Police in the United States killed at an unprecedented rate in 2022,
taking the lives of at least 1,176 people, for an average of 3.2 deaths
every day, according to a year end tally by Mapping Police Violence.
There were just 12 days where police did not kill someone. People were
killed in every state by local and state police, county sheriffs’
deputies and federal agents.
While African Americans continued to be killed by the police at a
rate disproportionate to their share of the population, accounting for
nearly a quarter of killings in 2022, as in previous years, victims were
of every race and ethnicity, with those classified as white accounting
for the largest number of deaths.
It was also a deadly year for
migrants encountering border police. There were at least 40 fatal
encounters with Customs and Border Protection agents, according to a
tally maintained by the Southern Borders Communities Coalition, the
highest total for any year tracked by the group except for 2021.
Despite
the grim, nearly daily occurrence of murders and homicides by the
police, cops continued to kill with impunity, almost never facing
criminal charges or significant disciplinary action. Police officers
were criminally charged in just ten cases last year, less than 1
percent.
The numbers indicate (a) there is a serious problem and (b) it's not being addressed.
Wednesday, January 4, 2023. That Mother Tucker Carlson pretends he
didn't cheer on the Iraq War, there is talk that Julian Assange might be
set free in the next two months, corruption is destroying Iraq, and
much more.
MEDIA MATTERS notes
that Mother Tucker Carlson has a new homophobic roll dog -- don't cry
Glenn Greenwald, I'm sure Mother Tucker still loves you best. His name
is Charlie Kirk and Charlie doesn't like drag queens -- so why did he
marry a woman who looks like one? At any rate, Mother Tucker and wee
little Charlie got together and stupidity ensued:
CHARLIE KIRK: (HOST): The same people that wanted to bomb Baghdad now
want to blitzkrieg a female's body to change their nature from female
to male.
CARLSON: [GIGGLES] Right!
KIRK: It's the same thing. We are going to impose our will on what is to what we think ought to be.
CARLSON: One hundred percent. We're in charge of nature.
Mother Tucker was giggling, was he?
Of
course. It's all a game to him and stupid Charlie Kirk doesn't seem to
grasp that the people wanting to bomb Baghdad? Mother Tucker's on that
list. He was on CNN then and he was all on board with pimping the Iraq
War. See wee Charlie, you were only ten then but you're an adult now
and you're required to do some learning before opening your stupid
mouth.
The ones who wanted to bomb Iraq are pretty much the same ones attacking the LGBTQ+ community today. It's a fact.
Turning to Iraq where corruption is impacting the cost of housing. FORBES provides the following video report.
Iraqi
telecommunications worker Youssef Ahmed is married with a five-year-old
son, but lives with his parents because he is unable to afford his own
home amid soaring property prices.
"Even if your income increases, it will never be up to the exorbitant
prices of houses or land", said 29-year-old Ahmed, who earns a
"comfortable" monthly salary of $1,000, double the national average.
Real
estate in Iraq has become a popular way to launder money, including
stolen public funds Real estate in Iraq has become a popular way to
launder money, including stolen public funds.
Compounded
by housing planning failures and an increasing demand, it has pushed
prices in the capital Baghdad rapidly out of reach for many ordinary
Iraqis.
AL-MONITOR's Shelly Kittleson Tweets:
It shouldn't be that way. Iraq is oil rich. There should be more than enough to go around. John Lee (OZ ARAB MEDIA) notes:
The Iraqi Minister of Oil, Hayan Abdul-Ghani, has
announced revenues of more than $115 billion from exporting crude oil
for the year 2022.
More than 1,209 billion barrels of crude oil were exported, giving a
daily export rate is approximately 3.320 million barrels per day (bpd).
ARABIAN BUSINESS notes,
"This is a four-year high following a collapse in prices during the
Covid-19 pandemic." But it means nothing for the Iraqi people because
the US-installed government in Iraq has never attempted to better the
lives of the Iraqi people. Nouri al-Maliki and his family got rich
after the 2003 invasion, it was the Iraqi people who struggled. Jobs
are nowhere to be found and politicians and officials steal the public
monies. There's no investment in infrastructure. There's no investment
in the people. That's what The October Revolution was protesting
against: corruption that destroyed not just the chances of the young
people but the entire country. Iraq is one of the most corrupt
countries in the world as ranked by Transperency International.
Iraq's anti-corruption agency said it has recovered another $2.6 million fraudulently withdrawn from a government bank account.
But this is just a fraction of the $2.5 billion allegedly stolen from a number of state enterprises in a series of cheque transactions over the past two years.
The scandal has led to outrage in the country where many Iraqis live in poverty amid widespread corruption.
Judge
Haider Hanoun, who heads the Federal Authority of Integrity, said that
the suspect in this recovery is alleged to have stolen more than $11
million.
“The
money that was recovered today amounted to 4 billion Iraqi dinars ($2.6
million), which is part of a total of more than 17 billion ($11
million),” Judge Hanoun, who heads the Federal Authority of Integrity,
said on Tuesday.
US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian and, for those who've forgotten, Julian's 'crime' was revealing the
realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the
information to Julian. WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.
And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.
For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War
Logs. Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:
A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes. Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the
Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident
US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have
leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters
and civilian killings in the Afghan war. The new logs detail how: •
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse,
torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct
appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a
notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after
they tried to surrender. • More than 15,000 civilians died in
previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no
official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081
non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.
The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical
evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or
ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric
shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent deat
The Biden administration
has been saying all the right things lately about respecting a free and
vigorous press, after four years of relentless media-bashing and legal
assaults under Donald Trump.
The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has even put in place expanded protections for journalists this fall, saying that “a free and independent press is vital to the functioning of our democracy”.
But the biggest test of Biden’s commitment remains imprisoned in a jail cell in London, where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
has been held since 2019 while facing prosecution in the United States
under the Espionage Act, a century-old statute that has never been used
before for publishing classified information.
Whether the US justice department continues to
pursue the Trump-era charges against the notorious leaker, whose group
put out secret information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Guantánamo Bay, American diplomacy and internal Democratic politics
before the 2016 election, will go a long way toward determining whether
the current administration intends to make good on its pledges to
protect the press.
Now Biden is facing a re-energized push, both inside the United States and overseas, to drop Assange’s protracted prosecution.
As the new year began, ABC Global Affairs Editor
John Lyons stated during a broadcast segment that he expected WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange would be released “within the next two months or
so.”
