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Tag: civil unrest

  • No, USPS letter is not a sign of impending martial law

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    After U.S. postal workers got a letter advising how to work during epidemics, hurricanes and civil unrest, social media posts spun the guidance into a conspiracy theory: Surely this was a sign of an approaching crisis or confirmation that President Donald Trump would impose martial law, they said.

    “So does the USPS postal service know something that we don’t?” asked one speaker in a TikTok.

    “Letter signals that an impending crisis of civil unrest or an epidemic could be imminent!” said an X post. “Government prepping while we’re in the dark?” 

    Some posts speculated that the USPS letter is a sign that President Donald Trump will impose martial law.

    The Jan. 5 memo from Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino is real. An American Postal Workers Union representative sent us a copy to confirm its authenticity. A U.S. Postal Service spokesperson said the letter was reissued; we found similar ones from 2020. 

    The letter says if essential workers aren’t exempted from local or state curfew orders or travel directives during emergencies, postal workers are governed by federal law and can continue to work during local or state curfew orders or travel directives. The letter instructs employees and contractors to carry an “essential service provider letter” explaining that they are exempt from restrictions that they can give to law enforcement should their activity come under question. 

    The Jan. 5 letter does not mention any specific crisis or current event and does not mention immigration enforcement, Trump or martial law, despite social media posts’ attempts to tie it to those topics.

    Many of the social media posts are dated after Jan. 7, when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis. Protests against ICE intensified after the shooting.

    The speaker in a TikTok video speculated about whether the letter was related to ICE, asking, “Is the stage set? Is it a powder keg ready waiting to go?”

    The U.S. Postal Service website shows employees received similar letters in March, June, July and December of 2020 for the same purpose. Many states had travel or other restrictions because of the pandemic and some cities experienced civil unrest during protests after the murder of George Floyd, a Minneapolis man, by a police officer.

    Postal workers said in January social media post comments that they had also gotten such letters during hurricane season or snowstorms.

    Although Trump threatened Jan. 15 to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to Minneapolis protests, legal experts told PolitiFact in 2025 that invoking the Insurrection Act would not create what is commonly understood as martial law. 

    Trump has not said he will impose martial law, which typically means suspending civil law while the military takes control of civilian functions such as courts. The U.S. imposed martial law in Hawaii after the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and President Abraham Lincoln declared martial law in certain parts of the country during the Civil War.

    We rate the claim that a postal service letter sent to employees is a sign that Trump will impose martial law False.

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  • Madagascar Becomes the Latest Country to See a Gen Z Revolt

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    Its president is in hiding, an army unit has taken control and crowds of protesters are demanding sweeping social change.

    The wave of protests mushrooming around the world has now forced a change of leadership in Madagascar. After weeks of demonstrations over corruption and worsening living standards, the armed forces say they have taken control while President Andry Rajoelina has taken refuge in what he described as a secure, undisclosed location as he tries to shore up enough political support to regain power.

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    James Hookway

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  • Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Venezuelan Opposition Leader María Corina Machado

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    Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting democracy and fighting dictatorship in the country.

    Announcing the prize, Nobel Committee Chairman Jorgen Watne Frydnes described Machado as a “brave and committed champion of peace…who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Gareth Vipers

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  • U.K. Government Asked Pro-Palestinian Supporters Not to March on Oct. 7. They Did Anyway.

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    LONDON—After last week’s terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester, the U.K. government is struggling over how to manage near daily pro-Palestinian protests that officials say have fueled a rise in antisemitism and left many British Jews feeling alienated in their own country.

    On Tuesday—the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that marked the largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust—pro-Palestinian protests were held in university campuses across the country, despite an unusual request from Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the protests to be called off given it was the anniversary of the attack.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Max Colchester

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  • Kenya Uses U.S.-Funded Antiterrorism Courts for Political Crackdown

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    NAIROBI, Kenya—The Kenyan government is using special antiterrorism courts—established with U.S. money to combat al Qaeda—to threaten political dissidents with decades in prison.

    Prosecutors have charged 75 Kenyans with terrorism in recent weeks, the majority for allegedly destroying government property during street demonstrations against President William Ruto.

    Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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    Caroline Kimeu

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  • Video: These Venezuelan Election Observers Got Death Threats. Now They’re in Hiding.

    Video: These Venezuelan Election Observers Got Death Threats. Now They’re in Hiding.

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    These Venezuelan Election Observers Got Death Threats. Now They’re in Hiding.

    The New York Times spoke to several election volunteers for Venezuela’s opposition party who found that Edmundo González defeated Nicolás Maduro in July. They fled the country after facing death threats from Maduro’s supporters.

    Anthony is in hiding in this Colombian city on the border with Venezuela. He says he was targeted by paramilitary groups called “colectivos,” key enforcers for Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, after volunteering as an election observer for the opposition party. He fled here to Cúcuta, along with these other election workers, who all describe receiving similar threats. We agreed not to show their faces or use their full names for their safety and that of their families they left behind. All of their stories offer firsthand evidence of a post-election crackdown that has largely happened out of the public eye. These vote tallies that they and other observers collected were made public, showing that opposition candidate Edmundo González had actually won the majority vote. While many countries, including the United States, have raised doubts about the election results, Maduro continues to claim victory. He and his supporters are now targeting the opposition as terrorists, with threats in the form of phone messages and showing up at their homes. Anthony was working as a bread maker in Venezuela. The others, a chef, a salesman and an engineer. The Times reviewed evidence that corroborated their stories of being targeted as election observers. All of the men who had been targeted for their political activism before say the threats after this election felt more brazen and direct. Celso Barbosa fled Venezuela himself six years ago. He says these men were the first group of political exiles he helped escape from the country after the July elections. Barbosa recently attended a protest here in Colombia calling for Maduro to transition out of office. Meanwhile, Maduro has yet to release his electoral record, and González has now fled the country for Spain after a top court in Venezuela issued his arrest warrant. These men say that if Maduro is sworn in as president in January, others will soon be forced to flee the country as well.

    Recent episodes in Latest Video

    Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.

    Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.

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    Alex Pena, Alexandra Vivas and Ben Laffin

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  • Kurdish People Fast Facts | CNN

    Kurdish People Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at Kurdish people. Kurds do not have an official homeland or country. Most reside within countries in the Middle East including northern Iraq, eastern Turkey, western Iran and small portions of northern Syria and Armenia.

    Area: Roughly 74,000 sq mi

    Population: approximately 25-30 million (some Kurds reside outside of Kurdistan)

    Religion: Most are Sunni Muslims; some practice Sufism, a type of mystic Islam

    Kurds have never achieved nation-state status, making Kurdistan a non-governmental region and one of the largest stateless nations in the world.

    Portions of the region are recognized by two countries: Iran, where the province of Kordestan lies; and northern Iraq, site of the autonomous region known as Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) or Iraqi Kurdistan.

    Kurds were mostly nomadic until the end of World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.

    Kurds make up about 10% of the population in Syria, 19% of the population of Turkey, 15-20% of the population of Iraq and are one of the largest ethnic minorities in Iran.

    The Peshmerga is a more than 100,000-strong national military force which protects Iraqi Kurdistan, and includes female fighters.

    October 30, 1918 – (TURKEY) The Armistice of Mudros marks the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

    November 3, 1918 – (IRAQ) With the discovery of oil in the Kurdish province of Mosul, British forces occupy the region.

    August 10, 1920 – (TURKEY) The Treaty of Sèvres outlines the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, with Turkey renouncing rights over certain areas in Asia and North Africa. It calls for the recognition of new independent states, including an autonomous Kurdistan. It is never ratified.

    July 24, 1923 – (TURKEY) The Allies and the former Ottoman Empire sign and ratify the Treaty of Lausanne, which recognizes Turkey as an independent nation. In the final treaty marking the conclusion of World War I, the Allies drop demands for an autonomous Turkish Kurdistan. The Kurdish region is eventually divided among several countries.

    1923 – (IRAQ) Former Kurdish Governor Sheikh Mahmud Barzinji stages an uprising against British rule, declaring a Kurdish kingdom in Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq.

    1924 – (IRAQ) British Forces retake Sulaimaniya.

    1943-1945 – (IRAQ/IRAN) Mustafa Barzani leads an uprising, gaining control of areas of Erbil and Badinan. When the uprising is defeated, Barzani and his forces retreat to Kurdish areas in Iran and align with nationalist fighters under the leadership of Qazi Muhammad.

    January 1946 – (IRAN) The Kurdish Republic of Mahābād is established as a Kurdish state, with backing from the Soviet Union. The short-lived country encompasses the city of Mahābād in Iran, which is largely Kurdish and near the Iraq border. However, Soviets withdraw the same year and the Republic of Mahābād collapses.

    August 16, 1946 – (IRAQ) The Kurdish Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP) is established.

    1957 – (SYRIA) 250 Kurdish children die in an arson attack on a cinema. It is blamed on Arab nationalists.

    1958 – (SYRIA) The government formally bans all Kurdish-language publications.

    1958 – (IRAQ) After Iraq’s 1958 revolution, a new constitution is established, which declares Arabs and Kurds as “partners in this homeland.”

    1961 – (IRAQ) KDP begins a rebellion in northern Iraq. Within two weeks, the Iraqi government dissolves the Kurdish Democratic Party.

    March 1970 – (IRAQ) A peace agreement between Iraqi government and Kurds grants the Kurds autonomy. Kurdish is recognized as an official language, and an amendment to the constitution states: “the Iraqi people is made up of two nationalities: the Arab nationality and the Kurdish nationality.”

    March 6, 1975 – (ALGERIA) Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran sign a treaty. Iraq gives up claims to the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, while Iran agrees to end its support of the independence seeking Kurds.

    June 1975 – (IRAQ) Former KDP Leader Jalal Talabani, establishes the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The following year, PUK takes up an armed campaign against the Iraqi government.

    1978 – (IRAQ) KDP and PUK forces clash, leaving many dead.

    1978 – (TURKEY) Abdullah Öcalan forms the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist group.

    Late 1970s – (IRAQ) The Baath Party, under Hussein’s leadership, uproots Kurds from areas with Kurdish majorities, and settles southern-Iraqi Arabs into those regions. Into the 1980s, Kurds are forcibly removed from the Iranian border as Kurds are suspected of aiding Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War.

    1979 – (IRAQ) Mustafa Barzani dies in Washington, DC. His son, Massoud Barzani, is elected president of KDP following his death.

    1980 – (IRAQ) The Iran-Iraq War begins. Although the KDP forces work closely with Iran, the PUK does not.

    1983 – (IRAQ) PUK agrees to a ceasefire with Iraq and begins negotiations on Kurdish autonomy.

    August 1984 – (TURKEY) PKK launches a violent separatist campaign in Turkey, starting with killing two soldiers. The conflict eventually spreads to Iran, Iraq and Syria.

    1985 – (IRAQ) The ceasefire between Iraq and PUK breaks down.

    1986 – (IRAQ) After an Iranian-sponsored reconciliation, both KDP and PUK receive support from Tehran.

    1987 – (TURKEY) Turkey imposes a state of emergency in the southeastern region of the country in response to PKK attacks.

