Testing: June 2021

Wednesday 30 June 2021

Sudan: Second Review Under the Staff-Monitored Program and Request for Extension-Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sudan

Sudan: Second Review Under the Staff-Monitored Program and Request for Extension-Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sudan
Published June 30, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Angola-Fifth-Review-Under-the-Extended-Arrangement-Under-the-Extended-Fund-Facility-and-461318

Angola-Fifth-Review-Under-the-Extended-Arrangement-Under-the-Extended-Fund-Facility-and-461318
Published July 01, 2021 at 12:32AM
Read more at imf.org

Sudan: Request for a 39-Month Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sudan

Sudan: Request for a 39-Month Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sudan
Published June 30, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Uganda: Request for a Three-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Uganda

Uganda: Request for a Three-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Uganda
Published June 30, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Tuesday 29 June 2021

ACLU: Cruelty and Coercion: How ICE Abuses Hunger Strikers

Cruelty and Coercion: How ICE Abuses Hunger Strikers

On President Biden’s 100th day in office, Nilson Barahona-Marriaga joined demonstrators who greeted the president at a rally in Atlanta. “End detention now!” they chanted. “Communities are afraid!”

A 39-year-old immigrant from Honduras, Nilson had been recently released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. The Irwin detention center, which remains open despite the Biden administration’s promise to end its contract with the facility, had most recently gained attention due to multiple allegations of involuntary hysterectomies performed on women at the facility.

When Nilson was detained at Irwin last year, he learned through his lawyer that coronavirus was present at the facility. ICE officials had failed to alert or protect staff and detainees. Facility staff regularly failed to wear masks and ensure disinfection.

Out of desperation, Nilson participated in a hunger strike with other detainees. Their group made common-sense demands that ICE follow public health guidelines, provide them with masks and cleaning supplies, and release medically vulnerable people from detention. Instead, facility officials threw Nilson and his fellow hunger strikers in solitary confinement. ICE cut off the water in their cells, so they could not drink, wash, or flush the toilets. Officials also restricted Nilson’s communications with his lawyer and family. Only nine days later, when Nilson realized that a person detained in the room next to his had COVID-19, did he end his hunger strike.

In the last year, hundreds of detained immigrants like Nilson have participated in a growing number of hunger strikes nationwide, seeking protection from COVID-19. ICE officials and detention staff have met these hunger strikes—protected speech under the First Amendment–with extreme measures, including increased use of force such as pepper spray, physical force, and rubber bullets. Today, detained immigrants are currently on hunger strike for the same reason at a number of facilities, including the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, and Bergen County Jail in New Jersey. After several months of declines, ICE has again begun to increase the number of detained people in custody. COVID-19 cases in ICE detention are again on the rise.

Our new report, Behind Closed Doors: Abuse and Retaliation Against Hunger Strikers in U.S. Immigration Detention , by the ACLU and Physicians for Human Rights, reveals that the scope and scale of ICE’s cruelty in response to such hunger strikes is much broader than previously known. Based on an assessment of over 10,000 pages of previously disclosed documents, the report analyzes hundreds of hunger strikes in ICE detention from 2013 to 2017, as well as the testimony of recent hunger strikers. The report finds that abuse and retaliation against hunger strikers is commonplace and dates back to President Biden’s time as vice president. ICE has responded to hunger strikes with involuntary medical procedures, solitary confinement, retaliatory deportation and transfer, and use of force — responses which are in violation of constitutional protections, international human rights law, and medical ethics.

Our report also shines a light on the many forms of day-to-day psychological coercion ICE employs to try to break hunger strikes, including denying access to basic privileges, restricting water access, and threatening prosecution.

Rather than safeguarding their patients’ health, medical professionals played a disturbing role in these abuses. During an August 2016 hunger strike of 22 mothers at the Berks County family detention center in Pennsylvania a family detention, an ICE physician sought to downplay the situation. The ICE physician also proposed family separation and force-feeding as responses to the hunger strike, noting that “If it appears they really are on a hunger strike, we will need to separate the mother and children – send mom to an IHSC facility to address the hunger strike.”

