Guinea-Bissau: Fourth and Fifth Reviews Under the Extended Credit Facility Arrangement and Requests for Rephasing of Access, Waiver of Nonobservance of Performance Criteria, Modification of Performance Criteria, and Financing Assurances Review
Published May 20, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
A five-year effort to get equal access for deaf and hard-of-hearing people on parole and probation in Georgia has ended in victory. The American Civil Liberties Union and our legal partners reached a groundbreaking settlement that requires the Georgia agency responsible for supervising people on probation and parole – the Georgia Department of Community Supervision or “GDCS” – to dismantle the discriminatory hurdles that make it harder for deaf and hard-of-hearing people to avoid prison and live safely in their communities. We hope that other states look to this agreement when determining what is required for their supervision agencies to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
For years, our clients lived in constant fear of reincarceration. Supervision officers often held important meetings with people who used American Sign Language (ASL), but failed to provide ASL interpreters or other needed accommodations. They “explained” the rules of supervision to people who could not hear or understand these rules, but who nonetheless risked prison or jail if they didn’t follow them.
Two of our clients had this exact fear realized when ineffective communication resulted in them being incarcerated while the case was ongoing. Supervision officers also failed to take disability into account in other ways, too. They knocked on the doors of individuals they knew were deaf, and then accused them of failing to cooperate when they didn’t answer a knock at the door that they couldn’t hear.
Our clients’ heroic and sustained efforts have helped to guarantee equal rights for all deaf and hard-of-hearing people on supervision in Georgia. Starting now, each current and future deaf and hard-of-hearing person on supervision in Georgia will undergo a communication assessment that will allow the state to create a communication plan that considers the range of situations a deaf or hard-of-hearing person may experience while on supervision, and the types of accommodations they may need.
Importantly, GDCS has agreed to provide Deaf interpreters for people who need them. Deaf interpreters are sign language interpreters who are also deaf. A Deaf interpreter will work with a hearing ASL interpreter to provide effective communication, especially for deaf adults who have experienced language deprivation — a neurodevelopmental disorder with negative and long-lasting effects on the deaf adult’s language, cognitive, and socioemotional development. Long periods of incarceration with no ability to communicate with other people who know ASL can compound the effects of language deprivation. Hearing-sign language interpreters alone are typically unable to bridge the communication gap between deaf adults with language deprivation and their supervision officers. This communication gap can often lead to serious and preventable misunderstandings between the deaf person and the supervision officer that a Deaf interpreter could solve.
For example, in one instance a probation officer relied on a single, hearing interpreter — present on a computer — to explain a form with confusing conditions to a client. The client struggled to understand the interpreter and asked to take a photo of the form so he could ask the ACLU’s legal team to provide a Deaf interpreter to translate the form in a way he understood. Had the ACLU not stepped in to secure a Deaf interpreter, our client would not have fully understood what the form said, nor would he have been able to ask several clarifying questions, and would have risked reincarceration. This settlement ensures that any use of video interpretation, known as VRI, is clear, not relegated to a small cell phone screen, and that supervisees actually understand the directions being given.
GDCS will also now provide better accommodations for deaf or hard-of-hearing clients who cannot read and write English. Historically, the agency provided critical information about supervision only in writing. With this settlement, a lack of fluency in reading or writing English will no longer be a barrier to successfully completing supervision. If the deaf or hard-of-hearing person cannot understand written documents due to their disability, GDCS has agreed to use appropriate accommodations and provide the written information in another accessible format. This will help prevent future incidents of confusion when people receive documents with important instructions that they do not understand. We have also produced ASL and plain language translations of the new ADA Policy so that signers and those with limited literacy can access the ADA policy at any time.
Many people on supervision in Georgia are required to complete programs or classes as a condition of their supervision, but, in the past, the sponsors of many of these programs have refused to provide ASL interpreters and other necessary accommodations to our clients. GDCS will now require that the providers of any classes or programs required for people on supervision, comply with federal disability laws by providing necessary accommodations, such as interpreters, for effective communication.
