text:
bauaw2003 BAUAW NEWSLETTER, FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2017
A. EVENTS, ACTIONS
AND ONGOING STRUGGLES
This is from the People's Assembly Against Austerity, via the Morning Star:
1st July 2017 (March to Parliament)
MEET: BBC HQ (Portland Place, London)
TIME: 12pm
A MAJOR national demonstration will take place in London on July 1 to get rid of "Theresa and the terrorists,".
The People's Assembly called the demo, saying: "Street mobilisations are more important than ever" and can "create a crisis the Tories can't recover from."
It comes a day after shadow chancellor John McDonnell called on Brits to "get out on the streets" to force another general election "as early as possible."
In his first major speech since Labour's election surge last Thursday, Mr McDonnell also revealed Labour will seek to exploit the DUP's manifesto call for the removal of the bedroom tax to axe the hated policy.
He confirmed that Labour would "keep its winning team together" and not replace shadow cabinet loyalists with former critics of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn from the party's right.
"When there are vacancies, yes, we will ask people to serve… in a spirit of comradeship," he told delegates at food union BFAWU's conference in Southport yesterday.
"Jeremy's character is one of consensus-building. He said: our campaign is positive, it cannot be negative."
But he rebuked MPs for not being "generous" to Mr Corbyn, saying: "I've never seen such behaviour in the [Parliamentary Labour Party], you wouldn't tolerate it in your [union] branches, I can tell you."
The shadow chancellor urged trade unionists to "keep the momentum going" and attempt to topple PM Theresa May's minority government.
"We need people doing everything they can to ensure the election comes as early as possible," he said. "I don't think an alliance of Tories and the DUP can ever be strong and stable."
Protests took place across the country last weekend in response to Prime Minister Theresa May's attempts to forge an alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and form a minority government.
Now, the People's Assembly has called a mass demonstration, with national secretary Sam Fairbairn vowing to "do all we can to get rid of Theresa and the terrorists."
He told the Star: "The election result was absolutely devastating for Theresa May. Her arrogance led us into this as she thought she'd gain a huge majority.
"This shows how out of touch her, her party and mainstream political commentators are. They had no idea of the levels of anger and distrust in a government who plan further austerity measures that has done nothing to solve the NHS crisis and that wants to bring back grammar schools and selective education, taking us back to Victorian times as living standards continue to fall."
He pointed out that the Tories had gone all-out to smear Mr Corbyn as a terrorist sympathiser, "yet at the first sign of losing power they are jumping into bed with the DUP."
Mr Fairbairn added: "Now the street mobilisations have never been more important and we say to the millions of people who engaged in politics for the first time that they can be part of a mass movement for change, deepening the crisis for Theresa May.
"Her days are numbered."
Mr McDonnell also backed BFAWU's call, overwhelmingly endorsed in a conference resolution yesterday, for the TUC to call a "national demonstration" in support of Labour's policies.
"What we need now is the TUC mobilised, every union mobilised … get out on the streets," he said.
"Just think, if the TUC put out that call that we want a million on the streets of London in two weeks' time."
He said voters had been turned off by the Tories' repetitive slogans.
"Strong and stable, strong and stable — it was a Dalek campaign," he quipped.
But he stressed that voters turned to Labour because of the appeal of Mr Corbyn and the manifesto as well as turning away from May.
"[The manifesto] struck a chord because of what people are experiencing at the moment," he said. "It's all right for the few but for the many it's wage cuts and wage freezes."
And Mr McDonnell savaged the Tories for attacking his and Mr Corbyn's position of negotiating with republican leaders in Northern Ireland before entering their own DUP alliance.
"Don't ever again come at us on that basis," he warned.
On the bedroom tax, which penalises council tenants with spare rooms, he said: "One of the proposals we'll be putting down in Parliament will be to remove the bedroom tax, we'll see how [the DUP] vote."
Delegates at BFAWU's conference said a national demo in support of Labour policies could mobilise young people newly inspired by politics to get involved in trade unions.
"We want [a] £10 an hour [minimum wage] not because it's pie in the sky, but because we deserve it," executive member Lorna McKinnon said.
"Young people are most likely to support strike action and the least likely to join a union. We have to fight to change that."
The People's Assembly demonstration will meet at the BBC headquarters in Portland Place from 12pm before marching to Parliament.
California Alliance for Retired Americans
600 Grand Ave, Rm 410
510-663-4086, californiaalliance.org
Please join CARA on August 14 to celebrate Social Security's 82nd birthday, and to re-dedicate ourselves to defend Social Security and preserve, improve, and expand it. Our confirmed speakers so far are Alex Lawson, Executive Director of Social Security Works and Norman Solomon, author, columnist and activist.
Monday, August 14, Noon, in Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza
Broadway and 14th St, 12th St BART Station.
Rally and Two-Block March to Federal Building
More program details to be announced.
Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/yd94ezv6
Michael Lyon, 415-215-7575, mlyon01@comcast.net, or
Jodi Reid, 415-550-0828, jreid.cara@gmail.com
CARA is sponsoring events across California in July and August to defend and expand Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, in the face of attacks from Washington. Our Oakland event will draw people from all around the San Francisco Bay Area. We are hoping you can publicize this event among your members, and bring them on August 14. We are attaching a copy of our leaflet and a petition your members can sign and return. Anyone can sign the petition, it is not official, but will be used to show support for these programs.
Over its 82 years, Social Security has provided income and dignity to hundreds of millions of retirees and people with disabilities, their spouses and children, and to deceased workers' spouses and children. For two thirds of seniors, it's been over half their income. Half of women and people with disabilities would be in poverty without Social Security. Almost 10% of children get it. We will NOT go back to the days of workhouses!
Social Security is the nation's most effective anti-poverty program, yet it is entirely funded by us, we who work for a living, through FICA deductions from our paychecks, and by our employers. Not a cent comes from the government; in fact our $2.4 Trillion Social Security Trust Fund is invested in loans to help the government run. Those loans must, and will, be repaid to Social Security. It's our program, our money! Our past, our future!
Forces for austerity want to destroy or undermine Social Security by increasing the retirement age, decreasing the benefits and cost-of-living increases, and converting Social Security from a unified government program of collectively-guaranteed economic security for everyone, to a hodge-podge of private individual accounts for each recipient, invested in the stock market, and managed by expensive Wall Street money managers.
Now, the Trump administration wants to eliminate the payroll tax that is the financial foundation of Social Security and cut $64 Billion over ten years from Social Security Disability Insurance, an integral part of Social Security, by reducing future enrollment with work requirements.
Given this adversity, it's important we remember that our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents won Social Security in the mid-1930s, the depths of the Great Depression, when everything looked stacked against us. Social Security must be preserved, improved, and expanded. In the 1930s, Roosevelt said "Make me do it!" We did. We can do it again!
Cuban Documentary "Between Changes"
HAVANA TIMES — "Entre cambios" (Between changes) is a documentary dedicated to a specific generation of Cubans: the one who had to live through the fragile limbo when the Soviet Union collapsed. We concentrated particularly on speaking to those who experienced these changes there, in the places where the events took place.
One of the most recurring testimonies that this documentary provides – and the research we did to carry it out – is that of people who went to COMECON (The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) countries under the sugarcoated notion that there they had a more advanced version of socialism that the Cuban version, and instead it turned out that they would be the witnesses of its downfall.
This is where the irony lies: surely, a lot of things used to be better off there than they were in Cuba, even under the centralized State system that the Kremlin imposed on the majority of the territories under its control, but everything "went downhill" between 1988 and 1991.
In the documentary, we can hear accounts from those who were in countries such as Hungary, and in several Republics of what used to be the USSR. We tried our best for these opinions to be diverse and critical.
There wasn't always enough space for all of the material we had collected for the documentary – and we have faith that the extensive research we did will have the opportunity to be covered in other media platforms, or maybe there will even be sequels to this documentary.
However, we tried to maintain a respectful, friendly and proactive dialogue that prevails throughout the film, in order to anchor the diversity of social coexistence today.
Cuba's "post-Soviet" generation – the one which lived in situ with the geopolitical collapse that led to the Special Period disaster here, to the capitalist reforms in Europe and the "excessive '90s" in Russia and its surroundings, with quite a few localized conflicts where a lot of today's jihadist terrorism was born and awful government administrations who justified well-established authoritarian run countries today – is a very active generation nowadays.
Both inside and outside of our archipelago, it has given rise to artists, intellectuals, engineers, bloggers, doctors, scientists and social activists from all kinds of political movements.
It's no coincidence that it was a generation that experienced a great shock (whether in Eurasia, or here in Cuba, where we also experienced a great time of change – but in a different way). We believe that their experiences – which haven't been published widely in explicit terms, which are what we have tried to collect – can contribute to preventing a lot of the negativity that is taking place in Cuba today.
We have to learn our lessons from history, something which clearly wasn't done in the post-1959 period, when existing critique of the then "USSR" was dismissed in Cuba.
This documentary is the result of a co-production between the independent production company "CreActivo" and the research team "Post Soviet Cuba" which is a member of one of the teams from the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLASCO).
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=125323
Solidarity Statement from the California Coalition for Women Prisoners
CCWP sent the solidarity statement below expressing support with the hunger strikers at the Northwest County Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma Washington, one of the largest immigration prisons in the country. People at NWDC, including many women, undertook the hunger strike starting at the beginning of April 2017 to protest the horrendous conditions they are facing. Although the peak of the hunger strike was a few weeks ago, the strikers set a courageous example of resistance for people in detention centers and prisons around the country.
Here is a link to a Democracy Now! interview with Maru Villalpando of Northwest Detention Center Resistance (http://www.nwdcresistance.org/) and Alexis Erickson, partner of one of the hunger strikers, Cristian Lopez.
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/4/14/700_immigrants_on_hunger_strike_at
California Coalition for Women Prisoners Statement
California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) stands in solidarity with the hunger strikers, many of them women, detained by ICE at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), a private prison operated by the GEO group contracted by ICE in Washington state. We applaud the detainees at NORCOR, a county jail in rural Oregon, who recently won their demands after sustaining six days without meals.
