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By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

Haiti and Honduras have made headlines in the last few weeks. Honduras former president, Juan Orlando Hernndez, was just convicted in a US court of drug trafficking. He faces life in prison. Haiti is a nation without a government, as armed groups have united against the US-backed, unelected Prime Minister installed after the assassination of their president in 2021. In both cases, what is missing from mainstream news coverage is the role of US intervention that brought them to this point.

The crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism, University of British Columbia Professor Jemima Pierre, a Haitian American scholar, explained on the Democracy Now! news hour. In her NACLA Report article headlined, Haiti as Empires Laboratory, she describes her home country as the site of the longest and most brutal neocolonial experiment in the modern world.

Haiti was the worlds first Black republic, founded in 1804 following a slave revolt. France demanded Haiti pay reparations, for the loss of slave labor when Haitis enslaved people freed themselves. For more than a century, Haitis debt payments to France, then later to the US, hobbled its economy. The United States refused to recognize Haiti for decades, until 1862, fearful that the example of a slave uprising would inspire the same in the US.

In 1915, the US invaded Haiti, occupying it until 1934. The U.S. also backed the brutal Duvalier dictatorships from 1957 to 1986. Jean-Bertand Aristide became Haitis first democratically-elected president in 1991, only to be ousted in a violent coup eight months later. The coup was supported by President George H.W. Bush and later by President Bill Clinton. Public pressure forced Clinton to allow Aristides return in 1994, to finish his presidential term in 1996. Aristide was reelected in 2001.

Democracy Now! traveled to C.A.R. in 2004 covering a delegation led by Transafrica founder Randall Robinson and U.S. Congressmember Maxine Waters who defied US policy and escorted the Aristides back to the Western Hemisphere. Aristide confirmed to Democracy Now! then that he had been ousted in a coup dtat backed by the United States. Aristide then went to live in exile in South Africa for the next seven years.

In response to allegations that gangs are currently controlling Haiti, Professor Pierre said, The so-called gang violence is actually not the main problem in Haiti. The main problem in Haiti is the constant interference of the international community, and the international community here is, very explicitly, the U.S., France and Canada.

The Biden administration is reportedly now considering the transfer of Haitian asylum seekers to the controversial U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba a repeat of some of the worst U.S. policies in its long history of exploitation of Haitians.

Honduras, meanwhile, currently has a democratically-elected president, Xiomara Castro. Her husband, Manuel Mel Zelaya, was elected president in 2006, then ousted in a US-backed coup in 2009. In the following years, Honduras descended into a narco-state, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee violence, seeking asylum in the United States and elsewhere.

In 2013, Juan Orlando Hernndez was elected president amidst allegations of campaign finance violations, then again in 2017 in an election widely considered fraudulent. Shortly thereafter, his brother Juan Antonio Hernndez was arrested in Miami for drug trafficking. Then, following Xiomara Castros election, Juan Orlando Hernndez himself was arrested and extradited to the US for cocaine trafficking. On March 8th, he was convicted in US federal court, and is currently awaiting sentencing.

The evidence was chilling, history professor Dana Frank, who was in the courtroom, said on Democracy Now! This litany of assassinations of prosecutors, assassinations of journalists, corruption of the police, the military, politicians, the president, his brother, you name it. And it was like the curtain was drawn back, and you could see the day-to-day workings of this tremendous violent, corrupt mechanism that was the Juan Orlando Hernndez administrationthis was what happened after the 2009 coup that opened the door for the destruction of the rule of law in Honduras.

US intervention in Haiti, Honduras and other countries is one of the principal drivers of people seeking asylum in the United States, as they flee violence, poverty and persecution at home. This point is almost never mentioned in the US press. To understand and ultimately solve the immigration crisis, Americans need to understand what their government has long done in their name, with their tax dollarsarming and propping up brutal regimes abroad.

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Haiti, Honduras, and US Hegemony - Democracy Now!

WASHINGTON, D.C. A unanimous panel of three North Carolina judges this morning sided with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), striking down a new Republican-sponsored power grab law that would have removed the governors authority to make appointments to the state board of elections and instead granted it to the GOP-controlled Legislature.

In addition to stripping Coopers appointment power, the law would have required state and county boards of elections to have an even number of Democratic and Republican-appointed members, increasing the potential for deadlock. The now-struck down law departed from the current structure that allows a majority of state and county board members three out of five to be from the governors political party.

The law would have also given the Legislature the final say on appointing leadership positions to state and county boards of elections if board members were unable to reach a decision and also prevented the governor from removing members from state and county boards for any reason.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections oversees election administration and works in conjunction with the states 100 county boards of elections that are engaged in conducting local elections, preparing ballots, operating voting sites and more.