“I know [Australia Prime Minister] Anthony Albanese. He’s working
strongly behind the scenes,” Lyons added. “He has said as much, but
enough is enough.”
Lyons is sympathetic to Assange’s plight, making him one of the few
correspondents in the world working for establishment news media who is
willing to endorse calls to end the United States case against him.
But the key question is whether Lyons knows about some shift in the
so-called “quiet diplomacy” between the US and Australia that may result
in Assange being released from Belmarsh prison and returned home to
Australia.
But the U.S. government seems to disagree. They've been gunning for
Assange since the Obama years, and now they've finally got him in their
sights. They're trying to extradite him and throw him in prison for the
rest of his life. And all because he dared to tell the truth.
This
is an outrage, friends. The First Amendment is the cornerstone of our
constitutional republic, and prosecuting Assange for doing his job as a
journalist would set a dangerous precedent that could have far-reaching
implications for press freedom. It's time for the U.S. government to
drop the charges against Julian Assange and let him go free.
But
before we dive too deep into the topic at hand, let's take a step back
and get some context. Who is Julian Assange, exactly, and what is
WikiLeaks all about?
Well, Julian Assange is an Australian
journalist and computer programmer who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. From
the beginning, the organization has been focused on publishing
classified, secret, and otherwise restricted information from
governments and other powerful institutions. WikiLeaks has made a name
for itself by releasing everything from diplomatic cables to military
reports to emails from high-ranking officials. They've even published
leaked audio recordings and video footage. In short, WikiLeaks is all
about shining a light on the things that powerful people don't want the
public to see.
But it's not just about exposing wrongdoing.
WikiLeaks has always maintained that its goal is to bring about
transparency and accountability in government and other institutions.
They believe that by publishing this information, they can help to
create a more informed and engaged citizenry, which is essential for a
healthy democracy.
So how does WikiLeaks go about getting this
information? Well, they use a variety of methods. Sometimes they receive
leaked documents directly from whistleblowers who are fed up with the
status quo. Other times they use sophisticated hacking techniques to
access restricted information. But no matter how they get the
information, their goal is always the same: to publish it and let the
public decide for themselves what to make of it.
That's the
background, friends. Now let's get back to the main topic: the U.S.
government's attempt to silence Julian Assange and his work with
WikiLeaks. First and foremost, the revelations by Assange about our U.S.
Government never put anyone in harm’s way and certainly did not kill
any of our people; no, what really happened was our government was
embarrassed by what Wikileaks revealed about what our government was
doing with other government leaders around the globe (more on that
later).
So, what's all this got to do with the First Amendment,
you might be wondering? Well, everything, my friends. The First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is all about protecting freedom of
expression, and that includes freedom of the press. It's why we're able
to sit here and have this little chat without the government coming down
on us like a ton of bricks. And it's why Julian Assange should be
protected, too.
You
should be. The focus of the 'documentary' was the alleged friendship
between Groucho Marx and Dick Cavett. Groucho is a legend, part of the
Marx brothers who made many classic films (including our favorite DUCK
SOUP, but we love them all including LOVE HAPPY) and who was popular as
the host of the TV program YOU BET YOUR LIFE. Dick Cavett was the host
of numerous TV talk shows.
They weren't wonderful
friends and it's not a good 'documentary.' Now a good one could easily
be made about Groucho himself. And, truth be told, if you wanted to
focus on all of Dick Cavett's inappropriate behavior (which is not
limited to sneaking on stage in the middle of a concert to pinch Diana
Ross' ass), you could have a riveting documentary about a man who was
endlessly praised while repeatedly preying on women.
Instead, you get this garbage.
And so much that poses as documentaries these days is garbage. Is that to be the legacy of AMERICAN MASTERS?
Needs a hair cut has the nerve to say of the women on THE VIEW -- and
I'd assume past and present because they're talking about the past and
the present, ""First of all, no one on THE VIEW is really all that
qualified to be talking about politics."
I believe what he means to say is that women aren't qualified to speak of politics.
THE
VIEW was created by Barbara Walters. She is a famous journalist. She
even interviewed Bashar al-Assad in 2011 and did so because of the war
drums pounding -- not to encourage war but to give Americans a look at
who Assad was. And she did it over the initial objections of ABC
brass. That was one of Barbra's last power moves as a journalist.
Meredith
Viera -- whom I loathe -- may be a game show host to the little weiner
boys of THE VANGUARD, but Vieira was a professional journalist. She
joined THE VIEW in 1997. She began her professional journalism career
in 1975 -- along the way, that includes being a correspondent for 60
MINUTES and WEST 57TH.
Lisa Ling was one of the best hosts THE VIEW ever had and Lisa was and is a journalist.
Rosie
O'Donnell ran MCCALLS (into the ground, some might argue, but the
magazine was already struggling before she came on board) from 2000 to
2003.
Joy Behar is a comedian who has long been a talk show host.
We could go through the list all day.
But many of the women have journalism backgrounds.
And
they're not required to have that. "All different backgrounds" --
that's what Barbra introduction to each show would note, she wanted to
bring together women to discuss the news of the day.
I'm
not claiming THE VIEW was ever epic breaking TV. But it was a step
forward and I need to note something before Barbra Walters passes so she
can get the credit she deserves. Today, there's THE CHEW and so much
else outright copying THE VIEW. And we've had, for example, a
news/public affairs program (CBS MORNING NEWS) that featured Norah
O'Donnell and Gayle King at the same time. When THE VIEW came on, women
weren't on. They were the smiling wifey that a Jane Pauley (I've never
been impressed with that ___) or a Joan Lunden (who was at least a
sweet person) portrayed next to the male host -- and female guests
weren't really on that often -- not on the Sunday chat & chews, not
on the public affairs programs.
Barbra wanted a program
that was made up of women -- plural -- who would conduct interviews and
comment on the events of the day. She wanted to take the TV cameras to
the majority of the world -- women. It was successful and it's been so
copied that it's very easy, all these years later, to not give her
credit for what she did and what she accomplished because it seems so
natural and so obvious. But what she did was groundbreaking for
commercial, broadcast television. (Bonnie Erbe did something similar
for public television with TO THE CONTRARY WITH BONNIE ERBE starting in
1992, five years earlier.) Barbara deserves credit for that.