Since April 10th, those detained in NWDC have refused meals to demand changes to the abhorrent conditions of their detention, including poor quality food, insufficient medical care, little to no access to family visits, legal counsel or legal documents, and lack of timely court proceedings. Hunger strikes are a powerful method of resistance within prisons that require commitment and courage from prisoners and their families. We have seen this historically in California when tens-of-thousands of prisoners refused meals to protest solitary confinement in 2011 and 2013, and also currently in Palestine where over 1,500 prisoners are on hunger strike against the brutal conditions of Israeli prisons.
As the Trump administration continues to escalate its attacks on Latinx/Chicanx and Arab/Muslim communities, deportations and detentions serve as strategies to control, remove, and erase people—a violence made possible in a context of inflamed xenophobia and increasingly visible and virulent racism. We stand with the families of those detained as well as organizations and collectives on the ground in Washington State struggling to expose the situation inside these facilities as well as confront the escalating strategies of the Trump administration.
CCWP recognizes the common struggle for basic human dignity and against unconstitutional cruel and inhumane treatment that people of color and immigrants face in detention centers, jails, and prisons across the United States. We also sadly recognize from our work with people in women's prisons the retaliatory tactics such as prison transfers and solitary confinement that those who fight oppression face. Similar abuses continue to occur across California at all of its prisons and detention centers, including the GEO-run women's prison in McFarland, California.. CCWP sends love and solidarity to the hunger strikers in the Northwest. Together we can break down the walls that tear our families and communities apart. ¡ya basta! #Ni1Más #Not1More
Northwest Detention Center Press Release May 4, 2017
Despite threats and retaliation, hunger strikers continue protest
ICE ignores demands for improved conditions
Tacoma, Washington/The Dalles, Oregon—Immigrants held at ICE facilities in two states—the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), run by GEO Group, and NORCOR, a rural public jail—continued their hunger strike today, despite growing weakness from lack of food. The exponential growth of immigration detention has led ICE to contract the function of detaining immigrants out to both private prison companies and to county governments, with both treating immigrants as a source of profit. ICE has been using NORCOR as "overflow" detention space for immigrants held at NWDC, and is regularly transferring people back and forth from the NWDC to NORCOR. People held at NORCOR have limited access to lawyers and to the legal documents they need to fight and win their deportation cases. They are often transferred back to NWDC only for their hearings, then shipped back to NORCOR, where they face terrible conditions. Jessica Campbell of the Rural Organizing Project affirmed, "No one deserves to endure the conditions at NORCOR—neither the immigrants ICE is paying to house there, nor the people of Oregon who end up there as part of criminal processes. It's unsafe for everyone."
The strike began on April 10th, when 750 people at the NWDC began refusing meals. The protest spread to NORCOR this past weekend. Maru Mora Villalpando of NWDC Resistance confirmed, "It's very clear from our contact with people inside the facilities and with family members of those detained that the hunger strike continues in both Oregon and Washington State." She continued, "The question for us is, how will ICE assure that the abuses that these whistle-blowing hunger strikers have brought to light are addressed?"
From the beginning of the protest, instead of using the strike as an opportunity to look into the serious concerns raised by the hunger strikers, ICE and GEO have both denied the strike is occurring and retaliated against strikers. Hunger strikers have been transferred to NORCOR in retaliation for their participation. One person who refused transfer to NORCOR was put in solitary confinement. Just this week, hunger striking women have been threatened with forced feeding—a practice that is recognized under international law to be torture. In an attempt to break their spirit, hunger strikers have been told the strike has been ineffective and that the public is ignoring it.
Hunger striker demands terrible conditions inside detention center be addressed—including the poor quality of the food, the dollar-a-day pay, and the lack of medical care. They also call for more expedited court proceedings and the end of transfers between detention facilities. Hunger strikers consistently communicate, "We are doing this for our families." Despite their incredibly oppressive conditions, locked away and facing deportation in an immigration prison in the middle of an industrial zone and in a rural county jail, hunger strikers have acted collectively and brought national attention to the terrible conditions they face and to the ongoing crisis of deportations, conditions the U.S. government must address.Latino Advocacy
Maru Mora Villalpando
Activist Goes on Hunger Strike Outside the Northwest Detention Center
Maru Mora Villalpando Joins the Tacoma 12 and Adelanto 9 in Calling for an End to Human Rights Abuses in Immigrant Detention
Tacoma, WA - On Monday, June 19th, Maru Mora Villalpando, member of the NWDC Resistance, will begin a hunger strike to call attention to the plight of up to 1,600 immigrants held in detention suffering human rights abuses at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC). On June 15, 2017, at least a dozen detainees went on hunger strike to call attention to inhumane detention conditions, refusing to eat for multiple days. By June 18, NWDC Resistance organizers received reports that more than 25 hunger strikers are calling on GEO Group to provide edible, nutritious food, on ICE to provide fair and timely hearings, and on civil society to step up and take action for the injustices in our communities. In response, Maru Mora Villalpando is going on hunger strike, and is joined by other members of civil society who are stepping up their solidarity.
As hunger strikers on the inside are discussing ceasing their strike on the inside, Maru will keep the hunger strike continuous by holding space on the outside. A female hunger striker in detention said: "I feel more deteriorated every day, more bad, more worse, because of what we are living through and what we are seeing inside. What we are suffering is horrible, horrible. Here they don't care what conditions we are living in… they don't care about anything." To listen to her story, go to: http://bit.ly/2sIyXzZ
GEO Group's human rights abuses are not a case of "bad apples." Just this week, GEO employees have refused to complete basic maintenance, such as repairing a broken air conditioner when projected temperatures are expected to reach 78 degrees. Likewise, people in detention have noted repeated problems with incorrect medications resulting in hospital visits, suicide attempts, and inadequate access to medical treatment -- even in diagnosed cases of malignant cancers.
There are also 9 asylum seekers on hunger strike at the GEO-owned Adelanto Detention Facility in Southern California. Rather than releasing asylum seekers pending their hearing, they were subjected to further trauma -- pepper spray, beating and solitary confinement. The #Adelanto9 continue on hunger strike to call attention to these blatant human rights abuses, meaning that people inside and outside detention centers are on hunger strike throughout the West Coast.
Call to Action: Hunger strikers and solidarity supporters are holding down a 24-7 encampment outside the Northwest Detention Center. Please join them to show people held in detention that they are not alone, and the state of Washington will no longer tolerate human rights abuses!
For live updates on the #Tacoma12 and solidarity hunger strikes, visithttps://www.facebook.com/ NWDCResistance/.
NWDC Resistance is a volunteer community group that emerged to fight deportations in 2014 at the now-infamous Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA. NWDC Resistance is part of the #Not1More campaign and supported people detained who organized hunger strikes asking for a halt to all deportations and better treatment and conditions.
Contact: Maru Mora Villalpando, (206) 251 6658, maru@latinoadvocacy.org
#Tacoma12 #Adelanto9 #Not1More #NoEstánSolos
100,000 protest in San Francisco, CA
Pictures From Women's
Marches on Every Continent
Crowds in hundreds of cities around the world gathered Saturday
in conjunction with the Women's March on Washington. JAN. 21, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/21/world/womens-march-pictures.html
Protect Kevin "Rashid" Johnson from Prison Repression!
PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY
WHAT: Protect imprisoned activist-journalist Kevin "Rashid" Johnson
FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/events/1794902884117144/
On December 21, 2016, Kevin "Rashid" Johnson was the victim of an
assault by guards at the Clements Unit where he is currently being held,
just outside Amarillo, Texas. Rashid was sprayed with OC pepper gas
while handcuffed in his cell, and then left in the contaminated cell for
hours with no possibility to shower and no access to fresh air. It was
in fact days before he was supplied with new sheets or clothes (his bed
was covered with the toxic OC residue), and to this day his cell has not
been properly decontaminated.
This assault came on the heels of another serious move against Rashid,
as guards followed up on threats to confiscate all of his property – not
only files required for legal matters, but also art supplies, cups to
drink water out of, and food he had recently purchased from the
commissary. The guards in question were working under the direction of
Captain Patricia Flowers, who had previously told Rashid that she
intended to seize all of his personal belongings as retaliation for his
writings about mistreatment of prisoners, up to and including assaults
and purposeful medical negligence that have led to numerous deaths in
custody. Specifically, Rashid's writings have called attention to the
deaths of Christopher Woolverton, Joseph Comeaux, and Alton Rodgers, and
he has been contacted by lawyers litigating on behalf of the families of
at least two of these men.
As a journalist and activist literally embedded within the bowels of the
world's largest prison system, Rashid relies on his files and notes for
correspondence, legal matters, and his various news reports.
Furthermore, Rashid is a self-taught artist of considerable talent (his
work has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and books);
needless to say, the guards were also instructed to seize his art
materials and the drawings he was working on.
(For a more complete description of Rashid's ordeal on and following
December 21, see his recent article "Bound and Gassed: My Reward for
Exposing Abuses and Killings of Texas Prisoners" at
http://rashidmod.com/?p=2321)
Particularly worrisome, is the fact that the abuse currently directed
against Rashid is almost a carbon-copy of what was directed against
Joseph Comeaux in 2013, who was eventually even denied urgently needed
medical care. Comeaux died shortly thereafter.
This is the time to step up and take action to protect Rashid; and the
only protection we can provide, from the outside, is to make sure prison
authorities know that we are watching. Whether you have read his
articles about prison conditions, his political or philosophical
polemics (and whether you agreed with him or not!), or just appreciate
his artwork – even if this is the first you are hearing about Rashid –
we need you to step up and make a few phone calls and send some emails.
When doing so, let officials know you are contacting them about Kevin
Johnson, ID #1859887, and the incident in which he was gassed and his
property confiscated on December 21, 2016. The officials to contact are:
Warden Kevin Foley
Clements Unit
telephone: (806) 381-7080 (you will reach the general switchboard; ask
to speak to the warden's office)
Tell Warden Foley that you have heard of the gas attack on Rashid.
