radiofree.asia

Category: Crime

  • FBI Reaches Settlement With Larry Nassar Victims Just Ahead Of 2024 Olympics

    The Department of Justice has reached a $139 million dollar settlement with the victims of Doctor Larry Nassar. This settlement happened because the FBI repeatedly failed to take action on the numerous complaints they received from gymnasts about Nassar’s abuse. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so […]

    The post FBI Reaches Settlement With Larry Nassar Victims Just Ahead Of 2024 Olympics appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • FBI Reaches Settlement With Larry Nassar Victims Just Ahead Of 2024 Olympics

    The Department of Justice has reached a $139 million dollar settlement with the victims of Doctor Larry Nassar. This settlement happened because the FBI repeatedly failed to take action on the numerous complaints they received from gymnasts about Nassar’s abuse. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so […]

    The post FBI Reaches Settlement With Larry Nassar Victims Just Ahead Of 2024 Olympics appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Crime & Migration: An Abolitionist Plan for Immigration Justice


    This content originally appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends and was authored by Laura Flanders & Friends.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Crime & Migration: An Abolitionist Plan for Immigration Justice


    This content originally appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends and was authored by Laura Flanders & Friends.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Crime & Migration: An Abolitionist Plan for Immigration Justice


    This content originally appeared on Laura Flanders & Friends and was authored by Laura Flanders & Friends.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Trump’s Campaign Goes Full Hillary On RFK Jr.

    America’s Lawyer E96: President Biden signed a bill last week that forces TikTok to either be sold within a year or be shut down – we’ll bring you the details. The federal government has expanded their spy powers with the recent re-authorization of Section 702 of FISA – meaning that the next President of the […]

    The post Trump’s Campaign Goes Full Hillary On RFK Jr. appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Another pro-Israel hate crime hoax


    This content originally appeared on The Grayzone and was authored by The Grayzone.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • PNG businesses want grants, not loans over Black Wednesday riots

    By Dale Luma in Port Moresby

    “We want grants and not concessional loans,” is the crisp message from Papua New Guinea businesses directly affected by the Black Wednesday looting four months ago.

    The businesses, which lost millions after the January 10 rioting and looting, say they need grants as part of the government’s Restock and Rebuild assistance — and not more loans.

    This is the message delivered by the PNG Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday after news that the national government has so far given K7 million (NZ$3.2 million) in funding to several affected companies to pay staff salaries.

    President Ian Tarutia said the business coalition representing impacted businesses would be meeting with the Chief Secretary and his inter-agency team this week to find out when the assistance will be given.

    Their message at this crucial meeting will be the same — no loans!

    “The real impact assistance that is truly beneficial is rebuilding and restocking,” Tarutia said.

    “We will meet with the chief secretary hopefully this week to get an update on this component of the government’s relief assistance to affected businesses.

    Concessional rate loans
    Tarutia explained that an initial National Executive Council decision was to provide loans at concessional rates and managed through the National Development Bank.

    “Business Coalition’s response was grants and not loans are the preferred assistance. Meeting with the Chief Secretary this week hopefully can resolve this.”

    He also indicated that in the initial impact by businesses compiled in late January, the estimated cost for rebuild and restock covering loss of property, cost of clean up, loss of goods was K774 million.

    “This was for 64 businesses mainly in Port Moresby but a few in Goroka, Rabaul, Kundiawa and Kavieng,” he said.

    “Out of this K774 million, an amount of K273 million was submitted as needed immediately.

    “Business Coalition met last Saturday morning. Business houses are looking forward to meeting Chief Secretary Pomaleu and his inter-agency team this week to find out when the assistance for rebuilding destroyed properties and restocking looted inventory will be given.”

    Tarutia acknowledged that so far, the government had paid out approximately K7 million in wage support for businesses which includes eight businesses including CPL.

    Businesses acknowledge the wage support to date and are appreciative on behalf of their affected staff.

    Dale Luma is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • New homicide statistics show surge in intimate partner killings

    The rate of women killed by their partners in Australia grew by 28% from 2021–22 to 2022–23, according to new statistics released today by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC).

    There were 34 women killed in intimate partner incidents in the financial year 2022–23, which is the equivalent of 0.32 per 100,000 people. The year before, the rate was 0.25 such homicides per 100,000.

    Historically, the rate of women killed by their partners has been on the decline since the late 1980s and early 1990s. It has decreased by 66% over the past 34 years, according to the AIC.

    However, the uptick in the homicide rate last year – coupled with the sharp rise in women killed in the first four months of 2024 – are cause for mounting concern for all Australians.

    Historically low overall homicide rate

    The AIC released two reports on statistics emerging from its National Homicide Monitoring Program, a database that has been in operation since July 1989.

    The institute reports 232 overall homicide incidents were recorded by Australian state and territory police between July 1 2022 and June 30 2023, which resulted in 247 homicide victims.

    The Australian homicide rate (0.87 deaths per year per 100,000 population) remains historically low. There has been a 52% reduction in homicide incidents since 1989‒90, indicative of a long-term downward trend in unlawful killings.

    The report reveals police, prosecutors and courts are doing a good job, with 90% of cases being resolved through the justice system. That is, only 10% of homicide incidents in 2022‒23 were not “cleared,” meaning cases where an offender has yet to be identified, a suspect has not yet been charged, or a person is declared missing and police believe it’s linked to foul play.

    A closer look at the figures

    There are important features of the latest data that require further examination.

    First, there is a significant gender disparity: in 2022-23, 87% of homicide offenders were male, while 69% of homicide victims were male. Predominantly, men are killing men.

    And while men were most likely to be killed by a friend, acquaintance or some other person who was not a family member, women were more likely to be killed by a former or current partner (49% of all victims).

    There is also a massive First Nations disparity in terms of victims and offenders.

    Forty-nine of the homicide victims in Australia identified as First Nations (35 men and 14 women) – that is, 20% of victims.

    The homicide victimisation rate of Indigenous men was more than seven times higher than non-Indigenous men at 7.65 per 100,000 people, compared to just 1.04 per 100,000. The disparity does not change with gender. The homicide rate was 3.07 per 100,000 for Indigenous women, compared with 0.45 per 100,000 for non-Indigenous women.

    Of the 260 homicide offenders in 2022–23, 28% identified as First Nations.

    These statistics merit repeating. First Nations people (3.8% of the population) comprised 20% of victims and 28% of perpetrators in homicide cases. That is an unacceptable state of affairs, which should be causing policymakers enormous concern.

    Also noteworthy was that the recent rise in the homicide rate is mirrored in the domestic and family violence data found in police reports.

    The number of people reporting sexual assaults has continued to increase over the past five years. According to the 2024 report of the Productivity Commission, the rate of victimisation in sexual crimes in 2022 was 124 per 100,000 population. In 2016, the rate was 95 per 100,000.

    Why statistics require the right interpretation

    From a criminologist’s perspective, there are a few things to bear in mind when considering these statistics.

    The first is that interpretations of official crime data always require caution. There are various reasons for this:

    • much (if not most) crime is not reported to police or discovered by police
    • there are biases in the criminal justice system (especially when it comes to police discretion)
    • definitions of crime and counting rules and methods will differ according to jurisdiction
    • the data are usually generalised across state and territory jurisdictions, rather than presented as pertaining to specific cities, towns and regions.

    Moreover, long-term trends are often ignored in the rush to analyse short-term crime rate fluctuations.

    Having said that, homicide figures are usually the most accurate when tracking crime trends, given the obvious nature of the crime. So, making policy based on these data should be easier, one would think.

    But this is not always the case. We need to bear in mind the impact of the institutional responses we are likely to offer when interpreting the data.

    For example, how do we reduce or eliminate the seemingly unrelenting number of murders perpetrated by men against their intimate partners? How do we reduce or eliminate the massive disparity of violence affecting some Indigenous communities? One might think the best response is to arrest more people and lock more people up for longer.