While we’ve won this fight in Georgia, the work is not yet done. Every parole and probation department in the country has the obligation under federal disability laws to provide not only effective communication to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, but also any reasonable accommodations that people with disabilities need to have an equal opportunity to successfully complete supervision. In reality, probation and parole departments regularly fail to determine whether their people with disabilities need accommodations, let alone provide those accommodations.
Right now, we’re challenging this failure in Washington, D.C., where people with mental health disabilities are nearly twice as likely to face reincarceration or other punishment for “technical violations,” or minor rule violations like missing an appointment with a supervision officer. And in Georgia, we now begin a four-year period of monitoring the state’s compliance with the agreement. As part of that monitoring, GDCS will provide us with documentation to show that they are complying with the agreement and providing effective communication. If they violate it, we’ll see them back in court.
Published May 20, 2024 at 10:45PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/oMKEgw7
A five-year effort to get equal access for deaf and hard-of-hearing people on parole and probation in Georgia has ended in victory. The American Civil Liberties Union and our legal partners reached a groundbreaking settlement that requires the Georgia agency responsible for supervising people on probation and parole – the Georgia Department of Community Supervision or “GDCS” – to dismantle the discriminatory hurdles that make it harder for deaf and hard-of-hearing people to avoid prison and live safely in their communities. We hope that other states look to this agreement when determining what is required for their supervision agencies to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
For years, our clients lived in constant fear of reincarceration. Supervision officers often held important meetings with people who used American Sign Language (ASL), but failed to provide ASL interpreters or other needed accommodations. They “explained” the rules of supervision to people who could not hear or understand these rules, but who nonetheless risked prison or jail if they didn’t follow them.
Two of our clients had this exact fear realized when ineffective communication resulted in them being incarcerated while the case was ongoing. Supervision officers also failed to take disability into account in other ways, too. They knocked on the doors of individuals they knew were deaf, and then accused them of failing to cooperate when they didn’t answer a knock at the door that they couldn’t hear.
Our clients’ heroic and sustained efforts have helped to guarantee equal rights for all deaf and hard-of-hearing people on supervision in Georgia. Starting now, each current and future deaf and hard-of-hearing person on supervision in Georgia will undergo a communication assessment that will allow the state to create a communication plan that considers the range of situations a deaf or hard-of-hearing person may experience while on supervision, and the types of accommodations they may need.
Importantly, GDCS has agreed to provide Deaf interpreters for people who need them. Deaf interpreters are sign language interpreters who are also deaf. A Deaf interpreter will work with a hearing ASL interpreter to provide effective communication, especially for deaf adults who have experienced language deprivation — a neurodevelopmental disorder with negative and long-lasting effects on the deaf adult’s language, cognitive, and socioemotional development. Long periods of incarceration with no ability to communicate with other people who know ASL can compound the effects of language deprivation. Hearing-sign language interpreters alone are typically unable to bridge the communication gap between deaf adults with language deprivation and their supervision officers. This communication gap can often lead to serious and preventable misunderstandings between the deaf person and the supervision officer that a Deaf interpreter could solve.
For example, in one instance a probation officer relied on a single, hearing interpreter — present on a computer — to explain a form with confusing conditions to a client. The client struggled to understand the interpreter and asked to take a photo of the form so he could ask the ACLU’s legal team to provide a Deaf interpreter to translate the form in a way he understood. Had the ACLU not stepped in to secure a Deaf interpreter, our client would not have fully understood what the form said, nor would he have been able to ask several clarifying questions, and would have risked reincarceration. This settlement ensures that any use of video interpretation, known as VRI, is clear, not relegated to a small cell phone screen, and that supervisees actually understand the directions being given.
GDCS will also now provide better accommodations for deaf or hard-of-hearing clients who cannot read and write English. Historically, the agency provided critical information about supervision only in writing. With this settlement, a lack of fluency in reading or writing English will no longer be a barrier to successfully completing supervision. If the deaf or hard-of-hearing person cannot understand written documents due to their disability, GDCS has agreed to use appropriate accommodations and provide the written information in another accessible format. This will help prevent future incidents of confusion when people receive documents with important instructions that they do not understand. We have also produced ASL and plain language translations of the new ADA Policy so that signers and those with limited literacy can access the ADA policy at any time.