Specific demands you can make:
* That Kevin Johnson's property be returned to him
* That Kevin Johnson's cell be thoroughly decontaminated
* That Captain Patricia Flowers, Lieutenant Crystal Turner, Lieutenant
Arleen Waak, and Corrections Officer Andrew Leonard be sanctioned for
targeting Kevin Johnson for retaliation for his writings
* That measures be taken to ensure that whistleblowers amongst staff and
the prisoner population not be targeted for any reprisals from guards or
other authorities. (This is important because at least one guard and
several prisoners have signed statements asserting that Rashid was left
in his gassed cell for hours, and that his property should not have been
seized.)
Try to be polite, while expressing how concerned you are for Kevin
Johnson's safety. You will almost certainly be told that because other
people have already called and there is an ongoing investigation – or
else, because you are not a member of his family -- that you cannot be
given any information. Say that you understand, but that you still wish
to have your concerns noted, and that you want the prison to know that
you will be keeping track of what happens to Mr Johnson.
The following other authorities should also be contacted. These bodies
may claim they are unable to directly intervene, however we know that by
creating a situation where they are receiving complaints, they will
eventually contact other authorities who can intervene to see what the
fuss is all about. So it's important to get on their cases too:
TDCJ Ombudsman: ombudsman@tdcj.texas.gov
The Inspector General: 512-671-2480
Let these "watchdogs" know you are concerned that Kevin Johnson #1859887
was the victim of a gas attack in Clements Unit on December 21, 2016.
Numerous witnesses have signed statements confirming that he was
handcuffed, in his cell, and not threatening anyone at the time he was
gassed. Furthermore, he was not allowed to shower for hours, and his
cell was never properly decontaminated, so that he was still suffering
the effects of the gas days later. It is also essential to mention that
his property was improperly confiscated, and that he had previously been
threatened with having this happen as retaliation for his writing about
prison conditions. Kevin Johnson's property must be returned!
Finally, complaints should also be directed to the director of the VA
DOC Harold Clarke and the VA DOC's Interstate Compact Supervisor, Terry
Glenn. This is because Rashid is in fact a Virginia prisoner, who has
been exiled from Virginia under something called the Interstate Compact,
which is used by some states as a way to be rid of activist prisoners,
while at the same time separating them from their families and
supporters. Please contact:
VADOC Director, Harold Clarke
Director.Clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov
Interstate Compact director, Terry Glenn
Let them know that you are phoning about Kevin Johnson, a Virginia
prisoner who has been sent to Texas under the Interstate Compact. His
Texas ID # is 1859887 however his Virginia ID # is 1007485. Inform them
that Mr Johnson has been gassed by guards and has had his property
seized as retaliation for his writing about prison conditions. These are
serious legal and human rights violations, and even though they occurred
in Texas, the Virginia Department of Corrections is responsible as Mr
Johnson is a Virginia prisoner. Despite the fact that they may ask you
who you are, and how you know about this, and for your contact
information, they will likely simply conclude by saying that they will
not be getting back to you. Nonetheless, it is worth urging them to
contact Texas officials about this matter.
It is good to call whenever you are able. However, in order to maximize
our impact, for those who can, we are suggesting that people make their
phone calls on Thursday, January 5.
And at the same time, please take a moment to sign the online petition
to support Rashid, up at the Roots Action website:
https://diy.rootsaction.org/petitions/prison-activist-gassed-in-clements-unit-prison-texas-law-enforcement-is-violently-out-of-control
Rashid has taken considerable risks in reporting on the abuse he
witnesses at the Clements Unit, just as he has at other prisons. Indeed,
he has continued to report on the violence and medical neglect to which
prisoners are subjected, despite threats from prison staff. If we, as a
movement, are serious about working to resist and eventually abolish the
U.S. prison system, we must do all we can to assist and protect those
like Rashid who take it upon themselves to stand up and speak out. As
Ojore Lutalo once put it, "Any movement that does not support their
political internees ... is a sham movement."
To learn more about Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, the abuses in the Texas
prison system, as well as his work in founding and leading the New
Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter, see his website
athttp://www.rashidmod.com
REVEREND EDWARD PINKNEY IS FREE!
Greetings and FYI—Please Forward:
Framed and sent to jail for 3 years. All because he dared to have a successful recall referendum against a corrupt Democratic Mayor in a town owned by Whirlpool.
Oh and did I neglect to mention that his successful boycott against Whirlpool reduced their stock market value to junk mail !!!---- Rev. Edward Pinkney Was Released on June 13!!!
After serving the minimum sentence, 30 months (2-1/2 years), for a crime he never committed, Rev. Edward Pinkney has been released on parole as of Tuesday, June 13!
From: gormatthews@gmail.com
To: justice4bentonharbor@lists. riseup.net
Financial help is needed - we will present
Rev. Pinkney with a Welcome Home check at the Detroit celebration!
Send checks to ~
Moratorium NOW Coalition
5920 Second Ave.
(on memo line write: Welcome Home Rev. Pinkney).
Let's give Rev. Pinkney a big welcome home from the belly of the beast!
He is in good spirits and looks forward to his reunion with his wife, Dorothy, his community, and.....the rest of us.
Oh and did I neglect to mention that his successful boycott against Whirlpool reduced their stock market value to junk mail !You can welcome Rev. Pinkney home yourself at a dinner in Detroit on July 8!Saturday, July 8------- 2pm
St. Matthew & St. Joseph Episcopal Church
8850 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI
Please support The People's Pastor by making financial donations (checkout his website for an address or....see address above
CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!
http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos
Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:
Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.
I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.
Courage Campaign
LeftAction
Project Springboard
RootsAction
Student Debt Crisis
Working Families
Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
Dear Supporters:
Today marks the 5th Anniversary of when the United States Supreme Court Reinstated my Wrongful Life Sentence.
The prosecution in my case turned over NEVER seen before Case Discovery to my legal team. This Case Discovery I speak on was withheld from me and ALL of my prior attorneys for 18½ years. Not only was the prosecution's only witness was labeled a SUSPECT in this same murder I've been wrongfully convicted of, I was also furnished with a written statement from this same witness, for almost two decades I was told this witness never made a written statement. So I had to honor a police summary of this witness. Well, this statement shows my innocence and contradicts what this witness testified to from my preliminary hearing to my trial. To make a long story short, the prosecution in my case let this false testimony go un-correct from the lower court all the way up to the United States Supreme Court who relied on this testimony to Reinstate my conviction when I was a free man. This was done knowingly.
For the last 21 years, my family and I have been living this nightmare. Thanks to my legal team headed by Michael Wiseman and the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, who have been working extremely hard to secure my freedom. The judge who is presiding over my case have seen enough evidence to award me an Evidentiary Hearing on my claims of Prosecution Misconduct (Brady Violations).
These hearings will be taking place on July 11, 12, 13 2017 starting at 9am in courtroom No. 8 at the Dauphin County Courthouse, 101 Market Street, 5th Floor, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17101.
Feel free to join me, my family and supporters in my pursuit of my future. For people in the New York Metropolitan area, The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice will be sponsoring a FREE roundtrip bus ride for my family, friends and supporters.
There are seats available on the first come basis. So please send an email asap and make your reservation.
Within the next couple weeks I will be transferred to Dauphin County Prison to await my court dates. I will see you there. I pray that this is the beginning of the end of my 21year nightmare. Thanks for your support and I encourage you to continue. Please continue to support me in any way you can. For those who are in position to financially contribute please do so--It's needed. My freedom is on the horizon.
Free the Innocent,
"The Pain Within"
Lorenzo "Cat" Johnson
Lorenzo is continuing to fight for his freedom with the support of his lead counsel, Michael Wiseman, The Pennsylvania Innocence Project, the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, and the Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson.
Thank you all for reading this message and please take the time to visit our websiteand contribute to Lorenzo's campaign for freedom!
Write: Lorenzo Johnson
DF 1036
301 Morea Rd.
Email: via LorenzoJohnson17932@gmail.com
directly on ConnectNetwork -- instructions here
- Team Free Lorenzo Johnson
1) Body Count
The body count rises in the U.S. war against Black people
By Ajamu Baraka
CounterPunch, June 20, 2017
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/20/the-body-count-rises-in-the-u-s-war-against-Black-people/
2) Would a White British Community Have Burned in Grenfell Tower?
By DAWN FOSTER JUNE 20, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/opinion/london-tower-grenfell-fire.html?action=click&pgtype=
Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-
c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
3) Lead Poisoning, a Persistent Sign of Poverty, Is Linked to School Suspensions and Lower Student Test Scores
New evidence that kids with higher exposure to lead are more likely to misbehave in school and do worse academically.
By Rachel M. Cohen, June 13, 2017
http://www.alternet.org/education/lead-poisoning-linked-school-suspensions-and-lower-test-scores
4) Psychologists Open a Window on Brutal C.I.A. Interrogations
A lawsuit filed on behalf of former prisoners reveals new details about a program that used techniques widely viewed as torture.
By SHERI FINK and JAMES RISEN, JUNE 21, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/21/us/cia-torture.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
5) Family of Michael Brown Settles Lawsuit Against City of Ferguson
By JOHN ELIGON JUNE 20, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/us/family-of-michael-brown-settles-lawsuit-against-city-of-ferguson.html?hp&action=
click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-r
egion&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
6) Opioids, a Mass Killer We're Meeting With a Shrug
"About as many Americans are expected to die this year of drug overdoses as died in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. ...We as a nation are going backward, and drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50."