    February-August 1988 – (IRAQ) During Operation Anfal (“spoils” in Arabic), created to quell Kurdish resistance, the Iraqi military uses large quantities of chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians. Iraqi forces destroy more than 4,000 villages in Kurdistan. It is believed that some 100,000 Kurds were killed.

    March 16, 1988 – (IRAQ) Iraq uses poison gas against the Kurdish people in Halabja in northern Iraq. Thousands of people are believed to have died in the attack.

    1990-1991 – (IRAQ) The Gulf War begins when Hussein invades Kuwait, seeking its oil reserves. There is a mass exodus of Kurds out of Iraq as more than a million flee into Turkey and Iran.

    February 28, 1991 – (IRAQ) Hussein agrees to a ceasefire, ending the Gulf War.

    March 1991 – (IRAQ) Kurdish uprising begins, and in two weeks, the Kurdish militia gains control of Iraqi Kurdistan, including the oil-rich town of Kirkuk. After allied support to the Kurds is denied, Iraq crushes the uprising. Two million Kurds flee, but are forced to hide out in the mountains as Turkey closes its border.

    April 1991 – (IRAQ) A safe haven is established in Iraqi Kurdistan by the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Iraqi forces are barred from operating within the region, and Kurds begin autonomous rule, with KDP leading the north and PUK leading the south.

    1992 – (IRAQ) In an anti-PKK operation, 20,000 Turkish troops enter Kurdish safe havens in Iraq.

    1994-1998 – (IRAQ) PUK and KDP members engage in armed conflict, known as the Fratricide War, in Iraqi Kurdistan.

    1995 – (IRAQ) Approximately 35,000 Turkish troops launch an offensive against Kurds in northern Iraq.

    1996 – (IRAQ) Iraq launches attacks against Kurdish cities, including Erbil and Kirkuk.

    October 8, 1997 – (TURKEY) The United States lists PKK as a terrorist group.

    1998 – (IRAQ) The conflict between KDP and PUK ends, and a peace agreement is reached. This is brokered by the United States, and the accord is signed in Washington.

    1999 – (TURKEY) PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan is captured in Nairobi, Kenya, by Turkish officials.

    2002 – (TURKEY) Under pressure from the European Union, Turkey legalizes broadcasts and education in the Kurdish language. Turkish forces still combat PKK, including military incursions into northern Iraq.

    May 2002 – (TURKEY) The European Union designates the PKK as a terrorist organization.

    February 1, 2004 – (IRAQ) Two suicide bombs kill more than 50 people in Erbil. The targets are the headquarters of KDP and PUK, and several top Kurdish officials from both parties are killed.

    March 2004 – (SYRIA) Nine people are killed at a football (soccer) arena in Qamishli after clashes with riot police. Kurds demonstrate throughout the city, and unrest spreads to nearby towns in the following days, after security forces open fire at the funerals.

    June 2004 – (TURKEY) State TV broadcasts Kurdish-language programs for the first time.

    April 6-7, 2005 – (IRAQ) Kurdish leader Talabani is selected the country’s president by the transitional national assembly, and is sworn in the next day.

    July 2005 – (TURKEY) Six people die from a bomb planted on a train by a Kurdish guerrilla. Turkish officials blame the PKK.

    2005 – (IRAQ) The 2005 Iraqi constitution upholds Kurdish autonomy, and designates Kurdistan as an autonomous federal region.

    August-September 2006 – (TURKEY) A wave of bomb attacks target a resort area in Turkey, as well as Istanbul. Separatist group Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAC) claims responsibility for most of the attacks and threatens it will turn Turkey into “hell.”

    December 2007 – (TURKEY) Turkey launches attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan, targeting PKK outposts.

    2009 – (TURKEY) A policy called the Kurdish Initiative increases Kurdish language rights and reduces military presence in the mostly Kurdish southeast.

    September 2010 – (IRAN) A bomb detonates during a parade in Mahābād, leaving 12 dead and dozens injured. No group claims responsibility for the attack, but authorities blame Kurdish separatists. In 2014, authorities arrest members of Koumaleh, a Kurdish armed group, for the attack.

    April 2011 – (SYRIA) Syria grants citizenship to thousands in the Kurdish region. According to Human Rights Watch, an exceptional census stripped 20% of Kurdish Syrians of their citizenship in 1962.

    October 2011 – (SYRIA) Meshaal Tammo, a Syrian Kurdish activist, is assassinated. Many Kurds blame Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime for the assassination.

    October 19, 2011 – (TURKEY) Kurdish militants kill 24 Turkish troops near the Iraqi border, a PKK base area.

    June 2012 – (TURKEY) Turkish forces strike PKK rebel bases in Iraq after a PKK attack in southern Turkey kills eight Turkish soldiers.

    July 2012 – (SYRIA) Amid the country’s civil war, Syrian security forces retreat from several Kurdish towns in the northeastern part of the country.

    August 2012 – (TURKEY) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warns that any attempts by the PKK to launch cross-border attacks from Syria would be met by force; the Turkish Army then performs a large exercise less than a mile from border villages now controlled by the Syrian Kurdish group Democratic Union Party (PYD).

    December 2012 – (TURKEY) Erdogan announces the government has begun peace talks with the PKK.

    January 10, 2013 – (FRANCE) Three Kurdish women are found shot dead in Paris, one of whom was a founding member of the PKK.

    March 21, 2013 – (TURKEY) Imprisoned PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan calls for dialogue: a letter from him is read in the Turkish Parliament, “We for tens of years gave up our lives for this struggle, we paid a price. We have come to a point at which the guns must be silent and ideas must talk.”

    March 25, 2013 – (TURKEY) Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani negotiate a framework deal that includes an outline for a direct pipeline export of oil and gas. The pipeline would have the Kurdish crude oil transported from the Kurdish Regional Government directly into Turkey, allowing the KRG to be a competitive supplier of oil to Turkey.

    June 2014 – (IRAQ) Refugees flee fighting and flood into Iraqi Kurdistan to the north as ISIS militants take over Mosul. Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) closes then reopens, with restrictions, border crossings used by those fleeing ISIS.

    June 23, 2014 – (IRAQ) Iraqi Kurdistan President Barzani says that “Iraq is obviously falling apart, and it’s obvious that the federal or central government has lost control over everything.”

    Early August 2014 – (IRAQ) Reportedly 40,000 Yazidi, a minority group of Kurdish descent, flee to a mountainous region in northwestern Iraq to escape ISIS, after the group storms Sinjar, a town near the Syrian border. Also, 100,000 Christians flee to Erbil, after Kurdish leadership there promises protection in the city.

    August 11, 2014 – (IRAQ) Kurdish fighters in Kurdistan, who are called Peshmerga, work with Iraqi armed forces to deliver aid to Yazidis stranded on Mount Sinjar after fleeing ISIS fighters.

    August 12, 2014 – (IRAQ) Some Yazidi tell CNN that PKK fighters control parts of the mountain, and have offered food and protection from ISIS.

    December 2, 2014 – (IRAQ) The government of Iraq and the government of Iraqi Kurdistan sign an agreement to share oil revenues and military resources. Iraq will now pay the salaries of Peshmerga fighters battling ISIS and act as an intermediary to deliver US weapons to Kurdish forces. The Kurdistan government will deliver more than half a million barrels of oil daily to the Iraqi government. Profits from the sale of the oil will be split between the two governments.

    January 26, 2015 – (SYRIA) After 112 days of fighting, the YPG, Kurdish fighters also known as the People’s Protection Units, take control of the city of Kobani from ISIS.

    March 21, 2015 – (TURKEY) In a letter read to thousands during a celebration in the city of Diyarbakir, imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan urges fighters under his command to lay down their arms, stop waging war against the Turkish state and join a “congress.”

    May 18, 2015 – (TURKEY) In the run-up to parliamentary elections on June 7, an explosion rocks the office of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) in Adana, in southeastern Turkey. Six people are injured.

    June 7, 2015 – (TURKEY) Three-year-old fledgling party Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) receives more than 13% of the vote, winning 80 seats in the 550-seat parliament.

    June 16, 2015 – (SYRIA) Kurdish forces in the Syrian town, Tal Abyad say they have defeated ISIS fighters and taken back the town on the Turkish border.

    June 23, 2015 – (SYRIA) Kurdish fighters announce that they have taken back the town of Ain Issa, located 30 miles north of the ISIS stronghold, Raqqa, a city proclaimed to be the capital of the caliphate. A military base near Ain Issa, which had been occupied by ISIS since last August, is abandoned by the terrorist group the night before the Kurdish forces seize the town.

    February 17, 2016 – (IRAQ) Turkish airstrikes target some of the PKK’s top figures in northern Iraq’s Haftanin region. Airstrikes come after a terrorist attack in Turkey kills 28, although no Kurdish group has claimed responsibility for those attacks.

    March 13, 2016 – (TURKEY) A car bomb attack kills at least 37 people in Ankara. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK – an offshoot of the Kurdish separatist group PKK – takes responsibility for the attack.

    March 17, 2016 – (SYRIA) Kurds declare that a swath of northeastern Syria is now a separate autonomous region under Kurdish control. The claim stirs up controversy, as Syrian and Turkish officials say it goes against the goal of creating a unified country after years of civil war.

    July 20, 2016 – (TURKEY) Following a failed coup attempt, President Erdogan declares a state of emergency. In the first three months, pro-Kurdish media outlets are shut down, and tens of thousands of civil servants with alleged PKK connections are dismissed or suspended. The purge includes ministers of parliament, military leaders, police, teachers and mayors, including in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir.

    September 25, 2017 – (IRAQ) Iraqi Kurds vote in favor of declaring independence from Iraq. More than 92% of the roughly 3 million people vote “yes” to independence.

    March 23, 2019 – (SYRIA) Kurdish forces announce they have captured the eastern Syrian pocket of Baghouz, the last populated area under ISIS rule.

    October 9, 2019 – (TURKEY/SYRIA) Turkey launches a military offensive into northeastern Syria, just days after US President Donald Trump’s administration announced that US troops would leave the border area. Erdogan’s “Operation Peace Spring” is an effort to drive away Kurdish forces from the border, and use the area to resettle around two million Syrian refugees. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who operate in the region are Kurdish-led, and still hold thousands of ISIS fighters captured in battle.

    October 17, 2019 – (TURKEY/SYRIA) US Vice President Mike Pence announces that he and Erdogan agreed to a ceasefire halting Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria. The Turkish government insists that the agreement is not a ceasefire, but only a “pause” on operations in the region.

    November 15, 2019 – (TURKEY/SYRIA) Turkey’s decision to launch a military operation targeting US-Kurdish partners in northern Syria and the Trump administration’s subsequent retreat allowed ISIS to rebuild itself and boosted its ability to launch attacks abroad, the Pentagon’s Inspector General says in an Operation Inherent Resolve quarterly report.

    March 24, 2020 – (SYRIA) The SDF releases a statement calling for a humanitarian truce in response to a United Nations appeal for a global ceasefire to combat the coronavirus.

    July 30, 2020 – (SYRIA) During a US Senate committee hearing, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirms the Trump administration’s support for the Delta Crescent Energy firm’s deal to develop and modernize oil fields in northeast Syria under control of the SDF. The following week, Syria’s foreign ministry calls the deal an attempt to “steal” the oil.

