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Category: Human rights/civil liberties

Inside a refugee camp on America’s doorstep

Inside a refugee camp on America’s doorstep

The New York Times reports: A butter yellow sun rose over the crowded tent camp across the river from Texas and a thick heat baked the rotten debris below, a mixture of broken toys, human waste and uneaten food swarming with flies. Clothing and sheets hung from trees and dried stiff after being drenched and muddied in a hurricane the week before. As residents emerged from the zipper-holes of their canvas homes that morning in August, some trudged with buckets…

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Parents of 545 children still not found three years after Trump separation policy

Parents of 545 children still not found three years after Trump separation policy

The Guardian reports: Three years after Donald Trump ordered a crackdown on undocumented migrants crossing into the US, lawyers are still struggling to find the parents of 545 children separated from them under the “zero-tolerance” policy, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. In a court filing, the ACLU said that about two-thirds of the parents had been deported back to the country of origin in Central America, leaving their separated children behind. In the rush to carry out Trump’s…

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U.S. weighs labeling leading NGOs ‘anti-Semitic’ because they defend human rights of Palestinians

U.S. weighs labeling leading NGOs ‘anti-Semitic’ because they defend human rights of Palestinians

Politico reports: The Trump administration is considering declaring that several prominent international NGOs — including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam — are anti-Semitic and that governments should not support them, two people familiar with the issue said. The proposed declaration could come from the State Department as soon as this week. If the declaration happens, it is likely to cause an uproar among civil society groups and might spur litigation. Critics of the possible move also worry it…

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As the world gets hotter, the divide between rich and poor gets bigger

As the world gets hotter, the divide between rich and poor gets bigger

Vann R. Newkirk II writes: Consider the cantaloupe. It’s a decent melon. If you, like me, are the sort who constantly mixes them up, cantaloupes are the orange ones, and honeydews are green. If you, like me, are old enough to remember vacations, you might have had them along with their cousin, watermelon, at a hotel’s breakfast buffet. Those spreads are not as bad as you remember, especially when it’s hot out; add a couple of cold bagels and a…

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China has secretly built a vast new infrastructure to imprison Muslims

China has secretly built a vast new infrastructure to imprison Muslims

BuzzFeed reports: China has secretly built scores of massive new prison and internment camps in the past three years, dramatically escalating its campaign against Muslim minorities even as it publicly claimed the detainees had all been set free. The construction of these purpose-built, high-security camps — some capable of housing tens of thousands of people — signals a radical shift away from the country’s previous makeshift use of public buildings, like schools and retirement homes, to a vast and permanent…

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California prisons overwhelmed by Covid outbreaks and approaching fires

California prisons overwhelmed by Covid outbreaks and approaching fires

The Guardian reports: California’s raging wildfires have created a crisis at multiple state prisons, where there are reports of heavy smoke and ash making it hard to breathe, unanswered pleas for evacuation, and concerns that the fire response could lead to further Covid-19 spread. A massive fire in the Vacaville area, north of San Francisco, has rapidly spread within miles of two state prisons this week, including one that imprisons terminally ill people in hospice care and the elderly and…

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Countries with levels of police brutality comparable to that in the U.S. are called ‘police states’

Countries with levels of police brutality comparable to that in the U.S. are called ‘police states’

Laurence Ralph writes: Public outcry over the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd earlier this year has ignited mass demonstrations against structural racism and police violence in the United States. The protests have reached every American state and spread to countries around the world; they arguably constitute the most broad-based civil rights movement in American history. Protests against the brutalization of communities of color by the U.S. criminal justice system have been growing for years, but the…

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Together, you can redeem the soul of our nation

Together, you can redeem the soul of our nation

Shortly before his death, John Lewis wrote: While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the…

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White supremacy across America is sustained by white Christianity

White supremacy across America is sustained by white Christianity

Robert P. Jones writes: Over the last several weeks, the United States has engaged in a long-overdue reckoning with the racist symbols of the past, tearing down monuments to figures complicit in slavery and removing Confederate flags from public displays. But little scrutiny has been given to the cultural institutions that legitimized the worldview behind these symbols: white Christian churches. A close read of history reveals that we white Christians have not just been complacent or complicit; rather, as the…

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Poland considers leaving treaty combating domestic violence, spurring protests

Poland considers leaving treaty combating domestic violence, spurring protests

The New York Times reports: The Polish government, emboldened by a narrow election victory this month and undeterred by criticism from European Union leaders, is considering withdrawing from a treaty aimed at curbing domestic violence and protecting women’s rights, with the country’s minister of justice filing paperwork on Monday to start the process. The move came just one week after European Union leaders, bowing to pressure from Poland and Hungary, relaxed demands that were supposed to tie funding in the…

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Ten ways that racial and environmental justice are inextricably linked

Ten ways that racial and environmental justice are inextricably linked

Nishan Degnarain writes: Cities across the United States and Europe have been reflecting on the unprecedented protests demanding greater racial justice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May. This has sparked a deeper conversation around the world among companies, universities, religious institutions, museums who have historic links to racial injustice and slavery. Given the significance of 19 June (Juneteenth), many companies and organizations have also been quick to sign up to pledges around racial justice. However,…

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‘Invictus’ was among John Lewis’s favorite poems. It captures his indomitable spirit

‘Invictus’ was among John Lewis’s favorite poems. It captures his indomitable spirit

David Greenberg writes: Some children have an uncanny sense of their destiny. As a boy, John Lewis loved William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus.” His sister Ethel Mae Tyner once told an interviewer that she remembered her big brother reciting it around the house. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Could the boy reciting those lines have imagined that he would famously endure…

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Colorado’s police now have a legal incentive to think before they act

Colorado’s police now have a legal incentive to think before they act

The Atlantic reports: In Loveland, Colorado—the nation’s self-proclaimed “Sweetheart City,” about an hour’s drive north of Denver—a young police officer paused earlier this month as he was arresting a pregnant woman who had outstanding warrants. Should he handcuff her, the officer asked his supervisors, or, under a new Colorado policing law, would that now be considered excessive force? To officers like Rob Pride, a Loveland patrol sergeant who relayed that example to me last week, that kind of hesitation is…

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In historic move, Asheville, North Carolina approves reparations for Black residents

In historic move, Asheville, North Carolina approves reparations for Black residents

Asheville Citizen Times reports: In an extraordinary move, the Asheville City Council has apologized for the North Carolina city’s historic role in slavery, discrimination and denial of basic liberties to Black residents and voted to provide reparations to them and their descendants. The 7-0 vote came the night of July 14. “Hundreds of years of Black blood spilled that basically fills the cup we drink from today,” said Councilman Keith Young, one of two African American members of the body…

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White supremacist ideas have historical roots in white American Christianity

White supremacist ideas have historical roots in white American Christianity

NPR reports: When a young Southern Baptist pastor named Alan Cross arrived in Montgomery, Ala., in January 2000, he knew it was where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had his first church and where Rosa Parks helped launched the famous bus boycott, but he didn’t know some other details of the city’s role in civil rights history. The more he learned, the more troubled he became by one event in particular: the savage attack in May 1961 on a…

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The best way to respond to our history of racism? A Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The best way to respond to our history of racism? A Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò writes: The killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks are the latest in a continuing pattern of violence inflicted by state agents and citizens, mostly white, against Americans of African descent. Their deaths have stoked strong denunciations and calls for justice and change, to do something, anything, to put an end to such incidents. But to date, there has been very little interest in real change from the highest levels of political leadership. Through…

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