U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is reversing course months after threatening six-figure fines against immigrants taking sanctuary at churches.
Seven women have been notified that ICE, using its discretion, is withdrawing its intent to pursue fines of $300,000 or more for their refusal to leave the country as ordered, according to the National Sanctuary Collective, a coalition of attorneys, organizers and other advocates for them. They count it as a victory.
“We knew that these exorbitant fines were illegal and were nothing more than a tool to scare our clients and retaliate against them for fighting back and standing up to this administration,” attorney Lizbeth Mateo, who represents a Mexican woman living at an Ohio church, said in a statement. Mateo said immigration officials should exercise the same discretion “to release sanctuary families.”
The immigrants have remained in the U.S. in violation of the law and still are subject to removal orders that ICE will enforce “using any and all available means,” agency spokesman Richard Rocha said in an email. He said ICE also could reassess the fines.
FILE – This photo shows the bedroom of Maria Chavalan-Sut of Guatemala, who sought sanctuary at a United Methodist church in Charlottesville, Va. She and other immigrants taking sanctuary had received letters threatening them with huge fines.
Immigrants have sought relief from deportation at houses of worship because immigration officials consider them “sensitive locations” and avoid enforcement action at such sites. Maria Chavalan-Sut, an indigenous woman from Guatemala seeking asylum, moved into a United Methodist church in Charlottesville, Virginia. Another woman has lived in sanctuary with her 11-year-old son in Austin, Texas, for more than two years.
Mateo’s client, Edith Espinal, has stayed at a Columbus church for the past two years. She was notified in June that she faced a fine of nearly $500,000.
In a statement, she said ICE’s reversal on the fines was “an example of what speaking out and organizing can accomplish.”
The agency said it issued nine notifications in June about its intent to pursue fines. It said Wednesday that eight of those had been withdrawn and one still was being pursued. It didn’t identify those cases or name the immigrants involved.
Top priority for Trump
The six-figure penalties were another reminder of how President Donald Trump has made cracking down immigration, legal and illegal, a top domestic priority.
Immigrants who are free on bond but ordered to leave the country are typically given a date to report to immigration authorities for removal. Others are ordered to check in with authorities, which, under former President Barack Obama-era policies, generally didn’t result in deportation unless the person was convicted of a serious crime in the United States.
Trump lifted those restrictions almost immediately, causing people to get deported when they reported to ICE offices as instructed and discouraging others from coming.
U.S. Defense Mark Esper arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit Wednesday for talks with Iraqi officials about the arrival of U.S. troops recently withdrawn from northern Syria.
Seven hundred or more troops have moved into western Iraq, where 5,000 military personnel are already deployed. Esper has said the additional troops would help defend Iraq and be available to conduct anti-terrorism operations against Islamic State insurgents inside Syria.
But the Iraqi government says the troops do not have permission to stay in the country.
During his visit to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. defense chief said that “eventually their destination is home” back in the United States.
President Donald Trump’s sudden decision to pull nearly all U.S. forces out of northern Syria two weeks ago led to an offensive against Kurdish forces by Turkish troops and Turkish-backed Syrian fighters.
Ankara announced Tuesday that it had ended its offensive, saying U.S. told them that all Kurdish fighters had withdrawn from the area, which had been a safe zone. Turkey had agreed last week to observe a five-day long cease-fire after talks with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reached an agreement Tuesday on joint control of the Syrian border region.
Kurdish fighters would be kept 30 kilometers from the entire 440-kilometer Turkish-Syrian border, and also withdraw from the towns of Manbij and Tel Rifaat.
The Syrian Kurds fought alongside U.S. forces against Islamic State terrorists. But Turkey considers them to be linked with Kurdish separatists who have long fought for autonomy inside Turkey. Turkey calls the Kurds terrorists.
Angry Kurds screamed obscenities and pelted a U.S. convoy with rotten potatoes as the convoy headed through the streets of Duhok in the Iraqi/Kurdistan region on the way to Iraq.
The first thing one experiences when landing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at an elevation of about 1,600 meters, is the vastness of open space around the quiet southwestern town.
The 360-degree vistas extend as far as the eye can see on the arid high plateau, interrupted only by the Sandia Mountains to the east. In this town, the film industry is thriving and growing by leaps and bounds. Locals affectionately call it “Tamalewood” — melding the name of a beloved dish in New Mexico with that of California’s better-known Hollywood.
The TV and film industry here has gained ground since garnering tax incentives for filming in the state, leading to billion-dollar deals between leading production companies and Albuquerque Studios. But what started it all was the Albuquerque based Emmy-winning TV series “Breaking Bad,” about a struggling chemistry teacher turned meth drug lord. The show became a hit domestically and internationally.
Over a beer bet with a friend, Frank Sandoval, an extra on the show, came up with the idea of creating a company called “Breaking Bad RV tours.” He would buy an exact replica of the RV shown in the show and drive people around.
“Part of the deal was, if we got people to ride, he [Frank’s friend] would actually help us gut the RV and set it up just like the original. We did our first tour in May of 2014,” Sandoval said. It worked. He now drives two tours a day.
“’Breaking Bad’ really did put Albuquerque on the map in terms of the film industry,” he added.
Breaking Bad RV Tours features a 1986 Fleetwood Bounder RV, identical to the one in the TV series “Breaking Bad.”
Here, in an open landscape where sunshine reigns supreme for 310 days a year, and the longest traffic commute is 20 minutes, Netflix has put down roots.
The entertainment giant purchased Albuquerque Studios, a 100,000-square-foot compound, and signed a billion-dollar deal to produce TV series and movies over the next 10 years. NBC Universal followed with a $500 million deal. Its highly touted TV show “Briarpatch” is one of a dozen TV series filmed in one of the studios’ imposing stages in complete secrecy.
“Briarpatch” producers Keith Raskin and Linda Morel say New Mexico offers a great filming alternative to congested and expensive Los Angeles. The varied landscape, and local crew availability don’t hurt either. And the advantages don’t end there.
“Space! Space! We’ve been working in L.A. for a long time, obviously. I’m from there. It is very, very difficult to find stage space in Los Angeles right now. It’s always booked,“ Morel, Raskin’s longtime partner, said.
Raskin said all these benefits have become the talk of the town among L.A. producers gearing up to take their businesses to Albuquerque.
“I think we are at the beginning of a tidal wave. There’s been a big interest in shooting here,” he added.
