USA: "The American apartheid is coming to a head": Ani DiFranco on oppression and "Prison Music Project" - by Mary Elizabeth Williams

"I can't breathe . . . I can't breathe . . ." Songwriter Bruce "Sincere" Dixon's furious words echo over a low, mournful hum. The inspiration is a grimly familiar phrase. They were the last words of Eric Garner, as NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo held him in a chokehold on a July afternoon in 2014. They have become, unforgivably, even more resonant over the past two weeks, in the wake of the similar death of George Floyd. But when Dixon envisioned his track, it was a commentary not just on Garner's and Oscar Grant's deaths but an unjust and corrupt system that he knows well, as he serves out a 25-years-to-life sentence in New Folsom Prison.

"The Prison Music Project: Long Time Gone" began its life a decade ago, when singer and songwriter Zoe Boekbinder visited New Folsom Prison for what was intended to be a one-time performance. Over the next several years, Boekbinder continued performing, collaborating, and leading workshops there. Now, working with Ani DiFranco and Righteous Babe Records, Boekbinder's long-ago visit has become an album that combines the words of nine incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals like Dixon with the skills and resources of talent from the music world. Profits from the album will benefit communities impacted by mass incarceration, but this isn't an endeavor with ideals above its execution. It's a powerful — and eminently listenable — collection. Because of the constraints of the prison system, most of the artists could not be recorded in their own voices, creating one of the most hypnotically singular-sounding releases of the year so far.

Speaking to Salon via phone recently, Nathen "Nuruddin" Jackson-Brown, one of the album's contributing lyricists, spoke of the power of creativity in confinement. "I got a chance to learn to funnel stuff," he said. "I can funnel my anger into my ink and put it on paper. I can funnel my hurt, my feeling of loneliness being locked in a box with nobody on the outside… instead of bottling up and exploding in anger and/or violence in that environment I was trapped in." Now, Jackson-Brown is working share his experiences with others, and, as he says, "help them understand we are more than just a someone who committed a crime."

 Read more at: "The American apartheid is coming to a head": Ani DiFranco on oppression and "Prison Music Project" | Salon.com

USA: America Has Gone Mad And There's No Place To Hide

“What sort of people are we, we Americans? … Today, we are the most frightening people on this planet.” — Historian Arthur Schlesinger

As these words are written, I am on a cruise ship pulling into the harbor of the Greek island of Crete. All around me, the morning sparkles. The water is placid, the sky is clear and pale blue, our ship is embraced by gently sloping hills dotted with houses and shops.

And I just turned on the television.

And I just heard about Dallas.

I have made it a point to keep the news at something of a distance these last two weeks of travel, filling my days instead with shell craters on a beach in Normandy, a shopping square in Barcelona, the ghostly remains of Pompeii. So while I know that two African-American men were killed by police under dubious circumstances in Louisiana and Minnesota a couple days ago, I haven’t seen the videos, haven’t checked too deeply into the circumstances.

I’m off the clock now. I wanted to keep the horror at arm’s length.

But distance is an illusion, isn’t it? That’s what I just learned when I made the mistake of turning on the television.

Indeed, sitting here in this picturesque place on this peaceful morning far away, it feels as if I can see the madness of my country even more clearly than usual.

That is madness.

And then, there was this coda: A black man, a “person of interest” turns himself in to police after carrying an AR-15 rifle through the protest in downtown Dallas.

An AR-15.

Through downtown Dallas.

As police are dealing with an active shooter.

Apparently, the guy was not guilty of a crime, but he is certainly guilty of the worst judgment imaginable — and lucky to be alive. But then, in carrying that war weapon on a city street, he was only exercising his legal right under Texas law. The NRA calls that freedom.

But make no mistake: It, too, is madness.

America has gone mad before.

The quote at the top is from one such period, 1968. Hundreds of urban riots had wracked the country, the war in Vietnam was uselessly grinding up lives, recent years had seen the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers and Malcolm X. Now, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had just been murdered within two months of one another.

And many people were wondering, as Arthur Schlesinger was, about America and its character, about what kind of country — and people — we were. Said New York Mayor John Lindsay, “This is a drifting, angry America that needs to find its way again.”

His words, like Schlesinger’s, feel freshly relevant to this era, almost 50 years down the line.

