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Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, has called attention to the serious obstacles facing democracy in Nicaragua and expressed grave concerns over the attacks against the Church and civil society organizations. Meanwhile, messages of solidarity from around the world are reaching the Bishop of Matagalpa and the Nicaraguan Church.

By Vatican News

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has expressed his grave concern over what he termed the serious obstruction of democratic and civil life in Nicaragua and recent actions taken by the government against civil society organizations, including those of the Catholic Church, such as the overnight raid by national police on the Episcopal headquarters in Matagalpa. Spokesman Farhan Haq conveyed this message during a press conference at the UN.

The spokesman said UN Secretary General Guterres calls once again on the government of Daniel Ortega to ensure the protection of the human rights of all citizens, in particular the universal rights of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, thought, conscience and religion, while calling for the release of all those arbitrarily detained.

Yesterday, the Nicaraguan national police carried out an overnight raid on the Diocesan headquarters of Matagalpa, forcibly taking nine people, including Bishop Rolando lvarez, and transferring them to Managua. The prelate is now under house arrest at his residence in the Nicaraguan capital, while the other eight are in custody pending investigation.

Messages of solidarity with the Bishop of Matagalpa and the Nicaraguan Church are pouring in from around the world. The action has also been condemned by the Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, who spoke of the "repressive forces of the Ortega-Murillo regime" calling for the immediate release of the Bishop of Matagalpa and the others detained, as well as all political prisoners.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an autonomous body of the Organization of American States, has strongly condemned what he describes as the escalation in the repression against members of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua and urges the state to immediately cease these acts by immediately releasing Bishop Rolando lvarez and the other detained persons.

These events, the IACHR notes "are part of a systematic context of persecution, criminalization, and harassment" against members of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, "because of their role as mediators in the 2018 National Dialogue and their critical role in denouncing human rights violations that have occurred in the context of the country's crisis." The Commission again calls on the Nicaraguan government "to cease its continued attacks against the Catholic Church" and to release "all persons still arbitrarily deprived of their liberty and to immediately cease repression in the country."

Local Church representatives from around the world are expressing their strong solidarity with the Nicaraguan Church in these hours, inviting the faithful to prayer and to an active closeness to the Catholic community in the Central American country.

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UN decries attacks on democracy and Church in Nicaragua - Vatican News - English

A significant provision in the Constitution not oft spoken about is the declaration that Kenya shall be a multi-party democratic state, founded on the national values and principles of governance referred to in Article 10.

These values include inter-alia, patriotism, national unity, rule of law, democracy and participation of the people, among others. The Constitution further provides for separation of powers, through the three arms of government, namely the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary, as well as the constitutional commissions.

An immediate beneficiary of these elaborate provisions has been Parliament. Removed from the shackles of the Executive, it can now set its own calendar, unlike the past. Members do not serve at the pleasure of the President but the citizens who elect them to office to represent, legislative and oversight on their behalf.

It is therefore disheartening to see members elected in recent elections begin to shift allegiance from the coalitions that propelled them to victory. As MPs settle down awaiting their business, they should remain conscious of the need to safeguard not just independence of the House, but also of all other institutions.

Part of this independence thrives from a robust opposition in the House, a weakness faced by the 12th Parliament. It is important that citizen wishes in the election by the choice of party affiliation, are reflected in the way parliamentarians conduct business.

Members must prioritise needs of the citizens who propelled them to office. And they are many. Concerns about the high cost of living, high debt ceiling, implications of global and regional challenges and conflicts on the local economy, a school calendar interrupted, and the economy generally are top of peoples mind.

The assumption then is that those expected to hold the government of the day to account, including implementation of the promises made, must play their role effectively and not sing to the choir. Independent candidates must also provide an independent voice.

We have come a long way from the one-party state and our country is better for it. Our Constitution has given us safeguards to ensure a thriving democracy. We must cultivate and sustain this, including ensuring that the openness and transparency expected of government agencies is protected, civil liberties around access to information, media freedom and association are enhanced and that citizens are active participants of the governance system at national and county level.

This can only happen in an environment where institutions play their rightful role, including holding other arms of government accountable. The citizens have made their choice of representatives on the different party tickets. Its the least they expect to ensure our democracy thrives.

The writer is Executive Director of Mzalendo Trust, Kenyas premier parliamentary monitoring organisation

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Why separation of powers is critical to thriving democracy - The Standard

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Editorial: What the River Democracy Act would mean for private property - The Bulletin

By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

Journalists are allowed to request documents that have been stolen and to publish those documents. So wrote U.S. federal Judge John Koeltl in a 2019 opinion dismissing a lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee against Julian Assange, Wikileaks and others. Assange published documents on the Wikileaks website in the very manner the judge described. Despite this, Julian Assange has been in solitary confinement in Britains maximum security Belmarsh prison for over three years. Before that, he spent seven years living in the cramped Ecuadorian embassy in London. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum as he faced mounting persecution from the U.S. government for his role in exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. is seeking Assanges extradition from the United Kingdom to face espionage and conspiracy charges and up to 175 years in prison. Assanges legal team is appealing the U.K.s approval of the extradition request. Meanwhile, a new case related to Wikileaks is before Judge Koeltl: journalists and several of Assanges attorneys have sued the Central Intelligence Agency and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, alleging the CIA spied on them when they visited Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, recording conversations and secretly copying their phones and laptops.