Hollywood’s interest peaked after New Mexico further sweetened tax incentives last July, said Amber Dodson, film liaison for the city of Albuquerque.
“The rebate cap was previously at $50 million. It is now raised to $110 million,” she said.
The larger the amount a production company invests here, the larger the rebate. New Mexico wins as well, Dodson said. To get the incentive, production companies have to hire local talent.
“They are here for 10 years no matter what. And the amount of jobs! And it’s a conservative estimate, that, just that deal alone, will create is 1,000,” she said.
1,000 jobs a year, that is.
New Mexico’s film industry is also benefiting from political battles elsewhere in the country. Many Hollywood studios and production companies are pulling out of Georgia in reaction to the state’s enactment of an anti-abortion law, Dodson said.
“We have been busier than ever!” she added, calling TV and film production “a clean, creative industry” that benefits the entire city.
“When a production comes to a place like Albuquerque, they’re not just paying their casting crew,” she said. “They are using all kinds of vendors from dry cleaners to gas stations to car rentals to art galleries, lumber yards, hotels, restaurants. The list goes on and on.”
Sandoval, of the “Breaking Bad” RV tours, said he couldn’t agree more. His tour company, operating twice a day, is fully booked, drawing visitors from all over the world.
“What I see coming down the pike is where we’re going to become the next Hollywood. Some people call it Tamalewood,” he said.
Weaving through the crowd, Temple Gonzalez and her family enjoyed the scenes and fried snacks at the Texas State Fair in Dallas.
“Then we get on the rides and cross our fingers,” she laughed. Gonzalez, a mother from a town called The Colony, just outside of Dallas, professed love for Texas and its diversity.
“I’m proud that we love everybody,” she said. “Lots of people from everywhere. And we want more!”
Gonzalez had less welcoming words for U.S. President Donald Trump, who campaigned in Dallas recently.
Temple Gonzalez and other suburban women uneasy with Trump’s demeanor is a factor in Republicans losing support in Texas.
“I don’t think he’s a kind person,” Gonzalez said. “I just don’t like how he treats people. He needs to be modeling that from the top down, and I don’t see that happening.”
Polls indicate suburban women like Gonzalez are a reason Texas – a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976 – may no longer be a sure bet for Trump in 2020, despite the fact that he is giving it a lot of campaign time.
“Texas is not in play,” Trump said to a cheering crowd at his October 17 rally at the American Airlines Center in down town Dallas. “Donald Trump is not going to lose Texas, I can tell you that.”
The October rally was Trump’s third in the state in the past year and his sixth visit.
Texas Republicans welcome the attention. “It’s good to see that the president is reaching out and not taking Texas for granted,” said Rodney Anderson, chairman of the Dallas County Republican party.
Red with a purple tint
In 2016, Trump won Texas by only nine points, down from Mitt Romney’s 16-point margin in 2012. Analysts see this as evidence of the state shifting left as well as the fact that incumbent Republican senator Ted Cruz only narrowly defeated Democratic newcomer Beto O’Rourke in the 2018 Senate race.
Although it’s premature to call Texas a swing state, it will probably “go red with a very strong purple tint”, said Shannon Bow O’Brien, professor of politics at the University of Texas in Austin.
“Texas is a growing state and it’s growing in the cities, and a lot of the growth is Democratic voters,” said O’Brien. She pointed out that Trump is struggling in the suburbs in Texas, and said the Texas GOP is “worried.”
Rodney Anderson dismissed the notion but admitted that Republicans “have got a real ball game” in 2020.
Democrats gearing up
Democrats in Texas welcome the demographic shift and aim to build on their growth by wooing independents.
“There are a lot of people that just are not happy with the things that Trump has done and these are the people that actually voted for Trump in the last election,” said Tramon Arnold, political director of the Dallas County Democratic Party.
One of them is Larry Strauss, a life-long Republican, who co-founded the North Texas Jewish Democratic Council in 2017. The council recently hosted a gathering in a Dallas community center to discuss election politics with Harvey Kronberg, publisher of the political newsletter Quorum Report.
“The population is no longer reliably Republican,” said Kronberg. “Particularly the suburbs, which is the richest source of votes out there.”
Kronberg said this is partially because Texas demographics have shifted towards a larger population of Hispanic, Asian and Middle Eastern, as well as “Millennials who are antithetical to social conservatives” and what he calls “an abandonment of Republicans by women”.
But Trump can still rely on his base, who are fired up by his “ad hominem attacks, belittling and making fun of his opponents,” said Kronberg.
Larry Strauss, sitting in the front row, nodded. Strauss was a life-long Republican, until he heard the president’s remarks about the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that turned violent.
Larry Strauss turned in his Republican membership card and co-founded the North Texas Jewish Democratic Council in 2017 after he heard President Trump’s remarks about the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA.
“When Donald Trump made that comment that there are good people marching on both sides, I went ballistic. I turned in my Republican membership card.”
Strauss, a retiree in his sixties was so distraught he reached out to the Dallas County Democratic Party and established the council, the first of its kind in the state, with co-founder Janice Schwartz.
Strauss supports the House impeachment inquiry against Trump. “We’re lacking integrity in the White House,” he said. “He’s not the type of president that gives a good example to my children and my grandchildren.”
Republicans dismiss the suggestion that Trump is hurting their party’s chances of winning.
“He’s absolutely helping us, 100%,” Rodney Anderson said, adding that the impeachment inquiry is energizing the Republican base even more.
Analysts point out that with strong support from rural areas, Trump may still win Texas, though with an even slimmer margin than 2016. But they say a lot can happen in a year particularly with an ongoing impeachment inquiry.
The latest poll from Quinnipiac University indicates 45% of registered voters in Texas approve of Trump. The same poll indicates 48% would not vote for him in 2020.
Voter suppression
Texas is one of the most diverse states in the country, and one of the four “majority-minority” states in the United States — together with California, Hawaii, and New Mexico — where the population of racial and ethnic minorities combined is larger than the white population.
Activist groups say that because of “voter suppression tactics used by the state and other entities,” the diversity of Texas is not reflected in state legislature and minority communities’ interests are not reflected in state policy.
“Our state legislators are generally a lot whiter and a lot wealthier than Texans,” said Hani Mirza, senior attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit organization based in Austin.
