKK launched an insurgency against the state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting. Some Kurds say the current situation is reminiscent of the height of the conflict in the 1990s.

“We are experiencing how it was in the 90s now. It is getting increasingly worse. They force our deputies out of parliament. They think they have the right, but we are seeking our rights,” said Semsiyan Aslanhan, a 43-year-old woman.

The prosecutor’s case to close down the HDP kicked off a tumultuous week in Turkey. Early on Saturday, Erdogan pulled the country from an international accord designed to protect women, and sacked the central bank governor.

Russia Offers Egypt Assistance in Freeing Ship Blocking Suez Canal


This satellite imagery released by Maxar Technologies shows the MV Ever Given container ship in the Suez Canal on the morning of March 28, 2021. (Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies/AFP)

Asharq Al-Awsat
Monday, 29 March, 2021 

Russia’s ambassador to Egypt on Sunday offered the country “any possible assistance”, as efforts continue to free a megaship that has been blocking the Suez Canal for nearly a week.

The MV Ever Given has been stuck diagonally across the span of the canal since Tuesday, blocking the waterway in both directions.

In comments to the state-run RIA Novosti news agency, Russian ambassador Georgy Borisenko said that Moscow is ready to help any way it can.

“We hope that this problem will be overcome in the very near future, that the work of the channel will be restored, and, naturally, we are ready to provide our Egyptian friends with any possible assistance from our side,” the ambassador said, AFP reported.

Borisenko added that Egypt has not reached out to Moscow for support, but said Russia “empathizes with what’s happening now in the Suez Canal,” describing it as “an important waterway for the whole world.”

On Saturday, Suez Canal Authority chief Osama Rabie had told reporters that the massive ship could be afloat by Sunday night.

The jam has crippled international trade and forced companies to reconsider re-routing vessels around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, a longer and more expensive way to travel between Asia and Europe.

Another Russian ambassador had earlier this week seized on the Suez Canal blockage to promote Russia’s northern shipping route as a reliable alternative, part of a broader push by Moscow to develop the Arctic and capitalize on climate change.

Moscow has invested heavily in the development of the Northern Sea Route that allows ships to cut the journey to Asian ports by 15 days compared with the conventional route via the Suez Canal.

Iran Envoy: Suez Canal Blockage Highlighting North-South Corridor as Sub

2021-March-29 13:43

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran's Ambassador to Moscow Kazzem Jalali said that the blocking of the Suez Canal by a huge container ship has necessitated once more the accomplishment of the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), adding that the incident has caused over 9 billion dollars of daily loss for the global economy.

According to the Twitter account of Iran’s mission in Moscow, Jalali reiterated the necessity of completing the INSTC as an alternative as the Japanese large cargo ship has blocked the Suez Canal resulting in over $9 billion loss for the world economy.

He added that the INSTC cuts the transport time by 20 days and reduces costs by 30 percent compared to traditional route currently used.

The diplomat stressed that the event represented the necessity of low-risk alternative to the traditional route.

INSTC is an international multi-mode of ship, railway and road route which connects Russia and Eastern Europe to India and China through Iran.

Iran is expected to complete 170 kilometers of the railroad between the cities of Rasht and Astara to create a connection with Russia and Finland in Europe.

The Suez Canal – an important global shipping route accounting for about 15% of world shipping traffic – has been blocked since Tuesday.


A giant container ship remained stuck sideways in Egypt’s Suez Canal for a fifth day Saturday, as authorities prepared to make new attempts to free the vessel and reopen a crucial East-West waterway for global shipping.

The Ever Given, a Panama-flagged ship that carries cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground Tuesday in the narrow canal that runs between Africa and the Sinai Peninsula, Euronews reported.

The massive vessel got stuck in a single-lane stretch of the canal, about six kilometres North of the Southern entrance, near the city of Suez.

Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the technical manager of the Ever Given, said an attempt Friday to free it failed. Plans were in the works to pump water from interior spaces of the vessel, and two more tugs should arrive by Sunday to join others already trying to move the massive ship, it added.

An official at the Suez Canal Authority stated they planned to make at least two attempts Saturday to free the vessel when the high tide goes down. He noted the timing depends on the tide.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief journalists.