Many people on supervision in Georgia are required to complete programs or classes as a condition of their supervision, but, in the past, the sponsors of many of these programs have refused to provide ASL interpreters and other necessary accommodations to our clients. GDCS will now require that the providers of any classes or programs required for people on supervision, comply with federal disability laws by providing necessary accommodations, such as interpreters, for effective communication.
While we’ve won this fight in Georgia, the work is not yet done. Every parole and probation department in the country has the obligation under federal disability laws to provide not only effective communication to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, but also any reasonable accommodations that people with disabilities need to have an equal opportunity to successfully complete supervision. In reality, probation and parole departments regularly fail to determine whether their people with disabilities need accommodations, let alone provide those accommodations.
Right now, we’re challenging this failure in Washington, D.C., where people with mental health disabilities are nearly twice as likely to face reincarceration or other punishment for “technical violations,” or minor rule violations like missing an appointment with a supervision officer. And in Georgia, we now begin a four-year period of monitoring the state’s compliance with the agreement. As part of that monitoring, GDCS will provide us with documentation to show that they are complying with the agreement and providing effective communication. If they violate it, we’ll see them back in court.
Published May 20, 2024 at 06:15PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/C7mG6Sy
Guinea: 2024 Article IV Consultation and Request for Disbursement Under the Rapid Credit Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Guinea
Published May 17, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
Iraq: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Iraq
Published May 16, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
A Mistake Shouldn’t Mean Exile or Prolonged Mandatory Detention
Nyynkpao Banyee remembers vividly the first time he saw the United States. He was six years old, flying high above New York City. “If I close my eyes right now, I go back to seeing, just being above New York and seeing those lights for the first time. It was nighttime. And there was snow. I remember seeing that for the first time, just a little bit, but it was beautiful,” he recalled recently.
Mr. Banyee, his mother and younger brother came to the U.S. in 2004 as refugees fleeing the civil war in Côte D’Ivoire. His father died in Côte D’Ivoire shortly after the family arrived in the States. They resettled first in rural Pennsylvania, then moved to Philadelphia and later became lawful permanent residents. When he was about 17, the family moved to North Dakota, where he has been living for nearly a decade and now lives with his mother and his two younger half-siblings. His mother’s two sisters live nearby, as does his brother.
An inquisitive and observant child, Mr. Banyee was fascinated by drawing and comic books. Today, at 26, he is a restaurant-worker who aims to use that creativity to turn his interest in music into a career. He has ambitious plans for building up his own business. He supports his family, although he says his family is really his support system, especially his mother. “Me and my siblings talk about this among ourselves: we’ve never seen a woman or a person as strong as our mother,” he said.
A dark shadow hangs over Mr. Banyee’s bright future. He’s facing the possible loss of his liberty – deportation to a country he has never been back to since he fled as a child refugee and permanent separation from his family and the only home he’s ever known.
“I Just Couldn’t Allow Myself to Be Defeated”
In 2017, when he was just 19, Mr. Banyee was arrested for robbery and later sentenced to four years in prison. He experienced a lot of fear upon being incarcerated but was inspired to turn over a new leaf. “A lot of different things kept me motivated, but I would say primarily, from the core, it was my family,” he said.
While incarcerated, Mr. Banyee worked on himself and was motivated to learn as much as he could.He read an enormous selection of novels, finance books, magazines, and worked in the prison. His favorite job was working in the library. He voluntarily completed numerous programs in peer support, mental wellness, and practical skills like budgeting and CPR.
“I just got into learning, learning, learning. I just couldn’t allow myself to be defeated [by the system].”
He wrote letters to his family and sent them the poems he’d written. He wrote so much his family couldn’t keep up. Although his family wanted to visit him as much as possible, he wanted to spare them the burden of driving the long distance from their home to the prison, and the emotional toll of seeing him in prison. They still talked on the phone frequently.
After spending years working on himself, Mr. Banyee’s release date was finally approaching: March 31, 2021. He was expecting to go home, but when March 31 came, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were waiting for him at the prison. They took him into custody, and he was transferred from North Dakota to a Minnesota jail.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Mr. Banyee said. “I’ve been [in the U.S.] my entire life. I had no idea – no clue – what ICE was and what this department was capable of, or what in the world was going on.” He called his mother from the jail to tell her he was in detention again – not for a criminal reason, but because of immigration.