Doctors and nurses employed or contracted by ICE also violated medical ethics by supporting government motions for invasive and involuntary medical procedures, including force-feeding, forced hydration, forced urinary catherization, involuntary blood draws, and use of restraints. Our report identifies at least 14 separate ICE medical declarations supporting government motions for such involuntary procedures, in violation of physician’s ethical obligations to preserve the autonomy of mentally competent individuals, as well as international human rights law.

Our report reveals the lengths to which ICE will go to punish and deter hunger strikers rather than engage with their legitimate demands. Changing the response to hunger strikes will require addressing their underlying cause: an abusive and dangerous civil immigration detention system.

President Biden – who oversaw these abuses when Vice President – should reverse course and end the U.S. reliance on a mass immigration detention system and invest in community-based social services as alternatives to detention. Health professionals should refuse to participate in violations of medical ethics in their provision of care to detained immigrants, and government lawyers should refrain from pursuing cases for force feeding and other involuntary medical procedures.

What you can do:

Congress: Divest from ICE and Stop Abuses

Send your message

Published June 30, 2021 at 12:25AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2UPKAEK

ACLU: Cruelty and Coercion: How ICE Abuses Hunger Strikers

Cruelty and Coercion: How ICE Abuses Hunger Strikers

What you can do:

Congress: Divest from ICE and Stop Abuses

Send your message

Published June 29, 2021 at 07:55PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/2UPKAEK

Hungary: Selected Issues

Hungary: Selected Issues
Published June 29, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Hungary: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report

Hungary: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report
Published June 29, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Monday 28 June 2021

Mauritius: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Mauritius

Mauritius: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Mauritius
Published June 28, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Islamic Republic of Afghanistan: First Review Under the Under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement and Request for Modification of Performance Criteria-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

Islamic Republic of Afghanistan: First Review Under the Under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement and Request for Modification of Performance Criteria-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
Published June 28, 2021 at 07:00AM
Read more at imf.org

Friday 25 June 2021

ACLU: Britney Spears’ Reproductive Freedom is a Disability Rights Issue

Britney Spears’ Reproductive Freedom is a Disability Rights Issue

There were many shocking moments in Britney Spears’ 24-minute statement calling for an end to her conservatorship, delivered Wednesday to a Los Angeles probate judge by phone. The pop star, who has lived under a conservatorship chiefly overseen by her father for 13 years, described grueling labor demands, constant surveillance, being cut off from friends, and being confined against her will. As Spears made her case for the judge, one startling detail stood out amidst the laundry list of abuses: Although she would like to have children and be married, her conservators refuse to allow her to have her intrauterine device (IUD) removed, she said, “because they don’t want me to be able to have children.”

Fans, onlookers, and the media seized on this revelation, many expressing shock and dismay that a conservator could require a 39-year-old woman to use birth control against her will. “Britney HAS to keep an IUD in under her conservatorship?” asked one horrified Twitter user. “How is any of this legal/okay?”

Unfortunately, losing your reproductive freedom because you are in a conservatorship is very often legal. When a court puts a person under a conservatorship or guardianship, the court is taking away that person’s right to make their own choices. And often, that includes reproductive choices. Even though a conservatorship is a highly invasive, severe loss of rights and liberty, courts approve them routinely, and almost always allow them to continue permanently.

Spears’ experience is part of a long history of people with disabilities — most often people of color — being forcibly sterilized, forced to end pregnancies, or losing the right to raise their own children. Thanks to Spears’ large platform and following, her demands to be freed from her conservatorship have been heard. But there are untold thousands of people living under this same type of restrictive structure, who have lost their rights to reproductive freedom, often permanently.

As the eugenics movement gained popularity in the early 20th century, numerous states passed laws allowing for the involuntary sterilization of people with disabilities. In 1927, an 8-1 decision from the Supreme Court approved forced sterilization laws, in a sweeping and bigoted opinion penned by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The plaintiff in that case, Buck v. Bell, was a woman named Carrie Buck, who challenged her forced sterilization. She had been deemed “feebleminded” by a family that had taken her in as a servant, and whose relative had raped her. To cover up the resulting pregnancy, the family had doctors commit her to an institution where they planned to sterilize her. Justice Holmes’ opinion for the court’s majority stated:

“It is better for the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.”