    February 8, 2021 – (SYRIA) Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby is questioned about the Delta Crescent Energy deal during a press conference. He says that the US Department of Defense under the Joe Biden administration is focused on fighting ISIS. It is not aiding a private company.

    January 20-26, 2022 – (SYRIA) ISIS lays siege to a prison in northeast Syria, in an attempt to break out thousands of the group’s members who were detained in 2019. In coordination with US-led coalition airstrikes, SDF regains control of the prison. This is believed to be the biggest coordinated attack by ISIS since the fall of the caliphate three years prior.

    September 16, 2022 – (IRAN) Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, dies after being detained by “morality police” and taken to a “re-education center,” allegedly for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code. Public anger over her death combines with a range of grievances against the Islamic Republic’s oppressive regime to fuel months of nationwide demonstrations, which continue despite law makers urging the country’s judiciary to “show no leniency” to protesters.

    November 12, 2022 – (IRAN) The Norway-based Iran Human Rights NGO (IHRNGO) group claims Iranian security forces have killed at least 326 people since nationwide protests erupted two months ago. Authorities have unleashed a deadly crackdown on demonstrators, with reports of forced detentions and physical abuse being used to target the country’s Kurdish minority group.

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  • U.K. police arrest six people in plan to disrupt London Stock Exchange

    U.K. police arrest six people in plan to disrupt London Stock Exchange

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    Six people are in custody on Sunday as Metropolitan Police detectives investigate a plot to disrupt the London Stock Exchange, authorities said.

    The police said the arrests were made in Brighton, Liverpool, and London.

    In a statement, the Metropolitan Police in the U.K. said the allegations are that activists from the Palestine Action group were intending to target the LSE on Monday, “causing damage and ‘locking on’ in an effort to prevent the building opening for trading.”

    A representative from the LSE said they had no comment but noted that no trading takes place at London Stock Exchange itself. Equity trading is fully electronic, and there hasn’t been a physical trading floor since 1986.

    A representative from Palestine Action said in an email: “The London Stock Exchange raise billions of pounds for apartheid Israel and trade shares in weapons manufacturers which arm Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. Whilst Britain remains complicit in the brutal colonisation of Palestine, our direct action campaign will not be deterred.” 

    The arrests were made earlier Sunday, the police said. The Metropolitan Police added that they are in touch with City of London Police and other forces in the U.K. after a suggestion that this was one part of a planned week of action “to ensure that appropriate resources are in place to deal with any disruption.”

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  • Supreme Court to decide if Trump can be kept off 2024 election ballots

    Supreme Court to decide if Trump can be kept off 2024 election ballots

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    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Friday it will decide whether former President Donald Trump can be kept off the ballot because of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, inserting the court squarely in the 2024 presidential campaign.

    The justices acknowledged the need to reach a decision quickly, as voters will soon begin casting presidential-primary ballots across the country. The court agreed to take up a case from Colorado stemming from Trump’s role in the events that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    Arguments will be held in early February.

    The court will be considering for the first time the meaning and reach of a provision of the 14th Amendment barring some people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office. The amendment was adopted in 1868, following the Civil War. It has been so rarely used that the nation’s highest court had no previous occasion to interpret it.

    Colorado’s Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, ruled last month that Trump should not be on the Republican primary ballot. The decision was the first time the 14th Amendment was used to bar a presidential contender from the ballot.

    Trump is separately appealing to state court a ruling by Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, that he was ineligible to appear on that state’s ballot over his role in the Capitol attack. Both the Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine secretary of state’s rulings are on hold until the appeals play out.

    Three of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Trump, though they have repeatedly ruled against him in 2020 election-related lawsuits, as well as his efforts to keep documents related to Jan. 6 and prevent his tax returns from being turned over to congressional committees.

    At the same time, Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh have been in the majority of conservative-driven decisions that overturned the five-decade-old constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights and struck down affirmative action in college admissions.

    Some Democratic lawmakers have called on another conservative justice, Clarence Thomas, to step aside from the case because of his wife’s support for Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Thomas is unlikely to agree. He has recused himself from only one other case related to the 2020 election, involving former law clerk John Eastman, and so far the people trying to disqualify Trump haven’t asked Thomas to recuse.

    The 4-3 Colorado decision cites a ruling by Gorsuch when he was a federal judge in that state. That Gorsuch decision upheld Colorado’s move to strike a naturalized citizen from the state’s presidential ballot because he was born in Guyana and didn’t meet the constitutional requirements to run for office. The court found that Trump likewise doesn’t meet the qualifications due to his role in the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. That day, the Republican president had held a rally outside the White House and exhorted his supporters to “fight like hell” before they walked to the Capitol.

    The two-sentence provision in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states that anyone who swore an oath to uphold the constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it is no longer eligible for state or federal office. After Congress passed an amnesty for most of the former confederates the measure targeted in 1872, the provision fell into disuse until dozens of suits were filed to keep Trump off the ballot this year. Only the one in Colorado was successful.

    Trump had asked the court to overturn the Colorado ruling without even hearing arguments. “The Colorado Supreme Court decision would unconstitutionally disenfranchise millions of voters in Colorado and likely be used as a template to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters nationwide,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

    They argue that Trump should win on many grounds, including that the events of Jan. 6 did not constitute an insurrection. Even if it did, they wrote, Trump himself had not engaged in insurrection. They also contend that the insurrection clause does not apply to the president and that Congress must act, not individual states.

    Critics of the former president who sued in Colorado agreed that the justices should step in now and resolve the issue, as do many election law experts.

    “This case is of utmost national importance. And given the upcoming presidential-primary schedule, there is no time to wait for the issues to percolate further. The Court should resolve this case on an expedited timetable, so that voters in Colorado and elsewhere will know whether Trump is indeed constitutionally ineligible when they cast their primary ballots,” lawyers for the Colorado plaintiffs told the Supreme Court.

    The issue of whether Trump can be on the ballot is not the only matter related to the former president or Jan. 6 that has reached the high court. The justices last month declined a request from special counsel Jack Smith to swiftly take up and rule on Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, though the issue could be back before the court soon depending on the ruling of a Washington-based appeals court.

    And the court has said that it intends to hear an appeal that could upend hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot, including against Trump.

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  • The Left Can’t Afford to Go Mad

    The Left Can’t Afford to Go Mad

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    The Trump years had a radicalizing effect on the American right. But, let’s be honest, they also sent many on the left completely around the bend. Some liberals, particularly upper-middle-class white ones, cracked up because other people couldn’t see what was obvious to them: that Trump was a bad candidate and an even worse president.

    At first, liberals tried established tactics such as sit-ins and legal challenges; lawyers and activists rallied to protest the administration’s Muslim travel ban, and courts successfully blocked its early versions. Soon, however, the sheer volume of outrages overwhelmed Trump’s critics, and the self-styled resistance settled into a pattern of high-drama, low-impact indignation.

    Explore the January/February 2024 Issue

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    Rather than focusing on how to oppose Trump’s policies, or how to expose the hollowness of his promises, the resistance simply wished Trump would disappear. Many on the left insisted that he wasn’t a legitimate president, and that he was only in the White House because of Russian interference. Social media made everything worse, as it always does; the resistance became the #Resistance. Instead of concentrating on the hard work of door-knocking and community activism, its members tweeted to the choir, drawing no distinction between Trump’s crackpot comments and his serious transgressions. They fantasized about a deus ex machina—impeachment, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, the pee tape, outtakes from The Apprentice—leading to Trump’s removal from office, and became ever more frustrated as each successive news cycle failed to make the scales fall from his supporters’ eyes. The other side got wise to this trend, and coined a phrase to encapsulate it: “Orange Man Bad.”

    The Trump presidency was a failure of right-wing elites; the Republican Party underestimated his appeal to disaffected voters and failed to find a candidate who could defeat him in the primary. Once he became president, the party establishment was content to grumble in private and grovel in public. But the Trump years demonstrated a failure of the left, too. Trump created an enormous reservoir of political energy, but that energy was too often misdirected. Many liberals turned inward, taking comfort in self-help and purification rituals. They might have to share a country with people who would vote for the Orange Man, but they could purge their Facebook feeds, friendship circles, and perhaps even workplaces of conservatives, contrarians, and the insufficiently progressive. Feeling under intense threat, they wanted everyone to pick a side on issues such as taking the Founding Fathers’ names off school buildings and giving puberty blockers to minors—and they insisted that ambivalence was not an option. (Nor was sitting out a debate, because “silence is violence.”) Any deviation from the progressive consensus was seen as a moral failing rather than a political difference.

    The cataclysms of 2020—the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd—might have snapped the left out of its reverie. Instead, the resisters buried their heads deeper in the sand. Health experts insisted that anyone who broke social-distancing rules was selfish, before deciding that attending protests (for causes they supported, at least) was more important than observing COVID restrictions. The summer of 2020 made a best seller out of a white woman’s book about “white fragility,” but negotiations around a comprehensive police-reform bill collapsed the following year. As conservative Supreme Court justices laid the ground for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, activist organizations became fixated on purifying their language. (By 2021, the ACLU was so far gone, it rewrote a famous Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote on abortion to remove the word woman.) Demoralized and disorganized, having given up hope of changing Trump supporters’ minds, the left flexed its muscles in the few spaces in which it held power: liberal media, publishing, academia.

    From the April 2023 issue: George Packer on the moral case against equity language

    If you attempted to criticize these tendencies, the rejoinder was simple whataboutism: Why not focus on Trump? The answer, of course, was that a bad government demands a strong opposition—one that seeks converts rather than hunting heretics. Many of the most interesting Democratic politicians to emerge during this time—the CIA veteran Abigail Spanberger, in Virginia; the Baptist pastor Raphael Warnock, in Georgia; Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who promised to “fix the damn roads”—were pragmatists who flipped red territories blue. When it came to the 2020 election, Democrats ultimately nominated the moderate candidate most likely to defeat Trump.

    That Joe Biden would prevail as the party’s candidate was hardly a given, however. He defeated his more progressive rivals for the Democratic nomination only after staging a comeback in the South Carolina primary. He was 44 points ahead of his closest rival, Bernie Sanders, among the state’s Black voters, according to an exit poll. That is not a coincidence. These voters recognized that they had far more to gain from a candidate like Biden, who regularly talked about working with Republicans, than from the activist wing of the party. As Biden put it in August 2020, responding to civil unrest across American cities: “Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?”

    Biden is older now, and a second victory is far from assured. If he loses, the challenges to American democratic norms will be enormous. The withering of Twitter may impede Trump’s ability to hijack the news cycle as effectively as last time, but he’ll only be more committed to enriching himself and seeking revenge. I hope that the left has learned its lesson, and will look outward rather than inward: The battle is not for control of Bud Light’s advertising strategy, or who gets published in The New York Times, but against gerrymandering and election interference, against women being locked up for having abortions, against transgender Americans losing access to health care, against domestic abusers being able to buy guns, against police violence going unpunished, against the empowerment of white nationalists, and against book bans.