Voting rights groups have long accused Texas of extreme gerrymandering and restrictive voter registration rules, that in effect have rigged the state’s election rules in ways that disempower black and brown voters.
“The tactics used in gerrymandering can dilute minority votes to where they can’t have their voice heard in elections,” said Mirza. He added that when drawing electoral lines, state legislature has broken up minority communities to dilute their votes, or packed minority groups into as few districts as possible to suppress their voice.
Texas is due for a federal census in 2020 and redistricting process in 2021 where electoral maps may be redrawn.
Presidency not the only prize
The presidency is not the only coveted prize in 2020 as Democrats make inroads in state legislature seats with an eye on redistricting.
“Honestly, it’s not flipping Texas it’s flipping the state legislature seats,” said Shannon Bow O’Brien. “And the Democrats have a shot.”
“The way that things are gerrymandered, we need to make sure that everything is the way that it’s supposed to be, and not favoring the Republican Party,” said Tramon Arnold of the Dallas County Democratic Party.
If in 2020 Democrats win nine seats that they need to control the Texas House, for the first time in decades they would have control over the redrawing of the electoral map.
Future elections based on that map may mean more Democratic lawmakers being sent to Washington, out of the 36 currently representing Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives.
For the first time, U.S. health regulators have judged a type of smokeless tobacco to be less harmful than cigarettes, a decision that could open the door to other less risky options for smokers.
The milestone announcement on Tuesday makes Swedish Match tobacco pouches the first so-called reduced-risk tobacco product ever sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration.
FDA regulators stressed that their decision does not mean the pouches are safe, just less harmful, and that all tobacco products pose risks. The pouches will still bear mandatory government warnings that they can cause mouth cancer, gum disease and tooth loss.
But the company will be able to advertise its tobacco pouches as posing a lower risk of lung cancer, bronchitis, heart disease and other diseases than cigarettes.
The pouches of ground tobacco, called snus — Swedish for snuff and pronounced “snoose” — have been popular in Scandinavian countries for decades but are a tiny part of the U.S. tobacco market.
Users stick the teabag-like pouches between their cheek and gum to absorb nicotine. Unlike regular chewing tobacco, the liquid from snus is generally swallowed, rather than spit out. Chewing tobacco is fermented; snus goes through a steamed pasteurization process.
FILE – A woman shows portions of snus, a moist powder tobacco product that is consumed by placing it under the lip, in Stockholm, Aug. 6, 2009.
Long-term data
FDA acting commissioner Ned Sharpless said the agency based its decision on long-term, population-level data showing lower levels of lung cancer, emphysema and other smoking-related disease with the use of snus.
Sharpless added that the agency will closely monitor Swedish Match’s marketing efforts to ensure they target adult tobacco users.
“Anyone who does not currently use tobacco products, especially youth, should refrain from doing so,” he said in a statement.
Stockholm-based Swedish Match sells its snus under the brand name General in mint, wintergreen and other flavors. They compete against pouches from rivals Altria and R.J. Reynolds. But pouches account for just 5% of the $9.1 billion U.S. market for chew and other smokeless tobacco products, according to Euromonitor market research firm.
And public health experts questioned whether U.S. smokers would be willing to switch to the niche product.
“Snus products have a bit of a challenge” among smokers who are used to inhaling their nicotine, said Vaugh Rees, director of Harvard University’s Center for Global Tobacco Control.
U.S. smoking rate
The U.S. smoking rate has fallen to an all-time low of 14% of adults, or roughly 34 million Americans. But smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., responsible for some 480,000 deaths annually.
The FDA’s decision has been closely watched by both public health experts and tobacco companies.
Public health experts have long hoped that alternatives like the pouches could benefit Americans who are unable or unwilling to quit cigarettes and other traditional tobacco products. Tobacco companies are looking for new products to sell as they face declining cigarette demand due to tax increases, health concerns, smoking bans and social stigma.
The FDA itself also has much at stake in the review of snus and similar tobacco alternatives.
Congress gave the FDA the power to regulate key aspects of the tobacco industry in 2009, including designating new tobacco products as “modified risk,” compared with traditional cigarettes, chew and other products.
But until Tuesday, the FDA had never granted permission for any product to make such claims.
The FDA is reviewing several other products vying for “reduced risk” status, including a heat-not-burn cigarette alternative made by Philip Morris International. While electronic cigarettes are generally considered less harmful than the tobacco-and-paper variety, they have not been scientifically reviewed as posing a lower risk.
The Kurds are one of the indigenous people of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands, areas that today are contained within southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and southwestern Armenia.
Estimated at between 25 million and 35 million people, the Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East. They form a distinctive community, united through race, culture and language. While most of them are Sunni Muslims, there are also Christians, Jews, Yazidis and Zoroastrians among them.
They are considered one of the largest ethnic group in the world without a state.
Here’s a brief look at their political history in the four countries where they largely live:
Iraq
Iraqi Kurds, estimated to make up 15 to 20 percent of Iraq’s population of 38 million people, populate a mountainous region in northern Iraq and enjoy more national rights than Kurds in the neighboring three countries.
The Iraqi Kurds have gained substantial political recognition since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.
In 2005, the Iraq constitution accepted Kurdish as an official language, along with Arabic, and recognized the predominantly Kurdish provinces of Irbil, Sulaymaniyah and Duhok as a federal entity known as the Kurdistan Region, which has its own military, known as the peshmerga.
Iraqi Kurds search for their names on polling center lists during parliamentary elections in Irbil, Iraq, Sept. 30, 2018.
The relationship between the Kurds and the Iraqi government, however, has a history of bloody confrontations and often brutal crackdowns by the central government, particularly during Hussein’s reign.
Feeling pressured by the Kurdish resistance movement, Hussein’s forces in late 1980s unleashed the Anfal campaign, which reportedly left 180,000 Kurds killed or missing, and about 4,500 villages destroyed. The Iraqi government campaign also used chemical weapons, particularly in the 1998 gas attack on the town of Halabja, which left nearly 5,000 residents dead.
Rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, said the Anfal campaign was a systematic ethnic-cleansing program that amounted to genocide. Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and South Korea officially recognize the campaign as genocide.
In March 1991, after their uprising was crushed by the Iraq government, about 1.5 million Iraqi Kurds fled into Iran and Turkey, leading to a refugee crisis. In response, an anti-Hussein international coalition established a partial no-fly zone in northern Iraq to allow the return of refugees and protect them from a future aggression. For years afterward, the zone allowed the Kurds to establish their regional government and parliament.