When
she passes, her obits should note the ground she broke as interviewer
and how she went on to break more ground with THE VIEW. I'm not a
friend of Barbara's and I'm not a big fan of her work but I do give her
credit for what she did on TV. And, to her credit, she never shied away
from reactions. I haven't watched THE VIEW in years and that's
probably because Barbara's no longer a part of it. When she was, I
could call her after the broadcast and she'd take the call even though
she knew if I was calling, I was calling to gripe. My calls usually
didn't even open with a hello. They usually opened with an "I'm
enraged." Such as when Meredith proved to be the ultimate bitch on air
and, no, I will never forgive her for that. Joy has stated to me that
she went too far that episode (yes, you did, Joy) but was caught up in
the times. Caught up in the times?
This was when THE
VIEW went right wing -- shocking for viewers of today's show. They
didn't just go right wing, they spent 'hot topics' trashing Jane Fonda.
Excuse me. Lisa didn't trash Jane. Lisa watched with discomfort as
the others trashed Jane. Lisa tried to speak up but was talked over
(yelled over) by Joy and Meredith. Which I also pointed out to Barbara
who wasn't on that day's show but was on the next day's show and made a
point to sit next to Lisa for support. It was outrageous.. It was the
biggest nonsense you'd ever seen in the world and there are people in
their 20s who probably would never believe it happened, certainly not on
the 'lefty' VIEW. It happened. And I will never, ever forgive
Meredith for it. The venom and hate that she snarled and unleashed? I
will never forgive her. They were so eager to appear to be Republican
that they went to town on Jane in the most disgusting way. It was out
of bounds. And that point was made, to Barbara's credit, by Barbara on
the next day's show.
So don't think I'm some devotee of the show who catches every episode.
But I do appreciate what Barbara did and how she changed television.
So let's give her credit for that.
And
that's 2021. It's 2023 now. I don't have much to say. I didn't like
her that much. I had reasons for that -- solid reasons -- that went to
her professional career.
I really don't need
Megyn Kelly offering her thoughts on Barbara as a mother. I really
don't. I don't know anyone who thought Barbara was a good mother. I
don't know anyone who didn't see the adoption as a desperate measure to
save a failing marriage.
Marriage.
I
would only comment on one of Barbara's marriages, and I have over the
years. That would be Merv Anderson. The first time she married him, I
have no comment on him. The second time? Barbara destroyed that
marriage and she did it to be political to her friends. She chose her
friendship with certain Republicans -- and I can name them -- over her
marriage to her husband. She did an interview where she went after
someone and that someone was a big moneymaker for her husband's
business. Now I've gong into that in the past at THIRD and I think it's
pertinent today because that does go to her work.
But
this nonsense that she was a bad mother? She was born in 1929 and she
was a driven as any male and I'm not recalling Megyn holding any man
accountable for his fathering.
She was a bad mother.
It's a single sentence.
It's not a nine minute plus segment.
Nor
is your own parenting, Megyn, which I'm told would make an entire
book. So maybe lay off a dead woman who was not your mother and who did
as well as any of us expected she would as a mother. It's strange
because I didn't think one way or the other of Megyn until this morning
when I got on the stair master and looked for something to stream. I
saw Megyn's nonsense and thought it might be about something
worthwhile. It wasn't.
I then called around to
ask, "What's the deal with her?" I got one horror story after another
about Megyn as a parent and was also formed that she works with an
anti-LGBTQ+ organization.
Another friend of Glenn Greenwald's who is anti-LGBTQ+? Marcia was right to name him "The Most Disgusting Person of 2022." He's making self-loathing a lifestyle choice.
The Department of Justice is trying to
prevent disclosure of 400 pages of sensitive documents on Hunter and Jim
Biden's dealings with China, Russia and Ukraine – by pretending they don't exist.
Colorado
lawyer Kevin Evans sued the department in March after it failed to
comply with his request for records on the Bidens' dealings under the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Evans,
a FOIA expert, asked for documents pertaining to 'any relationship,
communication, gift(s), and/or remuneration in any form' between the
president's son Hunter or brother Jim, and China, Russia or Ukraine.
He said government lawyers first admitted in court to having at least
400 pages of 'potentially relevant' documents – but are now trying to
get away with saying they can 'neither confirm nor deny' the existence
of any records that match his request.
A Justice Department prosecutor, David
Weiss, is currently considering a criminal case against Hunter with
potential allegations of money laundering, illegal foreign lobbying and
tax crimes in relation to the First Son's overseas business dealings.
The 400 pages are not the only cache of Biden records being sought from the government.
The
National Archives and Records Administration is preparing to release
hundreds of Obama White House internal documents containing information
about Hunter's relationship with controversial Ukrainian gas company
Burisma, Business Insider reported this month.
Over the weekend, a story of violence emerged from Iraq: a mass arrest following an assault. Nik Martin (DW) reports:
Sixteen young men were arrested Saturday in Iraq's automonmous Kurdistan region after a viral video showed a teenage girl being attacked by a group of youths.
The incident took place a day earlier at a motorbike rally in the suburbs of Sulaimaniyah, the region's second city.
Footage of the attack was shared on social media, sparking widespread condemnation.
It shows dozens of young men and teenage boys following the girl before some of them assaulted her, kicking her against a car.
AFP notes that the woman attacked was 17 and "The incident took place in the suburbs of Sulaimaniyah, the Kurdistan
region´s second city, where footage shared online showed dozens of young
men and teenage boys following the girl before some of them assaulted
her, kicking her against a car." Holly Johnstone (THE NATIONAL) adds:'
She was reported to have been attacked after arriving at a motorcycle race where men asked that women be excluded.
While
the Kurdistan Region has laws against domestic violence and is often
upheld as an example of more progressive attitudes towards women,
gender-based violence remains a problem.
At
least 24 women were killed in such circumstances in the first half of
2022, according to a local anti-trafficking and women's rights
foundation.
The
“senseless assault” is the result “of a barbaric narrative used
systematically against our women”, said Rewaz Faeq, the speaker of the
Kurdistan Parliament, said in a post on Twitter accompanied by video of
the attack.
In Baghdad today, the militias remember Qassem Soleimani a thug who the United States murdered with a drone. Mina Aldroubi (THE NATIONAL) notes:
Candles were lit by mourners as others waved Iraqi and Iranian flags near the airport.