    The path back to sanity in the United States lies in persuasion—in defending freedom of speech and the rule of law, in clearly and calmly opposing Trump’s abuses of power, and in offering an attractive alternative. The left cannot afford to go bonkers at the exact moment America needs it most.

    This article appears in the January/February 2024 print edition with the headline “The Left Can’t Afford to Go Mad.”

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    Helen Lewis

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  • Trump pleads not guilty in Jan. 6 case

    Trump pleads not guilty in Jan. 6 case

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    Former President Donald Trump entered pleas of not guilty Thursday at an arraignment in Washington, D.C., giving his formal response to his four-count indictment over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, including his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    Trump, the frontrunner in polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has denied wrongdoing, and earlier Thursday he continued to criticize the legal proceedings as largely about helping President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in next year’s election.

    “The Dems don’t want to run against me or they would not be doing this unprecedented weaponization of ‘Justice.’ BUT SOON, IN 2024, IT WILL BE OUR TURN,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

    In Tuesday’s 45-page indictment, Trump was hit with charges that included conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

    Related: Bill Barr says Jan. 6 indictment is ‘legitimate’ and that Trump knew he lost the election

    The former president’s appearance in Washington is just one step in a legal battle that will likely take months or even years to play out.

    Special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday said his office “will seek a speedy trial” in the Jan. 6 case, but Trump defense attorney John Lauro has pushed back repeatedly on Smith’s statement, telling NPR on Wednesday that his side wants “a just trial, not simply a speedy trial,” and that the trial itself “could last six months or nine months or even a year.”

    Trump’s legal team looks likely to make change-of-venue requests, with the former president talking up West Virginia in a Truth Social post late Wednesday. He said the Jan. 6 case “will hopefully be moved to an impartial Venue, such as the politically unbiased nearby State of West Virginia! IMPOSSIBLE to get a fair trial in Washington, D.C., which is over 95% anti-Trump.”

    The next hearing in the case was reportedly scheduled for Aug. 28, which would be five days after the first GOP presidential primary debate.

    Trump also entered pleas of not guilty earlier this year in a Manhattan case over hush-money payments and in a Miami case over classified documents. Another investigation, in Georgia’s Fulton County, centers on efforts by Trump and his allies to undo that state’s 2020 election result. The county prosecutor said over the weekend that she will announce charging decisions by Sept. 1 in that probe.

    Biden told CNN Thursday that he was not planning to follow Trump’s arraignment, responding with an emphatic “no” when asked about it during a bike ride in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he is vacationing this week.

    Now read: ‘You’re too honest’: Donald Trump’s alleged Jan. 6 conspiracies, explained

    And see: Trump indictment: What does arraignment mean, and what happens next?

    Plus: How DeSantis is leading Trump in cash on hand, even as the former president dominates in polls

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  • ‘You’re too honest’: Donald Trump’s alleged Jan. 6 conspiracies, explained

    ‘You’re too honest’: Donald Trump’s alleged Jan. 6 conspiracies, explained

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    Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and three times is a conspiracy.

    Former President Donald Trump is accused by federal prosecutors of engaging in three major conspiracies ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot to subvert the process of counting and certifying the vote before Congress in his bid to hold on to power despite having lost the 2020 election.

    While spreading lies about how votes had been illegally cast, tampered with or miscounted in order to build mistrust among the public about the election’s outcome, special counsel Jack Smith says Trump and a group of six unnamed lawyers and advisers plotted to illegally meddle with the very basis of how presidential elections have been run in the U.S since its founding.

    A four-count indictment unsealed in federal court in Washington on Tuesday alleges that the group worked unrelentingly to tamper with how several states counted their ballots and the process by which states sent electors to Washington to finalize their vote. The indictment also accused Trump of pressuring the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence to intervene even though they had no standing to do so.   

    “Each of theses conspiracies — which built upon the widespread mistrust the defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing about election fraud — targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” the indictment read.

    Trump has dismissed the charges as being purely politicized.

    “The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” a statement released by his campaign read. “President Trump has always followed the law and the constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys.”

    The charges allege three acts of conspiracy and one of obstructing an official proceeding. Here are the main legal arguments Smith makes against the former president:

    ‘We have lots of theories’

    Prosecutors say that starting almost immediately after the election on Nov. 3, 2020, Trump began a campaign to get officials in key states like Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia to overturn the election results.

    Trump pressured state officials to throw the vote out based on allegations ranging from dead people voting to non-citizens casting ballots, and from voting machines being tampered to ballot-box stuffing, despite there being no evidence any of it had occurred. 

    “We don’t have evidence, but we have lots of theories,” one of Trump’s co-conspirators allegedly told the speaker of the house of Arizona, a Trump-backer, when asked what proof they had about electoral malfeasance.

    When officials in the states refused to go along with Trump’s request to decertify the results, the president continued to publicly trumpet false claims about voter fraud and attack local officials as “terrible people” who were in on the fraud, the indictment said.

    Smith said that Trump continued to make the claims despite having been told repeatedly by numerous people in multiple agencies — many of them his own supporters — that there was no truth to it and having lost case after case in court. 

    “When our research and campaign team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases,” one senior campaign advisor said, according to the indictment. “It’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy s*** beamed down from the mothership.”

    Smith argues that this effort amounted to using deceit to subvert the election’s result, which is against the law. 

    Phony electors

    One key component of the conspiracy case against Trump revolves around efforts to create a competing slate of electors from each challenged state.

    As part of the presidential electoral process, every state sends electors to Washington to deliver the vote to congress. It’s a mostly ceremonial procedure, but Trump’s legal team is accused of hatching a plot to send a second group of electors who backed Trump from several states in order to create confusion in Congress and force legislators in Washington to have to debate the election’s outcome.  

    No matter that the second slate of electors hadn’t been approved by officials in the states they purported to represent and were not authorized in any way, the indictment says. The effort was so patently bogus that Trump’s team even referred to the group as “phony electors” in their own correspondence, the indictment stated. 

    In the indictment, Smith said the effort amounted to a conspiracy to commit fraud.  

    ‘You’re too honest’

    A third leg of the conspiracy allegedly involved pressuring officials at the Justice Department and Pence to intervene in the election even though they had no standing to do so.  

    The indictment says Trump and his co-conspirators repeatedly communicated with then acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and insisted that he declare ahead of the Jan. 6 certification of the election by Congress that there had been evidence of fraud.

    When Rosen said he would not do that because there was no such evidence, Trump allegedly threatened to replace him with one of the unnamed co-conspirators included in the indictment. 

    At one point, a deputy White House counsel told the co-conspirator that “there is no world, there is no option in  which you do not leave the White House,” and warned that there would be “riots in the streets” if Trump attempted to remain in office, to which the co-conspirator allegedly said: “That’s why there is an Insurrection Act.”

    For weeks ahead of the Jan. 6 certification hearing in Congress, Trump and his cohorts pressured Pence to refuse to certify the vote tally, a purely ceremonial task the vice president has presided over since the country’s founding. 

    Pence steadfastly refused to do so, saying his legal team had told him there was no constitutional basis for the vice president to be able to overturn an election at the last minute. In a phone call less than a week before Jan. 6, Trump allegedly berated Pence and told him, “You’re too honest.”

    When a senior White House advisor told one of the unnamed co-conspirators that if Pence tried to overturn the election it would lead to violence in the streets, the co-conspirator allegedly said that there had been times in the country’s history where violence was necessary to protect the Republic, the indictment said.

    In the days and hours leading up to the Jan. 6 riot, Trump posted several messages on Twitter stating that Pence had the authority to overturn the election and continuing to pressure him to do so. 

    Exploiting the chaos

    On Jan. 6, after Pence issued a statement saying he did not have the authority to not certify the vote, protests outside Congress turned violent, with hundreds of rioters clashing with police and storming the building, delaying the proceedings.

    During the standoff, some of Trump’s co-conspirators tried to reach members of Congress and the Senate to convince them to further delay the certifying process in order to buy Trump more time to convince state legislatures to nullify the already-approved votes, the indictment says.

    Later that afternoon, Trump tweeted: “See, this is what happens when they try to steal an election. These people are angry. These people are really angry about it. This is what happens.” 

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  • Trump indicted by special counsel over efforts to overturn 2020 election

    Trump indicted by special counsel over efforts to overturn 2020 election

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    Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, D.C., in connection with the Justice Department’s probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, including the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    Special counsel Jack Smith has been examining Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack. On that day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to disrupt the congressional certification of the election results.

    In Tuesday’s 45-page indictment, Trump was hit with four charges: conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

    “The attack on our nation’s capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” Smith said at a news conference.

    “As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies — lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government, the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.”

    Trump is expected to be arraigned on Thursday in Washington.

    “In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens,” Smith also said.

    The indictment said Trump had six co-conspirators, and it indicated that four of the individuals were attorneys, one was a political consultant and another was a Justice Department official.

    Trump has denied wrongdoing and is the overwhelming favorite in polls for the GOP nomination for the 2024 presidential race, far ahead in a crowded field that includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. The former president on July 18 said he’d gotten a letter informing him he is a target of that probe. He said he anticipated being indicted.

    Read: Trump says he’s a target of special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 case

    The indictment ratchets up legal pressure for Trump as he seeks the 2024 GOP nomination and aims to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden. The former president is already facing federal charges in Florida that he mishandled classified documents after leaving the White House, and criminal charges in New York over a hush-money case. A separate election-interference investigation is underway in Georgia.

    Read more: Trump has now been indicted in a third case. Here’s where all the investigations stand.

    “This is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden crime family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 presidential election, in which President Trump is the undisputed frontrunner, and leading by substantial margins,” said Trump’s 2024 campaign in a statement.

    “The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” the statement also said.

    In addition, Trump’s campaign made an effort to raise money off the latest indictment, sending an email from the 45th president that asked supporters to “make a contribution to show that you will NEVER SURRENDER our country to tyranny as the Deep State thugs try to JAIL me for life.”

    Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, who’s also seeking the GOP presidential nomination, said in a statement late Tuesday: “Today’s indictment serves as an important reminder: anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” adding he will have more to day after reviewing the indictment.

    An indictment does not disqualify Trump from mounting a White House campaign. The only requirements to run for president, as laid out in the Constitution, are being a natural-born citizen at least 35 years old and a resident of the U.S. for 14 years.

    Washington Watch: Donald Trump indicted again. Can he still run for president?

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  • Putin vows to punish ‘armed uprising’ by Wagner militia as Russia is plunged into crisis | CNN

    Putin vows to punish ‘armed uprising’ by Wagner militia as Russia is plunged into crisis | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Vladimir Putin is facing the greatest threat to his authority in two decades after the head of the Wagner paramilitary group launched an apparent insurrection, claimed control of military facilities in two Russian cities, and warned that his troops would head for Moscow.

    Staring down a sudden and staggering escalation of internal tensions that have simmered for months, the Russian president said on Saturday that those on “path of treason” or armed rebellion would be punished.

    “It is a stab in the back of our country and our people,” he said in an address to the nation, threatening a harsh response for those planning “an armed rebellion.”

    Putin was speaking after the militia chief and his one-time ally Yevgeny Prigozhin dramatically stepped up his feud with Moscow’s security establishment over the handling of the invasion of Ukraine, throwing the country into crisis with a series of military moves that seemingly took Moscow by surprise.