WATCH: Facts about the Kurds
THE KURDS video player.
The rise of the Islamic State (IS) terror group in 2014 weakened the Iraqi government. The Kurdish peshmerga moved into areas from which Iraqi forces retreated as IS took control.
The Kurds announced they had no intention of withdrawing from these areas, which the Iraqi constitution labels as disputed territories between the Kurdistan Region and the Central Government, and requires a referendum vote on their status.
As IS started losing territory, and the Kurdish peshmergas gained international support for their role in defeating the militants, the Kurdistan Region said it intended to hold a referendum for independence. The vote in September 2017 received 93.25% support, but it was later crushed in an Iraqi government operation, allegedly backed by Iran. It was the most recent attempt by Kurds to establish a state of their own.
Syria
In Syria, Kurds make up nearly 15 percent of Syria’s 22 million prewar population. They primarily live in north and northeastern parts of Syria, with significant Kurdish communities in major Syrian cities, such as Damascus and Aleppo.
Since the establishment of a modern state in Syria in the 1920s, Syrian Kurds have been deprived of political and linguistic rights.
Kurdish women flash victory signs and shout slogans as they protest against possible Turkish military operation on their areas, at the Syrian-Turkish border, in Ras al-Ayn, Syria, Oct. 7, 2019.
The first Kurdish political party in Syria was founded in 1957, influenced by Iraqi Kurds. The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria called for political and cultural rights for the Kurdish minority in the Arab-majority country, but its leading members were faced with imprisonment and persecution.
With the eruption of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Syrian Kurds were able to be in charge of their regions for the first time.
The People’s Protection Units (YPG) took control of the area after Syrian government troops withdrew to focus on fighting rebel groups elsewhere in the war-ravaged country.
With the rise of IS in Syria, the YPG proved to be an effective force in the fight against IS. Consequently, the U.S.-led coalition provided assistance to the Kurdish group to remove IS from other territories in Syria.
In 2015, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was established to include non-Kurdish fighters as well.
With U.S. support, the SDF captured most areas from IS control, including Raqqa, the capital of its so-called caliphate. In March 2019, the SDF declared the territorial defeat of IS after pushing out the terror group from its last pocket of control in eastern Syria.
The Kurdish-led SDF now controls nearly one-third of Syria’s territory, which has effectively become a semiautonomous region.
But Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the Turkish-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group designated as terrorists by Turkey, the European Union and United States.
This month, U.S. President Donald Trump announced American forces would withdraw from northeast Syria, allowing the Turkish military to launch its long-planned offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters.
Days after the U.S. announcement, Turkey began its operation on two Kurdish-held cities along the Syria-Turkey border. Rights groups, including Amnesty International, said the Turkish-led campaign has killed hundreds of civilians and displaced thousands of others.
Despite a cease-fire that was brokered by the U.S. last week and Turkey’s assurances that it would not resume its military offensive, fighting could resume as both Kurdish forces have not agreed to all the terms of the deal.
Turkey
The Kurds are the largest non-Turkish ethnic group in Turkey. They constitute up to 20 percent of Turkey’s population.
Thousands of supporters of pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, gather to celebrate the Kurdish New Year and to attend a campaign rally for local elections that will test the Turkish president’s popularity, in Istanbul, March 24, 2019.
For decades, the Kurds were subjected to the so-called “Turkification policies” of the state, and their ethnic identity was denied. Their language was restricted, and naming their children in Kurdish was banned. For decades, they were referred to as “mountain Turks.”
The question of an independent Kurdistan has a long history that dates back to the Ottoman Empire. In the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, the Western allies promised an autonomous Kurdistan. However, that was never fulfilled because the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 following the Treaty of Lausanne.
As a unitary nation state, Turkey considered the Kurds a threat to its national unity and pushed back on demands for equal citizenship rights.
PKK
In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) with the aim of establishing a united, independent Kurdistan within Turkey, but also including parts of Iraq, Iran and Syria. The group started its armed insurgency inside Turkey in 1984, and since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced as a result of the conflict between the Turkish government and PKK.
In 1999, Ocalan was arrested in Kenya by Turkish intelligence forces. He is serving a life sentence at an island prison near Istanbul.
In March 2013, during the Kurdish “Nowruz,” or new year, celebrations, Ocalan sent a letter to supporters. He called for a cease-fire, as well as setps to disarm and withdraw from Turkey, and an end to armed struggle. The Turkish government praised the letter.
In July 2015, a two-and-a-half-year cease-fire broke down, and the conflict resumed.
According to International Crisis Group, more than 4,500 people have been killed in clashes or terror attacks since 2015.
Iran
Ethnic Kurds make up nearly 9% of Iran’s 80 million population. They are largely Sunni Muslims, but there are some Shiite and Zoroastrian Kurds as well.
The Kurdish political movement in Iran started with the establishment of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in 1946. Under the leadership of Qazi Mohammad, the group declared a Kurdish republic in the city of Mahabad that same year. Nearly 11 months later, however, Iranian government forces entered Mahabad to crush the new Kurdish entity. Mohammad was executed immediately.
In 1979, after the Islamic revolution toppled the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the new Islamist government carried on the subjugation of the Kurds. The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) began targeting Kurdish activists at home and abroad.
In 1989, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, an influential Iranian Kurdish leader, was assassinated in Vienna, Austria. The operation was reportedly carried out by the IRGC.
Influenced by the Turkish-based PKK, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) was founded 2003 in Iran. Ever since, the group has been engaged in occasional clashes with Iranian security forces.
Zimbabwe has declared a new public holiday to protest U.S sanctions it says are hurting its economy, and the day comes with a state-sponsored festival.
Acting information minister Amon Murwira says Anti-Sanctions Day will be marked on Oct. 25. Tens of thousands of people are expected to be bused to the capital.
The minister said Monday that the holiday is “to further amplify the importance of this day to the economic emancipation and well-being of Zimbabwe.”
Dozens of Zimbabwean officials, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa, have faced years of U.S. sanctions over alleged human rights violations. Mnangagwa has turned the sanctions into a rallying cry and blamed them for the collapsing economy.
The U.S. says the sanctions are not against the government at large and do not affect business between the countries.