Prior to todays ruling permanently blocking the power grab law from taking effect, the legislation remained temporarily blocked due to a decision from the same three-judge panel, which granted Coopers request for a preliminary injunction in late November 2023.

The panel consisting of two Republicans and one Democratic judge today held that the law infringes upon the Governors constitutional duties and is a stark and blatant removal of appointment power from the Governor that must be permanently blocked.

Todays ruling is not the first time that North Carolina courts have found Republicans power-grabbing attempts unconstitutional. Back in 2017, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in favor of Cooper who filed a similar lawsuit seeking to thwart an earlier attempt by Republicans to restructure North Carolina election boards.

A vast majority of North Carolina voters have also opposed such efforts, voting in 2018 to soundly reject a proposed constitutional amendment that would have overhauled the structure of state and county election boards and transferred appointment power to the Legislature.

In response to todays ruling, Cooper said in a statement that Republican leaders should stop their efforts to control the ballot box and sow chaos before the November elections. Bipartisan courts and voters have repeatedly rejected these clearly unconstitutional attempts to seize control of elections.

Read the order here.

Learn more about the case here.

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Democracy Alerts - North Carolina Court Strikes Down New Election Law That Would Strip Power From Democratic ... - Democracy Docket

In a three-day election that leaves no room for doubt, Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised to win a fifth term on Sunday, allowing him to stay in power until 2030 and, should he run again, to 2036.

But many analysts believe the 71-year-old autocrat will rule this nation of 146 million people for life.

It was not supposed to be this way. Under Russias constitution, Putins term in power was supposed to end in 2008 but under a tricky bait-and-switch, he effectively ruled Russia as prime minister for four years, swapping places with Dmitry Medvedev. Putin returned as president in 2012, sparking massive protests that changed nothing.

In 2020, Putin engineered changes to the constitution in a nationwide vote marred by irregularities that allowed him at least two more six-year terms.

Putin has centralized power, invaded Georgia and Ukraine, and destroyed the Russian opposition. The two most charismatic opposition leaders are dead: Boris Nemtsov was gunned down near the Kremlin in 2015, and Alexei Navalny survived a state-ordered poisoning in 2020 but died in prison last month. His widow says he was killed on Putins direct order. Other opposition figures are either in prison, silenced or have fled the country.

Having cleared the field, the Kremlin responds indignantly to suggestions that Russias democracy is fake. Last week, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would not tolerate such criticisms. Our democracy is the best and we will continue to build it, he said.

Read more:
Why does Putin always win? What to know about Russia's pseudo election. - The Washington Post

WASHINGTON, D.C. On the heels of a recent shakeup in its senior leadership, the Republican National Committee (RNC) today filed a federal lawsuit in Michigan seeking to purge allegedly ineligible registrants from the states voter rolls.

Following a swift overhaul in the past week, the RNCs former leadership has now been replaced primarily with close allies of former President Donald Trump. With former North Carolina GOP chair Michael Whatley and Trumps daughter-in-law Lara Trump at the helm as co-chairs, the RNC has assumed an avowedly more offensive election integrity strategy.

In an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday, Trumps campaign advisor, Chris LaCivita stated that [t]he RNCs new posture as it relates to litigation is much more offensive and much less defensive. Lara Trump, who appeared on Fox News the same day, told Sean Hannity that the RNC is devoting massive resources to the organizations first ever election integrity division.

The new Michigan case is the third anti-voting lawsuit filed by the RNC just this year and many more are expected to be filed ahead of the 2024 elections. The complaint, which was filed on behalf of both the RNC and two Republican voters, alleges that Michigans top election officials are failing to properly maintain clean and accurate voter registration records in violation of a federal law known as the National Voter Registration Act.

The complaint claims that at least 53 counties across the state have more active registered voters than adults over the age of 18 and an additional 23 counties have active voter registration rates that exceed 90% of adults over 18. Based on these statistics, the RNC maintains that Michigans number of registered voters is impossibly high and inflated.

The lawsuit goes on to raise concerns how the states purported failure to maintain accurate voter lists undermines the integrity of elections by increasing the opportunity for ineligible voters or voters intent on fraud to cast ballots. Citing scant evidence, the complaint adds that [v]oter fraud is very real in Michigan. Several recent elections have suffered from voter fraud.

Just two weeks ago, a federal judge tossed out a very similar lawsuit brought by the right-wing Public Interest Legal Foundation that mounted claims against Michigans voter list maintenance program. In its rejection of that lawsuit, the court held that [t]he record demonstrates that deceased voters are removed from Michigans voter rolls on a regular and ongoing basis, adding that [f]rom 2019 to March 2023, Michigan cancelled between 400,000 and 450,000 registrations because the voters were deceased.