Although
the Iraqi parliament denied that Tuesday is an official holiday, the
provinces of Baghdad, Basra, Wasit, Dhi Qar, Muthanna and Diwaniyah in
the south announced an official day off to mark the occasion.
It
is expected that other Shiite majority provinces will join in and
suspend official working hours. However, northern provinces with a Sunni
majority have ignored the anniversary.
Iraqi militia leaders such as Iranian-backed militia chief Hadi Al Amiri and Asaib Ahl Al Haq’s Qais Khazali called for an end to the US presence in the country.
In his own country of Iran, the dead man's facing more of a pushback.
While some anti-LGBTQ legislation was temporarily blocked in the
courts, judges also joined legislatures in diminishing LGBTQ rights this
year. In September, a judge in Texas held
that a mandate contained in the Affordable Care Act that requires
employers to provide insurance coverage of a drug that prevents the
transmission of HIV could not be applied to a company that had a
religious objection to such coverage. The company argued
that compliance with the mandate made it “complicit in facilitating
homosexual behavior,” which in turn violated its sincerely held
religious belief that the “Bible condemns sexual activity outside
marriage between one man and one woman, including homosexual conduct.”
This religious exemption from complying with the Affordable Care Act
tracks efforts by wedding vendors seeking similar religious exemptions
from state public accommodations laws so that they may refuse goods and
services to same-sex couples. In fact, on December 5, 2022, the U.S
Supreme Court heard oral argument on one such case: 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis,
a case in which a Christian wedding website designer is seeking a
religious exemption from Colorado’s anti-discrimination law so that she
may turn away same-sex couples. She argued that application of the
Colorado law violates her First Amendment free speech rights because it
forces her to express a message about marriage that conflicts with her
religious beliefs.
Notably, this case could further expand the ability of vendors to
receive religious exemptions and thus gain the right to discriminate
against LGBTQ customers. That is because the court’s previous anti-LGBTQ
religious exemption case involved the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, as opposed to the Free Speech Clause that is at issue in 303 Creative. In its 2015 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission,
the court granted a religious exemption to Colorado’s law to a baker
who wanted to refuse to sell a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. The
court held that the adjudication process was tainted with religious
hostility and thus violated the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.
Although the baker in Masterpiece Cakeshop also asserted a free speech claim, the court did not address that claim.
The free speech claim is now teed up in the 303 Creative
case. If the court finds in favor of the web designer, going forward
vendors will have two legs to stand on when claiming the right to
discriminate — the Free Speech Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Stay
tuned: The court’s ruling in this case is expected by June 2023,
although manysuspect that a decision in favor of the website designer is likely, based on the court’s decisions in its last term.
The Hidden Threat to LGBTQ Rights
Likely more elusive to even those most attentive to LGBTQ civil
rights are a series of dangerous doctrine-shifting decisions from the
U.S. Supreme Court this year that, on their surface, had nothing to do
with LGBTQ civil rights. So why include such cases in a year-end wrap up
of the LGBTQ legal landscape? Because these cases set the stage for
significant retrenchment in the area of LGBTQ civil rights moving
forward.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
One of 2022’s blockbuster Supreme Court cases, the Dobbs decision struck down 50 years of precedent when it overruled Roe v. Wade and proclaimed that the U.S. Constitution does not protect the right to abortion. Although Dobbs didn’t present any questions about LGBTQ civil rights, its holding imperils those rights, including the right to gender-affirming health care and the right to same-sex marriage declared in the 2015 case of Obergefell v. Hodges.
Why does a case overruling a constitutional right to abortion
threaten same-sex marriage? Because the reasoning on which the right to
abortion was based in Roe is the same reasoning on which the right to same-sex marriage was based in Obergefell. In fact, Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs explicitly invited the court to revisit — and reverse — Obergefell.
Thus, even what looks like good legislative news — the recent passage of the Respect for Marriage Act and its pending signature into law by President Biden — isn’t all that good. The passage of that act was lauded by many as a victory
for LGBTQ civil rights. But it does not — and cannot — prevent the
right to marriage from being taken away, as only the Supreme Court has
the power to declare what constitutes a fundamental right under the U.S.
Constitution. And after Dobbs, the Obergefell holding is up for grabs.
Should that occur, the question of same-sex marriage would return to
the states, just as the question of the right to abortion has returned
to the states after Dobbs. The Respect for Marriage Act would provide no protection against states banning same-sex marriage. In fact, it is likely that over 30 states would ban same-sex marriage and the Respect for Marriage Act would be powerless to stop them.
Its recent LGBTQ cases reveal that the court has its sights set on
further dismantling LGBTQ rights in the name of Christian nationalism.
The non-LGBTQ cases of Bremerton, Makin, West Virginia and Dobbs set the stage for the ongoing retrenchment of LGBTQ rights when cases like the 303 Creative reach the court.
In sum, 2022 saw a tripartite attack on LGBTQ rights, although only
two of those might be on the radar of most LGBTQ people and their allies
— anti-LGBTQ legislation and anti-LGBTQ decisions by lower courts.
These expressly anti-LGBTQ attacks are, of course, dangerous and cause
for concern. But their explicitness means that they can be targeted by
LGBTQ activists and allies; LGBTQ people can organize, rally, lobby, run
for office and litigate to push back against these express attacks.
It is the third prong of the tripartite attack, the Supreme Court’s
insidious shift to the right in the constitutional and regulatory
spheres in non-LGBTQ cases, that is especially nefarious and troubling
because these decisions hide their destructive power to undermine LGBTQ
rights. The hidden quality of the threats makes it more difficult to
rally, organize and set an agenda for the LGBTQ rights movement that can
tackle head-on the downstream threats to LGBTQ rights posed by these
cases. LGBTQ rights activists and allies will need to build more
powerful coalitions in 2023 with other progressive causes, such as
environmental justice advocates and '.First Amendment activists, to
anticipate these downstream threats and organize to meet and defeat
them.
I don't know everything that's coming out but, on January 27th, Carly Simon's LIVE AT GRAND CENTRAL STATION is coming out.
It'll be available on CD, vinyl and BLU RAY. I had it years ago (1995) on VHS and that's all they offered then. Carly's HBO concert became a 1988 album (GREATEST HITS LIVE) but this special (I believe for LIFETIME TV) did not.
The water and the sea gulls help make the HBO special a great visual treat but I thought she dressed before for the Grand Central Station concert and I also liked the song selection better for that concert ("Jesse," for example).