Egyptian authorities have prohibited media access to the site. The canal authority announced its head, Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, would hold a news conference in the city of Suez, a few kilometres from the site of the vessel.

Shoei Kisen President Yukito Higaki told a news conference at company headquarters in Imabari in Western Japan that 10 tugboats were deployed and workers were dredging the banks and seafloor near the vessel’s bow to try to get it afloat again as the high tide starts to go out.

Shoei Kisen stated in a statement Saturday the company was considering removing containers to lighten the vessel if refloating efforts fail, but that would be a difficult operation.

GLOBALIZATION & DISASTER CAPITALI$M

Stranding of Ever Given in Suez canal was foreseen by many

Analysis: As ships ballooned in size, worst-case scenario was flagged up by organisations such as OECD

Big ships require more time to salvage and more tugboats and

 dredgers than what has been required in the past with smaller

 vessels. Photograph: Maxar Technologies/AP


Michael Safi
@safimichael
Sun 28 Mar 2021

Authorities have blamed strong winds, possible technical faults or human error for the stranding of the Ever Given in the Suez canal.

But the running aground of the “megaship” – which salvage teams continued to try to free on Sunday as preparations were made for the possible removal of some of its containers – and the disruption of more than 10% of global trade, has been in the making for years longer according to analysts, who say an accident of this magnitude was foreseeable and warnings were ignored.

Over the past decade, out of the sight of most consumers, the world’s container ships have been quietly ballooning in size. A class of vessels that carried a maximum of about 5,000 shipping containers in 2000 has doubled in capacity every few years since, with dozens of megaships now traversing the ocean laden with upwards of 20,000 boxes.

Container ships have become huge fast, especially over the past decade. Other than the result of technological advances, analysts say the trend is a hangover from the high oil prices of the 2000s – which led shipping outfits to seek to maximise economies of scale – and the low-interest rates that followed the 2009 financial crash, which allowed companies to borrow the vast sums required to build vessels as long as skyscrapers are high.


Tugs, tides and 200,000 tons: experts fear Ever Given may be stuck in Suez for weeks
Read more

When the trend of ever-growing ships received popular attention, it was often through colourful press releases and awestruck news stories lauding the size of the vessels, the many Eiffel Towers’ worth of steel they required and the profits they promised the world’s shipping giants.

Comparatively less attention was granted to warnings of the risks such gigantic ships entailed, says Rory Hopcraft, a researcher at Plymouth University’s maritime cyberthreat research group.

“The ships are not just larger, they’re carrying more goods,” he said. “So rather than spreading the risks over three or four smaller ships, all your eggs are in one basket – it’s all tied up in one big ship.”

The ships’ rapid growth has outstripped the capacity of marine infrastructure to follow. The Panama canal was expanded at a cost of more than $5bn (£3.6bn) more than a decade ago to meet the size of new container ships – only to be left behind as even larger vessels rolled out of Asian shipyards.

“Half the world’s ports can’t even deal with ships this size,” Hopcraft said, describing a trend that leaves the overall supply chain more exposed to a range of threats including piracy and cyberattack. “If those terminals that can [accommodate megaships], aren’t able to service them for whatever reason – local power cuts or military action – then these ships can’t be serviced at all.”

The Suez canal has been in the process of expansion to allow for larger ships and two-way traffic at its northern end. But its southern side was still one-way and narrower: vulnerable when one of the largest container ships in the world tried to pass through on a windy morning.

Megaships have been described as a “bet on globalisation” made in the heady days of the mid-2000s, as a rising China and a US apparently at ease with outsourcing helped to drive a boom in global trade. Shipping companies expected the era would last and invested in new, vastly larger ships to accommodate it.

Then came a financial crash, a populist western backlash against free trade and a lingering coronavirus pandemic that has put millions out of work.

Yet shippers have increased their bet, continuing to order giant new vessels that allow them to move more stuff with less fuel and crew, even as organisations such as the OECD have questioned the rationality of the trend.

There was a “complete disconnect of ship size development from developments in the actual economy”, the organisation said in a 2015 report, pointing out that ships were growing larger in “an economic climate that is generally depressed and at best stagnating”.