    Such an approach should, however, be a last resort. We need to recognise that every dollar spent in criminal justice services is a dollar that’s not spent on women’s shelters, education programs for young men on the importance of respect for women, and programs to improve the living standards and educational and employment opportunities for those who identify as First Nations. That’s where our dollars ought to be spent.

    A decade ago, the American criminologist Elliott Currie talked about the importance of allocating resources designed to bring about what he referred to as “transformative intervention.” This involves:

    helping people to move beyond the individualistic, often exploitative, often uncaring cultural orientations […] and to begin to relate differently to themselves, to those around them, and to the larger community (and the planet): to nurture alternative ways of looking at the world and their place in it that […] will be less violent, less predatory and less exploitative.

    Such a transformation is something we need to take into account here in Australia as a matter of priority.The Conversation

     

    The post New homicide statistics show surge in intimate partner killings appeared first on BroadAgenda.

    This post was originally published on BroadAgenda.

  • The torture of being trapped by indefinite prison sentences | Letters

    Readers on the harm caused to those who remain incarcerated despite the abolition of IPP sentences in 2012

    I am heartened by two pieces on indeterminate sentences that you published last week (Tommy Nicol was kind and friendly – a beloved brother. Why did he die in prison on a ‘99-year’ sentence?, 24 April; Editorial, 26 April). The suicide of Tommy Nicol starkly highlights how unjust imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences always were and remain (although abolished for new cases 12 years ago). As a former prison chaplain and doctoral researcher into pastoral care for those serving IPP sentences, I witnessed firsthand their impact on the mental wellbeing of those who were, in many cases, life-wounded souls themselves.

    Thanks to the Guardian and campaign groups such as the United Group for Reform of IPP, I am hoping that this judicial scandal can achieve the same traction in the public consciousness that the Post Office scandal has. While the Commons justice committee report into IPP sentences in 2022 strongly recommended resentencing those still in custody, MPs on both sides of the house lack the moral courage to take this humane step to right a blatant injustice. Some time ago, as a Labour party member, I wrote to Keir Starmer seeking clarification on his position regarding the IPP scandal. Disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, my epistle was met with silence.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • ‘Indefensible’: UK prisoner jailed for 23 months killed himself after being held for 17 years

    Coroner condemns ‘inhumane’ imprisonment for public protection sentences that have no end date for release

    A senior coroner has condemned the “inhumane” and “indefensible” treatment of a man who killed himself 17 years into an indefinite prison sentence. Tom Osborne, the senior coroner for Milton Keynes, said Scott Rider had given up all hope of release before he took his own life at HMP Woodhill in June 2022.

    He had been serving an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence after being convicted of grievous bodily harm in 2005. The sentence had a minimum term of 23 months but no end date.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • 200 journalists ‘targeted’ over their environment reporting, warns RSF

    Pacific Media Watch

    Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders.

    According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were working on stories linked to the environment.

    Twenty four were murdered in Latin America and Asia — including the Pacific, which makes these two regions the most dangerous ones for environmental reporters.

    From restrictions on access to information and gag suits to physical attacks, the work of environmental journalists and their safety are increasingly threatened.

    RSF has denounced the obstacles to the right to information about ecological and climate issues and calls on all countries to recognise the vital nature of the work of environmental journalists, and to guarantee their safety.

    Nearly half of the journalists killed in India in the past 10 years — 13 of 28 — were working on environmental stories that often also involved corruption and organised crime, especially the so-called “sand mafia,” which illegally excavates millions of tons of this precious resource for the construction industry.

    Amazon deforestation
    Journalists covering the challenges of deforestation in the Amazon are also constantly subjected to threats and harassment that prevent them from working freely.

    The scale of the problem was highlighted in 2022 by the murder of Dom Phillips, a British reporter specialised in environmental issues.

    “Regarding the environmental and climate challenges we face, the freedom to cover these issues is essential,” said RSF’s editorial director Anne Bocandé.

    “RSF’s staff battles tirelessly to prevent economic and political interests from obstructing the right to information. Your generosity makes this fight possible.”

    Pacific Media Watch collaborates with Reporters Without Borders.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Tommy Nicol was kind and friendly – a beloved brother. Why did he die in prison on a ‘99-year’ sentence?

    His sister says the only person he ever presented a serious threat to was himself, yet he was given an indeterminate sentence for stealing a car. The psychological torture was impossible to endure

    When Tommy Nicol told his sister Donna Mooney about his prison sentence, she didn’t believe him. It was May 2009 and he had stolen yet another car. Nicol was a petty criminal, always nicking motors, and was rarely out of jail. “He said: ‘They’ve given me a 99-year sentence.’ I said: ‘That’s ridiculous.’ I thought he was confused.” Over the next few years, Nicol occasionally mentioned the sentence in letters to Mooney and asked her to look into it. She admits she didn’t give it much thought at the time.

    In 2015, Nicol killed himself in prison. He was 37. It was only then that Mooney discovered he had been right all along. Nicol had a four-year tariff (the minimum amount of time he could serve in jail) and an indeterminate sentence, known as imprisonment for public protection. IPP is also called a 99-year sentence because people serving one can, technically, be jailed for 99 years. When they are released, it is on a 99-year licence, which means they can be recalled to prison at any time in their life for even minor breaches, such as being late for a probation appointment (although the Parole Board will consider whether to terminate the licence 10 years after first release).

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Man Sets Himself On Fire To Cap Off Crazy First Week Of Trump’s Criminal Trial

    We’re now into the second week of Donald Trump’s criminal trial, and no one could have predicted the insanity that took place during week 1. To cap off the crazy week, a Trump supporter set himself on fire outside the courtroom on Friday after throwing out pamphlets filled with conspiracy theories. Jurors were crying due […]

    The post Man Sets Himself On Fire To Cap Off Crazy First Week Of Trump’s Criminal Trial appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • ‘Birmingham Four’ ask CCRC to investigate convictions for terror plot

    Four men were jailed for life in 2017 for planning terrorist attack in UK after elaborate undercover police operation

    “It’s 40 years since the Birmingham and Guildford pub bombings … and the question that gets asked [is]: ‘Could you imagine this [a police stitch-up] ever happening again?’ My reply is that it already has. This is the case in which it happened.”

    The case referred to by Gareth Peirce, who represented the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four, was that of four Muslim men, who she is also acting for, jailed for life for planning a terrorist attack on UK soil after an elaborate undercover operation.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Australia’s social cohesion under strain, challenges and solutions

    Pacific Media Watch

    Australians are being urged to stay united following the horrific events in Sydney last week, reports the ABC’s Saturday Extra programme.

    Five women and one man were killed in a mass stabbing at Bondi Junction last Saturday by a man with a history of mental illness, and a nine-month-old baby baby was among the eight people wounded.

    The attacker was shot by a police officer and died at the scene.

    Two days later at a church in Wakeley, a suburb in Western Sydney, controversial Assyrian Orthodox preacher Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel suffered lacerations to his head when he was attacked during a sermon that was being live-streamed. Nobody was killed.

    Three other unrelated knife attacks took place in Sydney this week. Only the Wakely church attack was officially described as a “terror” attack although there had been widespread media speculation.

    Those attacks coupled with anger and division caused by the war on Gaza as well as the polarising impact of the Voice referendum last year and Australians are seeing their sense of community and social cohesion challenged.

    The ABC has spoken to a panel of analysts about the solutions to staying united and their comments were broadcast yesterday.

    The panel included Khairiah A Rahman, an intercultural communications commentator from Auckland University of Technology who is also secretary of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) and a member of Muslim Media Watch.

    The programme highlighted New Zealand’s experience in March 2019 when an Australian gunman entered two mosques in Christchurch and killed 51 people while they were praying.

    Asked what her message had been to the New Zealand government through the Royal Commission established to look into the mass killing, Rahman replied:

    “Overall, social cohesion when we think about it has got to do with the responsibility of all people and groups at all levels of society. So we can’t actually leave it to the government or the leaders, the Muslim leaders.

    “At the end of the day, the media also had a hand in all of this and my research had to do with media representation of Islam and Muslims prior to the attack. One of the things I found was unfair reporting, so pretty much what you have experienced in your media reporting of Bondi.