There is a sickness afoot in our country, my friends, a putrefaction of the soul, a rottenness in the spirit. Consider our politics. Consider the way we talk about one another — and to one another. Consider those two dead black men. Consider those five massacred cops.

Deny it if you can. I sure can’t. Something is wrong with us. And I don’t mind telling you that I fear for my country.

On the night Martin Luther King died, two months almost to the day before he himself would be shot down in a hotel kitchen, Bobby Kennedy faced a grief-stricken, largely African-American crowd in Indianapolis and with extemporaneous eloquence, prescribed a cure for the sickness he saw.

“My favorite poet,” he told them, “was Aeschylus. And he once wrote, ‘And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.’ What we need in the United States is not division. What we need in the United States is not hatred. What we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness but is love and wisdom and compassion toward one another and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer in our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.”

Those words feel hopelessly idealistic, impossibly innocent and yet, wise, grace-filled and … right for the raw pain of this moment I commend them to all our wounded spirits on this shining morning from a peaceful place that, as it turns out, is not nearly far enough away.

Read more: America Has Gone Mad And There's No Place To Hide

US Presidential Elections: Trump: "I Am The Law and Order Candidate"

Donald Trump reacted to the police shootings in Dallas in a speech on veterans issues in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

"We must maintain law and order at the highest level, or we will cease to have a country. 100%, we will cease to have a country.

I am the law and order candidate. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is weak, ineffective, pandering, and as proven by her recent e-mail scandal, which was an embarrassment, not only to her, but to the entire nation as a whole, she's either a liar or grossly incompetent. One or the other. Very simple," Trump said.

"Personally, it's probably both," Trump added.

Read more: Trump: "I Am The Law and Order Candidate" | Video | RealClearPoli

USA - Police Brutality:Rallies continue across USA protesting shootings by police

More than 1,000 people on Sunday returned for a second day of protests in the wake of last week's shooting death of Alton Sterling at the hands of police. Elsewhere in the USA, similar protests roiled other cities.

In the Louisiana capital, where Sterling died on Tuesday, at least 12 people were arrested after police and protesters clashed. In one instance, a man was arrested as he ran from a scene where a brick and bottle were thrown.

Hundreds of people briefly blocked traffic on the 405 Freeway in Inglewood, Los Angeles, late Sunday.

There were no arrests and no reports of violence, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The arrests came less than a day after more than 130 protesters were arrested overnight,
including prominent Black Lives Matter activist Deray Mckesson, who was released on bond Sunday after being arrested late Saturday on the side of a highway while videotaping a protest.

Mckesson, who turned 31 on Saturday, had traveled to Louisiana from his native Baltimore to join the protest on behalf of Sterling, a 37-year-old black man who was shot and killed outside of a convenience store by two white police officers.

In Memphis, several hundred people gathered in downtown Memphis Sunday for a Black Lives Matter rally that turned into a march that shut down traffic on the Interstate 40 bridge over the Mississippi River.

Traffic was at a standstill on both sides of the bridge by about 7 p.m. as the crowd on the bridge swelled to more than 1,000.

In the nation's capital a rally for peace and justice took place near the White House, organized by local churches. A prayer vigil was also scheduled for later in the day at the African American Civil War Memorial.

Read more: Rallies continue across USA protesting shootings by police

Turkey: Women march in Turkey but are confronted by police

Riot police in Istanbul forcibly broke up a rally of hundreds of women as they marked International Women’s Day two days early.

March the 8 is the official date but the city’s governor banned their rally planned for then, citing security concerns.

At least one person was detained in a scuffle with police who were seen firing rubber bullets at the women.
Turkey has drawn criticism for its handling of gender issues

According to a 2011 UN report, non-sexual physical violence committed by intimate partners was 10 times more likely there than in other European countries.

Read more: Women march in Turkey but are confronted by police | euronews, world news

Turkish Elections: Turkish police storm opposition Bugun TV during live broadcast

Is Erdogan holding on to power with brute force?

Police in the Turkish city of Istanbul stormed the offices of opposition television station Bugun TV during a live broadcast on Wednesday (October 28), just days before a general election.

The raid is part of a crackdown on companies linked to a preacher who is an arch enemy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Footage showed police spraying water cannnon at people in front of Koza Ipek outlet Bugun TV, which is owned by cleric Fethullah Gulen who is accused of plotting to overthrow the president.