When he escaped the armed group that had abducted him at the age of 15, the child soldier swore he’d never go back. But the South Sudanese teen still thinks about returning to the bush, six months after the United Nations secured his release.
“Being asked to kill someone is the hardest thing,” he told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for his safety.
And yet the army offered him a kind of stability he has yet to find outside it. “I had everything, bedding and clothes, I’d just steal what I needed here, I haven’t received what I was expecting,” he said.
He lives with family, adrift, waiting to attend a U.N.-sponsored job skills program, struggling to forget his past.
There are an estimated 19,000 child soldiers in South Sudan, one of the highest rates in the world, according to the U.N. As the country emerges from a five-year civil war that killed almost 400,000 people and displaced millions, some worry the fighting could re-ignite if former child soldiers aren’t properly reintegrated into society.
“Without more support, the consequence is that the children will move towards the barracks where there’s social connection, food and something to do,” said William Deng Deng, chairman for South Sudan’s national disarmament demobilization and reintegration commission. “They loot and raid and it will begin to create insecurity.”
Since the fighting broke out in 2013, the U.N. children’s agency has facilitated the release of more than 3,200 child soldiers from both government and opposition forces.
Yet even after a peace deal was signed a year ago, the rate of forced child soldier recruitment by both sides in the conflict is increasing, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said in a statement earlier this month.
“Ironically, the prospect of a peace deal has accelerated the forced recruitment of children, with various groups now seeking to boost their numbers before they move into the cantonment sites,’ said commission chairwoman Yasmin Sooka. According to the peace deal the government and opposition should have 41,500 troops trained and unified into one national army.
Children who leave armed groups often struggle to adjust.
The AP followed several child soldiers among 121 released in February. Many said they are still haunted by their pasts, unable to talk about their experiences for fear of being stigmatized and often incapable of controlling their anger.
“Whenever I think about the bush, even if I’m playing football, I feel like stopping and picking something up and hitting my friends,” said a 13-year-old. The AP is not using the names of the former child soldiers to protect their identities.
Abducted by armed men when he was 11, he worked as a spy for an opposition group and at times was forced to witness and partake in horrific acts. He watched a soldier kill a child for refusing to do his chores, and he was forced to set a house on fire, burning alive everyone inside.
“I hear those people screaming in my dreams,” he said.
Once released, the former child soldiers are given a three-month reintegration package including food and the opportunity for educational and psycho-social support. However, the system is overburdened and underfunded.
“It’s a lot of work. Sometimes I can only spend 15 to 20 minutes with each child,” said Joseph Ndepi, a social worker with World Vision who is supporting 46 children.
Many families don’t know how to deal with their children’s change in behavior once they’ve returned.
“When he initially got out he was so rough he’d beat the kids, and when our mom tried to intervene he’d turn on her,” one 16-year-old said of her elder brother. Both children were abducted and released from armed groups at the same time.
While the girl wanted to forget the past, her brother tried to relive it.
At night he’d sneak out of the house and perform mock ambushes to see how close he could get to robbing people’s properties without being caught, the 17-year-old said. Since starting therapy he has stopped the late-night excursions and reined in his temper.
Some of the children’s behavior is related to the power they felt in the army, said Kutiote Justin, a social worker with Catholic Medical Mission Board, an international aid group. One former child soldier he works with insists on calling himself “the commander.”
A lack of resources for reintegration could hurt long-term assistance.
About 420 children have participated in vocational courses to learn professions such as welding, carpentry and tailoring, yet it’s unclear if there will be enough funding to continue past December.
Almost $5 million is needed for the next two years but currently only $500,000 is available, according to UNICEF.
“Donors aren’t funding to the same extent they used to and now there’s potentially an even greater need,” said spokesman Yves Willemot. And more child soldiers are expected to be released in the near future, he said.
South Sudan’s government isn’t investing in child soldier reintegration, according to the national disarmament, demobilization and reintegration commission. The hope is that once a unity government is formed in mid-November, a key part of the peace deal, the international community will be more inclined to contribute.
But the peace deal is fraught with delays and questionable political will. The government hasn’t committed the $100 million it pledged for the peace process, and key elements such as training a unified army have yet to be realized.
Meanwhile, families whose children have returned from the fighting are doing what they can to keep them from leaving again.
In August the 17-year-old felt lonely, so he packed his bags and headed for the bush. He got as far as the main road before his family’s words echoed through his head.
“Stay with your people, don’t go to that place,” he said, recalling their advice. “Just stay here in peace.”
There’s a familiar trend of fast food chains like KFC and Burger King entering developing countries, where citizens start to see obesity rates increase amid all the new junk food options.
This is not that story, at least in Vietnam. The junk food trend has certainly come to Vietnam already, but now there’s an even newer trend in the country, and it’s the definition of irony: more Vietnamese citizens are looking for food products that are healthful — only to end up with products that are anything but that.
A Vietnam food puzzle
Sugar is the ingredient that perhaps best exemplifies this irony. The problem is not that Vietnamese are eating large amounts of candy and ice cream, though some are doing that. Instead, they’re buying products like fruit juices and yogurt, not realizing that all the added sugar may outweigh the health benefits of the fruit. Products are packaged in labels that appeal to citizens’ health goals.
This is part of a broader change across Vietnam, where companies are selling more ready-to-eat meals and processed foods to citizens who used to buy vegetables and eggs directly from farms. The change is leading to obvious business opportunities. For instance, the Nutifood Nutrition Food Joint Stock Company recently got an expected debt rating of B+ from Fitch Ratings, which predicts the company will profit from more Vietnamese buying health foods.
Fast food chains like McDonald’s are growing in Vietnam. (H. Nguyen/VOA)
“The government has introduced initiatives to address malnutrition and stunting, whose levels remain high by global standards,” Fitch Ratings said in an explanation of its expected rating. “Fitch also expects a high birth-rate and consumers increasingly seeking convenience with nutrition will continue to drive demand for Nutifood’s products, particularly its ready-to-drink products.”
Moderation is the goal
Milk and related products sold by Nutifood and its competitors highlight the balance that is hard to strike in the national diet. Vietnam for years encouraged parents to give their children milk so the next generation would be taller and have stronger bones. Today however, obesity is a bigger problem than undernourishment, having increased 38 percent from 2010 to 2014 — the highest in Southeast Asia. That’s why Vietnam does not use the term “undernourished” but “malnourished” to describe its whole range of nutritional issues.