    After Putin’s speech, Prigozhin said on Telegram that the president was “deeply mistaken.”

    “We are patriots of our Motherland, we fought and are fighting,” he said in audio messages. “And no one is going to turn themselves in at the request of the president, the FSB or anyone else.”

    Prigozhin, who heads private military group Wagner, said his forces had taken control of Russian military facilities in the city of Rostov-on-Don, an important operations base for Russia’s war in Ukraine. He threatened to march on Moscow if defense minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia’s top general Valery Gerasimov did not meet with him in Rostov.

    The Wagner group also claimed to have seized Russian facilities in a second city, Voronezh, some 600 kilometers (372 miles) to the north of Rostov-on-Don. The governor of the Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, said the Russian military were engaging in “combat measures” in the area.

    In its daily intelligence update, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Prigozhin’s insurrection “represents the most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times.”

    The briefing said some Russian forces had “likely remained passive, acquiescing to Wagner.”

    And it predicted that individual decisions to support or betray Putin could tip the balance of the showdown. “Over the coming hours, the loyalty of Russia’s security forces, and especially the Russian National Guard, will be key to how the crisis plays out,” the report said.

    The developments leave Putin’s grip on power looking suddenly perilous, 16 months after he launched an invasion of Ukraine that has been beset by military setbacks, strategic failure and disorganization.

    In his remarks, Putin described events in Rostov as an insurrection. “The situation in Rostov-on-Don remains difficult during the armed uprising. In Rostov, the work of civil and military administration is basically blocked,” Putin said, adding that “decisive action” would be taken.

    Prigozhin has been notoriously critical of the Russian military hierarchy since the war in Ukraine started. But he had spared Putin from direct criticism, instead directing his ire towards the President’s commanders.

    The private military chief seemingly built influence with with Putin over the course of the conflict, with his Wagner forces taking a leading role in the labored but ultimately successful assault on Bakhmut earlier this year. The capture of that city was a rare Russian gain in Ukraine in recent months, boosting Prigozhin’s profile further.

    But his rhetoric on Friday and Saturday indicated that Prigozhin had turned not merely against the military leadership’s handling of the invasion of Ukraine, but also on the longtime Russian leader.

    On Friday, he said Moscow invaded Ukraine under false pretenses devised by the Russian Ministry of Defense, and that Russia is actually losing ground on the battlefield. That was a significant change from his previous criticism. In the past, he defended the reasoning for the war but was critical of how it was being done by the defense minister, Shoigu.

    “When we were told that we were at war with Ukraine, we went and fought. But it turned out that ammunition, weapons, all the money that was allocated is also being stolen, and the bureaucrats are sitting [idly], saving it for themselves, just for the occasion that happened today, when someone [is] marching to Moscow,” Prigozhin said in his Saturday Telegram messages.

    This dramatic escalation came after Prigozhin accused Russian forces of striking a Wagner military camp and killing “a huge amount” of his fighters – a claim Russia’s Ministry of Defense has denied and called an “informational provocation.”

    The militia chief, whose forces have played a key role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, warned of retribution in a series of Telegram messages Friday and Saturday, where he announced his forces were moving into the Rostov region neighboring Russian-occupied Ukraine, ready to “destroy everything” in their way.

    “There are 25,000 of us and we are going to find out why there is such chaos in the country. There are 25,000 of us waiting as a tactical reserve and a strategic reserve. It’s the whole army and the whole country, everyone who wants to, join us. We must end this debacle,” hte said, in a radical escalation of a longstanding feud with Russia’s military leaders.

    Russia’s domestic intelligence service, Federal Security Service (FSB), responded on Friday, urging Wagner fighters to detain their leader and opening a criminal case against the militia boss accusing him of “calling for an armed rebellion.” Authorities in the capital Moscow, meanwhile, tightened its security measures.

    Many officials quickly rallied to Putin’s side. Russian intelligence official, Lt. Gen. Vladimir Alekseev, posted a video about Prigozhin’s actions that day, describing it as a coup attempt.

    “Only the president has the right to appoint the top leadership of the armed forces, and you are trying to encroach on his authority. This is a coup d’etat. There is no need to do this now, because there is no greater damage to the image of Russia and to its armed forces,” he added.

    Prigozhin denied his acts were a coup, saying instead they were a “march of justice” that would “not interfere with the troops in any way.”

    Another key figure, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov spoke of a “vile betrayal” by Prigozhin on Telegram. “The rebellion must be crushed, and if this requires harsh measures, then we are ready!” he said.

    But in Ukraine, authorities watched one of the most significant developments since the war began with intrigue and defiance. “The internal Russian confrontation… is a sign of the collapse of the Putin regime,” said Andriy Yusov, a spokesperson for the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine.

    He said the events are “a direct consequence of the Putin regime’s criminal military aggression against Ukraine.”

    Russia’s Ministry of Defense appealed to Wagner forces on Saturday to “safely return to their points of permanent deployment.”

    “You were tricked into Prigozhin’s criminal adventure and participation in an armed rebellion,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said in their official Telegram Channel.

    Russian security forces cordoned off Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg on Saturday, as the state mobilized in response to Wagner’s moves.

    The Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee also announced the introduction of a counter-terrorist operation regime in Moscow, the Moscow region and Voronezh region.

    The counter-terrorist regime includes but is not limited to document checks, strengthened protection of public order, monitoring telephone conversations and restricting communications, restricting the movement of vehicles and pedestrians on the streets.

    Moscow officials said in a statement that entry and exit to the city are not being restricted, but said there “there may be difficulties with the movement of traffic.”

    Social media posts showed military vehicles were seen driving around the main streets of the Russian capital in the early hours of Saturday.

    Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communication regulator, said the government may restrict the internet in areas of the “counter-terrorist operation,” according to Russian state media agency TASS.

    Prigozhin has asserted that his forces would receive wide backing from Russian soldiers, claiming they were given a hero’s welcome when they entered the Rostov region and that by Saturday morning 60 to 70 had already joined up with his fighters.

    “The border guards came out to meet and hugged our fighters,” he claimed.

    Military activity became obvious in Rostov-on-don Saturday morning, when images began emerging on social media of military vehicles going through the streets and helicopters flying overhead, though it was not clear whose control they were in.

    Rostov region Governor Vasily Golubev earlier Saturday asked residents to stay calm and not leave their homes in a Telegram post. The Rostov region is about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from Moscow. Its capital Rostov-on-Don has a population of around 1 million.

    In the first suggestion of open armed conflict between the two sides Saturday morning, Prigozhin on Saturday said his units were hit by a helicopter on a highway. It’s unclear exactly where the units were.

    “The Wagner units are intact, the helicopter is destroyed and is burning in the forest,” Prigozhin said, adding “we will take it as a threat and destroy everything around us.”

    He also claimed a second helicopter was downed after it attacked civilians. CNN has been unable to verify any of Prigozhin’s claims.

    Prigozhin added the alleged Wagner take-over of military facilities in Rostov would not impede military operations, saying his men are not stopping the officers from carrying out their duties.

    Wagner has played a prominent role in the Ukraine war, and Prigozhin, so far, has faced few consequences for his public feud with Russia’s military leadership.

    Prigozhin and Wagner have played an unusual and informal role in Putin’s Russia. He has known the president since the 1990s; both are from St. Petersburg. Prigozhin won valuable contracts as the Kremlin’s caterer and later set up the Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency, whose mission was to interfere in the US 2016 election.

    Wagner fighters deployed in a street near the headquarters of the Southern Military District in Rostov-on-Don, on June 24.

    The fallout from his comments also inspired a wave of schadenfreude in Ukraine.

    Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Ukraine’s presidential office on Saturday described the actions as exposing a deeper schism within the Russian establishment.

    “The split between the elites is too obvious. Agreeing and pretending that everything is settled won’t work,” Myhailo Podolyak tweeted. “Someone must definitely lose: either Prigozhin (with a fatal ending), or the collective ‘anti-Prygozhin.’”

    “Everything is just beginning in Russia,” he added.

    Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, added on Saturday that “Ukraine has become a few steps closer to complete Victory over Russia and complete return of its territories, including Crimea.” He called Prigozhin a “vile, but useful” monster, predicting that Putin’s hold on power “will crumble like a house of cards.”

    The impact of the events on the war in Ukraine remain murky, but it is difficult to see how Russia could emerge from the drama strengthened on the battlefield. Wagner’s forces have become essential to Russia’s war effort, and the possible redirection of Wagner troops toward the internal conflict would drastically weaken their ground campaign.

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  • These Iranian activists fled for freedom. The regime still managed to find them | CNN

    These Iranian activists fled for freedom. The regime still managed to find them | CNN

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    Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.


    Paris
    CNN
     — 

    Iranian dissident Massi Kamari felt helpless when she found out about her elderly parents being harassed by the authorities back home.

    She called her mother’s phone in late December, but the person on the other end was a man whose voice she didn’t recognize.

    Her parents were inside the offices of Iran’s intelligence service in Tehran. And she was in the French capital, Paris, where she lives.

    Kamari knew that the government agents who had been intimidating her family for months wanted only one thing: to speak directly to her about her activism abroad.

    “I was thinking: ‘What can I do about this?’ So, I decided to try to record this phone call,” she recalled.

    In the recording of the phone call in late December that was obtained by CNN, Kamari can be heard arguing for almost 20 minutes with a man she believes is a member of Iran’s shadowy intelligence service.

    “Whatever actions you take against the Islamic Republic, there in France, is a crime,” the man is heard saying. “And your family will answer for it.”

    “Sir, my family is only responsible for its own actions,” she responds.

    “Listen,” he says. “Your mother will be taken to Evin Prison, at her age. Your sister and your father (will) also be taken to Evin prison too. They will be interrogated.”

    “Okay,” she answers calmly. “Take them for interrogation. They have done nothing wrong.”

    The 42-year-old is among many Iranians now living in the West who say that Tehran’s terrorizing repression is reaching beyond its borders, to faraway places previously assumed to be safe, in order to crush dissent.

    CNN’s request for comment to Iran’s authorities has gone unanswered.

    Last year, the country was rocked by a popular uprising that was first ignited in September by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in custody after being detained by the country’s morality police for allegedly wearing her headscarf improperly.

    Months on, the demonstrations have fizzled out amid a growing wave of repression.

    Through the end of January, hundreds of protesters have been killed, including at least 52 children, according to Human Rights Watch. At least four young men have been executed at the order of Iranian courts that the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran has called “lynching committees.”

    Dissidents abroad have played a key role in Iran’s protest movement, carrying stories of abuse and oppression from the streets of Iran to international news channels and the halls of foreign governments. That bridge to the outside world has been crucial for the protesters amid a near total shutdown of internet services in the country and tight regime control on local media.

    Successful lobbying campaigns are credited, in part, with ramped-up sanctions against the Tehran regime from Western governments and international organizations. In an unprecedented move, for example, United Nations member states removed Iran from a key UN women’s rights group in December – which was condemned by Iran.

    “Our efforts to promote and protect women’s rights are driven by our rich culture and well-established Constitution,” reads an Iranian government statement.