    “The route that extremists take from hate to mass murder is a proven one, and you need to report fairly and stay calm in a society.”

    Interviewees:

    Dr Jamal Rifi, Lebanese Muslim Community leader, Sydney

    Tim Southphommasane, Australia’s former race discrimination officer

    Khairiah A Rahman, intercultural communications researcher, Auckland University of Technology

    Producer: Linda LoPresti

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Trump Releases Insane Series Of Videos Accusing President Biden Of Being A Criminal

    The walls are closing in on Donald Trump, and he is making sure that the public knows how panicked he is. In a series of videos posted to Truth Social, Trump claimed that ALL of the lawsuits and criminal charges against him came directly from President Biden, and he officially accused the President of engaging […]

    The post Trump Releases Insane Series Of Videos Accusing President Biden Of Being A Criminal appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Indonesian military’s crimes in West Papua and the democratic solution

    By Sharon Muller of Arah Juang

    On Friday, March 22, a video circulated of TNI (Indonesian military) soldiers torturing a civilian in Papua. In the video, the victim is submerged in a drum filled with water with his hands tied behind his back.

    The victim was alternately beaten and kicked by the TNI members. The victim’s back was also slashed with a knife.

    The video circulated globally quickly and was widely criticised.

    Gustav Kawer from the Papua Association of Human Rights Advocates (PAHAM) condemned the incident and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

    This was then followed by National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial), the Diocese, the church and students.

    Meanwhile, Cenderawasih/XVII regional military commander (Pangdam) Major-General Izak Pangemanan tried to cover up the crime by saying it was a hoax and the video was a result of “editing”.

    This argument was later refuted by the TNI itself and it was proven that TNI soldiers were the ones who had committed the crime. Thirteen soldiers were arrested and accused over the torture.

    The torture occurred on 3 February 2024 in Puncak Regency, Papua.

    Accused of being ‘spies’
    The victim who was seen in the video was Defianus Kogoya, who had been arrested along with Warinus Murib and Alianus Murib. They were arrested and accused of being “spies” for the West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM), a cheap accusation which the TNI and police were subsequently unable to prove.


    Indonesia human rights: 13 soldiers arrested after torture video. Video: Al Jazeera

    The three were arrested when the TNI was conducting a search in Amukia and Gome district. When Warinus was arrested, his legs were tied to a car and he was dragged for one kilometre, before finally being tortured.

    Alianus, meanwhile ,was also taken to a TNI post and tortured. After several hours, they were finally handed over to a police post because there was not enough evidence to prove the TNI’s accusations.

    Defianus finally fainted, while Warinus died of his injuries. Warinus’ body was cremated by the family the next day on February 4.

    Defianus is still suffering and remains seriously ill. This is a TNI crime in Papua.

    But that is not all. On 22 February 2022, the TNI also tortured seven children in Sinak district, Puncak. The seven children were Deson Murib, Makilon Tabuni, Pingki Wanimbo, Waiten Murib, Aton Murib, Elison Murib and Murtal Kurua.

    Makilon Tabuni died as a result.

    Civilians murdered, mutilated
    On August 22, the TNI murdered and mutilated four civilians in Timika. They were Arnold Lokbere, Irian Nirigi, Lemaniel Nirigi and Atis Tini.

    The bodies of the four were dismembered: the head, body and legs were separated into several parts, put in sacks then thrown into a river.

    Six days later, soldiers from the Infantry Raider Battalion 600/Modang tortured four civilians in Mappi regency, Papua. The four were Amsal P Yimsimem, Korbinus Yamin, Lodefius Tikamtahae and Saferius Yame.

    They were tortured for three hours and suffered injuries all over their bodies.

    Three days later, on August 30, the TNI again tortured two civilians named Bruno Amenim Kimko and Yohanis Kanggun in Edera district, Mappi regency. Bruno Amenim died while Yohanis Kanggun suffered serious injuries.

    On October 27, three children under the age of 16 were tortured by the TNI in Keerom regency. They were Rahmat Paisel, Bastian Bate and Laurents Kaung. They were tortured using chains, coils of wire and water hoses.

    The atrocity occurred in the Yamanai Village, Arso II, Arso district.

    On 22 February 2023, TNI personnel from the Navy post in Lantamal X1 Ilwayap tortured two civilians named Albertus Kaize and Daniel Kaize. Albertus Kaize died of his injuries. This crime occurred in Merauke regency, Papua.

    95 civilians tortured
    Between 2018 and 2021, Amnesty International recorded that more than 95 civilians had been tortured and killed by the TNI and the police. These crimes target indigenous Papuans, and the curve continues to rise year by year, ever since Indonesia occupied Papua in 1961.

    These crimes were committed one after another without a break, and followed the same pattern. So it can be concluded that these were not the acts of rogue individuals or one or two people as the TNI argues to reduce their crimes to individual acts.

    Rather, they are structural (systematic) crimes designed to subdue the Papuan nation, to stop all forms of Papuan resistance for the sake of the exploitation and theft of Papua’s natural resources.

    The problems in Papua cannot be solved by increasing the number of police or soldiers. The problems in Papua must be resolved democratically.

    This democratic solution must include establishing a human rights court for all perpetrators of crimes in Papua since the 1960s, and not just the perpetrators in the field, but also those responsible in the chain of command.

    Only this will break the pattern of crimes that are occurring and provide justice for the Papuan people. A human rights court will also mean weakening the anti-democratic forces that exist in Indonesia and Papua — namely military(ism).

    Garbage of history
    A prerequisite for achieving democratisation is to eliminate the old forces, the garbage of history.

    The cleaner the process is carried out, the broader and deeper the democracy that can be achieved. This also includes the demands of the Papuan people to be given the right to determine their own destiny.

    This is not a task for some later day, but is the task of the Papuan people today. Nor is the task of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) political elite or political activists alone, but it is the task of all Papuan people if they want to extract themselves from the crimes of the TNI and police or Indonesian colonialism.

    Independence can only be gained by the struggle of the ordinary people themselves. The people must fight, the people must take to the streets, the people must build their own ranks, their own alternative political tool, and fight in an organised and guided manner.

    Sharon Muller is a leading member of the Socialist Union (Perserikatan Sosialis, PS) and a member of the Socialist Study Circle (Lingkar Studi Sosialis, LSS). Arah Juang is the newspaper of the Socialist Union.

    Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “Kejahatan TNI di Papua dan Solusi Demokratis Untuk Rakyat Papua dan Indonesia”.

    References
    Gemima Harvey’s report The Human Tragedy of West Papua, 15 January 2014. This reports states that more than 500,000 West Papua people have been slaughtered by Indonesia and its actors, the TNI and police since 1961.

    Veronica Koman’s chronology of torture of civilians in Papua. Posted on the Veronica Koman Facebook wall, 24 March 2024.

    Jubi, Alleged torture of citizens by the TNI adds to the long list of violence in the land of Papua. 23 March 2024.

    VOA Indonesia, Amnesty International: 95 civilians in Papua have been victims of extrajudicial killings.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Federal Judge Sends Strong Message To Republicans About Dangers Of Supporting Capitol Rioters

    A federal judge has taken the unusual step of sending a letter to the “friends and allies” of a convicted Capitol Rioter, warning them to stop saying that the man did “nothing wrong” and to stop condoning and downplaying political violence. While the letter was supposedly meant for the convict’s inner circle, it read more […]

    The post Federal Judge Sends Strong Message To Republicans About Dangers Of Supporting Capitol Rioters appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Alarm raised over ‘wave of havoc’ by Marshallese deported from US

    By Giff Johnson, editor, Marshall Islands Journal, and RNZ Pacific correspondent

    Majuro Mayor Ladie Jack is raising the alarm about criminal behaviour involving Marshallese deported from the United States, saying the “impact of these deportees on our local community has been nothing short of devastating”.

    Marshallese deported from the United States have been convicted over the past three years of a murder, a knife assault, and rape, while two additional assaults that occurred last month are under investigation.