Authorities on Tuesday took over 22 companies owned by Koza Ipek in an investigation of alleged financial irregularities, including whether it funded Gulen. The company denies wrongdoing.

Erdogan has clamped down on commercial interests belonging to once-influential followers of Gulen, his former ally, after police and prosecutors considered sympathetic to the cleric opened a corruption investigation of Erdogan’s inner circle in 2013.

For the complete report: Turkish Elections: Turkish police storm opposition Bugun TV during live broadcast

Ukraine: Pro-EU demonstrators to continue protest

Ukrainian pro-Europe demonstrators vowed to stay on the streets and continue their blockade of government buildings, despite a police threat to crack down "harshly" to enforce a court order that they disperse, Reuters reported.

Kiev's November 21 decision to abandon a trade and integration deal with the EU and pursue closer economic ties with Moscow brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators into the streets over the weekend. Protesters have since blockaded the main government headquarters and occupied Kiev's city hall.

The government ratcheted up its rhetoric on Thursday, with Prime Minister Mykola Azarov branding opponents "Nazis and criminals." Kiev's police chief, Valery Mazan, threatened to "act decisively, harshly" if the protesters defy the court order to end their blockade and occupation of government buildings.

But the protesters showed no sign of retreating, with thousands remaining steadfastly camped out in the streets deep into the night.

"Let them come; we will stay," Igor Vorkuta, 47, said of the police. "This is a peaceful revolution, there are no guns here," he said, warming his hands on a brazier in the freezing winter cold near midnight in the square.

The crisis has exposed a gulf between Ukrainians, many from the West of the country, who hope to move rapidly into the European mainstream, and those mainly from the East who look to the former Soviet master Moscow as a guarantor of stability.

Read more: Ukrainian Journal

Ukraine police crack down on anti-government, pro-Europe protests in Kyiv

Witnesses said riot police used truncheons, stun grenades and tear gas early on Saturday morning to disperse a crowd of some 400 protesters demanding the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych.

Police reportedly arrested dozens of people, whom they said they later released. Government opponents also said that a number of protesters were injured in the police action.

Later in the morning, some anti-government demonstrators returned to the square outside Kyiv's St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery, shouting "shame" and "resign."

On Friday night, about 500 meters away from the monastery, 10,000 protesters had gathered in the capital's Independence Square, calling for Yanukovych to resign after he shelved an association agreement with the EU.

Wearing and carrying blue and gold, the colors of both the EU and Ukraine, protesters chanted "Ukraine is Europe."

Read more: Ukraine police crack down on anti-government, pro-Europe protests in Kyiv | News | DW.DE | 30.11.2013

Egypt: Turkey's Erdogan slams EU for stance on Egypt bloodshed

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken supporter of Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Mursi, lashed out at the European Union and others for failing to condemn strongly enough the killing of dozens in Cairo earlier on Saturday.


The EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said she "deeply deplores" the deaths and called for a halt in violence.

But Erdogan, who has recently faced large street protests calling for his own government to quit, accused the EU of double standards for questioning the use of police teargas in Turkey but not the shooting deaths of protesters in Cairo.

Note EU-Digest: Mr. Erdogan should probably be the last person to question the suppression of freedom of speech or police brutality given the activities which are taking place in Turkey under his Premiership. 
 

Read more: Turkey's Erdogan slams EU for stance on Egypt bloodshed | Reuters

Turkey Unrest - Taksim Gezi Park reopened at midnight after police crackdown

Istanbul's Gezi Park was reopened for the second time yesterday night following a harsh police crackdown to empty the park and to disperse people gathering in Taksim after a decision to close the park on the same day.

The park was opened to public use again at around 11:45 p.m. Around 500 people entered the park following the second opening and shouted slogans to protest the government.

There was again harsh police crackdown empties Istanbul’s Gezi Park, Taksim Square

Riot police used tear gas, water cannon, and plastic bullets to disperse people who had arrived at Gezi Park in Istanbul’s Taksim Square yesterday night, despite the park earlier being officially opened to public.

A 17-year-old boy was severely injured in the head by a gas canister yesterday on İstiklal Avenue, daily Hürriyet reported. A quarrel had occurred between the protesters and business owners when the police intervened with tear gas.

