Pope Francis spreads incense as he holds a Mass on Holy Thursday at Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, April 18, 2019. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
April 18, 2019
By Philip Pullella
ROME (Reuters) – Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of 12 prisoners on Thursday at a traditional service, telling them to shun any inmate hierarchy structure or law of the strongest and to help each other instead.
Francis’ predecessors held the traditional Holy Thursday rite in one of Rome’s great basilicas, washing the feet of 12 priests. But to emphasize its symbolism of service, Francis transferred it to places of confinement, such as prisons, immigrant centers or old age homes.
He traveled this year to a prison in the town of Velletri, about 40 km south of Rome.
It is the fifth time since his election in 2013 that he has held the service, which commemorates Jesus’ gesture of humility toward his apostles on the night before he died, in jail.
Francis told the inmates that in Jesus’s time, washing the feet of visitors was the job of slaves and servants.
“This is the rule of Jesus and the rule of the gospel. The rule of service, not of domination or of humiliating others,” he said.
Of the male inmates whose feet Francis washed, there were nine Italians, one Brazilian, one Moroccan and one Ivorian. The Vatican did not give their religions.
In the past, conservative Catholics criticized the pope for washing the feet of women and Muslim inmates.
The Velletri prison, which is overcrowded like most Italian jails, mostly holds foreigners for common crimes, but one section holds turncoats who collaborated with investigators and get special protection.
On Good Friday, Francis, marking his seventh Easter season as Roman Catholic leader, is due to lead a Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession around Rome’s ancient Colosseum.
The 82-year-old leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics leads an Easter vigil service on Saturday night and on Easter Sunday reads the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (To The City and The World) message.
(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet holds a news conference at Centro Cultural Espana in downtown Mexico City, Mexico April 9, 2019 REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
April 18, 2019
GENEVA (Reuters) – United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Thursday she was concerned that a Bahrain mass trial that revoked the nationality of 138 people this week had not met international fair trial standards.
A court in Western-allied Bahrain sentenced 139 people to jail on terrorism charges on Tuesday and revoked the citizenship of all but one of them, the public prosecutor said, in the latest mass trial in the Gulf Arab state.
“There are serious concerns that the court proceedings failed to comply with international fair trial standards, with a large number of the accused reportedly tried in absentia,” Bachelet said in a statement. Revocation of nationality can have serious consequences in daily life, including the denial of the right to health, education and freedom of movement, she added.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Gareth Jones)
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., expressed regret for the unintended consequences of a state truancy law she pushed as San Francisco district attorney in a Pod Save America interview.
The law, which made it a crime for parents to allow children to miss too many days of school, resulted in the arrest and jailing of some parents, The Hill pointed out.
The Democratic presidential candidate, however, said those cases were not in her jurisdiction and “When I was [San Francisco] DA, we never sent a parent to jail.”
She said the point of her initiative was to prevent elementary school children from missing large chunks of the school year, which would then lead to them failing to learn how to read properly, stunt their ability to succeed and often times pave the way to a life of crime, which also harmed society
“We ended up increasing attendance by over 30 percent, because we actually required the system then to kick in and do the services that they were required to do and sometimes had available, but they weren’t doing the outreach with these parents,” Harris said. “And so that was the whole purpose.”
She expressed concerns jailing parents could make worse the same social problems the policy was meant to fight against, saying “I wanted to avoid a situation where those children end up being criminalized . . . because we failed them in the earliest stages.”
“My regret is that I have now heard stories where in some jurisdictions, DAs have criminalized the parents,” she said. “And I regret that that has happened and the thought that anything that I did could have led to that, because that certainly was not the intention.”
FILE PHOTO: Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila attends a debate on the priorities of the Romanian presidency of the E.U. for the next six months, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, January 15, 2019. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler/File Photo
April 17, 2019
By Luiza Ilie and Radu-Sorin Marinas
BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s Senate approved changes to the criminal code on Wednesday that could shut down a number of ongoing high-level graft cases in one of the European Union’s most corrupt states.
The changes are the latest in a series made by the ruling Social Democrats since they came to power in 2017 that are seen by critics as threats to judicial independence. They could further heighten EU concerns about democratic values in some of its eastern states.
Among the changes to the criminal code is shortening the statute of limitations covering some offences, a move that would automatically shut down a number of ongoing cases. The lower house has the final say on the revised criminal code, and is likely to pass the law in a final vote expected next week.
However, opposition lawmakers and centrist President Klaus Iohannis could challenge the changes at the Constitutional Court, delaying enforcement.