The vinyl album will be two discs. Here are the tracks:
Side A 1. Touched By The Sun 2. Anticipation 3. I’ve Got To Have You 4. We Have No Secrets
Side B 5. Haven’t Got Time For The Pain 6. Jesse 7. That’s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be 8. Letters Never Sent
Side C 9. Legend In Your Own Time 10. De Bat (Fly In My Face) 11. Davy 12. Halfway Around The World
Side D 13. Like A River 14. Coming Around Again 15. Let The River Run
"Touched By The Sun," "I've Got To Have You," ''We Have No Secrets," "Jesse," "That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be," "Letters Never Sent," "Legend In Your Own Time," "De Bat (Fly In My Face)," "Davy," "Halfway 'Round The World," "Like A River," "Haven't Got Time For The Pain" and "Let The River Run" are songs that she didn't perform for the HBO special (or weren't part of it -- she did two concert recordings for the HBO special). So that's 13 live tracks of songs you can't get on her other live album (again, GREATEST HITS LIVE).
When the Grand Central concert aired (and was released on VHS), it didn't contain "Like A River," it featured only 14 song performances.
So you get the hits "Coming Around Again" and "Anticipation" (both also performed on GREATEST HITS LIVE), and you get the hits "I've Got To Have You" (her second biggest hit in Australia -- "You're So Vain" is her biggest hit everywhere), "Jesse," "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," "Legend In Your Own Time," "Haven't Got Time For The Pain" and her Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy winning hit "Let The River Run."
Here's Carly performing "We Have No Secrets" from the Grand Central Station recording.
Thursday, December 29, 2022. Tucker Carlson uses the airwaves again to
promote lies and homophobia, other hate merchants fuel and fund his
'movement,' the alleged killer of an Iraqi journalist is named, and much
more.
What's the Goop that's landed
on Glenneth Greenwald's face? I believe it's the last remaining bits of
self-respect as his roll dog Tucker Carlson keeps pimping hate and
homophobia.
Tucker Carlson’s big holiday treat for Fox Nation subscribers was a slew of fear-mongering and transphobic comments from Libs Of TikTok creator Chaya Raichik, who appeared for the first time on camera on Carlson’s Fox Nation show, and called the LGBTQ community a “cult” and pushed more bogus grooming claims about trans people.
Raichik’s comments came near the end of her hour-long interview on
Carlson’s daytime program on the Fox News streaming platform. It follwed
a discussion about the “intel” Raichik claimed to have gathered on the
kind of gender-affirming care offered to trans kids at Children’s
National Hospital in Washington D.C. That had happened back in August —
around the same time Boston Children’s Hospital faced a deluge of threats following misleading info shared by Libs of TikTok
and other right-wing outlets — with Raichik claiming her
surreptitiously recorded calls with two telephone operators at
Children’s National proved the facility was giving hysterectomies to
trans teenagers.
Children’s National quickly and easily debunked
the calls, first noting that the two people Raichik spoke with were not
actually people who “deliver care to our patients.” Additionally, a
hospital spokesperson said, “We do not and have never performed
gender-affirming hysterectomies for anyone under the age of 18.”
Nevertheless, the calls got a ton of play in conservative media
circles, and Carlson was still fawning over them during his new
interview with Raichik. “I assume the person who said that is not like a
serial killer, or not an evil person,” Carlson said of the phone
operators Raichik recorded, “but that’s so evil. What is going on here,
do you have any theories?”
In response, Raichik said, “The LGBTQ community has become this cult and
it’s so captivating, and it pulls people in so strongly, unlike
anything we’ve ever seen. And they brainwash people to join and they
convince them of all of these things, and it’s really, really hard to
get out of it.”
What followed was a discussion about gender-affirming care, which
Raichik and Carlson reframed as a kind of sterilization based on this
false belief that hospitals are providing procedures like hysterectomies
to teenagers and children. The claim contradicts established guidelines
from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, which advise against gender-affirming surgery for
children and adolescents. Such surgeries are somewhat rare even among
adult transgender patients, and almost unheard of for children and
minors. Medical guidelines advise prioritizing supportive care and work
with mental health professionals for younger children, and the option to
explore the use of puberty blockers for adolescents under the guidance
of medical professionals.
This is outrageous and it comes at a time when LGBTQ+ persons are already being targeted. It's a very dangerous climate. Elizabeth Miller (OPB) reports:
A new survey of LGBTQ youth across the country finds 45% of LGBTQ youth
seriously considered suicide in 2021, the year survey responses were
collected. At the same time, 60% of youth who wanted mental health care
were not able to get it.
In
the three years since The Trevor Project started surveying LGBTQ youth,
the percentage of respondents reporting symptoms of anxiety has
increased. So has the percentage of youth who say they’ve considered
suicide.
In
addition to questions about mental health, the survey includes national
data on the percentage of youth who report they have experienced
discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender. The survey
also has figures on the impact of COVID-19 on their families.
In the hour-long interview, Raichik and Carlson discussed her since-debunked claim that certain children’s hospitals were performing hysterectomies on trans teenagers.
Carlson asked Raichik if she had any “theories” about what was going on with “evil” people who offer affirming care to minors.
Raichik replied: “The LGBTQ community has become this cult and it’s
so captivating, and it pulls people in so strongly, unlike anything
we’ve ever seen.”
She went on to claim LGBTQ+ people “brainwash” others to “join” their
movement and that it’s “really, really hard to get out of it”.
Raichik also referred to unnamed “studies” on parents who find they cannot stop their children from being trans or non-binary.
Nearly half of LGBTQ people in the Rochester area
feel at risk of verbal or physical attacks, according to recently
released survey data.
According to the data:
50% of LGBTQ people fear a verbal attack and 45% fear a physical attack
63% know of a specific instance of discrimination, and 50% have witnessed one themselves
50%
believe discrimination against LGBTQ people is problem and 32% say it
has worsened in the last few years; among non-LGBTQ people, 8% believe
it is a problem and 16% believe it has worsened
"We know that words can turn deadly, as we saw with the horrific mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs last month,”
Karen Elam, the Levine Center's executive director, said in a
statement. “We are continuing to find that the responses to our survey
underscore the fear that members of minority groups in our community are
feeling.”