    In a letter to President Hilda Heine dated April 1 and obtained last Friday, the mayor is seeking significantly stepped-up action by the Marshall Islands national government on the issue of deportations.

    “I urge you to explore viable solutions that prioritise the protection of our community while also addressing the underlying issues that contribute to the cycle of criminal behavior,” Mayor Jack said in his letter.

    He called on the national government to “take proactive steps to address this pressing issue promptly and decisively”.

    Mayor Jack included with his letter a local government police report on four individuals that the mayor said were deported from the US, all of whom committed violent assaults — three of which were committed in the rural Laura village area on Majuro, including two last month.

    In the police report, two men aged 28 and 40, both listed as “deportees” are alleged to have assaulted different people in the rural Laura village area of Majuro in mid-March.

    Five years for rape
    Another deportee is currently serving five years for a rape in the Laura area in 2021.

    A fourth deportee was noted as having been found guilty of aggravated assault for a knife attack on another Marshallese deported from the US in the downtown area of Majuro.

    Another deportee was convicted last year and sentenced to 14 years in jail for the shooting murder of another deportee.

    The national government’s cabinet recently established a Task Force on Deportations that is chaired by MP Marie Davis Milne.

    She told the weekly Marshall Islands Journal last week that she anticipates the first meeting of the new task force this week.

    The Marshall Islands is seeing an average close to 30 deportations each year of Marshallese from the US.

    Mayor Jack called the “influx of deportees” from the US an issue of “utmost concern.” The mayor said “a significant number of them [are] engaging in serious criminal activities.”

    With the Marshall Islands border closed for two-and-a-half-years due to covid in the 2020-2022, no deportations were accomplished by US law enforcement.

    ‘Moral turpitude’
    But once the border opened in August 2022, US Homeland Security went back to its system of deporting Marshallese who are convicted of so-called crimes of “moral turpitude,” which can run the gamut of missing a court hearing for a traffic ticket and being the subject of an arrest warrant to murder and rape.

    US Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that in fiscal year 2023 — October 2022 to September 2023 — 28 Marshallese were deported. This number mirrors the average 27 per year deported from the US in the seven years pre-covid, 2013-2019.

    Including the post-covid deportations, from 2013 to 2023, 236 Marshallese were deported from the US to Majuro. That 11-year period includes the two no-deportation years during covid.

    In 2016 and 2018, deportations hit a record of 35 per year. In contrast, neighboring Federated States of Micronesia, which also has a Compact of Free Association with the US allowing visa-free entry, has seen deportations over 90 per year both pre-covid, and in FY2023, when 91 Micronesian citizens were removed from the US.

    The Marshall Islands has never had any system in place for receiving people deported from the US — for mental health counseling, job training and placement, and other types of services that are routinely available in developed nations.

    Task force first step
    The appointment of a task force on deportations is the first government initiative to formally consider the deportation situation, which in light of steady out-migration to America can only be expected to escalate as a greater percentage of the Marshallese population takes up residence in the US.

    “The behavior exhibited by these deportees has resulted in a wave of havoc across our community leading to a palpable sense of fear and unease among our citizens,” Mayor Jack said.

    “Incidents of violent crimes, sexual assault and other illicit activities have increased exponentially, creating a pressing need for immediate intervention to address this critical issue.”

    He called on the national government for a “comprehensive review of policies and procedures governing the admission and monitoring of deportees.”

    Without action, the safety of local residents is jeopardised and the social fabric of the community is undermined, he added.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Let in UN human rights mission to West Papua – stop Indonesian impunity, says PANG

    PNG Post-Courier

    The Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) has declared its solidarity with civil society groups and student protesters demonstrating against the torture of a Papuan man, Defianus Kogoya, by Indonesian troops in West Papua last February.

    The torture was revealed in a video that went viral across the world last month.

    PANG said in a statement that peaceful demonstrations came after the video was circulated showing Defianus Kogoya bound in a water-filled barrel, being beaten and cut with knives by Indonesian soldiers.

    Indonesian authorities have since admitted and apologised for the torture, and announced the arrest of 13 soldiers.

    In the same video incident, two other Papuan men, Warinus Murib and Alianus Murib, were also arrested and allegedly tortured. Warinus Murib died of his injuries.

    Reports state that 62 protesting students have been arrested and interrogated before they were released, while two people were seriously injured by Indonesian security forces.

    In an earlier protest, 15 people were arrested for giving out pamphlets. Protesters demand all military operations must cease in West Papua.

    “We condemn the excessive military presence in West Papua and the associated human rights violation against Papuans,” said the PANG statement.

    “We also condemn the use of heavy-handed tactics by the Indonesian police to violently assault and detain students who should have the right and freedom to express their views.

    “This demonstrates yet again the ongoing oppression by Indonesian authorities in West Papua despite decades of official denial and media censorship.”

    United Nations experts have expressed serious concerns about the deteriorating human rights situation in the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, citing shocking abuses against indigenous Papuans, including child killings, disappearances, torture and mass displacement of people.


    Thirteen arrests over the Papuan torture video.    Video: Al Jazeera

    Media censorship
    In its concluding observations of Indonesia’s second periodic report under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted on 26 March 2024, the Human Rights Committee expressed deep concern over:

    • patterns of extrajudicial killings,
    • enforced disappearances, torture, and
    • other forms of cruel and degrading treatment, particularly of or against indigenous Papuans and the failure to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions.

    The committee also highlighted continuing reports of media censorship and suppression of the freedom of expression.

    “We call on the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) and the people and the governments of all Pacific Island countries to demand that Indonesia allow for the implementation of the decision of the PIF Leaders in August 2019 for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to conduct a mission to West Papua,” the PANG statement said.

    “We call on the special envoys of the PIF on West Papua to expedite their mandate to facilitate dialogue with Indonesia, and particularly to pave the way for an urgent UN visit.

    “We echo the calls made from the 62 students that were arrested for the Indonesian government to cease all military operations in West Papua and allow the United Nations to do its job.

    “Our Pacific governments should expect nothing less from Indonesia, particularly given its privileged position as an associate member of the MSG and as a PIF Dialogue Partner,” PANG said.

    Republished from the PNG Post-Courier with permission.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • PNG court rejects sex case accused MP’s bid to gag media

    By Boura Goru Kila in Port Moresby

    A Papua New Guinea court application to stop the news media from reporting on an alleged sexual offence incident involving Goroka MP Aiye Tambua has been thrown out.

    Magistrate Paul Puri Nii, sitting in the Waigani Committal Court, refused the application by Tambua’s lawyer yesterday, saying media freedom was everybody’s freedom.

    “People won’t kill you,” Nil told the MP.

    “You are a leader, and you are subject to critics [sic]. For me, I am not going to bar the media.

    “Being a magistrate, being a judge, being a leader, you are subject to critics, and that’s nothing. That’s going to either correct you or lead you in the wrong direction. But it’s up to you.

    “I advocate for media freedom so I think that [for that] aspect of the motion, I will refuse it.”

    Nii said the media were “the ears and the eyes of people” and that was why he advocated for media freedom.

    Allowed to travel
    The magistrate granted the motion seeking orders to allow Tambua, 45, to travel out of Port Moresby, but said he had to return before May 9, which was the next court appearance date.

    Tambua, through his lawyer Edward Sasingian, filed a motion seeking orders to:

    • ALLOW the defendant to continue to travel out of Port Moresby; and
    • RESTRICT the media from reporting on the case on the basis that the media has caused repercussions on the defendant and the victims.

    Sasingian also informed the court that he had served a copy of the motion on the prosecution and both had agreed on the position to restrict media until a determination is made in the committal proceedings.

    He referred to a District Court decision which barred the media from reporting, but Nii said: “For me, I advocate media freedom. Other magistrates may bar the media but this is court room two, my court, so media has the freedom to report.”

    Report on facts
    Nii also urged media to report on facts.

    “If you want to report on the matter, come to the courts, get the court files and report on the matter,” he said.