“The trade growth to absorb ship developments is currently absent,” the OECD paper said. “Shipping lines are building up overcapacity that will most likely be fatal to at least some of them.”

It also warned of what is becoming clear on the banks of the Suez: that bigger ships are harder to salvage, requiring more time and more tugboats and dredgers than what has been required in the past with small vessels.

Should floating cranes be required to lighten the Ever Given by removing some of its 20,000 containers, they too would need to be large and work for longer, extending the salvaging process – and the blockage of one of the main arteries of global trade – for weeks at least.

It is a worst-case scenario that many saw coming. “As the ship gets bigger, everything just gets a little bit more complicated,” Hopcraft said.

Increase in Americans’ desire to pressure Israel, Gallup poll reveals

The majority of those favoring pressure on Israel to resolve the Palestinian conflict are Democrats, while 17 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of independents support doing so.

(March 21, 2021 / JNS) Americans continue to favor Israel over the Palestinians, yet their support for the Palestinian Authority has increased to 30 percent, according to a Gallup annual World Affairs poll published on Friday.

Favorability of Israel remains high, at 75 percent, the poll revealed.

The poll also indicated that since 2018, the percentage of Americans wanting more pressure placed on the Palestinians to resolve their conflict with Israel has dropped from 50 percent to 44 percent, while that of Americans wanting more pressure exerted on Israel has increased from 27 percent to 34 percent.

The majority of those  declined from 21 percent to 14 percent.

Gallup says that this is the highest level of demand for pressuring Israel since 2007. Over the same period, the percentage in favor of the United States putting more pressure on both parties, or on neither, favoring pressure on Israel are Democrats, while 17 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of independents favor doing so.

The poll was conducted from Feb. 3 to Feb. 18.

UN: Israel Demolishes or Seizes 26 Palestinian Structures in Only Two Weeks


TEHRAN (FNA)- Israel demolished or seized 26 structures belonging to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds in only two weeks, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.


In its “Protection of Civilians Report”, which is covering the period between March 2 and 15, the office said “the Israeli authorities demolished or seized 26 Palestinian-owned structures in Area C and East Jerusalem (al-Quds), displacing 42 people, of whom 24 were children, and otherwise affecting about 120”, presstv reported.

“Seventeen of the structures, and all of the displaced people, were recorded in Area C” of the West Bank, whose management of resources, planning, and construction are under the full control of Israel.

The Area C accounts for more than 60 percent of the West Bank, and forms a significant part of a future Palestine state under the so-called two-state solution.

According to the OCHA, the demolitions were carried out under the pretext of the lack of construction permits.

The UN office added that a vegetable stall near the city of Qalqiliya was demolished, affecting the livelihood of 20 people, while 16 were affected by the demolition of two uninhabited houses and the confiscation of one metal container in Isteih in the province of Ariha (Jericho).

According to the report, authorities forced the owners of two of the nine structures targeted in East Jerusalem al-Quds to demolish their property.

The so-called construction permit is nearly impossible to obtain.

Israeli authorities sometimes order Palestinian owners to demolish their own homes or pay the demolition costs to the municipality if they do not.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.

Lebanese Mothers March against 

Ruling Class

Saturday, 20 March, 2021 - 

Lebanese women hold placards as they protest against the country's political paralysis and deep economic crisis in Beirut on the eve of Mother's Day in the country. (AFP)
Asharq Al-Awsat

Around one hundred women demonstrated in crisis-hit Lebanon on Saturday on the eve of Mother's Day in the country, expressing outrage at the ruling class.

The mothers, some with their children, marched from an area once on Beirut's dividing line during the 1975-1990 civil war, to the city's port, which saw a catastrophic explosion last year -- blamed on official negligence -- that killed more than 200 people and injured thousands.

Chanting anti-government slogans, they held signs addressing the ruling class.

“You have stolen our money and our children's futures,” several placards read.

“The best gift would be your leaving,” read another.

Lebanon is battling its worst economic crisis in decades. The national currency has lost almost 90 percent of its value against the dollar on the black market and consumer prices have soared.

Some 55 percent of Lebanese now live below the poverty line, the United Nations says, and unemployment stood at 39.5 percent late last year.

