German city Essen marches against right-wing violence

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Thousands of people in Essen have taken to the streets to protest against neo-Nazi violence. The march is the latest in a series of anti-racism rallies following violent anti-immigrant protests in Chemnitz.

Indulging Steve Bannon is just a form of liberal narcissism | Nesrine Malik

White supremacy and fascist flirtations are not ideas that need to be ‘exposed’. We just need to fight them. White supremacy and fascist flirtations are not ideas that need to be ‘exposed’. We just need to fight them. White supremacy and fascist flirtations are not ideas that need to be ‘exposed’. We just need to fight them.

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White supremacy and fascist flirtations are not ideas that need to be ‘exposed’. We just need to fight them

I grew up in the long shadow of a military coup. To be a child in a country where relatives and friends suddenly disappeared, were detained indefinitely without trial, or in some instances executed, was to grow up very quickly. But the most difficult thing to process was seeing those who had lost family to the government’s brutality scramble to make peace with its members, or even join it, once it became clear the military regime was staying. It’s still a depressing thing to return to Sudan and see men who I remember as a child returning from prison gaunt and hollowed out with starvation and torture, sit among the government’s ranks, fatted, safe, and soft with power.

But it taught me an important lesson: the fate some politicians fear most is not defeat, it is irrelevance. And as the Donald Trump administration functions largely like an African dictatorship, it has been a lesson that has been helpful in shedding light on the complicity of formerly moral Republicans, and in turn, the normalisation of Trump and his associates by liberals.

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Bob Woodward’s Fear sells more than 750,000 in first day

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The veteran Washington reporter’s unflattering portrait of Trump White House gets ninth printing to meet extraordinary demand from US and beyond

Donald Trump may have dismissed Bob Woodward’s Fear as “a joke”, but readers are showing themselves to be keen to share in the comedy, with more than 750,000 copies of the White House exposé sold in American in just one day, according to its publisher.

Fear, which “depicts a White House awash in dysfunction, where the Lord of the Flies is the closest thing to an owner’s manual”, according to a review in the Guardian, was published on 11 September. Simon & Schuster said yesterday that it sold a combined total of more than 750,000 copies of the book on its first day on sale in the US. The publisher has now ordered a ninth printing, bringing the total number of hardbacks in print in America to more than 1.15m.

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Trump says Hurricane Maria death toll number was made up by Democrats

Can’t take heat? Get out of the kitchen! Goofus #!

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Despite evidence showing nearly 3,000 people were killed, US president tweets that figure is scheme ‘to make me look bad’

Donald Trump has falsely claimed that 3,000 people did not die in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, and said the number was made up by the Democratic party “to make me look as bad as possible”.

Related: Trump calls Puerto Rico hurricane effort an ‘unsung success’ – here’s the reality

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Why We Must Speak Out about Oleg Sentsov Now

via aleksey godin

September 11, 2018

Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker imprisoned by Russian forces in 2014, is on the verge of death. More than one hundred days ago, he began a hunger strike to demand that Russian President Vladimir Putin free sixty-four Ukrainian political prisoners being held in Russia.  Since then, Sentsov has lost almost 70 pounds and suffered cardiac complications. In early August, he confided to his lawyer that “the end was near” and this week he told his cousin that his limbs are going numb. Unless the international community takes urgent action, his uncompromising commitment to freedom will soon kill him.

Policy makers and human rights activists face an all-too-common decision: Do we raise our voices loudly and in unison now, when it can potentially spare one life, or honor yet another opponent of tyranny with a street name following his death? We’ve got enough streets named after dead democrats and courageous freedom fighters. Let’s make an uproar now if only to say we shed a light on those unfairly held in Russia’s modern gulag.

Sentsov’s trouble began soon after Russia illegally annexed Crimea. He was arrested on May 10, 2014, by Russian FSB security forces for peacefully protesting the illegal Russian takeover of Crimea. From his home in the Crimean city of Simferopol, he was jailed and held incommunicado for three weeks. During this time, prison authorities physically abused him, including by suffocation, and threatened him with torture, rape, and murder in an attempt to get him to “confess” to terrorism.  The Russian authorities proceeded to strip him of his Ukrainian citizenship—a blatant violation of international law—and tried him in a military tribunal in Moscow as a Russian citizen. Despite a lack of evidence—including from the main witness against him who retracted his testimony after admitting it had been made under torture—Sentsov was convicted of terrorism and sentenced to twenty years in prison. 

Sentsov’s case is far from unique. Convicting political opponents on manufactured charges and bogus evidence is one of the hallmarks of Putin’s regime, and there are more than 183 political opponents currently imprisoned in Russia. In an attempt to wear them down, they are regularly subjected to torture; inhumane transport, including month-long transits in cramped trains with little access to water and sanitation; and imprisonment in “gulag-like” prison colonies.

So far, Putin has managed to repress dissent, and Sentsov’s ongoing struggle is an attempt to change this. Sentsov hopes to force Putin to answer for the numerous Ukrainian activists he has imprisoned. Selflessly, Sentsov has not even demanded his own release; rather, he will only end the hunger strike if all other Ukrainian political prisoners are released, and he is willing to obtain his own freedom through death should Putin choose to ignore his demands.

Unfortunately, Putin appears ready to let Sentsov die. Perhaps Sentsov’s case is a matter of pride. As a Ukrainian prisoner from Crimea, releasing Sentsov to the Ukrainian authorities might undermine Russia’s claim over Crimea. Or perhaps Putin simply wants to show the world that nothing, not even the death of an innocent man, can make him change.

Whatever the case, we must not let Putin have his way. It is time for the international community to stand in solidarity with all of Russia’s political prisoners and take concerted actions to hold Putin accountable. Sentsov’s life depends on it. If we don’t, it’s a defeat for those who believe in human rights and a victory to those who traffic in tyranny. 

As an urgent first step, if Sentsov is to be saved, the world must unequivocally call for his immediate release.  As Sentsov’s situation has grown increasingly precarious, a handful of organizations and world leaders, including Amnesty International and French President Emmanuel Macron, have already done so. But to get Putin to listen, we need the United States and other countries and organizations that value democracy and human rights to prioritize Sentsov’s case.

Second, Russia must face serious and tangible consequences. Putin has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not act out of compassion or shame, so we must force him to do what is right. The United States should lead the charge by using all the tools in its arsenal—including significantly expanding sanctions—to force Putin to meet our demands for freedom.

Finally, we must not lose sight of what is at stake. Sentsov may be fighting to free Ukrainian political prisoners specifically, but this fight transcends national boundaries. It is a timeless and universal fight for freedom and justice—the very values that our society is built on. Sentsov has not weeks, but fleeting days left.  And if he dies, so does a part of our humanity.

Natalia Arno is president of the Free Russia Foundation in Washington, DC.

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