WARSAW, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Concerts by Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters were cancelled by a venue in the Polish city of Krakow, organisers said on Sunday, after the artist’s comments on the war in Ukraine caused a storm of criticism.
Waters had been due to appear in Krakow next April, but Polish media reports about an open letter he wrote to Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska urging her to ask her husband to choose “a different route” and criticising the West for supplying Ukraine with arms provoked a fierce backlash.
“Live Nation Polska and Tauron Arena Krakow have cancelled Roger Waters’ concert,” organisers said in a statement on the venue’s website. They did not elaborate on the reason for the cancellation.
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On Saturday, state-run news agency PAP reported that a spokesperson for the Tauron Arena had said that Walters’ management had cancelled the concert without giving a reason.
Poland counts itself among Kyiv’s staunchest allies, and public support for the Ukrainian cause is very high.
Local councillors in Krakow had been due to vote on a resolution declaring Waters ‘Persona non grata’ on Wednesday.
In a social media post, Waters said that it was not true that he or his management had cancelled the concerts and criticised local councillor Lukasz Wantuch over the vote to declare him unwelcome in the city.
“Lukasz Wantuch has threatened to hold a meeting asking the council to declare me ‘Persona non grata’ because of my public efforts to encourage all involved in the disastrous war in Ukraine, especially the governments of the USA and Russia, to work towards a negotiated peace,” Waters wrote in a post on Facebook.
“If Mr Lukasz Wantuch achieves his aim, and my forthcoming concerts in Krakow are cancelled, it will be a sad loss for me, because I have been looking forward to sharing my message of love with the people of Poland.”
Wantuch said in a Facebook post on Sunday morning that he was in Ukraine and would comment on Waters’ statement in the evening.
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Reporting by Alan Charlish; Editing by Susan Fenton
PORT AUX BASQUES, Newfoundland, Sept 25 (Reuters) – It will take several months for Canada to restore critical infrastructure after the powerful storm Fiona left an “unprecedented” trail of destruction, officials said on Sunday, as crews fanned out in five provinces to restore power and clean up fallen trees and debris.
One 73-year-old woman died during the storm in Port aux Basques, one of the hardest hit towns on the southwest tip of Newfoundland with just over 4,000 residents, police said.
“The woman was last seen inside (her) residence just moments before a wave struck the home, tearing away a portion of the basement,” police said earlier. The coast guard and local rescuers recovered her body from the ocean on Sunday afternoon, according to a statement.
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Port aux Basques is “like a complete war zone,” said Brian Button, mayor of Port aux Basques. More than 20 homes were destroyed and more than 200 people need shelter. The cost of damages “is in the millions (of dollars) here now,” Button said in an interview.
“We’re going to be months rebuilding. I think months is a conservative estimate for some of these people,” Rosalyn Roy, a resident of Port aux Basques, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Fiona slammed into eastern Canada on Saturday, forcing evacuations as wind gusts reached up to 170 km per hour (106 miles per hour) and the storm surge swallowed up homes on the coastline.
While the full scale of Fiona’s devastation is not immediately clear, the storm could prove to be one of Canada’s costliest natural disasters.
Scientists have not yet determined whether climate change influenced Fiona, but in general the warming of the planet is making hurricanes wetter, windier and altogether more intense.
Canada’s federal government is sending in the armed forces on Sunday to help clear fallen trees and debris, which will in turn open the way for crews to restore power, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told Reuters.
The province of Nova Scotia requested the troops and machinery to clear debris Saturday, “and we said yes, and so they’re being deployed today,” Blair said.
On Sunday, Prince Edward Island (PEI) and Newfoundland and Labrador also requested federal support and troops are going to be sent, Blair said. About 100 troops are heading to each of the three provinces, Defense Minister Anita Anand told reporters.
RCMP officers observe the destruction after the arrival of Hurricane Fiona in Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland, Canada September 25, 2022. REUTERS/John Morris
The Canadian Hurricane Centre estimated that Fiona was the lowest-pressured storm to make landfall on record in Canada.
In 2019, Dorian hit the region around Halifax, Nova Scotia, blowing down a construction crane and knocking out power. Fiona, on the other hand, appears to have caused major damage across at least five provinces.
“The scale of what we’re dealing with, I think it’s unprecedented,” Blair said on Sunday.