Against the backdrop of the RNCs new lawsuit, Republicans and right-wing activists are engaging in a nationwide, conspiracy-ridden effort both in and out of the courtroom to purge eligible voters from the rolls. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) is currently working to reinstate the voter registrations of over 1,000 individuals residing in Detroit-area suburbs, whose registrations were improperly canceled as a result of a right-wing voter purge scheme.

As of today, the RNC is involved in 23 anti-voting lawsuits across 14 states, many of which seek to restrict the voting process in key swing states including Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin ahead of the 2024 elections.

Read the complaint.

Learn more about the case here.

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On the Heels of Recent Shakeup, RNC Files Lawsuit in Michigan Seeking to Purge Voters - Democracy Docket

Unhappy with large protests against the increasingly dire situation in Gaza, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is seeking to update the UKs definition of extremism. This, he has argued, is needed because our democracy itself is a target of antisemitic and Islamophobic extremists.

However, the reality is that no measures do more damage to democracy than policy proposals like the one Sunak is promoting.

The UK already has a definition for extremism, which is used in efforts to tackle terrorism. We may think of the police as leading those efforts, but the UKs Prevent strategy now also places a duty on certain other authorities to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.

These authorities include local government, education institutions and the NHS. In reality, the UK has placed teachers and NHS staff on the frontline in the fight against terrorism, on top of all their other duties that they were actually trained to do.

To help those with a duty under Prevent to identify people at risk of being drawn into terrorism, the government currently defines extremism as vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. Also included are calls for the death of members of our armed forces.

This definition is not contained in any law, however. Instead, it features in the governments Prevent guidance. A key reason why this definition is not contained in legislation is because it is so vague and unclear. It would be difficult to legally oblige anyone with a duty under Prevent to apply the definition and even more difficult for a court to determine what it means.

Even as guidance, there are still problems with the definition. It offers enormous discretion to the people deciding who is at risk of being drawn into terrorism. Discretion can lead to inconsistent application. That, in turn, can lead to discrimination.

It has been suggested that the new definition of extremism will include the promotion or advancement of ideology based on hatred, intolerance or violence or undermining or overturning the rights or freedoms of others, or of undermining democracy itself.

What does it mean to undermine or overturn the rights or freedoms of others? Would arguing for the UK to leave the European convention on human rights count meet the bar?

Likewise, what does it mean to undermine democracy? Does excessive corporate lobbying do so? What about calling for restrictions on the right to free speech or the right to protest? These are fundamental rights that are absolutely necessary for a democracy to flourish. Would they be extremist?

Sunak is presenting the new definition of extremism as a response to protests he depicts as being out of control. But the UK already has numerous laws in place to tackle what it considers to be unacceptable behaviour at protests. The Terrorism Act (which is also incredibly broad) can be used to prosecute people who damage property or create a serious risk to public safety during protests.

Counter-terrorism laws can also capture forms of expression at public demonstrations or online. It is already a crime to express support for a proscribed (unlawful) organisation, or to wear clothing, symbols or publish images in a way which can raise suspicion that you support an unlawful organisation. So, for example, if you express support for Hamas a proscribed organisation you are already committing a crime and can be prosecuted for it.

Meanwhile, the Public Order Act contains offences dealing with hate speech. These include using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displaying written material which is intended to or likely to stir up racial or religious hatred.

In 2022, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act expanded the criminal offence of causing a public nuisance to include serious distress, serious annoyance, serious inconvenience or serious loss of amenity. This can now be applied by he police to criminalise protests that are considered to be making too much noise.

It is hard, therefore, to see which bases are not already covered for a government looking to prosecute people for extremism. These mechanisms have already been used to clamp down on all kinds of activism. In reality, there is no gap in the law that needs fixing. Rather, this proposal looks like a classic example of a government talking tough on crime and terrorism in order to boost its poll ratings in an election year.

Adding new definitions for extremism only creates problems. The vaguer a definition gets, the easier it is to misuse. It can also have a pervasive chilling effect on free speech. People may self-censor out of fear of being identified as extremist, not least when their employer has a duty under Prevent.

The fact of the matter is that human rights law allows for protests to be disruptive. Otherwise, they could be simply ignored. Human rights law also allows people to shock, offend, and disturb through speech.

The government may not be happy with large public protests against its foreign policy but it should not be viewed as extremist to march for a ceasefire in Gaza. Likewise, it should not be viewed as extremist to vocalise opposition to the potential genocide being committed by the Israeli Defence Forces. If this were so, then the International Court of Justice is extremist.

There is a deep danger of conflating protest with extremism and terrorism, undermining the legitimacy of these protests. To stretch the concept of extremism to cover these views is what is actually undermining democracy and the rights and freedoms of others.

The rest is here:
Rishi Sunak's plan to redefine extremism is disingenuous and a threat to democracy - The Conversation Indonesia