    Tambua’s case was adjourned until May 9, for further mention, after the prosecution informed the court that police were still doing investigations to establish the allegations and produce a brief.

    The MP, from Goroka’s Massy village, Eastern Highlands, was alleged to have committed the sexual offences on the three victims (all family members) on different occasions over a period of time.

    Tambua is facing 26 charges and had his bail extended.

    Boura Goru Kila is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Israel airstrike on Gaza an apparent war crime


    This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Indonesian military deny bombing Papua district in bid to free NZ pilot

    Asia Pacific Report

    Indonesia’s military regional command in Papua has denied claims made by a pro-independence West Papuan group that abducted New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens more than a year ago that the army had staged a bombing attack, The Jakarta Post reports.

    Responding to a claim by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) that aerial bombing had taken place in an area in Nduga regency where Mehrtens had been taken hostage on February 7 last year, the Indonesian Military (TNI) said it had deployed only flyby operations there.

    Lieutenant Colonel Candra Kurniawan, a spokesperson for the Cendrawasih Regional Military Command in Papua province, denied that any military operation involving aerial bombs had taken place.

    He said soldiers from the Nduga District Military Command 1706 only carried out routine patrols in the region.

    “This [patrol] was conducted together with the local community. There has been nothing like an air strike,” Candra told the Bahasa-language Tempo on Saturday.

    He also rebuffed TPNPB’s claim that TNI soldiers had engaged in a firefight with members of pro-independence group.

    “Many [TNI] members are in the field serving the community, the situation is also conducive,” Colonel Candra said.

    On March 30, TPNPB spokesperson Sebby Sambom said in a statement received by Tempo that the military had deployed aerial attacks using “military aircraft, helicopters and drones” and destroyed four of the group’s posts in Nduga.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Texas Forgetting

    Art work by E.R. Bills

    So, I’m sitting in a Port Lavaca hotel room Thursday evening, March 28, thinking about winding down. It’s been a long drive from Fort Worth and traffic has been a beating. But then I open the roller-shade on the only window in my hotel room and see it.

    No, not the ocean—though I can see it, too.

    It’s the Shellfish.

    And no, not a shellfish. The Shellfish. The Port Lavaca restaurant. It looks closed down and I don’t immediately recall why I know the place.

    I’m in Port Lavaca to do some research for a new book. I wouldn’t say it’s been an all-consuming process of late, but spotting the Shellfish sidetracks me.

    Then, I remember. I realize where I am.

    I’ve written a lot about some pretty dark stuff. Massacres, murders, lynchings, rapes, genocide, ecocide, disappearances, expulsions and cataclysms. It would be unfair to say the stuff doesn’t leave an impression on you or, in this case, me. But if you do it long enough, you can lose track. You care about the victims and the people in the stories, or cases or history you’re researching, but when enough of it piles up in your memory, you can slip.

    I slipped.

    I got invited to a history festival in Houston that Saturday and decided I’d kill two or three birds with one stone (a horrible metaphor in the end). I book a room at a hotel in Port Lavaca and drive down. I visit the site of old port city of Indianola—the victim of two late 19th century cataclysms. I’m focused on the subject matter at hand and not paying attention to other details. For instance, I didn’t notice that my hotel was located right before the Port Lavaca causeway. And I also didn’t realize my hotel sat between the causeway and the Shellfish.

    Forty-three years on the morning of April 1, 1981, a twenty-four-year-old woman named Kathryn Elizabeth Collins disappeared in front of the Shellfish restaurant just off the Port Lavaca causeway. A tire on her brown 1974 Chevy Caprice had gone flat and she was attempting change it, but she had no jack. A couple stopped to help, but they didn’t have a jack, either. So, they left to borrow one. At approximately 8:45 a.m., a tan van pulled up. Multiple witnesses saw the van and a man stepping out and offering to help Kathryn. She apparently joined him for a ride in his vehicle, but the tire on the Caprice didn’t get fixed and Kathryn Collins was never seen or heard from again.

    In 2021, I wrote about Collins in Texas Oblivion: Mysterious Disappearances, Escapes and Cover-Ups. I devoted a chapter to her and another young lady who had disappeared in the area just three years before. Kirkus Reviews called the book “authoritative and well-researched,” and Texas Books in Review had high praise for the collection, calling me “A voice for the forgotten.”

    All well and good then, but now I don’t feel authoritative or reliably vocal. I feel mute and amnesic. I am embarrassed and a little ashamed.

    Sometimes I forget I’m a tourist with a typewriter—sorry, keyboard.

    We try to get the stories right. We try to tell the truth. We try to be mindful of the victims and their families, and maybe help them find some closure. Maybe even help them find answers.

    But then we’re on to the next story. The next disappearance. The next murder. The next cataclysm.

    There are so, so many in Texas. And so many Texans are hurting. But we’re not real keen on remembering, these days. Especially on Opening Day.

    While I was staring out my hotel window at the spot where Kathryn Elizabeth Collins disappeared, most folks back home were watching the reigning World Series Champion Texas Rangers (or, down here, Houston Astros) play baseball.

    And a week from the anniversary of the day Collins disappeared and was eclipsed in my memory by another story, we’d be witnessing an actual solar eclipse—between meaningless sports spectacles and the reporting of well-meaning, but forgetful journalists.

    In late 1984, infamous serial killer Henry Lee Lucas was interviewed regarding a number of cases in Victoria County, Calhoun County and surrounding counties, but the dates he said he was in the area didn’t correspond with Collins’ disappearance. In 1991, investigators looked at serial killer Donald Leroy Evans regarding the incident, but no connection was ever established.

    I talked to employees at the hotel where I was staying, and they’d never heard of Kathryn Collins. They had to look it up on their phones. They were surprised. And so were some older locals I visited with at the Calhoun County Museum in Port Lavaca. They didn’t remember the disappearance, either. They had never even heard of it.

    It was sad, but my lapse of memory was worse, especially in a year that will later mark the fiftieth anniversary of the disappearance of three girls at a Fort Worth mall. A complete and utter vanishing that, for a while, kept people away from the mall.

    I have a daughter about the age Collins was when she went missing. I can’t help but be a little uneasy about her driving alone, especially at night. But Collins was taken in broad daylight. She was 5’ 5”, brown hair, brown eyes and petite. She had a young son and a boyfriend. Her son eventually went to live with her boyfriend’s family.

    As another National Women’s History Month passes, I think about all that women have endured in Texas. I marvel at all their incredible contributions, and then I think about how many women I know who are talking about leaving Texas because they don’t feel safe. And I understand.

    I am discomfited by the creepy, unconscionable chauvinism that is reemerging in Texas politics, essentially reinforcing the objectification and subjugation of women at the same time.

    The Texas Legislature is much scarier than a suspect in a tan van—if he got you pregnant and let you live, the Texas Lege would make you keep the fruit of his brutality. And if you tried to abort it, you could be thrown in jail or sued by Christian activists.

    Will the current abortion of female autonomy in Texas be forgotten?

    Will future Texans even remember it existed?

    The post Texas Forgetting first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by E.R. Bills.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Open letter: AWPA calls on Wong to protest to Jakarta over brutal torture

    OPEN LETTER: To Australia’s Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong

    Dear Foreign Minister,

    I am writing to you on behalf of the Australia West Papua Association in Sydney concerning the brutal torture of a West Papuan man, Defianus Kogoya by Indonesian troops in West Papua in early February.

    Anybody watching the video footage of the Papuan man being tortured by the Indonesian security forces cannot help but be horrified and outraged at the brutality of those involved in the torture.

    A video of the torture is circulating on social media and in numerous articles in the main stream media.

    Flashback to Asia Pacific Report's report on the Indonesian torture on 23 March 2024
    Flashback to Asia Pacific Report’s report on the Indonesian torture on 23 March 2024 . . . global condemnation and protests quickly followed. Image: APR screenshot

    The video shows the man placed in a drum filled with water, with both his hands tied. The victim is repeatedly punched and kicked by several soldiers.

    His back is also slashed with a knife. One can only imagine the fear and terror the Papuan man must feel at this brutal torture being inflicted on him.