In other areas there’s low awareness of dietary risks, such as the overreliance on MSG and salt, usually in the form of fish sauce and soy sauce, two very popular ingredients in Vietnamese food. Sugar, however, is the more recent trend. Companies were able to influence nutritional recommendations for decades, by focusing on fat rather than sugar as a source of health complications. So Vietnamese have added sweeteners to their food and drink without a second thought. Go to a cafe, and the waiter will automatically put sugar in an order of coffee or mango juice unless the customer says otherwise. In nearby Indonesia citizens like to joke that they have their sugar with some tea, rather than have tea with sugar. Something similar could be said of Vietnam.
Vietnamese citizens are increasingly replacing their fruit with juice, not realizing that all the added sugar contained in juices could outweigh health benefits. (H. Nguyen/VOA)
People have many choices
Companies like Pepsi and McDonald’s have tried to put the focus on exercise, rather than diet, for good health. Naturally active lifestyles are decreasing in Vietnam, as people move from the countryside to the cities, and from hard labor to office jobs. Citizens often get on their motorbikes to drive just one block, and walking in the cities, with 100-degree weather and few sidewalks, is hard. On top of that, citizens use new Uber-like services to have drinks or meals delivered. Researchers agree exercise and diet are both important, but the latter has a bigger impact on health.
“Vietnamese consumers care about their health more than ever,” Louise Hawley, managing director of Nielsen Vietnam, said.
That makes awareness all the more important. It is one thing to eat unhealthful food, while not caring about the effects. It is quite another thing to eat unhealthful food, however, because one thinks it’s nutritional.
The growing health concern in Vietnam has to do with not just nutrition, but also air pollution, water quality, and clean supply chains. A Nielsen survey showed health became the top concern of Vietnamese citizens in the second quarter, surpassing job security, cost of living, and work-life balance. “With the current situation relating to pollution and increased consumer awareness,” Hawley said, “health is expected to continue to be a top concern of Vietnamese consumers in the third quarter of 2019.”
Norwegian police opened fire on an armed man who stole an ambulance in Oslo and reportedly ran down several people Tuesday.
Norwegian broadcaster NRK said that several people were struck by the ambulance, including a baby in a stroller who was taken to a hospital. NRK said that police were looking for a woman who may have been involved, but authorities wouldn’t confirm the report.
“We are in control of the ambulance that was stolen,” Oslo police tweeted. “Shots were fired to stop him. He is not in critical condition.”
The Aftenposten newspaper published a photo showing a man, wearing green trousers lying next to the vehicle surrounded by police officers.
Further details weren’t immediately available.
The incident took place in the northern part of Oslo, the Norwegian capital.
A leading rights group says it has evidence of potential war crimes by Libyan factions fighting a months-long battle for the capital, Tripoli.
A report by Amnesty International released Tuesday said warring parties have killed and maimed scores of civilians. The report says both sides are launching indiscriminate attacks and using inaccurate explosive weapons in populated urban areas.
Brian Castner, a senior adviser with Amnesty, says such attacks “could amount to war crimes.”
Rival militias have been fighting in and around Tripoli since April.
A U.N.-supported but weak government holds the capital. Forces associated with a rival government in the country’s east are trying to seize it.
The U.N. says the fighting has killed or wounded more than 100 civilians and has displaced more than 100,000.
Thousands of people marched in Khartoum and other Sudanese cities Monday to mark the October 1964 uprising that ended the dictatorship of Ibrahim Aboud. The protesters, however, focused on the present, and made demands that stem from the recent ouster of former leader Omar al-Bashir.
They used the occasion to call for an independent investigation into the massacre on June 3, 2019, when dozens of people were killed as military forces cleared pro-democracy protesters away from the Defense Ministry in Khartoum.
Monday’s demonstrations were backed by the Sudanese Professionals Association, which organized the protests that swept Bashir from power earlier this year. But they were initially organized by neighborhood committees and the families of the June 3rd victims.
Sudanese demonstrators march during a protest in the capital Khartoum, Oct. 21, 2019.
Protester Najlaa Mohamed, crying and holding a Sudanese flag, said she is pessimistic the current military-civilian ruling council will get justice for the victims.
She added that protesters reject any kind of military representation in the new transitional government.
In addition, protester Ahmed Nasser says Bashir, who is facing corruption charges, needs to also be punished for his dictatorial 30-year rule.
The dissolution of the National Sudanese Congress Party — which supported Bashir for decades — was another of the protesters’ demands.
However, the Freedom and Change Alliance published a communique asking the protesters to drop that idea, warning that chaos could erupt if Bashir supporters attacked the protest.
Ahead of the march in Khartoum, Sudan’s military published a communique warning protesters and citizens not to get close to army headquarters and military facilities. Troops were deployed across the capital to protect strategic locations.
Sudan erupted in mass protests in December 2018 over high bread prices, but the demonstrations quickly morphed into calls for Bashir to step down.
A power-sharing agreement between the generals who ousted Bashir and protest leaders was signed in August to end eight months of turmoil and to lead the country until elections are held in 2022.
When Germain Kalubenge gets a request for a ride on his motorcycle, it can be a matter of life or death. The 23-year-old is a survivor of the Ebola virus and often is the only driver his community trusts to help if someone suspects they are infected.
“I wake up every day at 5 in the morning to … wait for calls from suspected Ebola cases who do not like to take an ambulance,” he said. “In the community they are afraid of ambulances. They believe that in an ambulance, doctors will give them toxic injections and they will die before arriving at the hospital.”
FILE – Motorcycle taxi driver Germain Kalubenge is photographed at an Ebola transit center where potential cases are evaluated, in Beni, Congo, Aug. 22, 2019.
Kalubenge is a rare motorcycle taxi driver who is also an Ebola survivor in eastern Congo, making him a welcome collaborator for health workers who have faced deep community mistrust during the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. More than 2,000 people have died since August of last year, and the World Health Organization last week said the outbreak still warrants being classified as a global emergency, even as the number of confirmed cases has slowed.
This is the first time Ebola has been confirmed in this part of Congo, and rumors quickly spread in Beni, an early epicenter of the outbreak, that the virus had been imported to kill the population. The community has been traumatized by years of deadly rebel attacks and is wary of authorities, blaming them for the insecurity that has killed nearly 2,000 people since late 2014.
Gaining people’s trust has been a constant challenge for health workers.