The government resigned after the port explosion, but endless haggling between the main ruling parties has delayed the process of forming a new cabinet.

“They are all war criminals, warlords,” protester Nada Agha told AFP, referring to the fact that several politicians were militia leaders during the civil war.

“They have been dividing up the pie among themselves (for 30 years)... and have blown us up and stolen our money. We want them to leave!” she said.

Another demonstrator, Petra Saliba, in her fifties, said “no solution is possible while they are in power”.

“We want to destroy them as they have destroyed us.”

Commission of Detainee Affairs: 12 Palestinian Mothers Held in Israeli Prisons

Sunday, 21 March, 2021

A Palestinian woman mourns the death of Atef Yussef Hanaysheh, 42, wwas killed by Israeli soldiers in Beit Dajan village, near Nablus, on Friday, March 19, 2021. (AP)
ho Ramallah - Asharq Al-Awsat

Palestinian mothers make up 12 of the 39 prisoners held in the Damon and Hasharon Israeli jails, said the Commission of Detainees And Ex-Detainees Affairs.

In a statement on Saturday, it pointed to the suffering they endure in detention and their deprivation from seeing their children on the occasion of Mother’s Day, which falls on March 21.

The detained mothers are Isra Jaabis, Khalid Jarrar, Fadwa Hamadeh, Amani Hashim, Hilweh Hamamreh, Nisreen Hassan, Inas Asafreh, Aya Khatib, Inman Awar, Khitam Saafin, Shurouq Badan and Anhar al-Hajjeh, who is pregnant.

“Children of the imprisoned women miss their mothers on this day and every day,” the statement noted.

They are forbidden from visiting their mothers under false security pretenses, it added. The situation has become more difficult due to restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, which forced authorities to bar family visits.

The detained mothers are suffering mentally as a result of the severe anxiety they have over the wellbeing of their children, the statement explained.

The Commission, which is affiliated with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), accused Israeli jailers of subjecting the prisoners to “all forms of pressure and severe arbitrary measures,” such as poor medical care.

Israeli security forces have arrested more than 17,000 Palestinian women since 1967, it said, highlighting their major patriotic role, alongside Palestinian men, in confronting the occupation.

It called on the international community to free Palestinian mothers and women and provide them with adequate support to protect them and their children from Israeli forces.

It further stressed the need to work on all levels to and stop their suffering in Israeli jails.

Freedom Day March Highlights Challenges Facing Belarusian Opposition

By Tony Wesolowsky

March 26, 2021 

A man is detained in Minsk on March 25, one of at least 170 detained in the capital

As pro-democracy supporters marched down the streets of Minsk on March 25, a reporter did a video interview with Nina Bahinskaya, a frail yet fiery veteran of protests in Belarus for decades.

As Bahinskaya speaks while she walks, a chilling scene plays out a few meters behind her. A woman -- later identified as film student Maria Tsikhanava -- is quickly approached by what appears to be a black-clad, balaclava-wearing Belarusian security officer, who grabs her and whisks her away, all in a few seconds and all unbeknownst to Bahinskaya, who marches on.

Belarusian leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya had hoped the rally on March 25 -- or Freedom Day, as it is also the day commemorating the founding of a short-lived democratic Belarusian republic more than 100 years ago -- would breathe new life into the country's protest movement demanding Alyaksandr Lukashenka, in power since 1994, step down.

The country has been rocked by protests since Lukashenka claimed a landslide victory and a sixth straight term in an August presidential election that many Belarusians believe was rigged in his favor. Supporters of Tsikhanouskaya, a political novice who was buoyed by big crowds at campaign rallies, was the actual winner. She is now in exile in neighboring Lithuania.

Tens of thousands marched in the wake of the disputed vote, but those numbers have dwindled in the last few months. Winter weather and weariness have contributed, but the incident filmed on the streets of Minsk on March 25 highlights the huge risk Belarusians take in coming out to voice opposition to Lukashenka.

More than 33,000 have been detained, hundreds beaten on the streets or in detention, some described by rights groups as torture, at least four people have been killed, and independent reporters targeted in the government crackdown. "The Belarusian authorities are conducting a targeted campaign of intimidation against civil society in an effort to silence all critics of the government," Human Rights Watch said on March 18 in a statement.