    “The Iranian women and girls are most informed, dynamic, educated and capable in our region and the world, have always strived for their progress and will continue to strive in the same direction despite continued US chronical hypocrisy.”

    The organizing power and political sway of the diaspora is exactly why Tehran is expanding the crackdown beyond its own borders, Nazila Golestan, an activist of three decades and co-founder of the opposition organization HamAva, told CNN.

    “They are the government. But we are the opposition, and we are numerous,” she explained. “We are everywhere, everywhere and with the internet we have a bridge from the people inside to the people outside.”

    Massi Kamari fled Iran for France about four years ago, fearing for her life due to her activism back home.

    “When I got here, I thought I can freely express my feelings now. I tried to be the voice of my (suffering) people in Iran,” she explained. “I tried to participate as much as I can in protests.”

    But as the protests started picking up steam late last year, she found herself being intimidated again. Her parents in Iran, she said, received repeated calls from the intelligence service for a summoning to their local headquarters.

    “I told them, please don’t answer these calls, and please don’t go there,” she said of her conversation with her parents at the time. “But unfortunately, because these threats got worse and worse and because my parents are older, I could not expect them to listen to me and not go. I understood they are under pressure, and it might happen.”

    And it did happen. On December 31, Kamari said she received the call from a man she believed to be a member of Iran’s intelligence service, who used her mother’s confiscated phone to reach her. He refused to identify himself, but he made his orders and threats clear.

    “It was so hard because I did not know how far these people will go,” she said of the call. “I felt because they were putting pressure on my family and I was not there, I had to respond strongly.”

    The organizing power and political sway of the diaspora is exactly why Tehran is expanding the crackdown beyond its own borders, Nazila Golestan, an activist of three decades and co-founder of the opposition organization HamAva, told CNN.

    For now, Kamari says her parents are safe, but she barely speaks to them as a precaution.

    Other Iranian exiles with loved ones still back home tell similar stories of their families being used as pawns by the Islamic Republic in order to silence them.

    According to a 2021 report by Freedom House, an advocacy group in Washington, DC, Iran engages in transnational repression using tactics including assassinations, detentions, digital intimidation, spyware, coercion by proxy, and mobility controls, among others. The report’s authors noted that these tools have been used against Iranians in at least nine countries in Europe, the Middle East, and North America.

    Forty-year-old Sahar Nasseri left Iran as a teenager to study in Sweden, where she now lives and continues to be an outspoken critic of the Islamic Republic. She says her family, too, is constantly harassed by Iran’s intelligence service.

    “They (the intelligence service) have created this distance between me and my family, which is mental torture,” she said through tears. “For every single thing I do, every time I appear on TV, every political act that me and my friends take, every time we speak with a government or a political representative, they call my parents.”

    Exiled Iranian dissidents say Western sanctions have not ended the campaign of repression and harassment they face for speaking out.

    Despite leaving their homeland for distant countries, many say that no place is beyond the regime’s reach. In January, the US Justice Department said it had uncovered a plot to assassinate prominent Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad near her home in Brooklyn, New York. It wasn’t the first time US authorities had foiled an alleged plot against Alinejad.

    “This is the second time in the past two years that this Office and our partners at the FBI have disrupted plots originating from within Iran to kidnap or kill this victim for the ‘crime’ of exercising the right to free speech,” the DOJ said in a statement on January 27.

    At least three men – the authorities believe are part of an Eastern European crime organization tied to Iran – have been indicted. One was charged with possessing a loaded AK-47 style rifle, found inside a suitcase in his vehicle.

    US prosecutors say that a 2021 kidnapping plot was organized by an Iranian intelligence official, an indictment alleged, but Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied any involvement, calling the accusation “baseless and ridiculous,” according to the semi-official news agency ISNA.

    Appearing on “CNN This Morning” in January, Alinejad vowed to continue her activism.

    “I’m not going to give up,” she said “What scares me (is) that this is happening right now in Iran. I mean these criminals were hired by the Islamic Republic. They were a part of a criminal organization from eastern Europe. So, you see the Islamic Republic itself is a criminal organization. And killing innocent protesters inside Iran, killing teenagers every single day.”

    Nasseri and Kamari echo her determination. Three women across three different countries who have defied threats from the Islamic Republic to share their ordeal say efforts to silence them have only made their voices louder and more prominent.

    They say they are inspired by the anti-government demonstrations inside their country and by the courage of protesters there in the face of a brutal government crackdown.

    “There is nowhere you can be safe,” Kamari said from the site of an anti-Iranian regime protest overlooking the Eiffel Tower in Paris. “But even the week after I received the call (from Iranian intelligence officials), I was out doing my political work. I will not stop my activism because of threats.”

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  • FBI arrests two alleged Chinese agents and charges dozens with working inside US to silence dissidents | CNN Politics

    FBI arrests two alleged Chinese agents and charges dozens with working inside US to silence dissidents | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The FBI has arrested two alleged Chinese agents and federal prosecutors have charged dozens of others with working to silence and harass dissidents within the United States – with some even operating an “undeclared police station” in New York City.

    Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping allegedly operated the police station in New York City’s Chinatown. Both men are US citizens and have been charged with conspiring to act as agents of the Chinese government and obstructing justice. The police station has been shut down since a search warrant was executed at the location last fall, according to John Marzulli, a spokesman for the US Attorney in the Eastern District of New York.

    The two men appeared in court Monday, with Lu being released on a $250,000 bond and Chen on a $400,000 bond. They are not permitted to travel within half a mile of the Chinese consulate nor mission or communicate with co-conspirators. Neither has entered a plea.

    Lu retained counsel but was represented in the proceeding by a public defender, and a public defender was appointed to represent Chen. Both of the public defenders at the hearing declined to comment.

    The Justice Department also announced charges against 34 officers of the national police of the People’s Republic of China with harassing Chinese nationals in the US critical of the Chinese government.

    All 34 are believed to live in China and remain at large, according to Justice Department. The officers were part of an effort by the Chinese government called the “912 Special Project Working Group” to influence global perceptions of the People’s Republic of China, or PRC.

    The agents allegedly used social media to post favorably about the PRC and to attack their “perceived adversaries,” including the United States and Chinese pro-democracy activists around the world, the Justice Department said. The illegal police operation is the “first known overseas police station in the United States” set up on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, or MPS, the Justice Department said.

    The agents were allegedly directed by the MPS to create and maintain accounts that looked like they were run by American citizens. Topics of their propaganda machine include US foreign policy, human rights issues in Hong Kong, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Covid-19 and racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd, according to prosecutors.

    Agents also posted videos and articles targeting Chinese pro-democracy advocates in the US, the Justice Department alleged, some of which included explicit death threats. In addition, the agents allegedly used threats to intimidate people into skipping pro-democracy protests within the United States.

    “The PRC, through its repressive security apparatus, established a secret physical presence in New York City to monitor and intimidate dissidents and those critical of its government,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said in a statement. “The PRC’s actions go far beyond the bounds of acceptable nation-state conduct. We will resolutely defend the freedoms of all those living in our country from the threat of authoritarian repression.”

    In another case, federal prosecutors allege that an executive at a videoconferencing company conspired with others to disrupt a meeting on the platform commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre at the direction of the Chinese government.

    Though the videoconferencing company was not named in court documents, CNN has previously reported the company is Zoom.

    The executive, Xinjiang “Julien” Jin, was previously charged by the Justice Department for the alleged plot. The new complaint adds charges against nine additional individuals, including six Ministry of Public Security officers and two officials with the Cyberspace Administration of China.

    According to the Justice Department, the executive, who is based in China, and his codefendants repeatedly sought in 2018 to interfere with video calls organized by a Chinese dissident living in New York City after a request from the Chinese government to do so. Jin also tried to identify any other account associated with that dissident and place them in a server with lagging response times, prosecutors say.

    In 2019, Jin and his codefendants allegedly worked with the Chinese government to block accounts seeking to commemorate the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

    According to court documents, the secret police station was set up in early 2022 to identify, track and intimidate Chinese dissidents within the United States.

    Prosecutors say one such victim was an unnamed person living in California who was a “PRC dissident and PRC pro-democracy advocate” who “reported to the FBI that he/she served as an adviser to a 2022 congressional candidate from New York State” who also was the target of a PRC pressure campaign.

    That victim told the FBI that they have received threatening phone calls and social media messages from people they believe are associated with the Chinese government, and that person’s car was broken into immediately after that person gave a pro-democracy speech.

    During an interview with the FBI, Lu said that he had established the office, which he called an “oversees service center,” to help Chinese nationals living in the United States “renew Chinese government documents.” Lu told investigators during the interview that Chen acted as the primary point of contact with officials back in China.

    During a separate interview, Chen initially denied having any direct contact with the Chinese government, according to court documents, though he later recanted.

    Investigators say that during that interview, Chen took a seven-minute bathroom break, during which an agent repeatedly warned him through the bathroom door not to delete anything on his phone. When agents later searched the phone, they found that chat logs with MPS officials had been cleared.

    Both Lu and Chen later acknowledged deleting messages between themselves and their liaison in the MPS, according to court documents.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Proud Boy testifies in sedition trial about far-right group being the ‘tip of the spear’ on January 6 | CNN Politics

    Proud Boy testifies in sedition trial about far-right group being the ‘tip of the spear’ on January 6 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The sole Proud Boy to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in connection to the US Capitol riot testified on Wednesday that members of the far-right organization believed the country was barreling toward revolution and that they were the “tip of the spear.”

    Jeremy Bertino, a top lieutenant to Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio, testified as part of a cooperation deal that he struck with prosecutors against Tarrio and four other members of the Proud Boys charged with conspiring to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

    “We had a big fight on our hands. It was going to be an uphill battle, and everyone had turned against us,” Bertino testified. “My belief was that we had to take the reins and pretty much be the leaders that we had been building ourselves up to be.”

    His testimony allowed prosecutors to show jurors how the events of January 6, 2021, unfolded in the mind of a top member of the organization as he watched it online from his North Carolina home, sending messages to his “brothers” about targeting then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and assuring them that members of the far-left group Antifa weren’t there to stop them.

    Some of the messages featured in court were from defendants in the case, whom Bertino said he would “take a bullet for.” But Bertino and the five defendants – Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Joseph Biggs and Dominic Pezzola – rarely made eye contact during the testimony.

    There was not a premeditated or specific plan to storm the Capitol, Bertino testified, adding that getting the Proud Boys to communicate and work together was like “herding cats.” The Proud Boys had several group messages from the days before the riot where members mentioned descending on the Capitol building, according to exhibits shown by prosecutors.

    As court challenges to the 2020 election failed, members of the Proud Boys – who saw themselves as the “foot soldiers of the right” – began to believe the country was headed toward an “all-out revolution,” Bertino testified.

    “I felt it coming,” he said.

    The Proud Boys believed that the government was controlled by “commies,” he testified, and they began to turn against the police, whom the group increasingly saw as their enemy. Everybody in the organization felt “desperate,” including Tarrio, Bertino told the jury.

    “His tones were calculated,” Bertino said of Tarrio. “Cold, but very determined. He felt the exact same way that I did.”