“There is going to be… several months’ work in restoring some of the critical infrastructure – buildings and homes, rooftops that have been blown off community centers and schools,” he said.
Hundreds of thousands of residents across Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland, Quebec and New Brunswick remained without power on Sunday. Blair said hundreds of utility crews had already been deployed to restore power, including some from the United States.
In Nova Scotia, police urged people to stop going for fast food because drive-thru lines “are blocking roadways, which is impeding recovery efforts” and the situation is prompting calls to police dispatchers “who are already handling very high call volumes”, according to a statement on Twitter.
In PEI there were long lines at gas stations as many had to fill generators, and several communities were told to boil water before drinking because water purification systems were offline.
Officials warned on Sunday that in some cases it would take weeks before essential services are fully restored.
The storm also severely damaged fishing harbors in Atlantic Canada, which could hurt the country’s C$3.2 billion lobster industry, unless it is fully restored before the season kicks off in few weeks.
“Those fishers have a very immediate need to be able to access their livelihood once the storm passes,” Dominic LeBlanc, minister of intergovernmental affairs of Canada, said on Saturday.
($1 = 1.3589 Canadian dollars)
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Reporting John Morris in Stephenville; Additional reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa, Denny Thomas in Toronto, and Eric Martyn in Halifax; Writing by Steve Scherer; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Lisa Shumaker and Diane Craft
Rightist bloc set for majority in both houses-exit polls
Meloni would be country’s first woman prime minister
Early vote follows collapse of Draghi government
Record low turnout casts shadow over result
ROME, Sept 25 (Reuters) – A right-wing alliance led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party was on course for a clear majority in the next parliament, giving the country its most right-wing government since World War Two.
Meloni, as leader of the largest coalition party, was also likely to become Italy’s first woman prime minister.
Meloni, 45, plays down her party’s post-fascist roots and portrays it as a mainstream conservative group. She has pledged to support Western policy on Ukraine and not take undue risks with the third largest economy in the euro zone.
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However, the outcome is likely to ring alarm bells in European capitals and on financial markets, given the desire to preserve unity in confronting Russia and concerns over Italy’s daunting debt mountain.
An exit poll for state broadcaster RAI said the bloc of conservative parties, that also includes Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party, won between 41% and 45%, enough to guarantee control of both houses of parliament.
“Centre-right clearly ahead both in the lower house and the Senate! It’ll be a long night but even now I want to say thanks,” Salvini said on Twitter.
Italy’s electoral law favours groups that manage to create pre-ballot pacts, giving them an outsized number of seats by comparison with their vote tally.
RAI said the right-wing alliance would win between 227 and 257 of the 400 seats in the lower house of parliament, and 111-131 of the 200 Senate seats.
Full results are expected by early Monday.
Leader of Brothers of Italy Giorgia Meloni poses with her ballot at a polling station during the snap election in Rome, Italy September 25, 2022. REUTERS/Yara Nardi
RECORD LOW TURNOUT
The result caps a remarkable rise for Meloni, whose party won only 4% of the vote in the last national election in 2018, but this time around was forecast to emerge as Italy’s largest group on around 22-26%.
But it was not a ringing endorsement, with provisional data pointing to turnout of just 64.1% against 74% four years ago — a record low number in a country that has historically enjoyed a high level of voter participation.
Although heavy storms in the south appeared to have deterred many from voting there, participation fell across a swathe of northern and central cities, where the weather was calmer.
Italy has a history of political instability and the next prime minister will lead the country’s 68th government since 1946 and face a host of problems, notably soaring energy costs and growing economic headwinds.
Initial market reaction is likely to be muted given that opinion polls had forecast the result accurately.
“I don’t expect a big impact although it’s not necessarily the case that Italian assets will do particularly well tomorrow (Monday) given how the market is starting to treat Europe and countries with worrisome public finances and exposure to the crisis and Ukraine,” said Giuseppe Sersale, fund manager and strategist at Anthilia in Milan.
Italy’s first autumn national election in over a century was triggered by party infighting that brought down Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s broad national unity government in July.
The new, slimmed-down parliament will not meet until Oct. 13, at which point the head of state will summon party leaders and decide on the shape of the new government.
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Additional reporting by Gavin Jones, Rodolfo Fabbri and Giselda Vagnoni in Rome, and Danilo Masoni in Milan
Editing by Keith Weir
WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) – The White House on Friday reiterated that Joe Biden was not signaling a change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan when he said the United States would come to the island’s aid if it was attacked by China, and analysts dismissed the president’s remark as a gaffe.