Imagine that you are running a fever and you see a dozen jeeps carrying doctors wearing head-to-toe protective gear, said Muhindo Soli, a young man who was arrested earlier this year for throwing stones at Ebola responders’ vehicles. “That would scare me,” he said, adding that some young people refuse to let patients be taken away.
FILE – A woman whose 5-year-old daughter was ill with her in an Ebola transit center where potential cases are evaluated, after being transported there by motorcycle taxi driver Germain Kalubenge, in Beni, Congo, Aug. 22, 2019.
Soli called on Ebola responders to stop working with military and police escorts, which he said only heightens tensions: “One wonders why the people who come to treat us come with soldiers?”
Dr. Muhindo Muyisa, who leads the response to Ebola alerts in Beni, said they have received more than 150 alerts daily about potential cases. They have intervened more than 90% of the time, sending an ambulance or other vehicle, when people refuse to go to centers where testing is done for the virus, Muyisa said.
Kalubenge, who as a survivor is immune to Ebola, saw the community resistance and decided to help. At times he has taken about 10 people a day to the Ebola centers after surviving the virus last year.
He and his motorcycle are sprayed with chlorine each time he arrives.
FILE – Motorcycle taxi driver Germain Kalubenge pours chlorinated water on his motorcycle after taking a suspected case of Ebola to an Ebola transit center where potential cases are evaluated, in Beni, Congo, Aug. 22, 2019.
One day in August, he received a call from a parent whose 5-year-old had a fever and was vomiting. His first step was to convince the mother to allow her child to go to the center for testing. The symptoms were similar to other diseases common in the area such as malaria, which can add to people’s hesitation about Ebola. In the end, the child was found to have malaria.
Kalubenge makes sure to tell potential patients his own Ebola story and says they will only get better if they go to a center to be checked.
Riding with him draws far less attention than an ambulance would. People like to ride a motorcycle “to avoid neighbors’ curiosity,” he said.
Kalubenge is the only good link between the Ebola centers and the population, said Beni resident Sammy Misonia, who met the driver during a community question-and-answer session with Ebola survivors.
“There are too many rumors that make people afraid to go,” Misonia said. “With this initiative, people will always agree to go because we now see someone who has come out of the treatment center alive.”
Kalubenge said he is happy to help give people hope — even when some riders vomit on him during the journey.
“People need to know that doctors treat well, and I was well cared for,” he said. “Ebola is not the end of life. After Ebola, there is life.”
The Russian military says two of its nuclear-capable bombers will visit South Africa in what appears to be the first-ever such deployment to the African continent.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that sending the Tu-160 bombers is intended to help “develop bilateral military cooperation” and reflects a “strategic partnership” with one of Africa’s most developed economies.
The mission comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host the first-ever Russia-Africa summit this week with 43 of the continent’s 54 heads of state or government in attendance. The remaining 11 countries will be represented by foreign ministers or other officials.
As part of efforts to expand its clout in Africa, Russia has signed military cooperation agreements with at least 28 African countries, the majority in the past five years.
A study of former professional soccer players in Scotland finds that they were less likely to die of common causes such as heart disease and cancer compared with the general population but more likely to die from dementia. The results raise fresh concerns about head-related risks from playing the sport — at least for men at the pro level.
Researchers from the University of Glasgow reported the results in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday. They compared the causes of death of 7,676 Scottish men who played soccer with 23,000 similar men from the general population born between 1900 and 1976. Over a median of 18 years of study, 1,180 players and 3,807 of the others died.
The players had a lower risk of death from any cause until age 70.
However, they had a 3.5 times higher rate of death from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. In absolute terms, that risk remained relatively small — 1.7% among former players and 0.5% for the comparison group.
Former players also were more likely to be prescribed dementia medicines than the others were.
The results “should not engender undue fear and panic,” Dr. Robert Stern, a Boston University scientist who has studied sports-related brain trauma, wrote in a commentary published in the journal.
The findings in professional players may not apply to recreational, college or amateur-level play, or to women, Stern noted.
“Parents of children who headed the ball in youth or high-school soccer should not fear that their children are destined to have cognitive decline and dementia later in life. Rather, they should focus on the substantial health benefits from exercise and participation in a sport that their children enjoy,” while also being aware of the risks of head-balling, Stern wrote.
English Football Association chairman Greg Clark said “the whole game must recognize that this is only the start of our understanding and there are many questions that still need to be answered. It is important that the global football family now unites to find the answers and provide a greater understanding of this complex issue.”
The association and players’ union sponsored the study.
“We need to kick on now and understand what it means, because that’s all an awful lot we don’t know,” English FA chief executive Mark Bullingham said. “We don’t know if concussion was the cause or whether it was heading or whatever or whether it’s the old heavy ball or something entirely different.”
But the association’s medical advisory group has not deemed it necessary to issue to change how the game is played, even reducing heading among younger age groups.
“In youth football, you might want to reduce the likelihood of aerial challenges,” Bullingham said. “But our research shows this has already been reduced significantly over the years as we change to small size of pitches, move to possession-based football and now rolling substitutes.”
Referees across all levels can stop games for three minutes to fully assess head injuries, but some experts believe that is not long enough. The English FA also is pushing soccer’s global lawmaking body for the introduction of concussion substitutes, with an additional player switch or as a temporary replacement.
Campaigning to discover more about the long-term impact of head injuries in soccer has been led in England by the family of former England striker Jeff Astle, whose death at age 59 in 2002 was attributed to repeatedly heading heavy, leather balls. In 2017, a British study of brains of a small number of retired players who developed dementia highlighted the degenerative damage possibly caused by repeated blows to the head.
In an interview Monday, Mazloum Abdi, the commanding general of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told VOA’s Sirwan Kajjo that the United States made a strategic mistake by withdrawing its troops from northeast Syria. He said SDF “has not agreed to the U.S.-Turkey cease-fire agreement in its entirety.” He added that SDF’s trust in the United States is at its “lowest,” but stressed that the alliance with Washington continues in the fight against the Islamic State terror group.
Days after U.S. President Donald Trump’s Oct. 6 announcement that U.S. troops would withdraw from a border area in northeast Syria, the Turkish military and its allied Syrian militia groups began an offensive against SDF fighters. Last week, a temporary cease-fire, set to expire Tuesday, was brokered by the U.S. after a delegation led by Vice President Mike Pence met with Turkish officials in Ankara. Per the cease-fire deal, SDF Kurdish fighters and remaining civilians evacuated the city of Ras al-Ayn.