During the police crackdown, around six gas canisters were fired into the garden of the British Consulate off a sidestreet near İstiklal Avenue. British Consul-General Leigh Turner tweeted a picture showing a gas canister within the grounds of the consulate.

Many people, including members of NGOs such as the Taksim Solidarity Platform and the Turkish Doctors Association, were taken into custody in the crackdown. Istanbul Gov. Hüseyin Avni Mutlu told television reporters that 37 people were detained, including seven Taksim Solidarity Platform members, after the police began dispersing people from Gezi Park and Taksim Square.

Read more: LOCAL - Taksim Gezi Park reopened at midnight after police crackdown

Turkey's Protests Are An Impediment For Its Prime Minister

After more than three weeks of anti-government protests, Turkey's leaders insist they will restore order and quickly bounce back from any damage to the country's economy or image abroad. The crisis comes at a delicate time for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

He is in the midst of a fragile peace initiative with the Kurdish minority, dealing with an escalating war next door in Syria, and trying to convince parliament to strengthen the office of the president, which he is expected to run for as his final term as prime minister winds down.

Read more: Turkey's Protests Are An Impediment For Its Prime Minister : NPR

Turkey: Erdogan says same forces behind Brazil and Turkey protests

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, has suggested that the same outside forces are behind protests in both his own country and Brazil, as Turkish authorities continue their crackdown on overwhelmingly peaceful protesters.

Mr Erdogan was speaking hours before police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse thousands of flower-bearing protesters who gathered in Istanbul’s central Taksim square to commemorate four people who have died since the Turkish unrest erupted on May 31.

“The same game is being played in Brazil,” Mr Erdogan told a large rally of his supporters in the town of Samsun on Saturday. “There are the same symbols, the same posters. Twitter, Facebook is the same, so are international media. They are controlled from the same centre. They are doing their best to achieve in Brazil what they could not achieve in Turkey. It is the same game, the same trap, the same goal.”

While Mr Erdogan says the Turkish protests are linked to terrorism, an international plot against his country and “an interest rate lobby” disturbed by its recent high rates of growth, the protesters say they are motivated by increasing levels of authoritarianism under his government.

Some protesters waved Brazilian flags on Saturday night, in what they say is recognition of the mutual inspiration that the protests in Brazil and Turkey have caused.

The gathering in Taksim square was the largest since the prime minister ordered police to clear the adjoining Gezi Park a week before – but many protesters were nevertheless surprised when police ordered them to leave Taksim and then water-cannoned them.

Note EU-Digest: Mr. Erdogan has it right, except  for the reasons of these protests around the world. People are protesting corrupt, authoritarian governments, police brutality, and the lack of freedom of expression.

Read more: Erdogan says same forces behind Brazil and Turkey protests - FT.com

A Potential Casualty of Turkey’s Crackdown - by Dan Belefski

After three years of stalled talks on Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, the planned relaunching of negotiations at the end of June was meant to herald a new beginning in their often fraught relationship.

Now, influential ministers from Germany and France and European analysts are warning that the bloody crackdown in Taksim Square threatens to undermine frayed relations while reinforcing doubts that Turkey has the democratic credentials to join the club. 

The violent mayhem Tuesday night as rioters clashed with the police in Taksim Square marked an apex in the worst crisis to buffet Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey since he came to power 10 years ago.
The clampdown on the protesters has undermined Turkish attempts to cultivate an international image as a predominantly Muslim country that cleaves to secular European ideals and can serve as a model for the region. 

The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, called the images from the square disturbing on Wednesday and said the Turkish government’s reaction to the crisis was sending the wrong signal at home and abroad.

“We expect Prime Minister Erdogan to de-escalate the situation, in the spirit of European values, and to seek a constructive exchange and peaceful dialogue,” he said in a statement.

Read bmore: A Potential Casualty of Turkey’s Crackdown - European Union Membership - NYTimes.com

Turkey police crack down on protesters - situation tense

Gezi Park near Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey

Hundreds of police in riot gear forced through barricades in Istanbul's central Taksim Square early Tuesday, pushing protesters who had occupied the square for more than a week into a nearby park.