Anatomy Of A Cover-Up? Why Belarus's Denials In Death Of Protester Don't Ring True

Crushing Protests

Ahead of the planned action, the commander of Interior Ministry troops, Mikalay Karpyankou, described Belarusian protesters as "enemies of our state," before vowing to "deal with them quickly," and harshly as in the past "with pleasure."

Crisis In Belarus

Read our coverage as Belarusians continue to demand the resignation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka amid a brutal crackdown on protesters. The West refuses to recognize him as the country's legitimate leader after an August 9 election considered fraudulent.

Ivan Tertel, the head of the KGB, told Lukashenka on March 9 that foreign actors were applying "unprecedented pressure on our state," claiming -- without providing evidence -- that plans had been discovered to "destabilize the situation" in Belarus on March 25-27.

State-run TV had aired footage of Interior Ministry forces drilling ahead of the planned demonstrations. On March 25, police and army officers, police vans, military vehicles, were out in force across Minsk in a not so subtle hint to the public to stay away.

Lukashenka's government has justified its actions by casting protesters as pawns of foreign forces and being bent on causing havoc.

To avoid being swept up in any mass police crackdown, the Nexta Telegram channel, which has mobilized and coordinated demonstrations, had urged protesters to march through courtyards and organize flash mobs.

Even with less-concentrated crowds, the Belarusian human rights monitor Vyasna said a total of 245 people were detained in 23 cities and towns across Belarus on March 25, including 176 in Minsk.

Franak Viacorka, an adviser to Tsikhanouskaya, said there had been "hundreds of actions," including fireworks, flash mobs, performances, and courtyard rallies, but acknowledged the "tanks and armored vehicles" deployed by Lukashenka, had "frightened" people along with the earlier repressions and beatings. "It is clear this all had an impact on the number of people [who turned out on March 25]," Viacorka told Current Time, the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

Growing International Pressure

While Lukashenka may for now "control the streets," as Tsikhanouskaya herself acknowledged in February, he is losing what leverage he had left on the international stage, at least in the West.

The UN's top human rights body on March 24 voted to investigate allegations of widespread human rights abuses in Belarus. Russia, which has close ties to Belarus and has helped prop up Lukashenka since the disputed election, was one of the countries to vote against the measure.

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has been asked to lead the investigation aiming to bring alleged perpetrators to justice. The rights council authorized a budget of $2.5 million and the hiring of 20 experts and staff to carry out the investigation.

SEE ALSO:
Is China Cooling On Belarus's Lukashenka?

Washington, subdued in its criticism under former President Donald Trump, has become more vocal under President Joe Biden. On March 25, the U.S. State Department demanded the immediate release of the more than 290 political prisoners in Belarus, and highlighted the plight of Ihar Losik and Maryya Kalesnikava.

Kalesnikava, who faces national-security charges that supporters say are absurd, had her pretrial detention extended on March 22. Arrested in September, Kalesnikava, a key aide to Tsikhanouskaya and a senior member of the opposition's Coordination Council, was ordered to remain in detention until May 8.

Losik, a popular blogger and RFE/RL consultant, has been held since June on charges his supporters say are trumped up. He had been charged initially with allegedly using his popular Telegram channel to "prepare to disrupt public order" ahead of the August 9 presidential election.

Losik, 28, tried to slit his wrists and launched a four-day hunger strike on March 11 after being informed he faced new unspecified charges.

The statement by State Department spokesman Ned Price came a day after the top two members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee also called for the release of all political prisoners in Belarus and pledged their support for the pro-democracy movement in the country. "We will continue to support the Belarusian people's democratic aspirations until the illegitimate Lukashenka steps down, all political prisoners -- including RFE/RL consultant Ihar Losik -- are released and, new free and fair elections are held," Representatives Gregory Meeks (Democrat-New York) and Representative Michael McCaul (Republican-Texas) said in a statement.

The European Union, United States, Canada, and other countries have refused to recognize the 66-year-old as the legitimate leader of Belarus and have slapped him and senior Belarusian officials with sanctions in response to the "falsification" of the vote and postelection crackdown.