    At first the military denied the claim. However, they eventually admitted it was true and arrested 13 soldiers involved in the incident.

    I’m sure we will hear statements from Jakarta that this was an isolated incident, that they were “rogue” soldiers and that 13 soldiers have been arrested over the torture. However, if the video had not gone viral would anybody have been held to account?

    Tragically this is not an isolated incident. We will not go into all the details of the human rights abuses committed against West Papuans by the Indonesian security forces as we are sure you are aware of the numerous reports documenting these incidents.

    However, there are regular clashes between the Indonesian security forces and the TPNPB (Free Papua Movement) who are fighting for their independence. As a result of these clashes the military respond with what they call sweeps of the area.

    It’s not unusual for houses and food gardens to be destroyed during these operations, including the arrest and torture of Papuans. Local people usually flee in fear from the military to the forest or other regions creating internally displaced people (IDP).

    Human rights reports indicate there are more than 60,000 IDP in West Papua. Many suffer from malnutrition and their children are missing out on their education.

    Amnesty International Indonesia, church and civil society groups in West Papua and around the world have condemned the torture and are calling for a thorough investigation into the torture case.

    AWPA is urging you to also add your voice, condemning this brutal torture incident by the Indonesian military .

    The West Papuan people are calling on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua to investigate the human rights situation in the territory. We urge you to use you good offices with the Indonesian government, urging Jakarta to allow such a visit to take place.

    Yours sincerely

    Joe Collins
    Australia West Papua Association (    AWPA)
    Sydney

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Indonesian military apologies fail to mask the harassment, gagging of Papuan leaders

    COMMENTARY: By Ronny Kareni

    Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding.

    Nowhere is this more evident than in the plight of the leaders of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), Markus Haluk and Menase Tabuni. Their unwavering resolve in condemning the situation has faced targeted harassment and discrimination.

    The leaders of the ULMWP have become targets of a state campaign aimed at silencing them.

    Menase Tabuni, serving as the executive council president of the ULMWP, along with Markus Haluk, the executive secretary, have recently taken on the responsibility of leading political discourse directly from within West Papua.

    This decision follows the ULMWP’s second high-level summit in Port Vila in August 2023, where the movement reaffirmed its commitment to advocating for the rights and freedoms of the people of West Papua.

    On March 23, the ULMWP leadership released a media statement in which Tabuni condemned the abhorrent racist slurs and torture depicted in the video of a fellow Papuan at the hands of Indonesia’s security forces.

    Tabuni called for an immediate international investigation to be conducted by the UN Commissioner of the Human Rights Office.

    Harassment not protection
    However, the response from Indonesian authorities was not one of protection, but rather a chilling escalation of harassment facilitated by the Criminal Code and Information and Electronic Transactions Law, known as UU ITE.

    Since UU ITE took effect in November 2016, it has been viewed as the state’s weapon against critics, as shown during the widespread anti-racism protests across West Papua in mid-August of 2019.

    Harassment and intimidation . . . ULMWP leaders
    Harassment and intimidation . . . ULMWP leaders (from left) Menase Tabuni (executive council president), Markus Haluk (executive council secretary), Apolos Sroyer (judicial council chairperson), and Willem Rumase (legislative council chairperson). Image: ULMWP

    The website SemuaBisaKena, dedicated to documenting UU ITE cases, recorded 768 cases in West Papua between 2016 and 2020.

    The limited information on laws to protect individuals exercising their freedom of speech, including human rights defenders, political activist leaders, journalists, and civil society representatives, makes the situation worse.

    For example, Victor Mambor, a senior journalist and founder of the Jubi news media group, in spite of being praised as a humanitarian and rights activist by the UN Human Rights Council in September 2021, continues to face frequent acts of violence and intimidation for his truth-telling defiance.

    Threats and hate speech on his social media accounts are frequent. His Twitter account was hacked and deleted in 2022 after he posted a video showing Indonesian security forces abusing a disabled civilian.

    Systematic intimidation
    The systematic nature of this intimidation in West Papua cannot be understated.

    It is a well-coordinated effort designed to suffocate dissent and silence the voice of resistance.

    The barrage of messages and missed calls to both Tabuni and Haluk creates a psychological warfare waged with callous indifference, leaving scars that run deep. It creates an atmosphere of perpetual unease, leaving wondering when the next onslaught will happen.

    The inundation of their phones with messages filled with discriminatory slurs in Bahasa serves as crude reminders of the lengths to which state entities will go in abuse of the law.

    Translated into English, these insults such as “Hey asshole I stale you” or “You smell like shit” not only denigrate the ULMWP political leaders but also serve as threats, such as “We are not afraid” or “What do you want”, which underscore calculated malice behind the attacks.

    This incident highlights a systemic issue, laying bare the fragility of democratic ideals in the face of entrenched power and exposing the hollowness of promises made by those who claim to uphold the rule of law.

    Disinformation grandstanding
    In the wake of the Indonesian government’s response to the video footage, which may outwardly appear as a willingness to address the issue publicly, there is a stark contrast in the treatment of Papuan political leaders and activists behind closed doors.

    While an apology from the Indonesian military commander in Papua through a media conference earlier this week may seem like a step in the right direction, it merely scratches the surface of a deeper issue.

    Firstly, the government’s call for firm action against individual soldiers depicted in the video, which has proven to be military personnel, cannot be served as a distraction from addressing broader systemic human rights abuses in West Papua.

    A thorough and impartial investigation into all reports of harassment, intimidation and reprisals against human rights defenders ensures that all perpetrators are brought to justice, and if convicted, punished with penalties commensurate with the seriousness of the offence.

    However, by focusing solely on potential disciplinary measures against a handful of soldiers, the government fails to acknowledge the larger pattern of abuse and oppression prevailing in the region.

    Also the statement from the Presidential Staff Office could be viewed as a performative gesture aimed at neutralising international critics rather than instigating genuine reforms.

    Without concrete efforts to address the root causes of human rights abuses in West Papua, such statements risk being perceived as empty rhetoric that fails to bring about tangible change for the Papuan people.

    Enduring struggle
    Historically, West Papua has been marked by a long-standing struggle for independence and self-determination, always met with resistance from Indonesian authorities.

    Activists advocating for West Papua’s rights and freedoms become targets of threats and harassment as they challenge entrenched power structures and seek to bring international attention to their cause.

    The lack of accountability and impunity enjoyed by the state and its security forces of such acts further emboldens those who seek to silence dissent through intimidation and coercion. Thus, the threats and harassment experienced by the ULMWP leaders and West Papua activists are not only a reflection of the struggle for self-determination but also symptomatic of broader systemic injustices.

    In navigating the turbulent waters ahead, let us draw strength from the unwavering resolve of Markus Haluk, Menase Tabuni and many Papuans who refuse to be silenced.

    The leaders of the ULMWP and all those who stand alongside them in the fight for justice and freedom serve as a testament to the enduring power of the human spirit.

    It is incumbent upon us all to stand in solidarity with those who face intimidation and harassment, to lend our voices to their cause and to shine a light on the darkness that seeks to envelop them.

    For in the end, it is only through collective action and unwavering resolve that we can overcome the forces of tyranny and usher in a future where freedom reigns freely.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Never-Ending Federal Surveillance Crime Spree

    Photo: James Bovard.

    Last December, one of the most intrusive provisions in the federal statute book was set to expire. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorizes the National Security Agency to vacuum up trillions of emails and other data. A bevy of bipartisan members of Congress called for radically curtailing those nullifications of Americans’ privacy.

    But the effort to put a leash on the federal surveillance failed dismally. Congress voted for a four-month extension of FISA, which will likely be followed in April by a much longer extension. There was a bipartisan congressional conspiracy to entitle the Deep State to continue trampling the Constitution.

    In 1978, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to outlaw political spying (such as the FBI had committed) on American citizens. FISA created a secret court to oversee federal surveillance of suspected foreign agents within the United States, permitting a much more lenient standard for wiretaps than the Constitution permitted for American citizens.