Club Q? This month, the House Oversight and Reform Committee, chaired
by US House Rep Carolyn Maloney, held a hearing entitled "The Rise of
Anti-LGBTQI+ Extremism and Violence in the United States." The hearing
was held due to the rise in violence aimed at the LGBTQ+ community which
includes last month's Club Q shooting. The shooting left five people dead:
Daniel Davis Aston, 28
Kelly Loving, 40
Ashley Paugh, 35
Derrick Rump, 38
Raymond Green Vance, 22
The shooting also left twenty-five people injured.
It
was amazing to watch the Republicans refuse to denounce the attacks on
LGBTQ people and to try to turn the House of Representatives into the
state of Florida under "Don't Say Gay" by refusing to even utter the
term LGBTQ+. Democrat Mondaire Jones noted the Republican silence.
US House Rep Mondaire Jones: As I said on the floor of the House
during the debate on the equality act [Respect for Marriage Act], to
grow up poor, Black and gay is to not see yourself anywhere. It is also
to feel completely unseen as so many people around you invalidate your
very existence. Growing up, like many people in this room, I suspect, I
watched as straight politicians -- many of them White, many of them men
-- used my basic human rights as a political football to further their
careers. And now, as the first openly gay Black member in this body,
I'm even more familiar with the vile, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that
terrorizes our community and that somehow is even more harmful when it's
aimed at queer people of color. Let me also just say, to amplify what
Representative Porter had discussed previously [see Friday's snapshot
for that exchange] that I and people on my team have also reported many
of these Twitter accounts that have hurled explicitly homophobic
insults at me in particular and have received e-mails stating that they
are not somehow in violation of Twitter's purported standards. So
clearly, there is something amiss at Twitter but I think many of us have
known that now for the past few months given the leadership changes.
Many of us are scared for our lives and rightfully so. LGBTQ Americans
know that gay bars and clubs are our sanctuaries for our communities to
gather without fear of being judged simply for being who they are. So
many of these spaces become second homes where we can experience the
full freedom to be ourselves. Such was the case for me. In my first
year of law school, I was still closeted. The gay bars of New York City
were the only place I could be my authentic self and those spaces
helped me to come out and to be the man -- the Congressman -- that I am
today. I cannot imagine my journey to self-acceptance and to
understanding without these sanctuaries which are now under assault.
The horrific mass shootings at Pulse Nightclub and at Club Q create fear
among LGBTQ Americans that gay bars and clubs -- these places of refuge
for members of our community -- are no longer safe. These attacks,
along side other acts of violence, against our community and the growing
chorus of hate and disinformation against LGBTQ people tell us that
over the past few years, this country has become a more dangerous place
for us to live unfortunately. Even those who simply provide services
essential to the physical and mental well being of members of our
community are under attack. Earlier this month, a doctor affiliated
with The National LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center in Boston faced
credible death threats for their role in providing gender affirming care
to transgender youth. The following day, The First Unitarian
Universalist Church in Columbus, Ohio was forced to cancel a family
friendly holiday themed Drag Queen story telling event after far right
extremists from the Proud Boys and the Patriot Front showed up to
protest armed with AR 14s, dressed in military gear, chanting far right
slogans and performing Nazi salutes. When leaders across the country --
including sitting members of Congress -- are peddling age old hateful
and false narratives about 'grooming' and pedophilia, these are the
types of people who show up in response. A recent Human Rights Campaign
report found that as Florida state government enacted its
discriminatory Don't Say Gay law, anti-LGBTQ misinformation surged by
over 400% on social media platforms. And worse, instead of condemning
this deadly wave of misinformation and hate, members of this body have
added fuel to the fire. In October of this year, Representative Mike
Johnson of Louisiana introduced his own Don't Say Gay bill to amplify
this hateful policy on a national scale and dozens of members of this
body co-sponsored that legislation. Shame on them. If enacted, Mr.
Johnson's heinous bill would, among other things, prohibit federally
funded schools from providing sex education or library books to children
under ten that include LGBTQ topics. In doing so, his bill would send a
message to LGBTQ children in the most vulnerable stage of their lives
that they are an "other" whose very existence society refuses to
recognize. It is hard, in closing, to listen to the stories of Club Q
and Pulse Nightclub survivors and not be in awe of their bravery and
resilience. So I thank you for your courage. I'm furious that our
community is forced to live again and again with this pain but I am
optimistic about the future of this country with your leadership.
It's
amazing because the Republicans in Congress can say gay all they want
when they're attacking LGBTQ+ people. And they can trash them on the
floor of Congress and cry like babies when it's time to vote The Respect
for Marriage Act into law. But when it's time to support and defend
LGBTQ+ Americans? Republican members of Congress go silent as US House
Rep David Cicilline noted in the hearing.
US House Rep David Cicilline: Republicans are happy to discuss our
community when they're attacking our rights, when they're crying on the
House floor because they oppose marriage equality or when they releasing
statements attacking our community in press releases and when they
release new bills targeting our community. But when it comes to
actually discussing the violence against our community and its causes?
Just a quick condemnation of what happened at Club Q and violence
broadly and nothing more. In my view, this is shameful.
LGBTQ
spaces — such as queer bars, community centers and gay-owned businesses
— have long had to prioritize safety, especially in places where they
historically could not rely on police to keep them safe.
Now,
an old problem has reached a new level of urgency, business owners,
performers and community leaders say. After a year where anti-LGBTQ
attacks have intensified across the country, many gay and trans
communities are rethinking how to best protect themselves.
Several
national organizations have launched new initiatives aimed at
strengthening defenses; local businesses have stepped up safety
trainings for staff; and individuals are seeking classes and resources
for de-escalating attacks.
For
LGBTQ business owners, safety is “the number one issue. Period. Hands
down. By a mile,” said Justin Nelson, co-founder and president of the
National LGBT Chamber of Commerce.
Safety efforts are complicated by the many forms these threats have taken, advocates, performers and researchers said. At school board meetings,
protesters have accused teachers and officials of promoting a “gender
ideology” and “grooming” children for abuse. Extremists have threatened
children’s hospitals. Members of the Patriot Front, a white supremacist
group, were arrested in June
for plotting a riot at a Pride event. In statehouses across the
country, lawmakers filed scores of bills aimed at curbing the rights of
LGBTQ educators, youth and families.
In our recent analysis of the National Crime Victimization Survey,
we found that the odds of being a violent hate crime victim for LGBTQ
people was nine times greater than it was for cisgender and straight
people from 2017 to 2019.
There were an average annual 6.6 violent hate crime victimizations per 1,000 LGBTQ people during this three year period.