Angry Neighbors

On March 25, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania imposed travel bans on another 118 Belarusian officials. The first round of bans since November expands the list of the sanctioned, already containing Lukashenka, to a total of 274, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said.

Lukashenka also faces worsening relations with Poland, which accuses Belarus of persecuting the ethnic Polish community.

Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist and a member of the Association of Poles in Belarus was detained in Hrodna early on March 25, two days after the association's leader, Andzelika Borys, was arrested and sentenced to 15 days in jail. The arrest came amid a worsening standoff following tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions this month, including the heads of the Polish consulates in Brest and Hrodna.

And while Belarusians may be for now reluctant to return to the street, more than 750,000 have added their signature to an online campaign launched by Tsikhanouskaya to demand Lukashenka enter internationally mediated talks on ending the political crisis.

Nexta has called for mass protests on March 27, casting it as "the day we start the second wave of street protests."

Despite the fear instilled by the Lukashenka government crackdown, Viacorka is convinced it is only a matter of time before Belarusians turn out in larger numbers.

"People need to be shoulder to shoulder with one another, to see again that they are the majority, to feel that energy they got from those large marches," he said.

With reporting by Current Time and RFE/RL's Belarus Service

Tony Wesolowsky is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL in Prague, covering Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and Central Europe, as well as energy issues. His work has also appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists.

‘You will not have your seat again’: how the Fight for $15 movement gained new momentum

Congress’s failure to raise the federal minimum wage last month dealt a blow, but advocates are pressuring lawmakers to bring the issue back

Activists appeal for a $15 minimum wage near the Capitol in Washington DC on 25 February. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP


Lauren Aratani
Sun 28 Mar 2021 

For Terrence Wise, a McDonald’s employee from Kansas City, Missouri, the battle for a raise in the federal minimum wage is far from over.

Joe Biden campaigned on a raise, the first since 2009, and the majority of Americans of both parties support an increase. And yet, last month, Congress blocked an increase from the paltry $7.25 an hour where it has been stuck since 2009. Now there are signs of new momentum for change.

If Washington can’t find a solution, Wise had a warning for politicians of both sides. “If you’re not going to make $15 a reality for workers, if you’re not going to create an environment for workers to join a union and make that possible, you will not be re-elected. You will not have your seat again,” Wise said, an organizer with the Fight for $15 movement. “We will not continue to choose representatives who are truly not representing us or who are out of tune with the working class.

“We say don’t take it as a threat – take it as a promise.”


Senate minimum wage battle could play out in midterm elections
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High hopes that the federal minimum wage would be lifted for the first time in over 10 years came with the introduction of Biden’s $1.9tn stimulus package. The wage hike, which Biden tucked into his original stimulus plan, would have been the largest victory for the Fight for $15 movement since it started to mobilize fast-food workers in 2012.

But when the bill hit the Senate, the wage increase faced two major hurdles: moderate Democrats who said that $15 was just too high and a ruling from the Senate’s parliamentarian on whether including an increase in the spending bill would break Senate rules.

Ultimately, both factors stopped the increase from going into law.

While Congress’s failure to raise the minimum wage dealt a blow to the Fight for $15 movement, advocates say there is still enough momentum behind the issue to build pressure on lawmakers in DC to bring a $15 minimum wage back to the table. Activists also say the Democratic party risks losing the support of some of its base if a new minimum wage fails to pass.

“It’s such a core priority for so many organizations, for so many people, so many of the voters that put a lot of these elected officials into office,” said Tsedeye Gebreselassie, director of work quality at the National Employment Law Project. “It’s the top economic policy priority this year.”

Multiple polls have shown there is broad support for a $15 minimum wage. One Pew Research poll from 2019 found that 67% of Americans support a minimum wage increase. An Amazon/Ipsos poll released this month found approximately the same percentage of support.

With inaction from Congress, 29 states have increased their own minimum wage above the federal rate. Seven states have passed legislation increasing their minimum wage to $15 gradually, Florida being the most recent state to pass the measure by a ballot initiative. A few companies have also taken things into their own hands, with Costco, Amazon and Target increasing their minimum wage to at least $15 in recent years.