This opinion had profound consequences. Between 1907 and 1945, upwards of 70,000 people — overwhelmingly poor people of color — were sterilized involuntarily under eugenic sterilization laws. California’s forced sterilization law was not repealed until 1979, and forced sterilization in California prisons continued even after that. Buck v. Bell has never been overturned.

While the bald cruelty of Holmes’ words may seem antiquated, the practice of controlling the reproductive choices of people with disabilities continues today. Then, as now, forced sterilization or birth control is often cast by courts and conservators as a protective mechanism in the best interest of a person with a disability, or for their safety. Some guardians and conservators who rob conservatees of these choices are certainly acting out of genuine concern and love for the person in their care. But the choice to have or not have a child, and when to do so, is a fundamental right. Many people with disabilities, even significant disabilities, have and raise children in loving, safe families. The denial of that right is too often based in stigma, paternalism, and stereotypes, and can have a lasting mental, emotional, and physical impact on the person deprived of their reproductive autonomy.

We still don’t know the specific terms or details of Spears’ conservatorship. We don’t know whether she identifies as a person with disabilities, or what private medical conversations she or her conservators have had about these choices. But we now know that she has stated that she wants to have another child and be a parent, and that she is being prevented from doing so. And we know that she has said that she wants to get out of the conservatorship. As we’ve said before, the ease with which people with disabilities are placed under the control of a conservator or guardian and stripped of their civil rights and liberties is a deeply concerning, systemic issue, and what Spears has shared publicly fits the pattern of harm and deprivation of autonomy that happens all too often across the country.

Thankfully, an IUD is not a permanent method of birth control, and Spears should be able to have a child after its removal, should she still want to. We are hopeful that thanks to Spears’ large platform and the spotlight on her statement, the judge will heed her request to restore her rights. There are many less-restrictive support systems, like supported decision-making, that she and trusted family or friends can use.

Justice Holmes’ offensive and bigoted rhetoric may no longer be in use, but Buck v. Bell is still the law of the land, with few exceptions. As The Daily Beast reports, more than half of states permit the forced sterilization of people under conservatorships in some capacity. And across the country, people still rely on stereotypes and assumptions to take reproductive choices out of the hands of people with disabilities — especially BIPOC and marginalized people with disabilities. The coercive power and control handed to conservators is a disability rights crisis, and an insult to the reproductive liberty of people with disabilities.

What you can do:

Join the fight for our reproductive freedom

Add your name

Published June 26, 2021 at 12:47AM
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ACLU: Britney Spears’ Reproductive Freedom is a Disability Rights Issue

Britney Spears’ Reproductive Freedom is a Disability Rights Issue

What you can do:

Join the fight for our reproductive freedom

Add your name

Published June 25, 2021 at 08:17PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3gUmW2d

ACLU: Jailed For a Faulty Battery and Left to Catch COVID-19

Jailed For a Faulty Battery and Left to Catch COVID-19

Kevin Jones* is sitting in a jail cell because of a faulty battery. Jones, a Black man, was released on a pending criminal charge and probation supervision and ordered by officials in Oakland County, Michigan to wear an electronic location monitoring device while he awaited further hearings in his cases. Yet, through no fault of his own, the device (called a “tether” in Michigan) failed to keep a charge due to an inexplicable malfunction. In November 2020, Jones was sleeping in his home when police officers broke in, woke him up, and arrested him for violating the conditions of his release. The violation? A dead battery.

Jones grew up in Canton, Michigan with a single mother who worked tirelessly as an EMT. He is a father of three young children who live in Ohio. When his children were newborns, he would often drive hours to pick them up, bring them back to Michigan, and keep them for two to three months at a time. His mother, Ms. Jones, recalls, “He would bring them by and asked me to babysit them and I would give him a time to get back to pick the kids up, because I have a strict bedtime regimen. If I told my son to be at my house by 9:00 p.m. to pick up the children, he would show up at 8:58 p.m., always on time.” Now that he is incarcerated, Jones’ children are missing a father. This past Father’s Day weekend, they were not able to enjoy quality time with their dad.

Jones recounts the day it all happened — the day that triggered his loss of freedom:

“My tether died when I was asleep … Police came to my home to verify that I was there, and they woke me up. I looked [and realized that] the tether had died and [so I] charged the tether back up. A week or two later, I went in for a violation hearing and the judge said they were revoking my bond, even though I was at home [where I was supposed to be] when the police found me.”