Im a New York lawyer, Deborah Hrbek, an attorney who met with Assange at the embassy several times, said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. I have the right to assume that the U.S. government is not listening to my private and privileged conversations with my clients, and that information about other clients and cases I may have on my phone or laptop are secure from illegal government intrusion. This is not just a violation of our constitutional rights. This is an outrage.

CIA spying on Julian Assange and his visitors became public through a Spanish court case against a company, UC Global, and its director, David Morales. UC Global was hired by Ecuador in 2012 to provide security for its embassy in London. The CIA, the new lawsuit alleges, recruited UC Global in January 2017, with the help of the late casino billionaire and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, when Morales was at a gun convention in Las Vegas. Morales returned to Spain and, according to the lawsuit, told his employees that the company would now be operating in the big league and for the dark side with the CIA.

Donald Trump had been a big fan of Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign, after the site published thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton and members of her inner circle. WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks, Trump said in a speech in October. Then, in March, 2017, Wikileaks published Vault 7, leaked CIA information that the agency itself later admitted was the largest data loss in CIA history.

Shortly after the first tranche of Vault 7 documents was published, Mike Pompeo blasted Wikileaks in his first public speech as Trumps new CIA Director:

WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence serviceIt overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations. Its time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a nonstate hostile intelligence service.

Last year, Yahoo News exposed a 2017 CIA plot to kidnap and possibly kill Julian Assange while in the Ecuadorian embassy. Yahoo reported that the plot was discussed at the highest levels of the Trump administration.

Plots to assassinate a publisher, warrantless surveillance of private conversations and secret duplication of attorneys and journalists private electronic devices all echo the notoriously criminal conduct of the Nixon administration in the early 1970s.

Back then, the target was whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who leaked The Pentagon Papers, a secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that detailed the extent to which successive U.S. administrations lied to the public about the war. Dan Ellsberg was charged with espionage and faced life in prison.

President Nixons obsession with leaks led him to order the burglary of Ellbergs psychiatrists office, starting the chain of events that led to the Watergate scandal and Nixons resignation. When the presiding judge in Ellsbergs trial learned of the governments illegal conduct, he dismissed the case.

Fifty years later, First Amendment protections for publishers of government secrets, illegal CIA spying and more are before a federal judge again. Judge John Koeltl, as a young lawyer, served on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. Now presiding over this case, filed by journalists and Assanges attorneys, expect more CIA criminality to come to light. President Biden and his Justice Department should immediately drop all charges against Julian Assange.

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Assange Attorneys and Journalists Sue the CIA Over Spying - Democracy Now!

Gazprom began delivery of 700 million cubic meters (cm) of extra natural gas to Hungary, State Secretary Tamas Menczer announced on Facebook last weekend. This follows Foreign Minister Peter Szijjartos controversial trip to Moscow in July to request the gas over and above the long-term gas agreement signed last year for 4.5 billion cubic cm/y, or roughly half of Hungarys demand. With Western gas markets drying up, the Hungarian government became highly concerned about the winter and rushed to secure more gas from Moscow, despite the EUs consensus on reducing gas dependence on Russia. Menczer stated that in the first phase, until the end of August, 2.6 million cm of additional gas will arrive from the south via the Turkish Stream pipeline, and negotiations are already underway for September deliveries. It was not revealed how much the Hungarian government is paying for the gas.

Unsurprisingly, the government-controlled media this week launched vicious character attacks against Csaba Vasvari, a senior judge, after he criticised the governments approach towards the judiciary. The judge told The Observer: He and his colleagues on the bench have been witnessing external and internal influence attempts. He cited cases where court officials discussed firing or making life uncomfortable for judges who are too autonomous or had expressed concerns about nepotism when relatively unqualified friends or family members of high-ranking politicians were appointed to senior positions of the court system. The revelation is a massive blow to the Hungarian government, which is trying to convince the European Commission that it is not interfering in the judiciary as it pleads to unlock frozen EU funds. Among the attacks were that Vasvari served during the terror of the previous social-liberal government and sentenced innocent protesters to several years in prison. The government-affiliated daily Magyar Nemzet claimed that the paragraph containing this bit of info had been removed from his Wikipedia page in order to whitewash his reputation. In 2006, violent protests erupted following the leaked internal speech of then prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, who admitted he lied during the election campaign to secure victory. Right-wing media see the 2006 events as the original sin of the leftist government and proof they cant be trusted, and it is a typical strategy to associate people with the 2006 events to undermine their credibility.

Hungarys National Ambulance Service (OMSZ) announced it was conducting a pilot project for cycling ambulances. The electric bikes would be deployed primarily in cities, especially in areas with the most calls, such as Budapest. Tamas Kramarics, the first Hungarian paramedic on an e-bike, explained in a video that in England paramedics on bikes have been deployed for 20 years and help 17,000 people yearly. Nobody is going to substitute traditional ambulances with e-bikes, but all the necessary equipment to save lives can be transported on bikes, he says. Paramedics can apply voluntarily and receive extra pay for their e-bike shifts. Kramarics said he will mostly bike on the pedestrian streets of Budapest. The OMSZ confirmed the program will officially start in the spring of 2023.

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Democracy Digest: Paris Probes Babis while Spirit of Thatcher Lives On in Czechia - Balkan Insight