People take part in a demonstration to raise the minimum wage outside of McDonald’s corporate headquarters in Chicago on 15 January. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

The increase in positive public opinion and the adoption of a $15 minimum wage by states and companies are hard-fought achievements for the Fight for $15, but federal legislation would force states and companies who refuse to increase their minimum wage to adapt.

In recent weeks, the White House and Democrats in Congress have said they will continue to push the issue forward, though how the party plans to get legislation through the Senate remains unclear. Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, told MSNBC on 14 March “we’re in the fight for $15”.

“We are going back at it to try to find a legislative strategy to get the votes together to pass the minimum wage,” Klain said. “We are going to talk to our allies on Capitol Hill, our allies in the broader Fight for $15, and try to figure out how we get the votes.”

Reports have indicated that Democratic senators who pushed for the $15 minimum wage are meeting with their colleagues who voted against it to talk about next steps to increase the minimum wage.

All Republicans and eight Democrats voted against the inclusion of the wage increase in the stimulus bill. Most of the Democratic senators who voted against it voiced concerns over the rushed way the raise was being passed and its potential impact on small businesses and restaurants, but indicated they were open to some kind of increase.

One Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, who is considered the most conservative Senate Democrat, was the star holdout during the minimum wage debate. Manchin said that he supports an increase that is “responsible and reasonable”, citing an $11 figure as something he would support.

In addition to getting all party senators on the same page, Democrats will either have to overrule the Senate parliamentarian, who in February ruled that a wage increase cannot be included in a bill passed with a simple majority, or get support from at least 10 Republican senators to pass the bill.

Support to overrule the parliamentarian as the stimulus bill went through Congress was weak, with Biden saying that he was “disappointed” in the decision but that he would “respect” it.

Another way to bypass the parliamentarian’s ruling would be if Democrats agree to do away with the filibuster, which would allow them to pass legislation with a simple majority. Legislation protecting voting rights has recently shed a more prominent spotlight on the debate over the filibuster, though some Democrats have voiced hesitancy over getting rid of the procedure.

THIS IS HOW IT WAS DONE BY THE NDP IN ALBERTA IN 2015

THE BIG LIE IS THAT IT'S $15 ALL AT ONCE

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, holds a news conference on raising the federal minimum wage. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EP

THIS SHOULD BE SENT AS A POSTCARD TO EVERY AMERICAN

Meanwhile, some moderate Republicans have come out with minimum wage increase plans of their own, showing that there is some support for an increase as the party tries to appeal to more working-class voters, though they are scaled back compared to what progressive Democrats want.

One plan, created by Republican senators Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton, would increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2025 and include a crackdown on employers hiring undocumented workers. Another plan, from Republican senator Josh Hawley, would increase the minimum wage to $15 for corporations who make more than $1bn a year.

Though it appears compromise could be made on an increased minimum wage that is lower than $15, progressive Democrats and advocates for a $15 minimum wage are refusing to budge to anything below that.


'We need $15': US minimum wage ruling a personal blow for millions of workers

Progressive House Democrats, in an attempt to pressure their colleagues in the Senate to take on a $15 wage, have started to renew demands for legislation. On a recent call with the press, a dozen House Democrats, labor leaders and activists demanded that a $15 wage increase be passed by the end of the year.

Representative Ro Khanna, who organized the call, said that Democrats can include the increase in must-pass legislation, such as the annual defense spending bill. Khanna, along with other progressive Democrats, have also advocated for overturning the parliamentarian to raise the minimum wage to $15 if it comes to it.

“[We’re] making the case now that we’ve got to be prepared to overturn the parliamentarian if it comes to that, and that we have to get it done,” Khanna said. “This time we realized that we have to mobilize to make this clear months in advance, so it’s not like we’re doing this a week before the parliamentarian decision or right when the parliamentarian rules.”

Khanna said the number of groups on the call demonstrates the widespread support for a $15 minimum wage in the Democratic party.

“There could be real disappointment if we don’t get it this time,” Khanna said. “The Democratic party is unified around this in the House, among groups and, candidly, [among] the people who helped us win the election