While Washington is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, it has long followed a policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether it would intervene militarily to protect Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
Biden called that into question when he was asked at a CNN town hall in Baltimore on Thursday night whether the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense if it was attacked by China and he replied: “Yes, we have a commitment to do that.”
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Shortly after he spoke, a White House spokesperson said there was no change in policy and analysts said it appeared the president misspoke.
Asked at a Friday news briefing whether it was Biden’s intention to move away from strategic ambiguity to make an unambiguous statement about how the United States would respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: “Our policy has not changed. He was not intending to convey a change in policy, nor has he made a decision to change our policy.”
Psaki added that, as stated in Brussels earlier on Friday by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, “nobody wants to see cross-strait issues come to blows, certainly not President Biden, and there’s no reason that it should.”
Psaki said the U.S. defense relationship with Taiwan was guided by the long-established Taiwan Relations Act, under which Washington would “continue assisting Taiwan in maintaining a sufficient self-defense capability.”
Another principle of the act was that Washington “would regard any efforts to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific and of grave concern to the United States,” she added.
Bonnie Glaser, a Taiwan expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, called Biden’s remark a “gaffe” and said it was “patently not true” that Washington has a commitment to defend Taiwan.
“Some are suggesting a deliberate effort to send unclear signals, but in my view, that makes no sense. A confused U.S. policy weakens deterrence,” she said, noting that Biden’s Asia policy czar, Kurt Campbell, had rejected “strategic clarity” over Taiwan.
Another Taiwan expert, Douglas Paal, a former U.S. representative in Taipei, said Biden was focused at the town hall on selling his domestic economic agenda.
“Despite his reputation on foreign affairs, he can be occasionally sloppy when distracted,” Paal said. “The White House was right to issue a speedy ‘no-change-in-policy’ correction, because that is where policy is.”
Biden’s remark comes at an awkward time, while White House officials are gearing up for a virtual meeting between him and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which, sources say, they hope will show the world Washington can responsibly manage tense relations between the rival superpowers.
China, which claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own, expressed its displeasure, with a foreign ministry spokesman saying Beijing has no room for concessions on its core interests.
China urges the United States “not to send the wrong signals to the forces of Taiwan independence, to avoid seriously harming Sino-U.S. ties and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” spokesman Wang Wenbin said.
Taiwan’s presidential office said its position remained the same, which is that it will neither give in to pressure nor “rashly advance” when it gets support.
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Reporting by Jeff Mason, Tim Ahmann and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis
Palestinians, rights watchdogs reject the designations
Israel accuses groups of funnelling aid to militants
TEL AVIV, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Israel on Friday designated six Palestinian civil society groups as terrorist organisations and accused them of funnelling donor aid to militants, a move that drew criticism from the United Nations and human rights watchdogs.
Israel’s defence ministry said the groups had ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP), a left-wing faction with an armed wing that has carried out deadly attacks against Israelis.
The groups include Palestinian human rights organisations Addameer and Al-Haq, which document alleged rights violations by both Israel and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.
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“(The) declared organizations received large sums of money from European countries and international organizations, using a variety of forgery and deceit,” the defence ministry said, alleging that the money had supported PFLP’s activities.
The designations authorise Israeli authorities to close the groups’ offices, seize their assets and arrest their staff in the West Bank, watchdogs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said in a joint statement.
Addameer and another of the groups, Defense for Children International – Palestine, rejected the accusations as an “attempt to eliminate Palestinian civil society.”
The United Nations Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories said it was “alarmed” by the announcement.
“Counter-terrorism legislation must not be used to constrain legitimate human rights and humanitarian work,” it said, adding that some of the reasons given appeared vague or irrelevant.
“These designations are the latest development in a long stigmatizing campaign against these and other organizations, damaging their ability to deliver on their crucial work,” it said.
Israel’s ally the United States was not given advance warning of the move and would engage Israel for more information about the basis for the designations, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.
“We believe respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and a strong civil society are critically important to responsible and responsive governance,” he said.
But Israel’s defence ministry said: “Those organizations present themselves as acting for humanitarian purposes; however, they serve as a cover for the ‘Popular Front’ promotion and financing.”