    The FISA court “created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans,” the New York Times reported in 2013 after Edward Snowden leaked court decisions. The court rubber-stamped FBI requests that bizarrely claimed that the telephone records of all Americans were “relevant” to a terrorism investigation under the Patriot Act, thereby enabling National Security Administration (NSA) data seizures later denounced by a federal judge as “almost Orwellian.” In 2017, a FISA court decision included a 10-page litany of FBI violations, which “ranged from illegally sharing raw intelligence with unauthorized third parties to accessing intercepted attorney-client privileged communications without proper oversight.”

    FISA Section 702

    The latest controversy involved FISA Section 702, first enacted by Congress in 2008. That section authorizes the National Security Agency to surveil targets in foreign nations regardless of how many Americans’ privacy is “incidentally” destroyed. The NSA collects vast amounts of information as part of that surveillance and then permits the FBI to sift through its troves. The Electronic Frontier Foundation warned more than a decade ago that Section 702 “created a broad national-security exception to the Constitution that allows all Americans to be spied upon by their government while denying them any viable means of challenging that spying.”

    Professor David Rothkopf explained in 2013 how Section 702 worked: “What if government officials came to your home and said that they would collect all of your papers and hold onto them for safe-keeping, just in case they needed them in the future. But don’t worry … they wouldn’t open the boxes until they had a secret government court order … sometime, unbeknownst to you.” Actually, the law in practice is much worse.

    A license for lying

    From the beginning, federal agencies brazenly lied about the number of Americans whose privacy was ravaged. In 2014, former NSA employee Edward Snowden provided the Washington Post with a cache of 160,000 secret email threads that the NSA had intercepted. The Post found that nine out of ten account holders were not the “intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody else.” Almost half of the individuals whose personal data was inadvertently commandeered were American citizens. The files “tell stories of love and heartbreak, illicit sexual liaisons, mental-health crises, political and religious conversions, financial anxieties and disappointed hopes,” the Post noted. If an American citizen wrote an email in a foreign language, NSA analysts assumed they were foreigners who could be surveilled without a warrant.

    FISA perils are compounded because, in practice, the FBI has a blank check for perjury in the name of Total Information Awareness. In 2002, the FISA court revealed that FBI agents had false or misleading claims in 75 cases, and a top FBI counterterrorism official was prohibited from ever appearing before the court again. Three years later, FISA chief judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly proposed requiring FBI agents to swear to the accuracy of the information they presented; that never happened because it could have “slowed such investigations drastically,” the Washington Post reported. So FBI agents continued to have a license to exploit FISA secrecy to lie to the judges.

    An abuse of power

    In 2018, a FISA ruling condemned the FBI for ignoring limits on “unreasonable searches.” As the New York Times noted,

    F.B.I. agents had carried out several large-scale searches for Americans who generically fit into broad categories … so long as agents had a reason to believe that someone within that category might have relevant information. But [under FISA] there has to be an individualized reason to search for any particular American’s information.

    The FBI treated the FISA repository like the British agents treated general warrants in the 1760s, helping spark the American Revolution.

    But Congress reauthorized Section 702 in 2018 regardless of the perpetual abuses of that power. Subsequent reports revealed that the congressional vote of blind confidence was misplaced. But Congress did oblige the feds to publicly disclose how often the FBI unjustifiably violated Americans’ privacy by snooping in the NSA catch-all archives.

    The FBI exploited FISA to target 19,000 donors to the campaign of a candidate who challenged an incumbent member of Congress. An FBI analyst justified the warrantless searches by claiming “the campaign was a target of foreign influence,” but even the Justice Department concluded that almost all of those searches violated FISA rules. Apparently, merely reciting the phrase “foreign influence” suffices to nullify Americans’ rights nowadays. (In March, Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL) revealed that he had been wrongly targeted by the FBI in numerous FISA 702 searches.)

    Warrantless searches

    In April 2021, the FISA court reported that the FBI conducted warrantless searches of the data trove for “domestic terrorism,” “public corruption and bribery,” “health care fraud,” and other targets — including people who notified the FBI of crimes and even repairmen entering FBI offices. If you sought to report a crime to the FBI, an FBI agent may have illegally surveilled your email. Even if you merely volunteered for the FBI “Citizens Academy” program, the FBI may have illegally tracked all your online activity. In 2019, an FBI agent conducted an unjustified database search “using the identifiers of about 16,000 people, even though only seven of them had connections to an investigation,” the New York Times reported.

    As I tweeted after that report came out, “The FISA court has gone from pretending FBI violations don’t occur to pretending violations don’t matter. Only task left is to cease pretending Americans have any constitutional right to privacy.” FISA court Chief Judge James Boasberg lamented “apparent widespread violations” of the legal restrictions for FBI searches but shrugged them off and permitted the scouring of Americans’ personal data to continue.

    Alas, there was no bureaucratic repentance. The feds revealed in 2022 that “fewer than 3,394,053” Americans’ privacy had been zapped by FBI warrantless searches using Section 702. Why didn’t the feds use an alternative headline for the press release: “More than 320,974,609 Americans not illegally searched by the FBI?” That report was issued by the Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. But there was scant transparency aside from a raw number that raised far more questions than it answered.

    Almost two million of those searches involved an investigation of Russian hacking. Yet there aren’t that many hackers in the United States. The State Department’s Global Engagement Center presumed that anyone whose tweets agreed with a position of the Russian government should be banned by Twitter for being a Russian agent. Did the FBI use a similar “catch-all” standard to justify pilfering two million Americans’ email and other online data?

    Exemption from the Constitution 

    In May 2023, a heavily redacted FISA court decision revealed that the FBI continued exempting itself from the Constitution. For each American that the FISA court authorized the FBI to target, the FBI illicitly surveilled almost a thousand additional Americans. The FBI admitted to conducting 278,000 illicit searches of Americans in 2020 and early 2021 (the period covered by the FISA court ruling released in May 2023).

    The FBI conducted illegal secret searches of the emails and other data of 133 people arrested during the protests after the killing of George Floyd in 2020.

    The FBI conducted 656 warrantless searches to see if they could find any derogatory information on people they planned to use as informants. The FBI also routinely conducted warrantless searches on “individuals listed in police homicide reports, including victims, next-of-kin, witnesses, and suspects.” Even the Justice Department complained those searches were improper.

    The FBI seems to have presumed that any American suspected of supporting the January 6, 2021, Capitol ruckus forfeited his constitutional rights. An FBI analyst exploited FISA to unjustifiably conduct searches on 23,132 Americans citizens “to find evidence of possible foreign influence, although the analyst conducting the queries had no indications of foreign influence,” according to FISA Chief Judge Rudolph Contreras. The FBI also routinely conducted warrantless searches on “individuals listed in police homicide reports, including victims, next-of-kin, witnesses, and suspects.”

    For 20 years, FISA judges have whined about FBI agents lying to the court. As long as the FBI periodically promises to repent, the FISA court entitles them to continue decimating the Fourth Amendment. Chief FISA Judge Contreras lamented: “Compliance problems with the querying of Section 702 information have proven to be persistent and widespread.” The FBI responded to the damning report with piffle: “We are committed to continuing this work and providing greater transparency into the process to earn the trust of the American people and advance our mission of safeguarding both the nation’s security, and privacy and civil liberties, at the same time.”

    The FBI crime wave

    FBI officials stress that any violations of Americans’ privacy is “incidental.” Since the FBI didn’t intend to violate Americans’ rights, it was a no-fault error — or millions of no-fault errors. There is no chance that police will adopt the same standard for absolving drunk drivers who did not intend to kill anyone they crashed into. Even when a media star such as Tucker Carlson may have been pulled into the 702 mire, the system manages to whitewash itself.

    The FBI’s perpetual crime wave created a hornet’s nest on Capitol Hill. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) asked: “How much longer must we watch the FBI brazenly spy on Americans before we strip it of its unchecked authority?” Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA) declared, “We need a pound of flesh. We need to know someone has been fired.”