[Drug addiction is an illness that can trap anyone. The fact that it's the leading cause of death for Americans under 50 is astonishing. And, I believe that only scratches the surface of those actually addicted to opioids. I have experienced this addiction in my own family. It is a brutal struggle to recover especially since the availability of effective help is outrageously expensive. This is something that should be covered in healthcare plans. AND IT SHOULD BE FREE TO ALL WHO NEED IT! And the needs of those addicted reaches much further than just the addiction itself. Such addiction causes profound other problems such as homelessness, destitution, joblessness and more. And it has been caused by the biggest drug pushers in the world, the pharmaceutical companies. They give these pills to folks for almost anything. Instead of promoting physical fitness, they give out pain killers. I've seen it over and over. This is why we need free universal healthcare for all and to rid society of the pharmaceutical drug giants that profit in the tens-of-billions off this stuff! Profit and health and medicine do not mix!...bw]
Nicholas Kristof JUNE 22, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/opinion/opioid-epidemic-health-care-bill.html?action=
click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=
opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
7) Cuba Will Not Bow to Trump
By Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla
https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/22/cuba-will-not-bow-to-trumps-threats/
8) Day of Rage
London marchers denounce "corporate manslaughter" of Grenfell Tower victims
By Jon Queally
Common Dreams, June 21, 2017
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/06/21/day-rage-london-marchers-denounce-corporate-manslaughter-grenfell-tower-victims
9) London Fire Could Result in Manslaughter Charges, U.K. Police Say
By CEYLAN YEGINSU JUNE 23, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/world/europe/grenfell-tower-fire-hotpoint-london.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld&action=click&contentCollection=world&region=rank&module=
package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
10) New Charges for Ex-Officer in Texas Accused of Murdering Black Teenager
By MANNY FERNANDEZ and SERGE F. KOVALESKI JUNE 23, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/us/roy-oliver-balch-springs-police-jordan-edwards-killing.html?rref=
collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=
us&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
Before we can even process the acquittal of the murder of Philado Castile, we hear about another murder of a Black person by the police occupation forces. This time the victim, Charleena Lyles, is a Black woman who was also five months pregnant.
Again, there is anger, confusion and calls for justice from the Black community of Seattle, where the latest killing took place. Many might remember that it was in Seattle where two members of the local Black community attempted to call out the racist and hypocritical liberal white community during a visit by Bernie Sanders. The Black activists were subsequently shouted down by a majority of Bernie's supporters. One of the issues that the activists wanted to raise was the repressive, heavy-handed tactics of the Seattle Police Department.
Some have argued that this rash of killings of Black people caught on video or reported by dozens of witnesses is nothing new, that the images of police chocking, shooting and beating poor Black and working-class people is now more visible because of technological innovations that make it easier to capture these images. They are partially right.
As an internal colony in what some refer to as a prison house of nations that characterizes the U.S. nation state, Black communities are separated into enclaves of economic exploitation and social degradation by visible and often invisible social and economic processes. The police have played the role not of protectors of the unrealized human rights of Black people but as occupation forces. In those occupied zones of repression, everyone knows that the police operate from a different script than the ones presented in the cop shows that permeate popular entertainment culture in the U.S. In those shows, the police are presented as heroic forces battling the forces of evil, which sometimes causes them to see the law and the rights of individuals as impediments. For many viewers, brutality and other practices is forgiven and even supported because the police are supposedly dealing with the evil irrational forces that lurk in the bowels of the barrios and ghettos in the imagination of the public.
It was perfectly plausible for far too many white people in the U.S. that a wounded Mike Brown, already shot and running away from Darren Wilson, the cop who eventually murdered Michael, would then turn around and run back at Wilson, who claimed he had no other choice but to engulf Michael in a hail of bullets killing this "demon" as Wilson described him. And unfortunately, many whites will find a way to understand how Charleena, who called the police herself to report a burglary, would then find herself dead at the hands of the police she called.
But the psychopathology of white supremacy is not the focus here. We have commented on that issue on numerous occasions. The concern is with some Black people who have not grasped the new conditions that we find ourselves in—that Black people don't understand that there will never be justice as defined by the cessation of these kinds of killings. Why? Because incarceration, police killings, beatings, charging our children as adults and locking them away for decades, all of these are inherent in the logic of repression that has always characterized the relationship between the U.S. racist settler-state and Black people.
In other words, if Black people really want this to stop we have to come to the difficult conclusion, for some, that the settler-colonial, capitalist, white supremacist state and society is the enemy of Black people and most oppressed people in the world. Difficult for many because it means that Black people can no longer deny the fact that we are not equal members of this society, that we are seen as the enemy and that our lives, concerns, perspectives, history and desires for the future are of no concern to the rulers of this state and for vast numbers of ordinary whites.
That is why Charleena Lyles joins Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, John Crawford and Philando Castile, just a few of the names of our people victimized in the prime of their lives by the protectors of white power wearing police uniforms.
She will not be the last.
The logic of neoliberal capitalism has transformed our communities and peoples into a sector of the U.S. population that is no longer needed. This new reality buttressed by white supremacist ideology that is unable to see the equal value of non-European (white) life has created a precarious situation for Black people, more precarious, than any other period in U.S. history.
African (Black) people are a peaceful people and believe in justice. But there can be no peace without justice. For as long as our people are under attack, as long as our fundamental collective human rights are not recognized, as long as we don't have the ability to determine our own collective fate, we will resist, we will fight, and we will create the conditions to make sure that the war being waged against us will not continue to be a one-sided conflict.
The essence of the People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework is that the oppressed have a right to resist, the right to self-determination, and the right to use whatever means necessary to protect and realize their fundamental rights.
Charleena, we will say your name and the names of all who have fallen as we deliver the final death-blow against this organized barbarism known as the U.S.
Ajamu Baraka is a human rights activist, organizer and geo-political analyst. Baraka is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, D.C. and editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. He is a contributor to Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence (CounterPunch Books, 2014).
Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-
col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
LONDON — If it hadn't been Ramadan, even more people would have died, firefighters told me on the scene at Grenfell Tower, the apartment building in West London that went up in flames on June 14 and is believed to have left more than 80 people dead.
The building had a high number of Muslim residents, and when the fire began, in the early morning hours, many people were returning from prayers or were awake, breaking their fast, and were able to raise the alarm. None of the survivors I spoke to, or saw interviewed in the media, had heard a fire alarm: Instead they were woken by smoke, screams or their neighbors hammering on doors to wake them before escaping themselves.
The tower and the area around it are ethnically diverse, with many families from Moroccan and Somali backgrounds. One of the first people confirmed dead was Mohamed al-Haj Ali, a 23-year-old Syrian refugee.
In the evening on the day of the fire, survivors, volunteers and locals held an iftar meal to break the Ramadan fast. Many of the volunteers I spoke with were exhausted from carrying donations and supplies on a hot day while they abstained from food and water.
The residents of the Lancaster West Estate, the development that envelops the Grenfell Tower, are typical of the modern British metropolitan working class. While there still exists a widespread nostalgia among some quarters for a beleaguered white working class, the truth is different. Poverty rates are lowest among the white population — at about 20 percent — while 50 percent of people of African descent live in poverty. Overall, two-fifths of ethnic minorities live in a household earning below average income.
Indeed, Britain's racial politics are the key to understanding the Grenfell Tower fire. It's difficult to imagine this disaster — caused by a huge dereliction of duty and refusal to listen to residents' concerns — befalling a community of white Britons.
Tabloid media and political parties like the nationalist U.K. Independence Party have attacked the changing demographics of urban Britain: Salacious, false rumors circulate on the far right of "no-go" areas in London and Birmingham, areas where deadly crime makes walking the streets unsafe or where patrols enforce Shariah law on a neighborhood. The truth is that these neighborhoods, though poor, are often tight knit, with a sense of solidarity overriding any supposed lack of ethnic cohesion.
Community centers ringing the towers were deluged with donations, and volunteers of many different faiths arrived from across London and further afield. Two young Sikh men told me they'd driven nearly an hour from Slough with friends from their temple. Many volunteers wore green T-shirts stating they were working for the Muslim Aid charity. Christian vicars and Catholic priests opened their churches to the relief effort.
Survivors and former residents told me many of the tenants did not speak English as a first language, and felt this meant their concerns were dismissed during and after a refurbishment project that, it now seems clear, exacerbated the fire.
The former chair of the Grenfell Tower residents' association, David Collins, told me many residents received threatening letters from lawyers for the contractor completing the building work, and they felt intimidated by visits and complaints from managers of the company.
The blaze happened after a yearslong attack by the Conservative government on low-income housing. The amount of public housing being built has dropped for more than two decades, even more drastically since 2012 to reach a 24-year low. Meanwhile, more and more is being sold off and demolished, even though demand is higher than it has been in decades.
Many local councils have been desperate to build, but have instead had their funding slashed, meaning they are closing homeless shelters when they want to build more homes. As well as funding cuts, changes in the classification of homelessness have seen more families turned away when they need help: Over 100,000 children in England are currently in temporary accommodation, while single adults are routinely turned away.
The reported failings in the run up to the disaster have a clear class element, but also a racial one. White tenants said their concerns were ultimately ignored, but officials were more likely to listen to them. Black and South Asian survivors told me they felt the implicit message from everyone they contacted before the fire for help with the building was "you are a guest in this borough, and a guest in this country, you have no right to complain."
The local authority the estate sits in, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, is the richest borough in Britain. Houses there routinely sell for several million pounds — many times higher than the average in Britain. "If someone in those houses complained about their rubbish bins, the council would sort it out immediately," one Grenfell resident told me. "But because we weren't white, no one cared when they said their homes were dangerous."
In London in particular, gentrification has seen a rise in redevelopment projects on public housing estates that, more often than not, involve evictions and the land the demolished houses stand on being sold for hefty sums to developers. The evicted tenants are usually poor, and often from diverse ethnic backgrounds, similar to the community in Grenfell Tower.
When Prime Minister Theresa May visited the site last week, she refused to meet residents, citing "safety concerns." (Meanwhile, both the queen and Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, met with Grenfell tenants.) On Sunday, Mrs. May had a few survivors visit her at Downing Street — but only after she was forced to flee angry protests by locals a few days earlier.
Fixing Britain's public housing crisis will not be easy. And it's not likely to happen as long as Mrs. May and her Conservatives are in charge of the government. But the level of public anger right now since the Grenfell disaster is forcing people here to confront the issues of class and race, gentrification and public policy that, it is now clear, can be deadly.
Dawn Foster (@DawnHFoster) is a contributing editor at The Guardian's Housing Networkand the author of "Lean Out."
Over the past several years, education advocates and civil rights groups have been sounding the alarm on the harms of exclusionary school discipline policies. Critics say these punishments—suspensions, expulsions, and school-based arrests—are increasingly doled out for minor infractions, and disproportionately given to students of color.