An official with the PFLP, which is on United States and European Union terrorism blacklists, did not outright reject ties to the six groups but said they maintain relations with civil society organisations across the West Bank and Gaza.
“It is part of the rough battle Israel is launching against the Palestinian people and against civil society groups, in order to exhaust them,” PFLP official Kayed Al-Ghoul said.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said the “decision is an alarming escalation that threatens to shut down the work of Palestine’s most prominent civil society organizations.”
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians seek the territories for a future state.
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Reporting by Rami Ayyub in Tel Aviv; Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem; Editing by William Maclean and Mark Porter
NEW YORK, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Lev Parnas, a onetime associate of Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was found guilty on Friday of violating U.S. campaign finance laws during the 2018 elections.
Parnas, a Ukraine-born American businessman, and his former associate Igor Fruman had been accused of soliciting funds from Russian businessman Andrey Muraviev to donate to candidates in states where the group was seeking licenses to operate cannabis businesses in 2018.
Parnas also concealed that he and Fruman, who pleaded guilty in September, were the true source of a donation to a group supporting Republican then-President Trump, prosecutors said. Giuliani’s attorney has said the Parnas case is separate from a probe into whether violated lobbying laws while representing Trump.
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Giuliani, a U.S. prosecutor in the 1980s before he was elected New York’s mayor in 1994, has not been charged with any crimes and denies wrongdoing.
Parnas was found guilty on all six counts of federal election law violations that he faced, which included illegally helping a foreigner contribute to a U.S. election campaign, making contributions in the names of others, and lying to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
Andrey Kukushkin, a Muraviev associate and California resident who was tried alongside Parnas, was found guilty on Friday of two counts of campaign finance violations. Kukushkin is also a Ukraine native.
The trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan has drawn attention because of the role Parnas and Belarus-born U.S. citizen Fruman played in helping Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal attorney while he held office, to investigate Democrat Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. Biden won the election, denying Trump a second term.
Parnas, dressed in a blue suit, stared straight at the jury as the verdict was read. Kukushkin, wearing a grey sweater, shook his head after he was pronounced guilty on the second count.
“I’ve never hid from nobody,” Parnas said as he left court wearing a black “Combat COVID” mask. “I’ve always stood and tried to tell the truth.”
His attorney Joseph Bondy said they would be filing a motion to vacate the verdict “in the interest of justice.”
Lev Parnas, Ukrainian-American businessman and former Giuliani associate, walks to the United States Court in Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S., October 18, 2021. REUTERS/Mike Segar
“It’s obviously a very difficult time for Mr. Parnas and his wife and his children,” Bondy said.
U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken denied a request from prosecutors to detain Parnas and Kukushkin. “The defendants have sufficiently established that they’re not a risk of flight,” Oetken said after the jury left.
Oetken set a sentencing date of Feb. 16 for Kukushkin. He did not set a sentencing date for Parnas, who faces another possible trial on separate fraud charges.
‘IN WELL OVER HIS HEAD’
The case provided a glimpse into the inner workings of political fundraising in the United States.
“You saw the wires from Muraviev,” Assistant U.S Attorney Hagan Scotten told the jury during closing arguments on Thursday. “You saw how that money came out on the other side, finding its way into American elections, where the defendants thought they had bought influence to further their business.”
Parnas’ defense lawyers countered that Muraviev’s funds went toward business investments, not campaign contributions, and that the donation to the pro-Trump group was from a company founded by Parnas and broke no laws.
In his closing statement Parnas attorney Bondy characterized his client as a passionate proponent of marijuana legalization who was “in well over his head.” He argued that Muraviev’s money funded business operations, not campaign contributions.
Deliberations in the trial began on Friday morning and lasted about five hours.
Fruman, who lives in Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting campaign contributions from a foreign national. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 21.
Parnas and Kukushkin had faced two counts of conspiring to make donations from a foreign national, and making the donations. Parnas had also been charged with four other counts, including making false statements to the Federal Elections Commission.
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Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Franklin Paul, Grant McCool and Jonathan Oatis
WASHINGTON, Oct 22 (Reuters) – The United States hopes to soon relocate around 150 U.S.-trained Afghan Air Force pilots and other personnel detained in Tajikistan for more than two months after they flew there at the end of the Afghan war, a U.S. official said.
The State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to offer a timeline for the transfer but said the United States wanted to move all of those held at the same time. The details of the U.S. plan have not been previously reported.