    Members also were inspired by then-President Donald Trump’s reference to their organization in a 2020 presidential debate, where he told the group to “stand back and stand by.” Bertino testified that there were “nonstop requests for membership” after the debate, specifically from people who wanted to attend rallies, and that the group did less vetting of new members to keep up with applications.

    During cross examination, Bertino said that he thought the Proud Boys had a goal to stop the 2020 election but had no knowledge of how that goal would be achieved.

    “I didn’t have a direct idea of where they were going, how they were going to get there.”

    Bertino was not in Washington, DC, on the day of the riot because he was at home recovering from a stab wound he suffered during a previous pro-Trump rally, but he testified that he watched on a livestream video. He saw the mob as starting the “next American revolution,” and told others Proud Boys he was brought to tears during the attack.

    “I was happy, excited, in awe and disbelief that people were doing what they said they would do,” Bertino told the jury. When the crowd descended on the Capitol building, “it meant that we influenced people, the normies, enough to make them stand for themselves and take back their country and take back their freedom,” he said.

    In chats to other Proud Boys, Bertino encouraged members to move forward, telling them that he could see the Capitol building on a livestream and that no members of Antifa would be at the building to stop the pro-Trump mob.

    Bertino also messaged: “They need to get peloton” – which he testified was a misspelled reference to Pelosi. “She was the talking head of the opposition and they needed to remove her from power,” he said.

    By the evening of January 6, Bertino grew angry at Trump supporters for leaving the Capitol building, he told the jury.

    “The way I felt at the moment, if we give that building up, we were giving up our country,” Bertino testified. He sent encrypted messages to other Proud Boys members, saying that “we failed,” and “Half measures mean nothing,” and, referring to lawmakers inside the Capitol, “Fuck fear: They need to be hung.”

    “Once they took that step, there was no coming back from it,” Bertino testified Wednesday. “And they decided basically to balk and walk away after creating all that chaos down there.”

    “The revolution had failed,” he continued, “because the House was still going to go on and certify the election.”

    Bertino told the jury that after January 6, he tried to delete what he saw as incriminating messages on his phone and he wasn’t fully truthful with FBI agents when they asked him about the Capitol attack.

    “I guess it’s a natural instinct to protect yourself and protect those you love,” Bertino testified.

    “I love them,” he said of the five defendants. “I didn’t want to see anything bad happen to them. Still don’t.”

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  • Meet the dissident Russians living the ‘nightmare from which it is impossible to wake up’ | CNN

    Meet the dissident Russians living the ‘nightmare from which it is impossible to wake up’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    For Andrei Soldatov and his friends, February 24 marked the end of Russia as they knew it.

    In the early hours of that day, President Vladimir Putin announced that he had ordered Russian troops into Ukraine. “And all of a sudden, everything we still believed in got completely compromised,” Soldatov, a Russian investigative journalist who lives in self-imposed exile in London, told CNN.

    Life in Russia had for many years been getting more difficult for dissidents, independent journalists and anyone speaking up against Putin’s regime, but Soldatov said people like him still had some hope to hold on to. The war changed that, he said.

    “It was horrible to live under Putin and it was very far from the idea of democracy, but you still had some established institutions which you would almost take for granted that they would exist no matter what, and all of a sudden, everything collapsed,” he said, pointing to the near complete eradication of any remaining independent media, civil society and human rights groups.

    One woman who still lives in Moscow and whom CNN will call Olga, described February 24 as the point of no return. “Life turned into a nightmare from which it is impossible to wake up, round-the-clock reading of the news, protests at which there were more security forces than civilians,” she told CNN via an encrypted messaging service, describing the shame and hopelessness she feels. “The aggressor is our country. On our behalf, on my behalf, this terrible massacre is being waged,” she said.

    CNN is not publishing the woman’s name and is using a pseudonym at her request because of the risks to her personal safety. Speaking to foreign journalists about her involvement in the demonstrations – and even the use of the word “war” as opposed to the Kremlin-approved term “special military operation” – puts her at risk of arrest and potentially a lengthy prison sentence.

    While Russian state media gives the impression that everyone in Russia supports the war and Putin, many of the country’s more liberal, educated and well-traveled citizens have spent the past nine months horrified about the violence inflicted on Ukraine by their own country.

    But with the increasingly repressive regime cracking down on any signs of opposition, the choices of those who dissent are extremely limited.

    Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country, some out of principle or because they were facing persecution, others to avoid Western sanctions or the risk of being drafted into the military. Thousands have been detained, according to rights groups. Many others have been forced to withdraw from public life or lost their jobs, after hundreds of western companies withdrew from Russia and many local and foreign NGOs and campaign groups were shuttered.

    The repression of dissent has been brutal. According to independent human rights monitor OVD-Info, there have been more than 19,400 detentions for protesting against the war in Russia and dozens are prosecuted every week under a new law that made it illegal to disseminate “fake” information about the invasion.

    A court in Moscow used the law earlier this month when it sentenced Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin to more than eight years in prison for speaking up about the alleged killing of civilians by Russian troops in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, outside Kyiv. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the mass killings, while reiterating baseless claims that the images of civilians bodies were fake.

    Soldatov spoke to CNN on the day he received, in London, an official letter from the Russian authorities detailing criminal charges against him.

    Like Yashin and hundreds of others, he is accused of spreading false information about the Russian military and law enforcement and is now on Russia’s wanted list. He denies the charges and says he was simply reporting the truth about the actions of the Russian government in the run up to and during the invasion of Ukraine.

    Any remnants of a free press have been wiped out since the war started. Western publications and social media sites have been blocked online, forcing Russians seeking alternatives to the official propaganda to go underground using virtual private networks, or VPNs, which allow people to browse the internet freely by encrypting their internet traffic. Data from Sensortower, an apps market research company, show the top eight VPN apps in Russia were downloaded almost 80 million times in Russia this year, despite the government’s efforts to crack down on their use.

    Ilya Yashin stands inside a defendant's glass cage during a hearing at the Meshchansky district court in Moscow on December 9, 2022.

    The clampdown has forced many people to reconsider their future in Russia. According to official statistics published by the Russian government, more than half a million people left Russia in the first 10 months of the year – more than twice as many in the whole of 2021.

    The true number might be much higher, as many would have likely left unofficially.

    It is unclear how many have left for political reasons, but almost 50,000 Russian citizens requested asylum in another country in the first six months of the year, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. That’s more than the annual figure for any of the past 20 years.

    The US Border Patrol recorded 36,271 encounters with Russian citizens between October 2021 and September 2022. The number includes people who were apprehended or expelled by the border force and is significantly higher than the 13,240 and 5,946 recorded in the two previous fiscal years.

    OK Russians, a non-profit helping Russian citizens fleeing persecution, said its surveys suggest those who are leaving are on average younger and more educated than the general Russian public.

    “If you take the Moscow liberal intelligentsia, and of course, I’m talking only about the people I know and I know of, I would say that maybe 70% left. It’s journalists, it’s people from universities, sometimes schools, artists, people who have clubs and [foundations] in Moscow that got closed down,” Soldatov said.

    The numbers that have left Russia pale in comparison to the more than 4.8 million Ukrainians who have registered as refugees across Europe because of the war, but the huge outflow of mostly educated people is having a significant impact on Russian society.

    “If you are losing the educated middle-class portion of the population, then it matters for your economic prospects, but it also matters for the potential political reconstitution of the country,” said Kristine Berzina, a Russia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She pointed to the exodus of liberal, educated Iranians following the country’s 1979 revolution as an example of what can happen when large numbers from such demographics leave the country.

    “You don’t need to have a fully radicalized population to be able to support a radical regime,” she said.

    Maria only has one friend left in Moscow. Everybody else fled following President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch an invasion into Ukraine.

    “They all left right at the beginning of March,” she said. “[For them] it is impossible to live in a country that started a war.”

    Maria has asked CNN not to publish her full name or details of her employer because of personal security concerns. The NGO for which Maria works is deemed a foreign agent under Russia’s recently expanded law on foreign agents, which means she is at risk of being persecuted.

    “Everyone who is against the war saw their lives simply destroyed,” she told CNN. “We can’t complain now, because someone will immediately tell you – and quite reasonably so – that no one is interested in you right now. It’s Ukrainians who suffered the most. Of course, they are in much worse conditions now. But that doesn’t mean we’re okay.”

    Maria said she remains determined to stay in Russia, even though all of her friends and her son have left. Her elderly mother can’t – and doesn’t want to – travel abroad, and Maria is not willing to leave her. “If I knew for sure that the borders would not be closed and I could come at any time if my mother needed my help, it would probably be easier for me to leave. But knowing that something else could happen at any moment scares me,” she told CNN.

    She still believes her work is important, but said she is struggling to see any hope for the future. Like Olga, she described her own life as a perpetual cycle of panic, horror, shame and self-doubt.

    “You’re constantly torn apart: Are you to blame? Did you not do enough? Can you do something else or not, and how should you act now?” she said. “There are no prospects. I’m an adult, and I didn’t exactly have all my life figured out, but all in all I understood what would happen next. Now nobody understands anything. People don’t even understand what will happen to them tomorrow.”

    Soldatov said he had begun to question his own identity. “The things we held dear, like the memory of the Second World War, for instance, became completely compromised,” he said, referring to Putin’s baseless claim that Russian forces are “denazifying” Ukraine.

    “It’s part of the Russian national identity that the Russian army helped to win the war (against Hitler’s Germany) and now it feels absolutely wrong because this message was used by Putin. You start questioning the history,” he said, adding that the favorable reaction by some parts of the Russian society to the invasion prompted him to research pre-war rhetoric in Germany.

    Speaking about Russians as “us” had begun to feel wrong because he deeply disagreed with Russia’s actions, he said. But saying “Russians” didn’t seem right either. “Because of course, I’m Russian, I also have some partial responsibility for what is going on and I do not want to hide from it.”

    Finnish border guard officers look at cars queueing at the Vaalimaa border crossing between Finland and Russia on September 30, 2022.

    Maria, a historian by training, has spent years taking part in anti-government protests, describing herself as a liberal deeply opposed to Putin, a former KGB agent. “I always knew that our country should not be led by a person from the KGB. It is too deeply rooted with horrors, deaths and all that,” she said.

    She said that when the war broke out, she grew more worried about attending demonstrations and stopped when it became too dangerous. She doesn’t see a scenario under which the regime in Russia could be overthrown any time soon, she said, pointing out that all of the opposition leaders “are in jail or have been killed.”

    Berzina said that the expectation of some in the West – that “once people start feeling as though their leaders are doing wrong, that there is an immediate wave of protests on the streets and call for government change that actually has an effect” – does not reflect the reality of life in Russia.

    “The Putin regime has done a very good job of either forcing out or imprisoning all viable alternatives that are of the more democratic fashion and then on the other side you have fear of going out into the streets if there’s no clear path forward,” she said.

    Olga, the woman who lives in Moscow and has regularly attended protests against the war, has also lost hope.

    “Almost all opposition leaders and opinion leaders are now either in prison or abroad. People have a huge potential for political action, but there is no leader and no power base,” she said, adding that civilians will not come out against the armed police, the National Guard, and other security forces.