Police briefly fired tear gas canisters and rubber bullets prompting many of the protesters to flee the square into Gezi Park, where scores had been camping.

But there were running battles at one edge of the square between police and some groups of protesters who fired fireworks, firebombs and stones at police water cannon. Police made frequent announcements through loudspeakers, asking the group to stop attacking police and saying they did not want to use tear gas, before then firing the tear gas. A water cannon could be seen dousing another police vehicle that was set alight by a firebomb.

The police clampdown on Taksim Square came on the 12th day of nationwide protests that were sparked by a violent police crackdown May 31 on a peaceful sit-in at a park in the square by people who were trying to prevent a redevelopment project that would replace the green space with a replica Ottoman Barracks.

Situation tense in Turkey.

Read more: Turkey police crack down on protesters

Turkey Is Waging an Invisible War Against Its Dissidents - "with Greek support?"

For the past week, we’ve been watching scenes of mayhem unfold in the streets of Istanbul, Ankara, and other cities in Turkey. What started as a local initiative to stop a central Istanbul park being turned into a shopping center became a civilian street war against the rising authoritarianism of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan's government.

As if to cement everything the protesters were already angry about, Erdoğan sent police in to quite literally crack skulls and fire tear gas and pepper spray at the mostly peaceful crowd. But alongside the highly visible violence, an invisible war is taking place on those from Turkey who dare to stand up and speak out against the government.

The story starts not in Turkey, but in downtown Athens, from where Turkish asylum seeker Bulut Yayla disappeared last Thursday. According to eyewitnesses, at around 9:30 PM Yayla was immobilized, beaten, and pushed into a car on Solomou Street in the neighborhood of Exarcheia. When support groups and lawyers looked up the car’s registration plate, the owner turned out to be none other than a member of the Greek police.

Shockingly, the Greek police force itself denies any knowledge of the incident. Yayla, a political activist who has been arrested and tortured in Turkey in the past, has been trying to apply for political refugee asylum in Greece for some time now. But given Greece's famous bureaucracy, it probably won't surprise you that Yayla hasn't had much luck.

When he resurfaced after his kidnapping, Yayla was no longer in Athens, he was in Istanbul, being held by the Turkish counterterrorism police. Since then, he has informed Greek support groups of what happened after his abduction. With a hood over his head, he was passed between three different groups of people, crossed the border to Turkey (under what he said felt like a wire fence in the middle of the night) and eventually found himself in Istanbul.

Read more: Turkey Is Waging an Invisible War Against Its Dissidents | VICE United States

Turkey: Tourists are warned to avoid Turkey

The British Foreign Office has warned Britons to avoid areas in Turkey where violent protests are ongoing, including the centre of Istanbul, where thousands of people thronged Taksim Square.

Asli Aydintasbas, a commentator for the Turkish daily Milliyet newspaper, wrote: "These people are not just hugging trees ... what they are objecting to more than anything is that the prime minister is the sole decision maker in every aspect of our lives."

The US, Turkey's main ally, said it was concerned by the number of injured, while Ozturk Turkdogan, the head of the Turkish Human Rights Association said: "The use of (tear) gas at such proportions is unacceptable. It is a danger to public health and as such is a crime... The people are standing up against Erdogan who is trying to monopolise power and is meddling in all aspects of life."

EU-Digest

Denmark: Millions paid out to arrested climate demonstrators

It was an expensive decision by the Copenhagen Police to pre-emptively arrest over 900 climate demonstrators during the 2009 UN climate conference almost exactly three years ago.

According to Politiken newspaper, Copenhagen Police have so far paid 4,203,000 kroner in compensation to 516 people who were caught in the mass arrest on 14 December 2009.

This January the Eastern High Court upheld a ruling by the Copenhagen City Court that found the police had exceeded their powers by making the mass arrest.

Those arrested were in a group at the back of a larger demonstration that police feared had become infiltrated by violent anarchists, known as the ‘Black Bloc’.

In an attempt to capture them, the police executed a pincer movement and arrested the 1,000 strong section of the demonstration as it neared the city.

The demonstrators, who included monks, nuns and then elderly, were forced to sit in rows on the road with their arms bound behind their backs in sub-zero temperatures for several hours.

Read more: Millions paid out to arrested climate demonstrators | The Copenhagen Post | The Danish News in English