Reuters exclusively reported first-person accounts from 143 U.S.-trained Afghan personnel being held at a sanatorium in a mountainous, rural area outside of the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, waiting for a U.S. flight out to a third country and eventual U.S. resettlement.
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Speaking on smuggled cell phones kept hidden from guards, they say they have had their phones and identity documents confiscated.
There are also 13 Afghan personnel in Dushanbe, enjoying much more relaxed conditions, who told Reuters they are also awaiting a U.S. transfer. They flew into the country separately.
The Afghan personnel in Tajikistan represent the last major group of U.S.-trained pilots still believed to be in limbo after dozens of advanced military aircraft were flown across the Afghan border to Tajikistan and to Uzbekistan in August during the final moments of the war with the Taliban.
In September, a U.S.-brokered deal allowed a larger group of Afghan pilots and other military personnel to be flown out of Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates.
Two detained Afghan pilots in Tajikistan said their hopes were lifted in recent days after visits by officials from the U.S. embassy in Dushanbe.
Although they said they had not yet been given a date for their departure, the pilots said U.S. officials obtained the biometric data needed to complete the process of identifying the Afghans. That was the last step before departure for the Afghan pilots in Uzbekistan.
PREGNANT AFGHAN PILOT
U.S. lawmakers and military veterans who have advocated for the pilots have expressed deep frustration over the time it has taken for President Joe Biden’s administration to evacuate Afghan personnel.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was pressed on the matter in Congress last month, expressing concern at a hearing for the pilots and other personnel.
Reuters had previously reported U.S. difficulties gaining Tajik access to all of the Afghans, which include an Afghan Air Force pilot who is eight months pregnant.
In an interview with Reuters, the 29-year-old pilot had voiced her concerns to Reuters about the risks to her and her child at the remote sanatorium. She was subsequently moved to a maternity hospital.
“We are like prisoners here. Not even like refugees, not even like immigrants. We have no legal documents or way to buy something for ourselves,” she said.
The pregnant pilot would be included in the relocation from Tajikistan, the U.S. State Department official said.
Even before the Taliban’s takeover, the U.S.-trained, English-speaking pilots had become prime targets of the Taliban because of the damage they inflicted during the war. The Talibantracked down the pilotsand assassinated them off-base.
Afghanistan’s new rulers have said they will invite former military personnel to join the revamped security forces and that they will come to no harm.
Afghan pilots who spoke with Reuters say they believe they will be killed if they return to Afghanistan.
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Reporting by Phil Stewart; editing by Grant McCool
Oct 22 (Reuters) – A Georgia court struggled this week to seat jurors in the trial of three white men accused of murdering Black jogger Ahmaud Arbery, underscoring the challenge of finding people who have not formed firm opinions based on a viral video of the shooting.
“I saw the news footage and I saw the video footage of the crime, and I’ve already formed a guilty opinion of the crime,” one woman told the court earlier this week.
Arbery’s killing just outside the coastal city of Brunswick, Georgia, in February 2020 stoked national outrage and protests after the cellphone video taken by one of the three defendants went viral.
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Defense lawyers and prosecutors say they are not looking for jurors who have not seen the video or don’t know about the case. Rather, they are trying to determine whether potential jurors can set aside any opinions they have and make a decision based on evidence presented to the court.
Former policeman Gregory McMichael, 65; his son Travis McMichael, 35; and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, face charges of murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. If convicted on all charges, they could draw a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley told prosecutors and defense attorneys to speed things up. “I am not comfortable with this,” he said of the pace on the first day of jury selection on Monday.
As of late Thursday night, out of 80 Glynn County residents interviewed, only 23 residents had been prequalified for a group of 64, from which the ultimate 12 jurors and four alternates will be selected to hear the case.
Walsley said on Thursday that selection could take well into next week or possibly the week after. The court was not in session on Friday; jury selection is slated to resume on Monday.
CITIZEN’S ARREST DEFENSE
Defense attorneys have said in interviews that they plan to base their case largely on a now-defunct version of a “citizen’s arrest” law that allows people in the state to detain someone they suspect of a crime. The three defendants told police they thought Arbery was a burglar and the shooting was in self-defense after Arbery grappled with a shotgun leveled by Travis McMichael.
Arbery, an avid runner and former high school football star, was shot three times and fell on the street in the suburban neighborhood.