A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper published in May adds a new wrinkle to the debate on disparities in school discipline: Economists found causal evidence linking young children with higher exposures to lead in their bloodstream with an increased probability of getting suspended from school and placed in juvenile detention.
Anna Aizer, a Brown University economist, and Janet Currie, a Princeton University economist were the first researchers to look at the relationship between lead exposure and school discipline. While others have explored links between lead exposure, criminal activity, and cognitive development, this study breaks new ground by tracking individual children over time.
One reason why researchers hadn't studied lead and school discipline before is due to insufficient data. Most children exposed to lead tend to come from disadvantaged backgrounds, but even if a researcher had identified a relationship between lead levels and future disciplinary infractions—they could not determine if lead was driving the relationship, or if the underlying poverty was the cause.
Getting precise measurements of lead has also been a challenge for researchers. Blood tests are relatively cheap and easy to administer, but depending on when the blood is drawn, the results may or may not accurately capture a child's exposure because lead remains in an individual's bloodstream for a little over a month before their organs absorb the metal. In other words, researchers worry that they potentially underestimate children's exposure to lead when they analyze blood tests.
Only 11 states and the District of Columbia even mandate blood-lead tests for children, which exacerbates the problem of mismeasuring lead. Researchers estimate that maybe a quarter of all U.S. children nationally ever get screened. A Reuters investigation published last year documented how millions of kids fall through the cracks, even among those who are required to undergo state-mandated screening.
Yet Rhode Island, where Aizer and Currie did their study, presented some unique research opportunities. Unlike most states, the number of children in Rhode Island who get screened for lead is high, close to 80 percent. Not only that, but Rhode Island children are also screened three times on average during their first six years of life. This means that the chances of getting an accurate measure of lead exposure are significantly higher than usual since kids are tested multiple times.
Aizer and Currie studied Rhode Island children born between 1990 and 2004. They accessed state health department data on each child's preschool blood lead levels from 1994 to 2010, and then linked that information to school suspension data for the 2007-2008 and 2013-2014 school years. The researchers also compared this information to data from the state's juvenile detention facility and all Rhode Island correctional institutions.
"What we find is that there's a pretty robust relationship between early childhood lead levels as measured by the blood tests and future disciplinary infractions," says Aizer. Not only were children with elevated blood-lead levels more likely to be suspended, but Aizer and Currie found that suspended children were also ten times more likely to end up in juvenile detention.
The two most common sources of lead poisoning are old paint and soil. A robust movement to reduce lead in the environment didn't really take off until 1971, when the U.S. surgeon general issued a policy statement on childhood lead poisoning, and the EPA's first administrator declared that "an extensive body of information exists which indicates that the addition of alkyl lead to gasoline ... results in lead particles that pose a threat to public health."
The federal government finally banned lead-based paint in 1978, but older housing units may still contain the metal. Washington also phased out leaded gasoline between 1979 and 1986. While the amount of lead in soil has significantly decreased over time—because it's been washed out, blown, or tracked away—the soil near roadways, especially in urban areas, may still contain lead that had seeped into the ground from automobile exhaust.
One strategy Aizer and Currie used to track the relationship between blood-lead levels and future misbehavior was to look at where kids with high lead exposure live. "We tried to address the question of confounding variables by looking at the same kids who live near the same roads at different periods of time [with the] same racial composition, the same income," says Aizer. "The difference is they are living or born near roads fifteen years later, as the amount of lead in the soil near roads declined because of repaving or rain runoff or new turf." The economists found that the dramatic declines in lead levels were linked to significant declines in disciplinary infractions.
Aizer and Currie's findings related to race and gender were complex.
Aizer and Currie's findings related to race and gender were complex. They found that white girls with high lead levels were not likely to be suspended, but that was not true for African-American girls, or, generally, for boys. They also found that the relationship between lead and suspensions was much stronger for kids who received free lunches. While Aizer and Currie have not settled on definitive explanations for why lead had different effects on different children, they have developed some possible theories.
"There is some evidence that cognitive stimulation reduces or mitigates the negative impact of lead," says Aizer, who explains that if a child who receives free lunches—a proxy for low-income households—gets less stimulation, they might react differently to the lead exposure compared to a wealthier student exposed to lead. Another explanation could be that schools respond differently to the misbehavior of different groups of students. Currie and Aizer say that there is evidence for both interpretations.
Their research comes on the heels of another working paper Aizer, Currie, and two other colleagues co-published last year. Using a slightly different research strategy but still involving Rhode Island children, they found that reducing children's lead levels had significant positive effects on third grade reading test scores, especially for black and Hispanic students. "A one-unit decrease in average blood-lead levels reduces the probability of being substantially below proficient in reading by 3.1 percentage points," the economists concluded.
While average childhood lead levels have fallen by more than 90 percent over the last 40 years, progress has been uneven, especially in poor urban areas with old housing stock.
Some states, like Rhode Island, have taken effective steps to reduce exposure to lead. In 1997, for example, Rhode Island officials implemented policies that required landlords to ensure that their rental properties were lead-free. One policy required all Rhode Island landlords to obtain "lead-safe certificates" if they intend to rent their properties. Another required landlords who own buildings where a child had elevated lead levels to mitigate the lead hazard or face legal action by the state attorney general.
In 2010, the U.S. spent more than $80 billion on corrections expenditures at the federal, state, and local levels, according to the Brookings Institution. They found that total correctional expenditures had more than quadrupled over the past 20 years. And in 2014, after surveying 46 states on their costs of juvenile detention, the Justice Policy Institute reported that average per-person costs for the most expensive juvenile confinement options reached $407 a day, or nearly $150,000 per year.
"Governments need to think about this," says Aizer. "Crime is just an incredibly expensive outcome for a state, and lead mitigation is so much cheaper relative to that."
Rachel M. Cohen is a writing fellow at The American Prospect. Her work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, Dissent, Next City and The Forward.
Fifteen years after he helped devise the brutal interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects in secret C.I.A. prisons, John Bruce Jessen, a former military psychologist, expressed ambivalence about the program.
He described himself and a fellow military psychologist, James Mitchell, as reluctant participants in using the techniques, some of which are widely viewed as torture, but also justified the practices as effective in getting resistant detainees to cooperate.
"I think any normal, conscionable man would have to consider carefully doing something like this," Dr. Jessen said in a newly disclosed deposition. "I deliberated with great, soulful torment about this, and obviously I concluded that it could be done safely or I wouldn't have done it."
The two psychologists — whom C.I.A. officials have called architects of the interrogation program, a designation they dispute — are defendants in the only lawsuit that may hold participants accountable for causing harm.
The program has been well documented, but under deposition, with a camera focused on their faces, Drs. Jessen and Mitchell provided new details about the interrogation effort, their roles in it and their rationales. Their accounts were sometimes at odds with their own correspondence at the time, as well as previous portrayals of them by officials and other interrogators as eager participants in the program.
The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Spokane, Wash., was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several former prisoners of the Central Intelligence Agency. The New York Times has obtained the video depositions of Dr. Jessen and Dr. Mitchell, as well as those of two former C.I.A. officials and two former detainees. Newly declassified agency documents have also been released in the case.
Revelations about the C.I.A. practices, which were a radical departure for the United States, set off global denunciations and bitter divisions at home. They led to an eventual ban on the techniques and a prohibition by the American Psychological Association against members' participation in national security interrogations. A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report condemned the interrogation techniques as torture and ineffective in providing useful intelligence.
For years, Dr. Mitchell, polished and assertive, has defended the two men's actions in the press and in a recent book, while Dr. Jessen remained silent. But Dr. Jessen answered questions under oath on Jan. 20, the same day that President Trump was inaugurated. During the election campaign Mr. Trump had pledged to revive the use of torture, including waterboarding, though he later backed off.
The two psychologists argue that the C.I.A., for which they were contractors, controlled the program. But it is difficult to successfully sue agency officials because of government immunity.
Under the agency's direction, the two men said, they proposed the "enhanced interrogation" techniques — which were then authorized by the Justice Department — applied them and trained others to do so. Their business received $81 million from the agency.
But in his deposition, Dr. Jessen indicated that the two men had some reservations. "Jim and I didn't want to continue doing what we were doing," Dr. Jessen testified. "We tried to get out several times and they needed us, and we — we kept going."
The outline for the techniques emerged in 2002 when C.I.A. officials asked them to come up with proposals. The techniques were largely adapted from those the psychologists had used to train American soldiers in survival schools to resist brutal interrogations by hostile forces that were violating the laws of war.
"Jim and I went into a cubicle," Dr. Jessen said. "He sat down at a typewriter and together we wrote out a list." They thought those techniques — including sensory and sleep deprivation, shackling for hours in uncomfortable positions and waterboarding — would be safer than others the C.I.A. might consider to get resistant detainees to provide information that could help head off another terrorist attack, he said.
Soon after, the C.I.A. asked them to use the techniques to interrogate a terrorism suspect, something with which they had no experience.
"I had been in the military my whole life and — and I was committed to and used to doing what I was ordered to do," Dr. Jessen said. "That's the way I considered this circumstance."
Abu Zubaydah, taken into custody in 2002, was the first detainee to be waterboarded. The United States government believed he was a top leader of Al Qaeda, though it later abandoned that claim.
At a secret C.I.A. jail in Thailand, he provided useful intelligence to F.B.I. agents who questioned him using traditional methods, including rapport-building. But worried that he was holding back information, which the C.I.A. later concluded he never had, agency leaders chose to use extreme physical force to break him.
Drs. Mitchell and Jessen were sent to the jail to carry out the techniques, including waterboarding. Water was poured over a cloth covering Abu Zubaydah's face to simulate drowning. He underwent the procedure 83 times over a period of days; at one point he was completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising from his mouth, according to the Senate report. A newly declassified August 2002 cable from the prison to headquarters noted: "At the onset of involuntary stomach and leg spasms, subject was again elevated to clear his airway, which was followed by hysterical pleas. Subject was distressed to the level that he was unable to effectively communicate or adequately engage the team."