In contrast, there were 0.6 violent hate crime victimizations per 1,000 cisgender and straight people.
At this month's House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing, Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney pointed out:
The violence that took place at Club Q follows
years of long efforts by some state lawmakers to erase LGBTQ+ people
from school curriculum, limit their access to healthcare and undermine
their ability to fully participate in society. Now state lawmakers are
not alone. They're have been many actions here in Congress pushing the
same kind of draconian, extremist policies. For example, more than 30
House Republicans introduced their own version of Florida's "Don't Say
Gay or Trans" law which would restrict federal funding for schools that
include LGBTQ+ people in their curriculum.
And
it goes beyond erasing them from the curriculum. The attacks are
rooted in the desire to erase LGBTQ+ persons from the world. And to
pretend that they have not existed historically. The most powerful
African-American in DC following the end of the Civil War was William
Dorsey Swann who didn't hide in fear but identified himself as the queen
of drag and held drag parties in DC. Arrests didn't send him running.
He fought for the rights of LGBTQs -- especially for the guaranteed
right of Freedom of Assembly. Jon Sims (THE PAPER) notes the history within the Indigenous community in North America:
Interestingly enough, the Indigenous LGBTQ community is pretty large
and active. For generations, our communities included these individuals
in our lives without issue. We’wha, the well-known “two-spirit”
individual from Zuni Pueblo, is an excellent example of this. These are
people in our communities since day one.
The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC), StrongHearts
Native Helpline (StrongHearts), and the Alaska Native Women’s Resource
Center (AKNWRC) explained this beautifully in their publication
Reconnecting with Native Teachings and Creating Healing Spaces with and
for 2S+/LGBTQ+ Victim-Survivors of Domestic Violence. “Because of
colonization and the church/missions, older generations have forgotten
the roles of 2-spirited relatives within our communities. So our way of
supporting our LGBTQ relatives is reintroducing those teachings and
roles that our grandparents may have forgotten.”
Mattee adds, “Even within tribal communities too, some are more
accepting than others. How does that also look with community members?
How do we address those issues? How do we reteach our people? Not
hearing the word “f**got” or “queer”; or “they’re disgusting.” That’s
growth. “Don’t be queer.” Stuff like that, that’s where the hate
teaching that’s coming from. And it still happens to this day. Even
transphobic jokes and homophobic jokes. We have always been part of this
community, Not even as people like to say “two-spirit,” that idea of
gender, that’s not our tradition. Physical gender wasn’t as important as
the roles that a person played in the community.
The Bible is often used to condemn the LGBTQIA+
community. The specific verses used to further homophobic and
transphobic agendas have come to be known as the “Clobber Verses.”
However, these verses aren’t actually saying what many people think they
are saying.
Biblical marriage
For
example, when people condemn same-sex marriage in favor of “Biblical
marriage,” they are ignoring the many and diverse examples of marriage
that are found in the Bible. In actuality, the Bible endorses monogamous
marriages between one male and one female in addition to polygamy,
sexual slavery, incest, and forced marriage to virgins…and God even
blesses all these varieties of marriage.
Another example is this: just because two genders are mentioned in the
creation stories does not mean that only two genders exist. God created
man and woman in Genesis 2, just like God created day and night in
Genesis 1. However, the time of the day is not just two things; it’s
actually a spectrum that includes things like dawn, midday, dusk and
twilight. Similarly, gender is a spectrum that includes things like
people who are trans and nonbinary.
Lost in translation
In
modern translations of the Bible, Leviticus seems to condemn homosexual
activity. However, the Hebrew words used to write scripture have much
more nuanced meanings than can be conveyed in one quick, easy
translation. When you look at these scriptures in their original
linguistic and cultural contexts, you can see that Leviticus is
specifically condemning sexual activity that involves incest.
In the same way, what we read in 1 Timothy seems
to condemn homosexual activity. But when we go back to the scripture in
its original Greek form, we can see that it is talking about sexual
acts that are coercive in nature (specifically pederasty and rape)
rather than sexual acts that occur between two consensual adults of the
same gender.
In Romans, Paul is writing against
unbridled passions as opposed to stable, appropriately utilized desires
within committed relationships. In 1 Corinthians, he’s responding to
the patriarchy and pederasty that existed in that society.
Of course, all of these examples are much more complicated than what can
be explained in such a brief piece of writing, but the important thing
to remember when reading the Bible is that we are reading a translation
of what was originally written. Throughout time and through the process
of translation, the meaning of the Bible as we know it today has lost
much of what the original authors actually intended.
[. . .]
The Bible also tells us that all people are made
in the image of God. This means that when you are looking at another
individual, you are looking at a reflection of God…even if you are
looking at an individual who is queer or trans.
You
will never look upon a person who is not one of God’s beloveds. So the
next time one of us feels like we have something hateful or hurtful to
share with someone, I would like to encourage us to remember whose we
are talking to.
The hate doesn't just happen. It's fueled. LGBTQ NATION spoke with journalist Imara Jones ("The
sequel to her award-winning podcast The Anti-Trans Hate Machine drops in March") about the funding of this movement:
LGBTQ Nation: And how about the DeVos/Prince clan itself?
IJ: When we say the DeVos family, we’re talking
about the fusion of two billionaire families into one. Betsy DeVos was
born Betsy Prince into the really wealthy Prince family. And then she
married Richard DeVos. It’s actually a giant clan, a billionaire clan.
And there is not a far-right organization, and in many cases designated
hate groups, who exist without the largess of that family. Betsy DeVos,
or Betsy Prince and her husband, Richard DeVos are the second generation
in this billionaire kind of clan.
Richard DeVos’ father, for example, was extremely important to the
founding of the Heritage Foundation. The Prince family, which is Betsy
DeVos, helped to fund the headquarters of the Family Research Council,
which is designated by the SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] as a hate
group. And they’ve been involved in so many far-right organizations
throughout the decades. And so what you have here in this second
generation is kind of a sophistication of their operation and
particularly in Betsy Prince, this kind of fusion of strategy, of money
and a whole host of other things.
LGBTQ Nation: How does that manifest itself?
IJ: So this family is kind of the royal family of
the Christian nationalist movement. And they set the example for how to
move money throughout the right wing for all of the other really wealthy
families. They participated in an annual gathering of Christian
nationalist billionaires called The Gathering, in which Betsy DeVos is
on tape coaching them in terms of how, as a wealthy person in this
far-right movement, you move money to other things, and encouraging them
to do so. There is religious extremism in their views, which is what’s
driving a lot of this.