Below is a transcript of VOA’s interview with Abdi.
Question: You have accepted the U.S.-Turkish deal that was announced last week. What do you say about it?
Abdi: “We haven’t accepted the U.S.-Turkey deal in its entirety. We have only agreed to the cease-fire. Our forces have already withdrawn from Ras al-Ayn and Tel Abyad. In return, Turkey would commit to a permanent cease-fire in those areas with the U.S. being a guarantor. As for other details of their agreement, nobody has discussed them with us. Therefore, we do not accept them. We have relied on the U.S. narrative of the agreement, which says that the [Turkish] operation will be limited to those two towns. We will never accept the Turkish narrative, which says that Turkish forces will enter all areas in northern Syria along the border with Turkey.”
FILE – Turkish troops and Turkish-backed Syrian rebels gather outside the border town of Ras al-Ayn on Oct. 12, 2019,during their assault on Kurdish-held border towns in northeastern Syria.
Q: In light of recent events, do you still consider yourself a U.S. ally?
Abdi: “President Trump’s decision to pull out U.S. troops from the border area led Turkish forces to occupy a large part of Syria’s territory. It has caused a major displacement of civilians. It has allowed an ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish people. Our trust in the United States is at its lowest. However, our alliance with Washington to combat IS still continues. The U.S. has not abandoned this partnership. But allowing the Turkish military to invade Syria has largely damaged this partnership. We still want this partnership to continue. We want the remaining U.S. forces in Syria to make an international balance in this region and to prevent one side from taking control over our people. We still are of the belief that keeping U.S. forces in Syria is in the interest of the Americans and the Kurds.”
Q: What is going to happen to the 11,000 IS prisoners in your custody? Will Turkey be in charge of them, as President Trump has suggested?
Abdi: “Turkey has nothing to do with [IS] prisoners. There aren’t any prisons in areas that Turkish forces recently have occupied. We have evacuated all prisoners in those areas and moved them to prisons under our control. Turkey has no right to be involved with these prisoners, because it was Turkey who facilitated the entry of these fighters into Syria in the first place. All [IS] prisons are still under our control. There is no risk yet, but if the war continues, guarding them will be difficult. Therefore, we want U.S. troops to stay here to work with us on the IS prisoner dossier so that these people won’t be a threat to global peace anymore.”
Q: Would you seek Russian help to prevent Turkey from seizing other areas under your control?
Abdi: “Russia is allied with the Syrian regime and it also coordinates with Turkey. We have a previous experience with Russia in Afrin [in northwest Syria], when Russia paved the way for Turkey to carry out an ethnic cleansing in Afrin. That’s why we cannot count on Russia in this regard. President Trump keeps saying that Kurds have struck a deal with the Russians and the [Syrian] regime to protect themselves. But that’s not accurate. Russia’s policy and its alliance with the Syrian regime are not for the protection of Kurds. It is quite the opposite; Russia coordinates with Turkey and has paved the way for attack against Kurds in Syria. It’s not appropriate to leave Russia in charge of this region. What we need at this point is a balance of powers on the ground that will also be a guarantee for a long-term solution to the Syrian crisis.”
China is asking the World Trade Organization for the right to impose $2.4 billion in annual penalties on the United States in a case over Chinese subsidies dating back years.
A document published Monday showed China has called for the matter to be considered by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body next Monday. The matter would be referred to a WTO arbitrator if the U.S. objects to the amount China proposes.
The request stems from a July WTO appellate decision in a case dating to before the Trump administration, and unrelated to the tariffs it has slapped on Chinese goods.
Washington criticized that decision, which it said recognizes that China uses state-owned enterprises to subsidize and distort its economy but contends the U.S. must use “distorted Chinese prices” to measure subsidies.
At least 12 white supremacists have been arrested on allegations of plotting, threatening or carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. since the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly one year ago, a Jewish civil rights group reported Sunday.
The Anti-Defamation League also counted at least 50 incidents in which white supremacists are accused of targeting Jewish institutions’ property since a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Those incidents include 12 cases of vandalism involving white supremacist symbols and 35 cases in which white supremacist propaganda was distributed.
The ADL said its nationwide count of anti-Semitic incidents remains near record levels. It has counted 780 anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2019, compared to 785 incidents during the same period in 2018.
The ADL’s tally of 12 arrests for white supremacist plots, threats and attacks against Jewish institutions includes the April 2019 capture of John T. Earnest, who is charged with killing one person and wounding three others in a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California. The group said many of the cases it counted, including the Poway shooting, were inspired by previous white supremist attacks. In online posts, Earnest said he was inspired by the deadly attacks in Pittsburgh and on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a gunman killed 51 people in March.
The ADL also counted three additional 2019 cases in which individuals were arrested for targeting Jews but weren’t deemed to be white supremacists. Two were motivated by Islamist extremist ideology, the organization said.
The ADL said its Center on Extremism provided “critical intelligence” to law enforcement in at least three of the 12 cases it counted.
Last December, authorities in Monroe, Washington, arrested a white supremacist after the ADL notified law enforcement about suspicions he threatened on Facebook to kill Jews in a synagogue. The ADL said it also helped authorities in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, identify a white supremacist accused of using aliases to post threatening messages, including a digital image of himself pointing an AR-15 rifle at a group of praying Jewish men.
In August, an FBI-led anti-terrorism task force arrested a Las Vegas man accused of plotting to firebomb a synagogue or other targets, including a bar catering to LGTBQ customers and the ADL’s Las Vegas office. The ADL said it warned law enforcement officials about the man’s online threats.
“We cannot and will not rest easy knowing the threat posed by white supremacists and other extremists against the Jewish community is clear and present,” the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement.
The ADL said it counted at least 30 additional incidents in which people with an “unknown ideology” targeted Jewish institutions with acts of arson, vandalism or propaganda distribution that the group deemed to be anti-Semitic or “generally hateful,” but not explicitly white supremacist.
“These incidents include the shooting of an elderly man outside a synagogue in Miami, fires set at multiple Jewish institutions in New York and Massachusetts, Molotov cocktails thrown at synagogue windows in Chicago, damaged menorahs in Georgia and New Jersey, as well as a wide range of anti-Semitic graffiti,” an ADL report said.