    “It is probably difficult for people from democratic countries to understand the realities of life in a powerful autocracy,” she said. “It’s a terrifying feeling of one’s own insignificance and helplessness in front of a gigantic machine of death and madness.”

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  • Hiding in plain sight: The network of citizens sheltering Iran’s protesters | CNN

    Hiding in plain sight: The network of citizens sheltering Iran’s protesters | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    For months, Leila has barely seen sunlight.

    “I miss being in the open air…I miss being able to walk freely,” she told CNN. “I miss my family, my room.”

    Her life now is largely confined to four walls, in a house that is not her own, with people who – until a few weeks ago – she had never met.

    Leila has been in the crosshairs of Iran’s government for years due to her work as a civil rights activist and grassroots organizer. She was forced into hiding in September, when a warrant was issued for her arrest following the outbreak of nationwide protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young woman accused of flouting the country’s compulsory hijab laws.

    Since then, while security forces stalk her house and family, Leila has taken refuge in the homes of strangers. An anonymous network of concerned citizens – “ordinary people” connected by a shared mission to protect protesters – who quietly support the movement from afar by offering their homes to activists in need.

    It’s impossible to know exactly how many protesters are being sheltered inside Iran, but CNN has spoken to several people who, like Leila, have left behind their homes and families to escape what has become an increasingly violent state crackdown.

    Leila says her own story, and the stories of those bravely hiding her, show that as well as the extraordinary displays of public anger unfolding on Iran’s streets, “the struggle against the regime continues in different forms.”

    “I came here in the middle of the night. It was dark. I don’t even know where I am and my family doesn’t know either,” she said of her current location.

    Leila – who has spent time in some of Iran’s most notorious prisons for her activism in the past – has long provided a voice for people the regime would prefer remain silent, advocating on behalf of political prisoners, and demonstrators facing execution.

    CNN has verified documents, video, witness testimony and statements from inside the country which suggest that at least 43 people could face imminent execution in Iran in relation to the current protests.

    Using only a burner phone and a VPN Leila continues her work today, communicating with protesters in jail, as well as families with loved ones on death row – sharing their stories on social media, in an effort to help keep them safe, and alive.

    “The comments and messages I receive are very encouraging. People are feeling good to see that I am active now and that I am with them [during this uprising].”

    But as time passes, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps appear to be doubling down on their hunt for Leila.

    “Every day a car with two passengers is constantly stationed out front of my family home…They have repeatedly arrested several of my family members and friends. In their interrogations, they ask, “Where is Leila? Where is she hiding?”

    To speak with her loved ones, Leila relies on third parties to pass on notes through encrypted messaging services, using code words in case Iran’s security forces are monitoring their conversations.

    “There are listening devices in our house,” she said. “That’s why I never make phone calls to my family anymore.”

    For years, Leila’s life has been on pause – interrupted by periods of imprisonment and prolonged interrogation – all at the hands of the Islamic Republic’s notorious security apparatus.

    “I was tortured psychologically, kept in solitary confinement. They threatened and humiliated me every day.”

    Over the last five years, Iran has been gripped by waves of demonstrations concerning issues spanning from economic mismanagement and corruption to civil rights. One of the most visible displays of public anger was in 2019, when rising gas prices led to a sweeping uprising that was quickly met with lethal force.

    Before the recent protests sparked by Amini’s death – which many see as the most significant threat the regime has faced to date – Leila was trying to rebuild.

    “When I came out of prison life was very difficult for me, but I tried to create small outlets for myself.”

    She had set up a local business, enrolled in a university course, and was working with a therapist to acclimate back to normal life and deal with the trauma brought on by years of incarceration.

    All of that changed within days of Amini’s death, when Leila knew she needed to take an active role once more in the protests that were filling streets across the country with chants of “Women, Life, Freedom.”

    Alongside her family, she began joining marches – sharing the names and stories of protesters being detained on her social media.

    Almost immediately, the threats from Iran’s authorities to send Leila back to prison started again – and then came the warrant.

    “They wanted to silence me as soon as the uprising happened after Mahsa Amini was murdered…I knew if I wanted to stay and continue my activities, I would have to hide myself from their sight.”

    Countless Iranians have been forced to cross borders in order to flee Iran’s security forces. Leila, though, took a leap of faith and decided to go underground, after a “trusted friend” she’d met through a network of activists set her up with her first safe house.

    The drive lasted hours, and there was only darkness.

    “I wore a mask. I laid down in the car so that no one would notice me. I didn’t even get out to go to the toilet or eat.”

    She has continued to move around in the weeks and months since. Smuggled through the night, never knowing her final destination.

    “The first place I was in, the homeowner was very scared, so eventually I left for another location.”

    “[Another] person I stayed with was very nice and became supportive of my efforts,” she said.

    In order to live totally off the grid, Leila is no longer picking up her medication or checking in with any doctors or medical professionals.

    She’s also stopped accessing her bank account and went as far as exchanging her life savings for gold, which someone sells for her from time to time, when she urgently needs cash.

    As is the case for so many ordinary Iranians who are the driving force of the protests, Leila’s life has “practically stopped.”

    “I just breathe and work.”

    “I am not afraid of prison. Maybe many people think that we were afraid and so we hid ourselves, but this is not the case.”

    “The one thing I fear is that if I get caught and sent back to jail, I will become a faceless name…unable to help the cause and movement, like countless others who were sent to prison and never heard of again.”

    For now, Leila says the only thing that keeps her going as weeks in hiding turn into months, is the distant hope that one day she could live in a free Iran.

    “The answer of the Islamic Republic has always been repression and violence…I hope for a miracle and that this situation will end as soon as possible for the benefit of the people.”

    “Just like when I was in prison and solitary confinement, I am improving myself with the hope of freedom,” she said.

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  • House Jan. 6 select committee expected to advise Justice Department to hit Trump with criminal charges

    House Jan. 6 select committee expected to advise Justice Department to hit Trump with criminal charges

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee is wrapping up its investigation of the violent 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection, with lawmakers expected to cap one of the most exhaustive and aggressive congressional probes in memory with an extraordinary recommendation: The Justice Department should consider criminal charges against former President Donald Trump.

    At a final meeting on Monday, the panel’s seven Democrats and two Republicans are poised to recommend criminal charges against Trump and potentially against associates and staff who helped him launch a multifaceted pressure campaign to try to overturn the 2020 election.

    Context: What to expect as House Jan. 6 panel readies final report on Trump’s ‘attempted coup’

    Also: Jan. 6 select committee to review referral recommendations from Cheney, Raskin, Schiff and Lofgren at Monday session

    While a criminal referral is mostly symbolic, with the Justice Department ultimately deciding whether to prosecute Trump or others, it is a decisive end to a probe that had an almost singular focus from the start.

    “I think the president has violated multiple criminal laws and I think you have to be treated like any other American who breaks the law, and that is you have to be prosecuted,” Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from Southern California and a member of the panel, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    The panel, set to dissolve on Jan. 3 with the advent of a Republican-led House, has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, held 10 well-watched public hearings and collected more than a million documents since it launched in July 2021. As it has gathered the massive trove of evidence, the members have become emboldened in declaring that Trump is to blame for the violent attack on the Capitol by his supporters almost two years ago.

    From the archives (June 2022): Fox News is notable exception as prime-time Jan. 6 committee hearing blankets TV airwaves

    Also (July 2022): Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s live testimony before Jan. 6 select committee was a TV ratings hit: Nielsen data

    After beating their way past police, injuring many of them, the Jan. 6 rioters stormed the Capitol and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s win, echoing Trump’s lies about widespread election fraud and sending lawmakers and others running for their lives.

    The attack came after weeks of Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat — a campaign that was extensively detailed by the committee in its multiple public hearings. Many of Trump’s former aides testified about his unprecedented pressure on states, federal officials and on Vice President Mike Pence to find a way to thwart the popular will.

    “This is someone who in multiple ways tried to pressure state officials to find votes that didn’t exist, this is someone who tried to interfere with a joint session, even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol,” Schiff said. “If that’s not criminal, then I don’t know what it is.”

    See: Justice Department urges judge to hold Trump’s legal team in contempt over Mar-a-Lago case

    Members of the committee have said that the referrals for other individuals may also include ethics violations, legal misconduct and campaign finance violations. Lawmakers have suggested in particular that their recommended charges against Trump could include conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and insurrection.

    On insurrection, Schiff said Sunday that “if you look at Donald Trump’s acts and you match them up against the statute, it’s a pretty good match.” He said that the committee will focus on those individuals — presumably Trump — for whom they believe there is the strongest evidence.

    See: North Carolina state investigators say they’ve completed voter-fraud probe of Trump chief of staff Meadows

    Also: Nevada elections department subpoenaed in Trump 2020 election investigation

    And: Trump ally Kari Lake pursues formal challenge to loss in race for governor of Arizona

    While a so-called criminal referral has no real legal standing, it is a forceful statement by the committee and adds to political pressure already on Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith, who is conducting an investigation into Jan. 6 and Trump’s actions.

    The committee is also expected at the hearing to preview its massive final report, which will include findings, interview transcripts and legislative recommendations. Lawmaker have said a portion of that report will be released Monday.

    “We obviously want to complete the story for the American people,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and constitutional scholar who serves on the select committee. “Everybody has come on a journey with us and we want a satisfactory conclusion, such that people feel that Congress has done its job.”

    The panel was formed in the summer of 2021 after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of what would have been a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the insurrection. That opposition spurred the Democratic-controlled House to form a committee of its own. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California, a Trump ally, decided not to participate after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected some of his appointments. That left an opening for two anti-Trump Republicans in the House — Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — to join the seven Democrats serving on the committee.

    From the archives (January 2021): Kevin McCarthy becomes poster boy for Republicans walking back their recent Trump criticism

    While the committee’s mission was to take a comprehensive accounting of the insurrection and educate the public about what happened, they’ve also aimed their work at an audience of one: the attorney general. Lawmakers on the panel have openly pressured Garland to investigate Trump’s actions, and last month he appointed a special counsel, Smith, to oversee several probes related to Trump, including those related to the insurrection.

    In court documents earlier this year, the committee suggested criminal charges against Trump could include conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress.

    Wall Street Journal: Trump tax returns may be released after House panel meets Tuesday

    In a “conspiracy to defraud the United States,” the committee argues that evidence supports an inference that Trump and his allies “entered into an agreement to defraud the United States” when they disseminated misinformation about election fraud and pressured state and federal officials to assist in that effort. Trump still says he won the election to this day.

    The panel also asserts that Trump obstructed an official proceeding, the joint session of Congress in which the Electoral College votes are certified. The committee said Trump either attempted or succeeded at obstructing, influencing or impeding the ceremonial process on Jan. 6 and “did so corruptly” by pressuring Pence to try to overturn the results as he presided over the session. Pence declined to do so.

    The committee may make ethics referrals for five House Republicans — including McCarthy — who ignored congressional subpoenas from the panel. Those referrals are unlikely to result in punishment since Republicans are set to take over the House majority in January.

    Read on: McCarthy’s long-held speaker ambition set to come to a head when new Congress convenes in January

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