Unfortunately, that was not the last time Jones had charging difficulties. The judge gave him two weeks after the violation hearing to turn himself in. During that two-week period, the same tether died a second time, in late December 2020. Then, despite diligent his efforts to charge it, the ankle monitor died a third time, the day before Jones was supposed to turn himself in.

Throughout the various instances of battery failure, Jones kept in touch with the tether company and cooperated with authorities, informing them about the device’s malfunctions and explaining the charging problem. Despite his efforts to comply with the terms of his pretrial release, it was abruptly terminated, and he was sentenced to two years in jail without having a chance to speak at the violation hearing.

To make things worse, Jones was moved from the Oakland County Jail — a facility the ACLU has sued for its mismanagement of the pandemic — to a prison in Jackson, Michigan. Following the transfer in March 2021, Jones contracted COVID-19. Jones has underlying conditions, including asthma and a heart murmur, that make catching COVID-19 particularly dangerous. Since catching the virus, Jones reports suffering from “major headaches, coughing, and scratchy throats.” The conditions of his incarceration are poor; Jones says after employees move infected people out of the general population, “they don’t clean the cells that we were in before we were moved to the COVID-19 unit.”

Throughout this ordeal, Jones was set up to fail: ordered to wear a faulty device, and punished when the battery died — not only with incarceration, but with a deadly virus. Prior to the battery failure, Jones was merely a man on pretrial release. He was not convicted of his pending firearms charge — he was merely accused of a crime while trying to navigate the terms of his probation. Yet the repeated battery failures landed him in prison, making it all but impossible for Jones to lodge an effective defense against his pending charge.

Restrictive pretrial monitoring should alarm us all for several reasons. First, it infringes due process rights, because monitoring is often imposed by judges who do not consider whether the accused person poses a risk of failing to appear for court, or otherwise poses a danger to the community. Second, it undermines the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Third, monitoring creates an unchecked privacy intrusion by private companies (often working at the behest of, or in partnership with, the government), and amounts to an unreasonable, warrantless search. Fifth, it impedes movement, freedom, and autonomy — preventing people from obtaining employment, finding housing, and participating in everyday social and family life. In short, once a person is accused of a crime and released on a pretrial electronic monitor, they are treated as if they committed the alleged offense, and are stripped of fundamental rights and freedoms.

As with all aspects of the criminal legal system, these burdens are disproportionately imposed on Black and Brown people. Unfortunately, Jones’ story is not an outlier: Across the nation, malfunctions areBlack Lives Matter activist Jeremy “Mohawk” Johnson has documented, via TikTok, that his ankle monitor falsely reported him away from home more than 60 times while he awaited trial in Chicago. Johnson emphasized that monitors make it difficult to find jobs, attend medical appointments, go grocery shopping, take care of family, and sleep (sometimes the device emits voice alerts in the middle of the night).

Abolishing restrictive monitoring is the next frontier of criminal, economic, and racial justice. Once touted as a reform or alternative to incarceration, the use of ankle monitors is instead helping to fuel mass incarceration and expand its reach. Ankle monitors both create circumstances where people feel pressured to plead guilty, and subject people to a long list of onerous technical violations. In many places, individuals have to pay for their own monitoring, racking up considerable costs or facing incarceration if they can’t afford them. And there is no evidence that these devices confer any benefit to public safety or prevent flight. No wonder experts like Michelle Alexander call such monitoring “the newest Jim Crow” and “e-carceration.”

Despite their considerable harms, the use of electronic monitoring is on the rise, and has increased 140 percent in the U.S. between 2005 and 2015. If this is where criminal legal reform is headed, we need all hands on deck. That’s why the ACLU is fighting to reduce reliance on electronic monitoring, to ensure broader protections for people subjected to its restrictions, and for a world in which no one is subjected to the nightmare Jones is living through.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those who shared their stories.

What you can do:

Release Vulnerable People From Detention

Add your name

Published June 25, 2021 at 04:49PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/35YXjqJ

ACLU: Jailed For a Faulty Battery and Left to Catch COVID-19

Jailed For a Faulty Battery and Left to Catch COVID-19

Jones recounts the day it all happened — the day that triggered his loss of freedom:

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of those who shared their stories.