When those at the prison wanted to end the waterboarding sessions as no longer useful, C.I.A. supervisors — including Jose Rodriguez, then the head of the agency's Counterterrorism Center and a witness who testified under oath in the lawsuit — ordered them to continue.
"They kept telling me every day a nuclear bomb was going to be exploded in the United States and that because I had told them to stop, I had lost my nerve and it was going to be my fault if I didn't continue," Dr. Jessen testified.
Dr. Mitchell said that the C.I.A. officials told them: "'You guys have lost your spine.' I think the word that was actually used is that you guys are pussies. There was going to be another attack in America and the blood of dead civilians are going to be on your hands."
Still, the psychologists' interrogation team recommended using the aggressive techniques as a "template for future interrogations of high-value captives," according to an agency cable. The psychologists later subjected two other prisoners — Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — to waterboarding.
In his deposition, Dr. Mitchell, who once said that most people would prefer to have their legs broken than to be waterboarded, disagreed with a lawyer's reference to the practice as painful. "It sucks, you know. I don't know that it's painful," he said. "I'm using the word distressing."
Both Dr. Jessen and Dr. Mitchell rejected any notion that men subjected to the harsh techniques suffered any long-term physical or psychological damage. "If they are out there and that happened, then, you know, show me the data," Dr. Mitchell said. He added that if the techniques were applied as recommended, "my view is, that is so unlikely so as to be impossible."
But The Times last year found a pattern of long-term psychological damageamong dozens of former detainees subjected to brutal treatment by the United States. The men described grappling with depression, anxiety, withdrawal and flashbacks.
In their depositions, two former prisoners who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit described their torment. Drs. Mitchell and Jessen said they had not interrogated or encountered the two men.
Mohamed Ben Soud, a Libyan, was held by the C.I.A. in Afghanistan and was subjected to being locked in small boxes, slammed against a wall and doused with buckets of ice water while naked and shackled. He said he still suffered from nightmares, fear, mood swings and other psychological injuries as a result of his captivity.
"It comes to me during my sleep and as if I'm still imprisoned in that horrible place and still shackled," he said in his deposition, through a translator. "I get the feeling of worry about my future and about the fear that this could happen again."
Suleiman Salim, a Tanzanian captured in 2003 and also held by the C.I.A. in Afghanistan, was beaten, isolated in a dark cell for months, subjected to dousing with water and deprived of sleep. He said he suffered from flashbacks, headaches, sleeplessness and ringing in his ears.
"I don't feel like being with people, I like being with myself, and I don't like walking around to see people," he said in his deposition, also through a translator. "I feel like I'm so weak and I can't do anything."
Dr. Jessen said that after the C.I.A.'s secret detention program became public — it was officially acknowledgedby President George W. Bush in 2006, but had been previously described in news reports — he and Dr. Mitchell were asked for guidance about which methods could be eliminated. They also deliberated "damn near every day how we could help our government and not do the things we were doing," Dr. Jessen said. He said they developed an alternative involving less physical coercion, but never had the chance to put it into practice. He would not provide details because the plans remain classified.
Still, Dr. Mitchell asserted that the current legal limits on interrogation methods were too restrictive, and both men said that some of the physically harsh techniques were useful. "Walling," in which a prisoner is repeatedly slammed against a flexible plywood wall, was "one of the most effective," Dr. Jessen said. "It's discombobulating. It doesn't hurt you, but it jostles the inner ear, it makes a really loud noise."
He also described extreme sleep deprivation: "There is a tether anchored to the ceiling in the center of the detention cell. The detainee has handcuffs and they're attached to the tether in a way that they can't lie down or rest against a wall. They're monitored to make sure they don't get edema if they hang on the cuffs too much."
Mr. Salim, responding to questions about the same technique, described it as excruciating: "A lot of pain in my arms, a lot of pains in my back and around my waist."
In his deposition, Dr. Mitchell revealed that he, along with others, urged the C.I.A. to destroy videotapes the agency had made of some interrogations. The destruction of the tapes became the subject of investigations both by the Justice Department and Congress.
Dr. Mitchell explained his reasoning about the graphic images of waterboarding and other practices: "I thought they were ugly and they would, you know, potentially endanger our lives by putting our pictures out so that the bad guys could see us."
Both men denied accusations that they evaluated the effectiveness of the methods they promoted. However, the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights, in a report being released this week, contends that the men and the C.I.A. engaged in unethical experimentation on detainees, which is banned by the Nuremberg Code for health professionals developed after World War II.
The group said the explicit mention of applied research in the psychologists' contracts with the agency, released recently through the lawsuit, and similar references in recently released C.I.A. cables, indicate that the enhanced interrogation program "was itself an applied research regime and implicitly conceptualized as such by the C.I.A."
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Gibbons law firm of Newark brought the lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Salim, Mr. Ben Soud and the estate of a third man, Gul Rahman, who died in C.I.A. custody in Afghanistan in 2002, most likely of hypothermia. Dr. Jessen, who participated in the prisoner's interrogation, said he had asked guards several times to provide clothes and blankets to him.
The case is scheduled for trial on Sept. 5. Last month, both sides asked Judge Justin L. Quackenbush of Federal District Court to rule summarily in their favor. He declined to do so, but did grant the United States government's request to block the deposition of two additional former C.I.A. officials as witnesses and the release of certain documents requested by Drs. Mitchell and Jessen, on grounds it could harm national security. However, the case was permitted to continue.
Video production by Malachy Browne, Natalie Reneau and Sheri Fink. Design and production by Danny DeBelius.
click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
A federal judge on Tuesday approved a settlement in the lawsuit brought by the family of Michael Brown against the police officer who fatally shot him in Ferguson, Mo., ending the legal chapter of a case that sparked national outrage over the police's treatment of black people.
Mr. Brown, who was 18 and black, was unarmed when he was shot three years ago by Officer Darren Wilson, who said that Mr. Brown had attacked him and charged toward him when he fired the fatal shots. Some witnesses said that Mr. Brown had his hands up, but both federal and state prosecutors questioned that narrative and determined that there was not enough evidence to charge Mr. Wilson, who is white, criminally.
Judge E. Richard Webber of the Eastern District of Missouri sealed the details of the settlement, which also named the city of Ferguson and the former police chief, Thomas Jackson. The amount would be less than $3 million, according to a person familiar with the details of the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no one is allowed to speak about the particulars of the case. Three million dollars is the most the city can pay under its insurance, according to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The lawsuit was filed by Mr. Brown's father, Michael Sr., and his mother, Lesley McSpadden.
"I hope that this gives the family some closure and I hope they feel like this gives them a little bit of justice," said Emily Davis, a Ferguson resident who has advocated police reform. "But I do not feel like the community has justice yet. People's experiences with the police and the court system are not changing quickly. The city is still not changing openly and willingly."
Lawyers for Mr. Brown's parents declined to comment on the settlement. A phone message left with the city's media line on Tuesday evening was not immediately returned.
Mr. Brown's killing sparked months of protests and occasional rioting, with many people saying that the case represented over aggressive policing of black communities. Mr. Wilson, who has since left the Ferguson police force, had stopped Mr. Brown and a friend who had been walking in the middle of a residential street in the suburb north of St. Louis on Aug. 9, 2014. That led to a physical confrontation at Mr. Wilson's police cruiser, which eventually led to a foot chase and the shooting.
The lawsuit argued that Mr. Wilson was aggressive and profane in stopping Mr. Brown and a friend, and that he fired a shot at Mr. Brown as he ran away. Mr. Brown's parents also cited what they say Mr. Wilson told his supervisor at the scene — that Mr. Brown had put his hands up.
Although Mr. Wilson was never criminally charged, the Justice Department investigated the city's law enforcement system and issued an excoriating report that found that the police and the courts routinely violated people's rights. Black people were disproportionately affected by the police's practices, which included using petty violations and regular traffic stops to pad the city's coffers.
The fallout from the shooting included the resignations of the city's police chief, manager and judge. But voters this spring re-elected their incumbent mayor to another term.
The city entered into an agreement with the Justice Department to reform its law enforcement system, including new police training, civilian review and changing a system that locked up people who could not afford to pay fines.
"I would say we're moving in that direction," Tony Rice, a Ferguson resident and activist, said of reforming the system. "But it's moving pretty slow."
About as many Americans are expected to die this year of drug overdoses as died in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.
For more than 100 years, death rates have been dropping for Americans — but now, because of opioids, death rates are rising again. We as a nation are going backward, and drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50.
"There's no question that there's an epidemic and that this is a national public health emergency," Dr. Leana Wen, the health commissioner of Baltimore, told me. "The number of people overdosing is skyrocketing, and we have no indication that we've reached the peak."
Yet our efforts to address this scourge are pathetic.
We responded to World War II with the storming of Normandy, and to Sputnik with our moon shot. Yet we answer this current national menace with … a Republican plan for health care that would deprive millions of insurance and lead to even more deaths!
More on President Trump's fumbling of this problem in a moment. But it's bizarre that Republicans should be complacent about opioids, because the toll is disproportionately in red states — and it affects everyone.
Mary Taylor, the Republican lieutenant governor of Ohio and now a candidate for governor, has acknowledged that both her sons, Joe and Michael, have struggled with opioid addiction, resulting in two overdoses at home, urgent calls for ambulances and failed drug rehab efforts. Good for her for speaking up.
It should be a national scandal that only 10 percent of Americans with opioid problems get treatment. This reflects our failed insistence on treating opioids as a criminal justice problem rather than as a public health crisis.
A Times investigation published this month estimated that more than 59,000 Americans died in 2016 of drug overdoses, in the largest annual jump in such deaths ever recorded in the U.S. One reason is the spread of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is cheap and potent, leading to overdoses.
Another bad omen: As a nation, we're still hooked on prescription painkillers. Last year, there were more than 236 million prescriptions written for opioids in the United States — that's about one bottle of opioids for every American adult.
Even with all that's at stake, there are three reasons to doubt that Trump will confront the problem.