One potential juror was dismissed because he watched the video more than six times and told the court he thought the men were “guilty. They killed him. They did it as a team.”
Another said, “The only time I’ve heard of citizen’s arrest is in ‘The Andy Griffith show’,” the 1960s TV comedy about a small-town sheriff.
The man added that he would listen to both sides in the case. “Everyone deserves their day in court. It’s the foundation of our country, it’s the rule of law.”
Of the 80 people brought to court through Thursday, a few said they had seen only clips from the video, and only two people told the court they hadn’t seen it.
“I didn’t want to see somebody killed,” said one man in his 70s.
Chris Slobogin, a Vanderbilt University law professor, said picking fair juries is harder in the days of cellphones and social media.
“I mean, everyone’s seen this video,” he said. “I believe the judge will eventually find 12 jurors, but the work is to figure out if a person is being forthright when they say they can set aside what they saw.”
A nurse told the court that she had thought hard about whether she could be a fair, impartial juror and “prayed about it.”
“I feel firmly that I could do that,” she said.
Another potential juror, a retired auto shop owner, said it would be hard to disregard the video.
“Some things you just can’t unsee,” he said.
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Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis
Oct 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on Nov. 1 a challenge to a Texas law that imposes a near-total ban on the procedure and lets private citizens enforce it – a case that could dramatically curtail abortion access in the United States if the justices endorse the measure’s unique design.
The justices took up requests by President Joe Biden’s administration and abortion providers to immediately review their challenges to the law. The court, which on Sept. 1 allowed the law to go into effect, declined to act on the Justice Department’s request to immediately block enforcement of the measure.
The court will consider whether the law’s unusual private-enforcement structure prevents federal courts from intervening to strike it down and whether the federal government is even allowed to sue the state to try to block it.
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The measure bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, a point when many women do not yet realize they are pregnant. It makes an exception for a documented medical emergency but not for cases of rape or incest.
Liberal Justice Sotomayor dissented from the court’s deferral of a decision on whether to block enforcement of the law while the litigation continues. Sotomayor said the law’s novel design has suspended nearly all abortions in Texas, the second most populous U.S. state, with about 29 million people.
“The state’s gambit has worked. The impact is catastrophic,” Sotomayor wrote.
The Texas dispute is the second major abortion case that the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has scheduled for the coming months, with arguments set for Dec. 1 over the legality of a restrictive Mississippi abortion law.
The Texas and Mississippi measures are among a series of Republican-backed laws passed at the state level limiting abortion rights – coming at a time when abortion opponents are hoping that the Supreme Court will overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade that legalized the procedure nationwide.
Mississippi has asked the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, and the Texas attorney general on Thursday signaled that he also would like to see that ruling fall.
A supporter of reproductive rights holds a sign outside the Texas State Capitol building during the nationwide Women’s March, held after Texas rolled out a near-total ban on abortion procedures and access to abortion-inducing medications, in Austin, Texas, U.S. October 2, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Lower courts already have blocked Mississippi’s law banning abortions starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The Texas measure takes enforcement out of the hands of state officials, instead enabling private citizens to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo. That feature has helped shield the law from being immediately blocked as it made it more difficult to directly sue the state.
Individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits under the law. Critics have said this provision lets people act as anti-abortion bounty hunters, a characterization its proponents reject.
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the abortion providers, said Friday’s decision to hear their case “brings us one step closer to the restoration of Texans’ constitutional rights and an end to the havoc and heartache of this ban.”
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of healthcare and abortion provider Planned Parenthood, said it is “devastating” that the justices did not immediately block a law that already has had a “catastrophic impact” after being in effect nearly two months.
“Patients who have the means have fled the state, traveling hundreds of miles to access basic care, and those without means have been forced to carry pregnancies against their will,” she added.
Kimberlyn Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Texas Right to Life anti-abortion group, praised the court’s action, saying it “will continue to save an estimated 100 babies per day, and because the justices will actually discuss whether these lawsuits are valid in the first place.”
The Supreme Court only rarely decides to hear cases before lower courts have ruled, indicating that the justices have deemed the Texas matter of high public importance and requiring immediate review.
The Justice Department filed its lawsuit in September challenging the Texas law, arguing that it is unconstitutional and explicitly designed to evade judicial review.
Rulings in Texas and Mississippi cases are due by the end of next June, but could come sooner.
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Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham
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