What you can do:

Release Vulnerable People From Detention

Add your name

Published June 25, 2021 at 09:19PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/35YXjqJ

ACLU: This Minnesota Mayor Isn’t Waiting For Another Police Shooting

This Minnesota Mayor Isn’t Waiting For Another Police Shooting

Just two months ago, the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, was the center of yet another incident of racialized police violence when 20-year-old Daunte Wright was fatally shot by an officer during a traffic stop. The shooting happened just 10 miles from the courthouse where Derek Chauvin was on trial for the death of George Floyd. Outraged community members protested for days outside of the Brooklyn Center Police Department demanding change.

Protesters had their calls answered when the city council passed the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution. The resolution was named after the two men killed by local police in the last two years, and created alternatives to police responses to mental health calls and some traffic stops.

In the face of tragedies resulting from policing, it’s crucial to center systemic accountability and transformative approaches that will prevent the trauma and grief experienced by families who lose their loved ones to violent law enforcement practices. In order to commit to racial justice and stand up for Black lives, policies that reevaluate the institution of policing and prioritize alternative forms of community care and safety are integral. The resolution in Brooklyn Center seeks to transform public safety and implement non-violent, community-centered responses, ensuring that a 911 call is not a death sentence.

In this week’s episode of At Liberty, Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott and the Deputy Director of Campaigns for the ACLU’s Smart Justice program, Taylor Pendergrass, discuss the groundbreaking resolution and its significance during a time when people are imagining community alternatives to policing.

https://soundcloud.com/aclu/this-minneapolis-mayor-isnt-waiting-for-another-police-shooting/s-5quAwpps8oC

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ACLU: This Minnesota Mayor Isn’t Waiting For Another Police Shooting

This Minnesota Mayor Isn’t Waiting For Another Police Shooting

https://soundcloud.com/aclu/this-minneapolis-mayor-isnt-waiting-for-another-police-shooting/s-5quAwpps8oC

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Thursday 24 June 2021

ACLU: Unaccompanied Children’s Well-Being Must Come First at Fort Bliss and Across Texas

Unaccompanied Children’s Well-Being Must Come First at Fort Bliss and Across Texas

“A Border Patrol facility is no place for a child,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in March 2021 as unaccompanied children — many trapped in dangerous circumstances by Trump era policies — began crossing the border in increasing numbers due to the backlog created by President Trump’s shutdown of asylum.

We could not agree more.

Border Patrol facilities have been deadly places for children — notorious for their horrible conditions, mistreatment and verbal abuse by Border Patrol agents. Between January and March 2021 the number of children in Border Patrol facilities rose to a record high of over 5,000, with reported average time in custody topping 133 hours (over five days). In some cases children spent a staggering 18 or more days in Border Patrol facilities. Recent data shows over 1,000 children currently in Border Patrol custody, the highest since late April.

To address this unacceptable and life threatening reality, the Biden administration moved quickly to set up emergency intake site (EIS) facilities to get children out of Border Patrol custody and transfer them to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — the agency tasked with uniting children with sponsors in the United States. However, the administration’s efforts to protect the well-being of unaccompanied children requires further action to ensure humane conditions in these new facilities. Particularly in Texas, where migrant children have become the latest target of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s political boondoggle.

One of the largest EIS facilities was quickly constructed on Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, with an eventual capacity to hold some 10,000 children. Over 5,000 children were quickly moved to the Fort Bliss facility, despite a lack of case management services and housing conditions consisting only of massive tents holding upwards of 1,000 children each.

We toured the facility in April 2021, shortly after it opened, and again in May 2021. While we observed the masses of children housed in football field sized tents, noted the deficiencies in case management resources to reunite children with loved ones, and worried about the children’s health in the west Texas desert heat, we were not allowed to speak to children to get a full view of their experience.

In late May 2021, Rep. Veronica Escobar was able to speak with children held at Fort Bliss. Shockingly, children she spoke to had languished in the facility for over 40 days, boys reported only having one change of clothes, and children desperately sought updates on the status of their cases.