First, Trump and Republicans in Congress seem determined to repeal Obamacare, which provides for addiction treatment, and slash Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the G.O.P. House plan would result in an additional 23 million Americans being uninsured in a decade — and thus less able to get drug treatment. Other, more technical elements of the G.O.P. plan would also result in less treatment.
Second, Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, last month seemed to belittle the medication treatments for opioid addiction that have the best record, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions still seems to think we can jail our way out of the problem.
Third, Trump's main step has been to appoint Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey to lead a task force to investigate opioid addiction. But we needn't waste more time investigating, for we know what to do — and in any case Christie talks a good game but bungled the issue in his home state.
Among experts, there's overwhelming evidence of what works best: medication in conjunction with counseling. This doesn't succeed in every case, but it does reduce deaths and improve lives. It also saves public money, because a result is fewer emergency room visits and inpatient hospital stays. So the question isn't whether we can afford treatment for all people fighting addiction, but whether we can afford not to provide it.
The bottom line is that we need a major national public health initiative to treat as many Americans abusing drugs as possible, with treatment based on science and evidence. We also need to understand that drug overdoses are symptoms of deeper malaise — "deaths of despair," in the words of Anne Case and Angus Deaton of Princeton University, stemming from economic woes — and seek to address the underlying issues.
Above all, let's show compassion. Addiction is a disease, like diabetes and high blood pressure. We would never tell diabetics to forget medication and watch their diets and exercise more — and we would be aghast if only 10 percent of diabetics were getting lifesaving treatment.
Innumerable people with addictions whom I've interviewed haunt me. One was a nurse who became dependent on prescription painkillers and was fired when she was caught stealing painkillers from a hospital. She became homeless and survived by providing sex to strangers in exchange for money or drugs.
She wept as she told me her story, for she was disgusted with what she had become — but we as a society should be disgusted by our own collective complacency, by our refusal to help hundreds of thousands of neighbors who are sick and desperate for help.
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
I wish to express my condolences to the people and government of Portugal for the disaster, which has cost dozens of human lives; as well as to the government and people of the United Kingdom following recent events in London.
I convey our most heartfelt condolences to the people and government of Colombia regarding the terrorist attack, which has led to several deaths.
On June 16, the President of the United States Donald Trump announced in Miami the policy his government has decided to implement with regard to Cuba.
The Cuban government, meanwhile, issued an official statement. Cuban civil society organizations have also made declarations.
Among others, the President of the United States approved the following measures: the prohibition of economic, commercial and financial relations between U.S. companies and Cuban entities linked to the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior; the prohibition of individual travel by U.S. citizens under the category of "people-to-people" exchanges, and greater monitoring of all travelers; as well as a review of all the programs directed against Cuba's constitutional order, to supposedly ensure their effectiveness.
Also repealed was the Presidential Directive issued by President Barack Obama in October 2016, which despite being profoundly interventionist, and aimed at changing the constitutional order of the Republic of Cuba, did however recognize our country's independence, sovereignty, and self-determination; Cuba's revolutionary government as a legitimate and equal interlocutor, and also proposed a new civilized relationship intended to benefit both peoples.
The Directive, which has now been vacated, also recognized the blockade as a failed policy, which has been unsuccessful, failed to achieve its objectives, and should be eliminated.
All of these measures were announced in a Theater named after Manuel Artime, civilian leader of the mercenary brigade that invaded our country at Playa Girón or the Bay of Pigs. It was a grotesque Cold War-era spectacle, made before a small audience, composed of old henchmen and thieves of the Batista dictatorship, mercenaries from the Playa Girón brigade, terrorists, demagogues and "lackeys."
President Trump greeted several of these individuals by name, and was surrounded or accompanied by others at the time of the signing. These included a terrorist arrested in 1995 in California, with an arsenal of weapons to be used to commit violent actions, and who was implicated in an assassination attempt on President Fidel Castro Ruz in 1997. Another was part of a 1974 armed infiltration in Cuba; a third was the author of terrorist actions and pirate attacks at sea on Cuban fishing boats, between 1972 and 1975.
Also present was the spouse of a sergeant who committed acts of torture during the Batista dictatorship, and one of those responsible for financing the planting of bombs at tourist locations in Cuba which exploded in 1997, as revealed by infamous terrorist Posada Carriles in an interview with the New York Times. As we know, Posada Carriles was the author of the mid-flight bombing of a Cubana de Aviación civilian aircraft in 1976, the first terrorist act against an aircraft in flight.
Many of these individuals worked for the CIA at some point.
I strongly protest the United States government given such derision, and implore it to confirm or deny if the terrorists I have mentioned were beside President Trump or not. This is an affront to the Cuban people, to the people of the world, and to the victims of international terrorism across the globe.
When, during this show, the President of the United States alluded to the father of the out-of-tune violinist who played the U.S. national anthem, he failed to state that Captain Bonifacio Haza, mentioned on several occasions by the President of the United States, was directly responsible for the murders of Carlos Díaz and Orlando Carvajal toward the end of the Batista dictatorship, and personally participated in the murder of well-known revolutionary fighter Frank País, as well as his comrade Raúl Pujol, and later, Frank País' younger brother, who was only 19-years-of-age at the time.
This is an outrage our people will never forget.
The packed audience was completed by several foreign agents who are paid by U.S. government agencies in Cuba. These are the new mercenaries.
It was outrageous to see this annexationist and Plattist audience respond to every phrase against Cuba, chanting "USA, USA."
President Trump's policy without a doubt marks a step back in bilateral relations, as has been recognized by countless voices within and outside of the United States, the majority of which out rightly reject the announced changes.
I anticipate that said measures will affect relations between the government of the United States and those of Latin America and the Caribbean, and will severely damage the credibility of its foreign policy.
These frankly unpopular measures ignore overwhelming support for the lifting of the blockade and the normalization of relations with Cuba by members of the U.S. Congress, many of whom are Republicans; the country's business sector; various civil society organizations; the Cuban émigré community; the press; social networks; and public opinion in general.
President Trump—once again ill-advised—who lost the vote of Cubans in the counties with the highest concentration of Cuban residents during the Presidential elections in Florida; who lost the Cuban vote in Florida, is making decisions which only benefit the petty interests of an aging, extremist minority of Cuban origin and a handful of politicians.
Any measured analysis leads one to anticipate that, as in the past, the announced measures will not meet the proclaimed objectives, but rather the opposite: they will restrict the freedoms of U.S. citizens, cost taxpayers more money, reduce the opportunities of companies and business people against their competition, lose income and jobs.
It is necessary to wait until the government of the United States reveals the regulations that will implement these measures before expressing an opinion on their scope and depth.
These measures also ignore the overwhelming majority view of the Cuban people, who wish to have a better relationship with the people of the U.S. They will cause human harm and deprivation; they will affect Cuban families. They will bring economic damage not only to state-owned enterprises in Cuba, but also to cooperatives, and will especially harm self-employed or private workers. They will also harm and increase discrimination against Cuban émigrés settled in the United States.
It seems childish to predict that, with this policy, they will be able to separate the people from the government, or the citizens from our glorious Revolutionary Armed Forces and Ministry of the Interior, who are the uniformed people. On the contrary, these measures reinforce our patriotism, our dignity, our determination to defend national independence by all means, in the spirit of José Martí, Antonio Maceo and Fidel Castro Ruz.
Cuba vigorously rejects the new measures that strengthen the blockade, which we will denounce in the next United Nations General Assembly, because it is unjust, inhumane, genocidal, extraterritorial, and in violation of International Law and the sovereignty of all states.
I firmly reject the political manipulation and double standards in addressing the issue of human rights by President Trump. The United States government has no moral authority; it cannot give lectures on human rights or on democracy. Cuba has much to show and say on this matter.
The new measures are not at all democratic. According to recent U.S. surveys, 73 percent of U.S. citizens, 63 percent of Cuban residents, and 62 percent of Republicans support the lifting of the blockade—curious that: 62 percent of Republicans. The normalization of bilateral ties is favored by 75 percent, three quarters, of U.S. citizens; 69 percent of Cuban residents, and 62 percent of Republicans.
Among Cubans in the United States, the younger they are, the more support there is for the lifting of the blockade and normalization.
However, the new measures reinforce the ban on U.S. citizens traveling as tourists to Cuba, and restrict their civil liberties; they limit the freedom of U.S. citizens to travel.
As regards human rights, in the United States there are numerous and systematic murders, brutality, and abuses by police, particularly against Afro-Americans. The limits on the right to healthcare, pay inequality for women, the lack of educational access, the almost absent unionization, the repression against immigrants and refugees, the marginalization of minorities and the increasing discrimination against Islamic culture and religion are well known.
The war crimes and the killing of civilians in U.S. military attacks and interventions are frequent. The imprisonment, without trial, and the massive and systematic use of torture in the Guantánamo Naval Base are brutal.
I reiterate Cuba's willingness to continue the respectful dialogue and cooperation in areas of mutual interest and to negotiate pending bilateral issues with the United States, on the basis of equality and absolute respect for our independence and sovereignty.
As demonstrated by the advances achieved in the last two years, Cuba and the United States can cooperate and coexist in a civilized manner, respecting the profound differences between our governments and promoting all that benefits both countries and peoples.
We will continue our efforts together with people of good will in the United States, who are the vast majority. But I advise you: Cuba will not make concessions essential to its sovereignty and independence, will not negotiate its principles or accept conditions, as it has never done, never, throughout the history of the Revolution. As the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba establishes, we will never negotiate under pressure or threats.
We will act invoking the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed by heads of state and government of the region in Havana in January 2014, which recognizes the inalienable right of heads of state to decide their political, economic, social and cultural system; rejects foreign intervention and interference in internal affairs, and opposes and condemns the threat and use of force.
It will not be a Presidential Directive of the United States that will thwart the sovereign course of Cuba, as they have been unable to do in more than 50 yeas of aggression, state terrorism, blockade, media war, and subversion. We have been through it all, our people have already been through it all, and have run the risk. What could they threaten us with today that they haven't already, and failed?