Ruling party leader Liviu Dragnea, who has a suspended jail term in a vote-rigging case and an ongoing appeal against a second conviction for inciting others to commit abuse of office, would be among the politicians to benefit from the changes.
Social Democrat lawmakers initially spearheaded an overhaul of the country’s criminal codes last year. The European Commission said the proposed changes were a reversal of a decade of democratic and market reforms in the former Communist country.
The Constitutional Court struck down many of the changes following challenges by opposition lawmakers. Since then, the Social Democrats have been pressuring their own government to approve a smaller revision via emergency decree.
Unlike parliament bills, emergency decrees come into effect immediately and are much harder to challenge at the Constitutional Court.
Previous attempts to decriminalize several graft offences via decree triggered the largest street protests in decades.
The government has delayed approving the decree and a second one that would allow politicians and others convicted of graft since 2014 to retroactively challenge the verdicts handed down by the supreme court.
Twelve Western nations urged Bucharest earlier this month to scrap the decrees.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Viorica Dancila said she will fire Justice Minister Tudorel Toader unless he resigns first, potentially making way for a replacement who would push the decrees through.
Senior members of the ruling party have criticized Toader in recent weeks for delaying passage of the decrees.
“Minister (Toader) was wrong when he said he would do some things and then didn’t finalize them,” Dancila told reporters.
Asked about the decrees, Dancila said, “To approve an act in the government, I would have to have it on my table: I did not have it”.
Toader said on his Facebook page that there was not enough time to answer all of what he called misinformation.
He has been criticized by those advocating more transparency in Romania after he campaigned successfully to force out former chief anti-corruption prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi – a frontrunner to become the EU’s first fraud prosecutor.
He also created a special unit to investigate magistrates, seen by critics as a political tool to muzzle prosecutors.
Transparency International ranks Romania, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, among the bloc’s most corrupt states. Brussels has praised Romanian magistrates for their efforts to curb graft.
The EU stepped up its defense of judicial independence and rule of law across the EU this month, announcing new legal measures against Poland and cautioning Romania not to pardon corrupt politicians.
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie and Radu Marinas; Editing by Frances Kerry)
Schools closed over teen obsessed with #Columbine #MAGAFirstNews with @PeterBoykin Criminal referrals tied to Mueller probe may have wide reach; Schools closed over teen obsessed with Columbine CRIMINAL REFERRALS TIED TO MUELLER PROBE COULD HAVE WIDE REACH: As many as two dozen individuals may be implicatedin House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes’ criminal referrals to the Justice Department arising out of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recently concluded Russia …See More probe, sources have confirmed to Fox News … The sources confirmed that the referrals related in part to the anti-Trump dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, and his work for the Clinton camp and the Democratic National Committee-funded firm Fusion GPS. Meanwhile, three top Republican Senate committee chairmen said Tuesday that the DOJ has 10 days to explain itself as to why FBI investigators looking into Hillary Clinton’s email use in 2016 sought access to “highly classified information” they said was “necessary” to complete their probe, but later withdrew the request and cleared Clinton of wrongdoing. Attorney General William Barr is expected to release a redacted version of the Mueller report to the public on Thursday. FBI failed to provide details on contact with Clinton campaign lawyer: Judicial Watch This combination of undated photos released by the Jefferson County, Colo., Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday, April 16, 2019 shows Sol Pais. On Tuesday authorities said they are looking pais, suspected of making threats on Columbine High School, just days before the 20th anniversary of a mass shooting that killed 13 people. (Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office via AP) SCHOOLS CLOSED OVER WOMAN ‘INFATUATED’ WITH COLUMBINE MASSACRE: Multiple Denver-area school districts have canceled classes for Wednesday after a Miami woman “infatuated” with the 1999 Columbine massacre made threats and traveled to Colorado where she bought firearms earlier this week, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI … Sol Pais, 18, who has a history of making “concerning” comments, arrived in Colorado from Miami early Monday and bought a pump action shotgun and ammunition, the FBI told reporters Tuesday evening. The FBI’s Miami office had reportedly alerted its Denver counterpart after learning of the potential threat.Authorities said Pais was last seen in the foothills of Denver and remains at large. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is currently leading multiple agencies in a massive manhunt. TRUMP MOVES TO DENY BAIL TO SOME ASYLUM SEEKERS – Amid a surge of Central American migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Trump administration on Tuesday reportedly moved to deny bail to some asylum seekers … According to the Wall Street Journal, if the ruling issued by Attorney General William Barr takes effect, it could mean that asylum seekers could spend more time in jail while their cases are decided. The ruling is due to be implemented in 90 days. Nearly 60K known or suspected illegal immigrants in federal prisons, DOJ says A VOW TO REBUILD NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL IN FIVE YEARS: French President Emmanuel Macron vowed Tuesday to rebuild the badly burned Notre Dame Cathedral in five years, as dramatic footage was released showing the heroism of firefighters who battled the blaze for hours … “We will rebuild Notre Dame even more beautifully and I want it to be completed in five years,” Macron said in a televised address to the nation. “We can do it.” Macron added that Monday’s inferno “reminds us that our story never ends. And that we will always have challenges to overcome. What we believe to be indestructible can also be touched.” TRUMP HAS 2020 PREDICTIONS: President Trump offered his thoughts Tuesday night on which two Democratic contenders he thinks will be left standing in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Out of the crowded pool of contenders, Trump predicted on Twitter that former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders will be the final two in the battle to be the party’s nominee … “I believe it will be Crazy Bernie Sanders vs. Sleepy Joe Biden as the two finalists to run against maybe the best Economy in the history of our Country (and MANY other great things)!” he wrote. “I look forward to facing whoever it may be. May God Rest Their Soul!” ‘WASHED UP CELEB’ LIAR: Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx described “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett as a “washed up celeb who lied to cops” in texts messages released Tuesday by her office in response to a public-records request by the Chicago Tribune … Foxx compared Smollett’s case to her office’s pending indictments against R&B singer R. Kelly in text messages to Joseph Magats, her top assistant, on March 8, the paper reported “Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16 (counts),” she wrote. “… Just because we can charge something doesn’t mean we should.”
FILE PHOTO: Businessman Bill Browder speaks after the coroner ruled that Russian businessman Alexander Perepilichnyy probably died of natural causes outside his home in 2012, after the inquest concluded at the Old Bailey, in London, Britain, December 19, 2018. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls/File Photo
April 17, 2019
By Esha Vaish and Gederts Gelzis
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Bill Browder, an investor who campaigns to expose corruption, has taken a criminal complaint against Swedbank to Latvian authorities, alleging it was involved in a Russian money laundering scandal.
Swedbank is being investigated by Swedish and Baltic financial watchdogs after broadcaster SVT reported it processed gross transactions worth up to 20 billion euros ($22.6 billion) a year from high-risk, non-resident clients, mostly Russians, through its Estonian branch between 2010 and 2016.
These inquiries follow a fast-growing money laundering scandal centered on Danske Bank, which said last year that its Estonian branch had been used to move 230 billion euros ($260 billion) of suspicious payments from 2007 to 2015.
Browder, once the biggest foreign money manager in Russia, had already taken the complaint against Swedbank to Swedish and Estonian authorities, alleging that the Swedish bank’s accounts were used to launder $176 million from 2006 to 2012.
The bulk of this, $117 million, went through Swedbank’s Estonian branch and Browder’s complaint lodged with Latvian authorities, dated April 5 and seen by Reuters on Wednesday, showed some $41 million had passed through Latvia.
“We cooperate with the authorities in all our home markets in order to resolve current issues. However, we have no comment on the specific cases that Bill Browder now points to,” a Swedbank spokeswoman said in an emailed response.
Browder’s complaint, filed by his Hermitage Capital Management, called on Latvian authorities to look into the allegations alongside their ongoing broader probe into Russian money laundering links.
Latvian authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
MAGNITSKY CASE
Browder has pushed for banks to be held accountable over links to a money laundering and tax fraud exposed by his former lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian jail in 2009.
He had previously brought cases against Swedbank’s rivals Nordea and Danske Bank, which is now the subject of investigations in the United States, France, Denmark, Estonia and Britain.
Estonia is including Browder’s Swedbank complaint in its Danske Bank inquiry, but Sweden dropped its investigation saying there were limited transfers involving Swedish accounts and that the statute of limitations had expired.
Sweden, along with authorities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, is set to conclude its investigation into Swedbank later this year, while a separate Swedish economic crime agency inquiry into the bank’s conduct was expanded last month.