Declarations filed in court this week by Flores counsel included one 13-year-old girl held at Fort Bliss for 58 days, and data indicates that some 100 children had been at the site for over 60 days, some since it opened on March 30, 2021. Employees reported the level of distress among children at the facility was so alarming that children are constantly monitored for self-harm, panic attacks, and escape attempts. Federal officials have reportedly banned pencils, pens, nail clippers, and regular toothbrushes out of concern that children would harm themselves.

Just this week, staff at Fort Bliss levied new disturbing allegations of sexual assault, lack of medical care, and unhygienic conditions at the facility. As simply put by Rep. Escobar, the conditions at Fort Bliss are “absolutely unacceptable.”

The Biden administration must do better. To start, the administration should ensure basic standards are met at all EIS facilities. At minimum, HHS should immediately hire more case managers to reunite children, expand capacity at non-EIS licensed facilities, and co-locate HHS personnel in Border Patrol facilities to evaluate for release to sponsors prior to transfer to EIS facilities. Independent medical and child welfare experts should be consulted to ensure improved conditions.

Instead of supporting the administration’s efforts to improve the health and safety of these children, Texas is actively attempting to worsen care for children. On June 1, 2021, Abbott issued a proclamation targeting unaccompanied children by potentially shutting down licensed federal shelters for vulnerable children, further obstructing efforts to improve conditions for children in Texas.

Texas is home to approximately 30 percent of all state licensed shelters contracted to house unaccompanied children, according to a 2020 report. Requiring shelters to be licensed has historically provided for more humane and child appropriate conditions for youth waiting to reunite with sponsors. By potentially undermining federal efforts to move children to safer facilities, and out of EIS facilities like Fort Bliss, Abbott is placing children directly in harm’s way by shutting down facilities better equipped to care for children.

The Biden administration’s efforts to respect the rights of children, protect them from the horrors of Border Patrol custody, and reduce the number of children held at Fort Bliss are laudable aims, but it is past time to ensure humane conditions for children at Fort Bliss and other emergency facilities.

The Biden administration must stand steadfast in its commitment to children and find humane alternatives that do not result in longer stays in Border Patrol custody. And if Abbott’s effort succeeds in limiting licensed bedspace in the state, the administration must weather the political storm without sacrificing standards for the care of unaccompanied children in Texas.

What you can do:

Congress: Divest from ICE and Stop Abuses

Send your message

Published June 24, 2021 at 09:32PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3xSJrKz

ACLU: Unaccompanied Children’s Well-Being Must Come First at Fort Bliss and Across Texas

Unaccompanied Children’s Well-Being Must Come First at Fort Bliss and Across Texas

We could not agree more.

What you can do:

Congress: Divest from ICE and Stop Abuses

Send your message

Published June 24, 2021 at 05:02PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/3xSJrKz

Wednesday 23 June 2021

ACLU: PayPal and Venmo are Shutting Out Sex Workers, Putting Lives and Livelihoods at Risk

PayPal and Venmo are Shutting Out Sex Workers, Putting Lives and Livelihoods at Risk

Everyone should have access to financial services. Using financial intermediaries such as PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo can make or break one’s ability to work or survive in our increasingly virtual society. In spite of this, platforms like PayPal and Venmo continue to boot sex workers and other users off their platforms with little due process. The ACLU has joined 22 other civil rights groups in demanding a stop to PayPal and Venmo’s practices that harm vulnerable communities by shutting people out without due process.

Policies that criminalize and stigmatize sex work and ban sex workers’ access to services disproportionately harm Black, Brown, and trans communities. Many people are already aware that when sex work is criminalized, sex workers are more vulnerable to abuse. Clients may take advantage of sex workers’ inability to call authorities for help, and are more likely to commit abuses and face no consequences because they know that sex workers coming forward could mean arrest. Sex workers also fall prey to sexual abuse and extortion from police officers. Not as many people are aware that the criminalization of sex work makes sex workers more vulnerable to financial censorship and lack of accountability by tech platforms. Public platforms like PayPal and Venmo, who should offer their services to all users without discrimination, will randomly and with little warning shut down the accounts of sex workers. This targeted freezing of accounts, without warning or due process, is extremely harmful to workers relying on that income, and ends up pushing sex work deeper into the shadows and enabling more abuse that goes unaccounted for.