    House Republicans, led by House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), pushed a bipartisan reform of 702 named he Protect Liberty and End Warrantless Surveillance Act, which would have required the FBI to get a warrant from a federal judge for most of its queries to the NSA database. Jordan’s proposal would have also sharply reduced the number of FBI officials with access to the NSA trove. Jordan’s bill included the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, which “stops law enforcement from buying data that should require a court order,” a scandal tagged in a New York Post op-ed headlined “Feds are buying your life with your tax dollars.”

    Congressional impotence

    FISA epitomizes the mirage of constitutional checks and balances in our times. When Congress returns to FISA with the short-term authorization, the House will consider a FISA “reform” bill the Intelligence Committee unanimously approved. The House Intelligence Committee acts like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Deep State. Unfortunately, these are the members of Congress with special access to federal dirt — and they have largely chosen to ignore the crimes committed by the spies they champion and bankroll.

    Former Justice Department lawyer Marc Zwillinger is one of a handful of FISA court amici allowed to comment on cases or policies in the secret court. He issued a public warning that the House Intelligence bill expands the definition of “electronic communication service providers” covered by FISA compliance obligations to include “business landlords, shared workspaces, or even hotels where guests connect to the Internet.”

    In other words, the FISA expansion could affect your next visit to Comfort Inn — and you thought Wi-Fi service was already bad! Former Justice Department lawyer Elizabeth Goitein warns, “Hotels, libraries, coffee shops, and other places that offer wifi to their customers could be forced to serve as surrogate spies. They could be required to configure their systems to ensure that they can provide the government access to entire streams of communications.” The bill could also cover any repairman who works on such equipment. That bill should be titled, Biden Big Brother Better Act.

    The FISA reauthorization was included in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2024, a 3000-page “must pass” bill that Congress considered in December. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who led the opposition to the bill in the Senate, urged fellow senators not to “trust any bill so large that it has to be delivered by handcart.” But to no avail.

    The tyranny of the FISA court

    The FISA court has perpetually dismally failed to defend Americans’ constitutional rights. Washington must finally admit that there is no secret “doing God’s work” clause in the Constitution that entitles FBI agents to trample Americans’ privacy and liberty.

    Will Congress show more gumption when the short-term FISA reauthorization expires in April? When FISA was up for renewal in 2012, I tweeted, “Only a fool would expect members of Congress to give a damn about his rights and liberties.” Unless Congress puts me to shame, FISA should be renamed the “‘Trust Me, Chumps!’ Surveillance Act.”

    This article was originally published in the March 2024 issue of Future of Freedom.

    The post The Never-Ending Federal Surveillance Crime Spree appeared first on CounterPunch.org.


    This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by James Bovard.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Jakarta Post: Stop fighting fire with fire in Papua – it only leads to a bigger fire

    EDITORIAL: The Jakarta Post

    It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers.

    This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. One clip shows the man’s head being beaten with a rod, while another has his back slashed by a blade that looks like a combat knife.

    After initially denying the assailants in the footage were military personnel, the TNI issued on Monday a rare apology and said that 13 soldiers had been arrested following the viral video.

    THE JAKARTA POST

    “I apologise to all Papuans, and we will work to ensure this is never repeated,” said Cenderawasih Military Commander in Papua Major General Izak Pangemanan.

    That rare apology is a positive sign, but it is not enough. We have had enough pledges from the military about not inflicting more violence on Papuans, but time and again blood is spilled in the name of the military and police campaign against armed separatist [pro-independence] groups.

    The resource-rich Papua region has seen escalating violence since 2018, when the military increased its presence there in response to deadlier and more frequent attacks, allegedly committed by armed rebels.

    Throughout 2023 alone, there were 49 acts of violence by security forces against civilians recorded by the rights group Commission for Missing Person and Victims of Violence (Kontras) in the form of, among others, forceful arrest, torture and shooting. At least 67 people were injured and 41 others lost their lives in the violence.

    Also according to Kontras, some of the arrested civilians could not be proven to have ties to the armed rebel groups, particularly the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB).

    In regard to this week’s viral videos, the TNI claimed that the man beaten in the video was identified as Defianus Kogoya, a separatist [pro-independence activist] who planned to burn down a health center in Central Papua.

    Whether Defianus was a rebel or civilian, what the soldiers did to him is unjustified, because no national or international law allows the torture of members of hostile forces.

    The Geneva Conventions and its additional protocols have at least seven articles banning torture. There are also other sets of regulations banning cruel or inhuman treatment of captured enemies.

    National regulations also prohibit security forces personnel from committing unnecessary violent acts. Article 351 of the Criminal Code mandates two years and eight months’ imprisonment for any individuals committing torture, a provision that also applies to military personnel.

    For soldiers, the punishment can be heavier as they face the possibility of getting an additional one third of the punishment if they are found guilty of torture by a military court.

    The TNI also announced on Monday that it had arrested 13 soldiers allegedly involved in the incidents in the video. The investigations are still ongoing, but the military promised to name them as suspects soon.

    These might be good first steps, but they may mean nothing if their superiors are not prosecuted alongside the foot soldiers. At the very least, the TNI must ensure that the 13 suspects are prosecuted thoroughly in a military court of justice.

    The TNI should also work harder to prevent systemic issues that allow such violence to occur. A TNI spokesperson acknowledged on Monday that the military was far from perfect. That is good, but it would be better if the TNI actually worked in a transparent manner on how it addresses that imperfection.

    Overall, the government and especially the incoming administration of President-elect Prabowo Subianto must make more serious efforts at achieving a long-lasting peace in Papua.

    Sending more troops has proven to merely lead to escalation. The incoming government should consider the possibility that fighting fire with fire, only leads to a bigger fire.

    This editorial in The Jakarta Post was published yesterday, 27 March 2024, under the title “Stop fighting fire with fire”.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Fiji state appeals Banimarama and Qiliho sentences in corruption case

    RNZ Pacific

    Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case.

    Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with a fine of FJ$1500 ($NZ$1110) for abuse of office by the Suva Magistrates Court earlier today.

    Magistrate Seini Puamau announced that both their convictions would not be registered.

    “The sentence delivered by Magistrate Puamau is unsatisfactory, is wrong both in fact and in law and does not reflect the considerations and tariff of cases or matters of similar nature,” Acting Director of Public Prosecution John Rabuku said in a statement following the sentencing.

    The notice of appeal against the sentence was filed in the High Court this afternoon.

    The state has filed four grounds of appeal:

    • a. That the sentence imposed by the learned Magistrate against both the Respondents are manifestly lenient and in breach of sentencing principles, case laws and the tariff set in other similar matters and offences.
    • b. That the learned Magistrate erred in law and in fact when she made a finding that there were no aggravating factors against the Respondents.
    • c. That the learned Magistrate erred in law and in fact in considering irrelevant factors in sentencing the Respondents; and
    • d. That the learned Magistrate erred in law and in fact when she made a finding that there was no victim and that the offending was a technical breach by both Respondents.

    Lowest-level sentence
    An absolute discharge is the lowest-level sentence that an offender can get. It means no conviction was registered against Bainimarama.

    State broadcaster FBC News reports that Magistrate Puamau considered Bainimarama’s health.

    The 69-year-old was sentenced alongside Qiliho, who was given a FJ$1500 fine without conviction as well.

    The absolute discharge and a fine without conviction was given despite the prosecutors last week urging Magistrate Puamau to order immediate custodial sentences towards the high end of the tariff for both men — which would be no less than five years in jail for Bainimarama and 10 years for Qiliho.

    RNZ Pacific reported earlier today that a Fiji governance professor, Dr Vijay Naidu, said the magistrate had been sypathetic to both men.

    “It is surprising in that the sentencing is like the minimalist kind of approach,” he said.

    “I didn’t expect the magistrate to sentence them for the maximum of you know 10 . . . and five years, but the sentence now is quite farcical because these persons are found guilty and they are given sentences that, to say the least, is quite ludicrous.”

    He said Bainimarama was “not out of the woods yet” because there was a string of other charges that he would face in the coming months.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.