In Cuba, by the way, no one was on tenterhooks waiting for this imperialist announcement. Our people worked as normal, foreign policy functioned, we demonstrated respect for Europe on this visit. In fact, the Cuban people, closely linked to their Communist Party, recently debated and amended the draft Conceptualization of the Cuban Economic and Social Model of Socialist Development and the National Development Plan through 2030, and the upcoming People's Power general elections were called.
The changes that may be necessary in Cuba will be independently decided by the Cuban people: only by the Cuban people, as they have always done. We will not ask anyone else for their opinion or permission.
This is a translation of Rodríguez's remarks in Vienna on June 19, 2017.
Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla is Cuba's Minister of Foreign Relations.
Outraged Londoners took to the streets of their city on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, to express solidarity with the victims of the recent Grenfell Tower fire and voice anger at the government policies they argue led to the disaster.
The "Day of Rage" march, which is taking place on the hottest day of the year so far in London, is a display of political discontent following the fire last week that claimed the lives of nearly 80 people and comes as community members lay blame at the feet of Prime Minister Theresa May and her Tory-run government which has pushed deep cuts to public housing amid broader austerity measures targeting low-income and working-class Britons.
People carried signs reading "Justice for Grenfell Victims" and decrying the fire as "Corporate Manslaughter."
Shaima Alsitrawi, a 32-year-old childcare worker, explained to the Guardian why she was marching. "A few days ago I went to the site of Grenfell with my friends to help volunteer, and when I saw the building in front of me, looking dark and burnt, it really hit me," Alsitrawi said. "Speaking to people there about their experience and their story, it was horrific. They are part of the community, part of us; we have a responsibility to raise our voice for justice and equality in society. They haven't been treated as equal as the rest of the community in that borough."
As Common Dreams reported last week, many in the immediate wake of the fire highlighted the institutional and economic policies that led to the devastation and cited frequent safety warnings that were ignored by the Tory government.
In addition to demanding those displaced by the fire be provided with new and better public housing—including calls for empty luxury flats to be made available for their behalf—the protesters on Wednesday want a full investigation into those who managed the building and their dealings with government agencies.
On social media, the #DayofRage hashtag became a cesspool of right-wing reaction, as opposed to an organizing platform for those engaged with the march and its message:
The #DayOfRage hashtag is an unbearable feed of rightwing normies, literal fascists and the occasional Conservative MP or journalist
—Abi Wilkinson (@AbiWilks) June 21, 2017
Several marchers who spoke to the Guardian rejected the idea, promulgated in the British tabloid press, that public "rage" over the Grenfell fire was somehow misplaced and rejected those who equated the expression of legitimate rage with violence.
"Nearly every person I speak to is furious to the point of apoplexy," said Pip Marsh, 44, who works for a research company. "The rightwing press's modus operandi is to debunk protests. It's a Tory tool. If you get people frightened enough you can get them to do anything. Every single person I've spoken to here is lovely."
And Kelcy Davenport, a PhD student at the march, added, "They take the word 'rage,' which is justified, and try and intimidate you away from those feelings by saying it's going to be violent. It's like saying you're not allowed to be angry or outraged."
LONDON — The cladding and insulation used in a London high risewhere at least 79 people are believed to have died in a fire last week have failed safety tests conducted by investigators, the police said on Friday. Officials also confirmed that the blaze began with a faulty refrigerator, and was not started intentionally.
The high death toll at the 24-story Grenfell Tower in West London has prompted the authorities to consider charges of manslaughter, along with other criminal offenses, said Detective Superintendent Fiona McCormack, who is overseeing the investigation.
Detective Superintendent McCormack did not indicate who might face manslaughter charges, and a police spokeswoman declined to provide any additional details, as investigators sought to learn more about how and why the fire spread so quickly.
Much of the early focus has been on cladding and insulation that are thought to have allowed the blaze to race up the sides of the building after it broke out, leaving many people with no way to escape.
"Preliminary tests on the insulation samples from Grenfell Tower show that they combusted soon after the test started," Detective Superintendent McCormack said in a televised statement. Cladding tiles had also failed initial tests, she said.
At least 11 buildings in Britain use combustible cladding material similar to that used on Grenfell Tower, officials said on Thursday, and safety checks are being carried out on cladding from at least 600 high-rise buildings across the country.
After Friday's statement, Tony Rice, a shareholder of Omnis Exteriors, which manufactured materials for Grenfell's cladding system, stepped down from the board of trustees of Shelter London, a charity that has been providing advice and support to the victims of the fire.
Derek Myers, who was the chief executive of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in 2013, when the Grenfell Tower underwent renovation, also resigned from the board.
Local activists in North Kensington, who for years had warned the authorities of fire risks at Grenfell Tower, reacted with outrage to the initial details emerging from the investigation.
"It's obvious that the contactors took it upon themselves to use cheaper cladding and material, and I'm sure that's the case in hundreds of other towers," said Tony Glockner, a local activist and resident who lives in public housing owned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
"None of this surprises me at all. Social housing residents in North Kensington have been crying out about fire hazards and poor housing conditions for years, but they have been ignored," he added.
The appliance that started the fire was a Hotpoint FF175BP refrigerator and freezer, Detective Superintendent McCormack added. She said that the model had never been subject to a recall, and that tests were being carried out to determine if it now should be.
In a statement posted online, Hotpoint said it was aware of a "possible incident" involving one of its products, and asked its customers to check if they had bought models FF175BP or FF175BG made from March 2006 to July 2009. Consumers who had were asked to contact the company.
Nine victims of the fire have now been formally identified, the authorities said, but the number of presumed dead remains at 79. The police said that every complete body had been recovered from the building, but that the authorities were still working to identify remains.
"Such is that devastation down at the scene, this may take at least until the end of the year," Detective Superintendent McCormack said, adding: "There is the terrible reality that we may not find or identify all those that died during the fire."
Over 600 calls were made to emergency services on the night of the fire, with some lasting more than an hour, which Detective Superintendent McCormack described as "harrowing."
Michael Wolgelenter contributed reporting.
HOUSTON — Roy D. Oliver II, the white police officer who was firedand charged with murder after killing an unarmed black teenager in April in a Dallas suburb, is facing a new round of legal problems after a complaint that he pulled his gun on a driver about two weeks before the shooting.
A grand jury indicted Mr. Oliver on two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon by a public servant, the Dallas County district attorney said on Friday.
Mr. Oliver was fired from the Balch Springs Police Department after he shot and killed Jordan Edwards, a 15-year-old high school freshman, as Jordan and four other teenagers drove away from a house party on April 29. Mr. Oliver used a high-powered rifle to fire into the vehicle, shooting Jordan in the head as he sat in the front passenger seat. Mr. Oliver was charged with murder on May 5, and the Balch Springs police chief said he had violated department policies.
Mr. Oliver's new charges stem from a car accident in Dallas 13 days before Jordan was killed. Mr. Oliver was off duty and not in uniform at the time.
A driver, Monique Arredondo, was taking her two sisters and her niece to a birthday party at her grandparents' house when her car struck Mr. Oliver's truck from behind. Ms. Arredondo said in an interview that Mr. Oliver startled her when he left his truck and came toward her with his gun pointed at her head while she sat in her car.
"What was going through my mind was that I was about to die in front of my two sisters and my niece," Ms. Arredondo said. "He had an attitude, and I told him I was not going to give him anything until he got the gun out of my face."
She added, "He's getting what he deserves because he doesn't have the right to pull a gun on me because I hit the back of his truck."
Each charge carries a punishment of five to 99 years in prison.
The confrontation in Dallas in April was one of a handful of incidents in recent years in which Mr. Oliver appeared to have problems controlling his anger.
Mr. Oliver, 37, had been an officer in Balch Springs, a working-class suburb east of Dallas, since 2011. He went into police work after serving as an infantryman in the Army and being deployed to Iraq twice.
In 2013, Mr. Oliver was reprimanded by Balch Springs police officials for aggressive and unprofessional behavior while working with Dallas County prosecutors as he served as a witness in a drunken-driving case. The district attorney's office filed a complaint about his conduct. It said Mr. Oliver was angry he had to be there and used profanity during his testimony. Balch Springs suspended him for 16 hours and ordered him to attend anger management sessions.
In another episode noted on an annual evaluation in January, a sergeant remarked that Mr. Oliver was "disrespectful to a civilian on a call." The sergeant described the behavior as an isolated incident and wrote that Mr. Oliver "needs to be mindful that he does possess a leadership role within the department and must display it at all times."
Mr. Oliver's lawyer did not respond to numerous requests for comment. Linda Oliver, Mr. Oliver's mother, said in a brief interview that her son's behavior toward Ms. Arredondo was out of character and that he did not have a history of anger issues.
"I don't know what to make of this," Ms. Oliver said of the new charges.
Jordan's father, Odell Edwards, has sued Mr. Oliver and Balch Springs officials in federal court.
Daryl Washington, the lead lawyer for the Edwards family, said they were pleased with the grand jury's action.
"The evidence clearly shows that this guy was out of control," Mr. Washington said. "If the police departments had done what they should have, it would have been clear that he did not have the temperament to be a police officer and Jordan would be alive today."
Officers with the Dallas Police Department responded to the incident between Mr. Oliver and Ms. Arredondo; their version of events differed greatly from hers.
The Dallas officers found Mr. Oliver with his handgun holstered on his hip and his police badge clipped to his belt, according to a Dallas Police Department statement. Mr. Oliver told officers that he had had his gun out in a "low ready" position and had identified himself as a police officer because he thought Ms. Arredondo might have been reaching for a weapon or trying to flee. The officers determined that no offense had occurred but filed two reports about it.
According to the police statement, Ms. Arredondo told the officers that Mr. Oliver did not directly point his weapon at her but held the gun at his side pointed at the ground.
Ms. Arredondo denied saying that to the officers.
"The gun was pointed at my head," she said. "It was not in a downward position. I never said that to anybody. It's a lie. He did not have his badge showing. All I saw was a bald man with dark black sunglasses and a gun in his hand."
Ms. Arredondo said that her 13-year-old sister, who was in the back seat, cried during the confrontation, and that Mr. Oliver did not identify himself as a police officer.
"I could have reached out and touched the gun," she said. "That's how close it was."
Alain Delaquérière contributed research.