Sex workers are no strangers to tech-based discrimination. The passage of SESTA/FOSTA in 2018, a bill intended to stop the internet from being used for sex trafficking, caused online platforms to ban harm reduction and anti-violence tactics that keep sex workers safe. Platforms such as Redbook that allow sex workers to advertise online and share tips on dangerous clients, were taken offline, forcing many trans women of color back onto the streets with no recourse against malicious actors.

In addition to blocking the accounts of sex workers, PayPal routinely targets users for speech protected by the First Amendment. They have frozen the account of News Media Canada for a payment to submit an article about Syrian refugees for an award, and terminated service to a user for using an open-source software that enables anonymous communication. They’ve also come under fire for stalling efforts to provide bail support to Black Lives Matter protestors. The censorship of sex workers is just one piece of the puzzle; the power wielded by PayPal has wide-reaching implications.

In order to show a commitment to human rights, civil liberties, and sound technology policy, it’s imperative that PayPal and Venmo provide transparency to their users. If they decide to close an individual or business account they must provide meaningful notice about the particular Terms of Services provision that was violated. Users should have the opportunity to appeal the decision in a timely and efficient manner. PayPal and Venmo must be invested in providing nondiscriminatory financial services to all users. Without these safeguards, tech platforms will continue to be the arbiters of acceptable cyber speech and activity, and trans women of color will pay the biggest price.

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ACLU: PayPal and Venmo are Shutting Out Sex Workers, Putting Lives and Livelihoods at Risk

PayPal and Venmo are Shutting Out Sex Workers, Putting Lives and Livelihoods at Risk

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Tuesday 22 June 2021

ACLU: On the Podcast: Defending Speech We Hate

On the Podcast: Defending Speech We Hate

The ACLU’s role in defending freedom of speech has been hotly contested by some critics recently — but these conversations are far from new. Throughout its history, the organization has had to balance its dedication to advancing civil rights for marginalized people and protecting First Amendment rights for those with whom it disagrees. This adherence to civil liberties is not always popular, as evidenced by the 30,000 members that left following the controversial time in the 1970s when the ACLU defended the rights of neo-nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois.

Watch Now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPUumsNQAQ&ab_channel=ACLU

On the other hand, contemporary critics accuse the organization of having abandoned its defense of free speech, opting instead to solely support liberal causes. So has the ACLU lost its way? A closer look at the history of free speech legislation — and the ACLU’s role in defending it — shatters the false dichotomy between the First Amendment and civil rights. While successfully upholding the right to speak freely sometimes means defending bigots, the biggest benefactors of free speech rights tend to be the most vulnerable populations.

In this week’s episode of At Liberty, ACLU attorney and former host Emerson Sykes is joined by former ACLU Executive Director Aryeh Neier, who oversaw the organization during the Skokie trials. The two discuss European hate speech laws, the organization’s reputation over the years, and why the present-day is not the lowest point for free speech in the US.

https://soundcloud.com/aclu/defending-speech-we-hate#t=0:00

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ACLU: On the Podcast: Defending Speech We Hate

On the Podcast: Defending Speech We Hate

Watch Now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPUumsNQAQ&ab_channel=ACLU

https://soundcloud.com/aclu/defending-speech-we-hate#t=0:00

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ACLU: D.C. Statehood is Constitutional. Robert Kennedy Never Said Otherwise.

D.C. Statehood is Constitutional. Robert Kennedy Never Said Otherwise.

The movement for D.C. statehood has gained remarkable momentum in recent years. A bill to admit the district as the 51st state passed the House with unanimous Democratic support in April, and a hearing before the Senate is slated for June 22. As the hearing approaches, opponents of statehood are reaching back into history to bolster their agenda — but their interpretation may be misguided.

The movement’s adversaries have misleadingly cited a 1963 memo from Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to argue that he believed statehood for D.C. would require a constitutional amendment. As his daughter recently reminded critics invoking her father’s name, this reading is false.

“No one can say for certain the position of someone no longer around to speak for himself,” said Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, “but … I can say with certainty what my father believed in: the equal right of every American to participate fully in our democracy.” Kennedy Townsend added: “Robert Kennedy wanted all D.C. residents to elect their federal representatives — the same as their fellow Americans. He said so repeatedly.”