As well, all of the Trump administration’s anti-trans policies came
out of the DeVos Center for Family and Religion that’s housed in the
Heritage Foundation. People were moved from that center into the Trump
administration where they began to disseminate these policies. I think
that we have to keep in mind that Betsy DeVos is just the most visible
person of this large, far-right billionaire clan that has been active
for over 40 years.
It takes a lot of
money to fund a hate movement. Look at Iraq where the 'powerful'
fundamentalist cleric and cult leader Moqtada al-Sadr has returned to
attacking LGBTQ+ people in an attempt to regain his lost power. Without
big money behind him, he struggles. He and Betsy DeVos share hatred
for the human race but he doesn't have her money so he struggles to get
his hate parade marching. He's not able -- so far -- to really destroy
history and erase reality.
Michael Anderson survived the Club Q shooting. He testified before the House Oversight and Reform Committee this month:
To
my fellow LGBTQ community, events like this are designed to discourage
us from speaking and living our truth. They are designed to scare us
from living openly, courageously and proudly. We must not succumb to
fear, we must live prouder and louder than ever before. We must
continue to be who we are, for who we are is exactly who we are meant to
be. And to the children watching this, feeling you may not be like
other kids: I understand you and I see you. You deserve to be exactly
who you are, no matter what anyone has to say. In the words of my
personal gay icon Christina Aguilera, you are beautiful no matter what
they say. Words can't bring you down, so don't let them bring you down
today.
Betsy
DeVos and others pretend they care about children. They have to ignore
the reality that those under 18 include LGBTQ+ persons because they know
they're not helping those children at all. They're trying to
intimidate and bully with the goal of wiping out a whole swath of people
who are just trying to live their lives in an alleged democracy. They
are hate merchants attempting to become death merchants.
And in Iraq, there is news in the October murder of journalist Nagihan Akarsel. First for background, from Reporters Without Borders:
Reporters
Without Borders (RSF) condemns the murder of Nagihan Akarsel, a Kurdish
magazine editor and influential feminist advocate, who was gunned down
outside her home in Iraqi Kurdistan on 4 October,
becoming the fifth Kurdish person of Turkish origin or critic of the
Turkish government to be attacked in this autonomous region in northern
Iraq in the past year.
“We
are appalled by the murder of this Kurdish feminist journalist and
writer, perpetrated at a time when Kurdish women are leading a revolt
for women's liberation,” RSF’s Middle East desk said. “This is the fifth
attack – four of them fatal – on a resident of Turkish origin or
outspoken critic of the Turkish government in Iraqi Kurdistan in less
than a year. We call on the local authorities to do everything possible
to shed light on this murder, bring those responsible to trial, and
render justice to Nagihan Akarsel.”
A journalist and academic of Turkish origin, Akarsel was gunned down on the morning of Tuesday 4 October outside
her home in Sulaymaniyah, the city in eastern Iraqi Kurdistan where she
had lived for the past three years. After her body was taken to the
city’s institute for forensic medicine, the Asayish – the Kurdistan
Regional Government’s security forces – issued a statement in the
evening reporting that her attacker had been arrested and was being
investigated.
Akarsel co-edited Jineologî, a magazine dedicated to the “science of women,” which regards
women’s individual liberation as a pre-condition for society’s
liberation. She was also well known for her research on women, both
abroad and in Kurdistan, and she had helped to found the Academy of
Jineology in Iraqi Kurdistan. After studying journalism at the
University of Ankara, she worked for the magazine Hevia Jin. She also did sociological research in the regions of Afrin and Sinjar (Shingal in Kurdish).
“We will forever
remember Nagihan Akarsel, who has been working for decades to create the
mental and intellectual power of the women’s revolution, whose slogan Jin-Jiyan-Azadî ["Women-Life-Freedom"] echoes around the world today,” the magazine Jineologî said in a statement.
Referring to Mahsa Amini, the Kurdish woman who died in custody in Iran
last month after being arrested by the morality police,
the magazine added: “Against the same mentality of patriarchal fascism
that brutally murdered Jîna Aminî, we are growing the women’s revolution
in all of Kurdistan and beyond.”
Other Kurdish feminist groups,
including Network Women Weaving (an international women’s solidarity
network founded at the initiative of Kurdish women) and university
academics have condemned Akarsel’s murder, accusing Turkey’s
intelligence agencies of orchestrating it.
Akarsel is the fourth Kurdish dissident of Turkish origin to be murdered in Iraqi Kurdistan since September 2021.
The shooter of Nagihan Akarsel, a Kurdish feminist academic and
founding member of the Sulaymaniyah-based Jineolojî Academy, was
identified as Ankara-born İsmail Peker on 25 December, reported Mezopotamya News Agency.
Security forces in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI)
arrested several suspects on 7 October during the investigation into
the killing of Akarsel, who was shot dead on 6 October. However, they
did not make the identity of the suspected assailants public.
One week later, on 12 October, Voice of America (VOA) shared
a video of a man who was said to be the Turkish assassin who killed
Akarsel, then deleted the video shortly after it was uploaded.
Sources in Sulaymaniyah told Medya News of their own suspicions that
the pressure came from officials of the Kurdistan Regional Government
(KRG) and the Turkish embassy.
The same day, statements appearedby
Ali Rıza Güney, Turkey’s ambassador to Iraq, who said that Turkish
forces were behind the assassinations of activists in the Kurdistan
Region of Iraq.
Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) Executive Council Member Zübeyir
Aydar spoke to Stêrk TV on 25 December regarding the assassination and
made public the identity of the hitman’s name as İsmail Peker, who was
born in Turkey’s capital Ankara.
“This person [İsmail Peker] is already a criminal, he has already
confessed himself. We have the information that he confessed,” said
Aydar. “In his statement, the suspect says, ‘I came for this [to kill
Akarsel], they [Turkey] gave me money’. In other words, they organised a
plan and sent him there.”
If indeed
true, this would be yet another reason for the Iraqi government to
immediately expel all Turkish troops in Iraq and to shut down Turkey's
illegal military bases in Iraq. The world has allowed the government of
Turkey to carry out a Kurdish genocide while going along with the
pretense that Turkey is just attempting to combat terrorism.