($1 = 0.8838 euros)
(Reporting by Esha Vaish in Stockholm and Gederts Gelzis in Riga; Editing by Alexander Smith)
A newly released prisoner, part of over 8,000 inmates granted amnesty by Myanmar’s President Win Myint to mark Myanmar’s new year, hugs his family outside Insein prison in Yangon, Myanmar April 17, 2018. REUTERS/Ann Wang
April 17, 2019
By Thu Thu Aung
YANGON (Reuters) – Myanmar began releasing more than 9,000 prisoners from jails on Wednesday, after the president announced an amnesty on the first day of the traditional New Year.
President Win Myint said 9,353 prisoners, including 16 foreigners, had been pardoned “as a gesture of marking the Myanmar New Year, for the peace and pleasure of the people, and taking into consideration humanitarian concerns”.
Authorities were continuing to scrutinize remaining prisoners “who should be pardoned”, he said in a statement posted on his Facebook page.
Such releases from prisons across the country are regularly ordered to mark the holiday.
Several prisons had begun releasing inmates by early afternoon, with two political prisoners among them, said Aung Myo Kyaw from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a non-profit human rights group.
A total of 364 political prisoners are behind bars or facing trial, according to AAPP, including people accused of criticizing the army and ethnic minority activists jailed after protesting against war between government forces and minority insurgents.
Two Reuters reporters jailed for breaking the Official Secrets Act were not among those being pardoned, a senior official at Insein prison, the colonial-era jail on the outskirts of the commercial capital of Yangon where they are being held, told Reuters.
(Reporting by Thu Thu Aung; Writing by Poppy McPherson; Editing by Robert Birsel)
A court in Bahrain sentenced 138 people to jail and stripped them of their citizenship for conspiring to create a “terror” cell linked to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards force, the country’s public prosecutor said.
The mass sentencing was “the largest” revocation of nationality since the country started using the punishment in 2012, the Europe-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) said.
What You Need to Know:
The 138 people received sentences ranging from three years to life imprisonment. One man was jailed, but did not have his citizenship revoked.
The group was accused of forming a “Bahraini Hezbollah” — a reference to the Shiite militant faction in Lebanon — with Iranian help, to carry out terrorist attacks in Sunni-ruled Bahrain.
Some of them were alleged to have received military training in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq.
Nearly 100 defendants were fined some $265,000 (€235,000) each.
Thirty people were acquitted.
The exchange of missiles between the IDF and Iranian forces based in Syria represented a major escalation of a conflict that has been simmering at a low level for months.
‘Mockery of Justice’
Lynn Maalouf, a Middle East expert at Amnesty International, said the verdict “makes a mockery of justice” and “demonstrates how Bahrain’s authorities are increasingly relying on revocation of nationality as a tool for repression.”
BIRD said it “condemns the outcome of this deeply unfair trial in the strongest possible terms and urges the authorities to quash the sentences and restore the citizenships.”
(Photo by Kremlin)
Post-2011 Repression: Bahrain’s Sunni-dominated government has banned opposition groups and tried to silence other opponents since a 2011 crackdown on large protests by the country’s Shiite population. The ruling monarchy accuses Shiite-majority Iran of training militias to instigate a coup.
Increasingly Popular Sentence: The verdict brings the total number of people who have had their citizenship revoked since 2012 to 990, BIRD said. In May, 2018, a court denaturalized 115 people in a single trial.
Close US, Saudi Ally: Bahrain hosts the US Navy’s 5th Fleet and has close ties to neighboring Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government has led attempts by Sunni-ruled countries to oppose any growth in Iranian influence in the region.
Although many people were recorded celebrating the Notre Dame fire online, the MSM is pushing the false narrative that conservatives are creating fake news.
FILE PHOTO: Muslims leave after Friday prayers at a mosque in Lucknow October 1, 2010. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
April 16, 2019
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to consider a petition from a Muslim couple to allow women into mosques, seeking to overturn a centuries-old practice that largely bars women from the places of worship.
Women are not allowed inside most mosques in India although a few have separate entrances for women to go into segregated areas.
The petitioners, Yasmeen Peerzade and her husband Zuber Peerzade, said that women were allowed to enter mosques during the time of the Prophet Mohammad.
“Like men, women also have the constitutional rights to offer worship according to their belief,” they said in their petition.
“There should not be any gender discrimination and allow Muslim women to pray in all mosques,” they said.
The court last year lifted a ban on the entry of women of menstrual age at a Hindu temple in southern India saying it was a violation of their right to worship.
The Muslim couple referred to the temple ruling, which angered conservative Hindus, as a precedent to support their call for women to be allowed to pray at mosques.
A representative of a prominent organization of Islamic scholars, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, was not immediately available for comment.