Testifying in 1963 before the House Committee on the District of Columbia, Kennedy ardently supported self-government and representation for D.C. residents: “If we have faith in the strength of our form of government and confidence in our fellow citizens … then it follows that the government of the District will be improved if the officials are responsible to the voters who live here.”

In his testimony, Kennedy responded to a bill introduced by Rep. Jon Kyl of Iowa that would have retroceded most of the district to the state of Maryland. The bill carved out a reduced federal district, but did not account for the three electoral votes awarded to “the District constituting the seat of Government” by the recently ratified 23rd Amendment. Kennedy noted that the Amendment — and, specifically, the district’s three electoral votes — raised “serious questions and problems,” but did “not express any conclusion as to whether retrocession to Maryland is or is not constitutional.”

Kennedy’s 1963 memo has no bearing on the constitutionality of granting statehood to D.C. through the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which poses none of the constitutional concerns he identified in the Kyl bill.

In June 1960, the Senate and House passed a joint resolution with language of what would become the 23rd Amendment, which was then ratified on March 29, 1961. In April 1963, Rep. Kyl introduced his retrocession bill, which would have carved out a portion of the District of Columbia to remain as the federal area and retroceded the remaining area to Maryland.

The Kyl bill did not include a mention of the recently-passed 23rd Amendment. According to Rep. Basil Whitener of North Carolina, Kyl did not even consider the issue when drafting his bill.

Kennedy spoke of that omission, pointing out that without procedures to address the Twenty-Third Amendment, the Kyl bill raised significant constitutional concerns by granting three electoral votes to a reduced federal district with very little or no population.

However, despite his concerns as Attorney General, Kennedy still declined to pronounce it unconstitutional. His memorandum “did not express any conclusion as to whether retrocession to Maryland is or is not constitutional.”

The Washington, D.C. Admission Act does not work by retroceding land to Maryland, and solves the “questions and problems” Kennedy raised. The act does so by repealing the statute that provides for the District’s participation in federal elections — thus leaving it without appointed electors — and by kickstarting expedited procedures to repeal the 23rd Amendment.

As a recent letter from 39 leading constitutional scholars attests, “there is no constitutional barrier to the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth (the ‘Commonwealth’) entering the Union through a congressional joint resolution, pursuant to the Constitution’s Admissions Clause, just like the 37 other states that have been admitted since the Constitution was adopted.”

True, admitting a new state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth would raise questions about what to do with the district’s three presidential electors. But statehood critics are wrong to suggest that this can only be done by repealing the 23rd Amendment. As the constitutional scholars lay out, the question “is a practical, not a constitutional one.”

Similarly, Kennedy did not claim that granting statehood to D.C. would violate the 23rd Amendment or require amending the Constitution. He merely opined that creating a reduced federal district with a small population would “raise a question about where the three electoral votes would go.” The plain language of the 23rd Amendment makes the answer clear: Congress can decide, just as the Washington, D.C. Admission Act provides for.

When Kennedy was asked if the 23rd Amendment was the constitutional limit to granting to granting district residents “full citizenship” during the hearing, he replied, “This certainly is all that I have in mind at the present time. I have not heard anything beyond this [D.C. home rule bill] that has been advocated. I think it is a step forward; it is a step beyond what we have at the present time.”

D.C. statehood was clearly in the nascent stage of legislative consideration compared to the other options discussed during the hearing. Throughout his testimony, Kennedy made clear his belief that “[t]he history of our country has shown time and time again that the best government is that which is most responsive to the needs and wishes of the citizens,” even suggesting at one point, “why do we not just put it up to the people in the District of Columbia?”

Almost 60 years later, the nearly 700,000 residents of D.C. still lack full rights. In 2016, D.C. residents were asked whether they supported Washington, D.C. becoming the 51st state, and 85 percent said yes. Congress should heed Kennedy’s advice, and respond to the needs and wishes of D.C. residents. It’s time to finally take the next step forward and pass the Washington, D.C. Admission Act.

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ACLU: D.C. Statehood is Constitutional. Robert Kennedy Never Said Otherwise.

D.C. Statehood is Constitutional. Robert Kennedy Never Said Otherwise.

The Kyl bill did not include a mention of the recently-passed 23rd Amendment. According to Rep. Basil Whitener of North Carolina, Kyl did not even consider the issue when drafting his bill.

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