The petition comes at a sensitive time for relations been minority Muslims and the majority Hindu community.
Some members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist ruling party have been accused of stirring communal animosity as the party seeks a second term in a staggered general election now underway.
Supreme Court judge S.A. Bobde said the court will examine the couple’s request at length.
The court in 2017 ruled as unconstitutional a law which allows Muslim men to divorce their wives simply by uttering the word “talaq”, which means divorce in Arabic, three times.
This year, the government issued an executive order making instant divorce an offence punishable with up to three years in jail.
(Reporting by Subrat Patnaik and Suchitra Mohanty in New Delhi; additional reporting by Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani, Robert Birsel)
More Muslims live in Indonesia than anywhere else in the world, and on April 17, the country is electing its next president. Since Indonesia embraced democracy in 1998, it has provided a strong example for the separation of religion and state.
However, today the political situation in Indonesia seems to have changed. “The role of religion should not be underestimated. It provides the means to operate in politics and it is used by all sides,” Susanne Schröter, director of German research institute Global Islam, told DW.
Indonesia’s current president, Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, is running against ex-general Prabowo Subianto, who has attacked his opponent for not being sufficiently Islamic. For example, Jokowi has been accused of not being able to recite the Koran in proper Arabic. Jokowi’s election team is also trying to improve their candidate’s religious reputation by claiming that he attended a Muslim school.
The impact of Islam on today’s Indonesian politics was made very clear during the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial elections. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, popularly known as “Ahok,” was the Indonesian capital’s first non-Muslim governor in over 50 years, as well as its first ethnic Chinese leader. During a campaign speech in late 2016, he was accused of making disparaging remarks about the Koran.
In response, radical Islamist organizations organized massive street protests in November and December 2016, during which hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets. In May 2017, Ahok was charged with blasphemy and sent to jail for 21 months.
Indonesia expert Berthold Damshäuser said that the verdict was a scandal and was a strong example of “growing religious intolerance” in Indonesia. According to Damshäuser, many young Indonesians support the implementation of Shariah law, and a small percentage of them even support violent action against “enemies of Islam.” A study by Saiful Mujani Research Consulting showed that 80% of voters in 2017 were between 17 and 34 years old.
The source of Indonesia’s growing Islamization comes from both inside and outside the country. According to expert Schröter, the roots of today’s Islamist groups extend to World War II, and the fight for Indonesian independence.
After Indonesia won its independence, these groups were unable to assert themselves politically. Indonesia was not to become a religious state. Instead, former President Sukarno applied Indonesia’s national ideology, Pancasila, which is also found in the preamble to the constitution.
Pancasila calls for national unity in a multiethnic state. It encompasses five principles, which include belief in religious plurality, democracy and social justice.
President Sukarno was followed by Suharto, an authoritarian ruler who didn’t give much space to ultra-conservative Muslims.
According to Schröter, after democratic reforms took hold in 1998, Islamists were suddenly thrust into the public arena and found room to organize. Since then, the influence of conservative Wahhabism, originating in Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, has taken hold in Indonesia’s education system.
Schröter points out that scholarships are being given to Indonesian students who study in places like Saudi Arabia and then return to Indonesia with ultra-conservative ideals, which they can spread in their peer groups.
Islamic schools, called “Pesantren,” are plentiful in Indonesia, and according Damshäuser, they are supported by foreign funding and teach a conservative interpretation of Islam. It is therefore no coincidence that young Indonesian’s are becoming more radicalized.
Part of the problem, according to Schröter, is that Indonesia’s political elites have failed to adequately express the importance of democratic values held in Pancasila and in Indonesia’s democratic constitution.
During Jokowi’s first term, Schröter said the president had “failed to fulfill” the high expectations placed upon him, whether with human rights or in combating the growing Islamization of Indonesia.
“The political elite in Indonesia is often willing to betray their ideals in favor of populism,” said Damshäuser, adding that Jokowi may have a larger strategy.
“What is more dangerous: the increasing Islamization or an open division of the country?”
Damshäuser said that Jokowi, as president of a multiethnic state with a long history of internal tension, would be willing to make concessions so as to not risk the stability of the country.
“It is possible that Jokowi is hoping to integrate and appease Islamist forces in Indonesia,” he said.
Whether or not Jokowi can succeed in bringing all sides together is far from certain, but according to Damshäuser, it is very unlikely that Indonesia will either regress toward authoritarianism, or turn into an Islamic state.
The lack of criticism from the left of Ilhan Omar and AOC is evidence of the left’s double standards.
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