The Unjust System of Mandatory Immigration Detention
Why was Mr. Banyee taken into immigration detention the moment he was released from prison?
It was because of a law that Congress passed in 1996 that requires the mandatory detention of noncitizens facing possible deportation for criminal conduct. Under this law, ICE can detain noncitizens slated for deportation for a range of criminal convictions, including convictions for nonviolent, minor, or old offenses, and even if the noncitizens have already served their time and are long rehabilitated. While their deportation cases are pending – a process that can take years – noncitizens could sit behind bars indefinitely, without the right to a bond hearing, even if they pose no danger or flight risk.
Since the mandatory detention law was enacted in 1996, the ACLU has taken the lead in challenging it in the courts. My Khanh Ngo, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project (IRP), said immigration detention is not supposed to be about punishment. The only legitimate government interests in immigration detention are if a person poses a flight risk or a danger to the public. But the mandatory detention statute allows the government to detain a person without showing why it’s necessary – violating a basic principle of due process. Ngo recently appeared as counsel for Mr. Banyee before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, where she argued that the mandatory detention statute was unconstitutionally applied to him.
“The problem with mandatory detention is that there is no individualized consideration,” Ngo said, “Our argument has always been the government needs to bear the burden of showing this person needs to be detained either by [showing they’re a] flight risk or danger.”
After nearly 13 months in detention, Mr. Banyee and his volunteer immigration counsel, the Advocates for Human Rights (AHR), won a habeas petition – a request to a court or judge to determine whether a person’s detainment is legal or just – and was granted a bond hearing. An immigration judge released him on bond in April 2022. He had been incarcerated for over five years, four for the criminal conviction, and one for mandatory immigration detention.
His family and friends celebrated his release with a big feast. Every moment of freedom has been special. “I had five years taken away from a lot of our time together,” Mr. Banyee said of his family. “I’m trying to spend as much time with them.”
Today, the federal government is appealing Mr. Banyee’s habeas decision, arguing that it has a right to detain him with no limit, as long as his deportation case is proceeding. The ACLU has joined AHR to defend the habeas grant, supporting Mr. Banyee’s right to have a bond hearing and be free while he challenges his deportation case.
Mandatory detention significantly impacts a person’s ability to defend against deportation and win relief to which they might be entitled. Even though immigration detention is not supposed to be a punishment, people are often detained in criminal detention settings and subject to the same rules and limitations as people who are incarcerated.
Ngo explains there is no right to government-appointed immigration counsel, so a person in immigration detention is much less likely to be represented because they can’t work and are less likely to be able to afford a lawyer. People in immigration detention also have limited phone or email access and limited language services, preventing them from engaging with the outside world, including legal services. Often, they are isolated and unable to gather evidence to defend themselves.
The United States’ immigration detention system is the largest in the world, Ngo notes. “The conditions of immigration detention are so horrific,” she said. “No other country holds this many immigrants to try to deport them.”
A Mistake Shouldn’t Mean Exile
Like many noncitizens, Mr. Banyee has deep roots in the U.S. and has already served his time for crimes he committed. Yet, he and many others are again deprived of their liberty through mandatory immigration detention, and face the possibility of deportation.
Some, like Mr. Banyee, are arrested immediately after their term of incarceration ends. Others are arrested years after they complete any sentence for their convictions, even though they have reintegrated into their communities and have not had any legal troubles. For many, it feels like double punishment.
“You shouldn’t be defined by one thing that took place in your history, and that shouldn’t consign you to a life of permanent banishment from the United States,” Ngo said.
Mr. Banyee has had significant success defending against deportation in his immigration court proceedings. An immigration judge and three members of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) have determined that he deserves cancellation of removal, meaning that if he wins his case, he can keep his lawful permanent resident status and one day become a U.S. citizen. His immigration case is currently on appeal for the second time, before the BIA, where it can take years to resolve. At the same time, he is waiting for the Eight Circuit to decide if he can remain free on bond while he awaits a decision on the deportation case.
“Everybody makes mistakes,” Mr. Banyee said. “In my case, [I] served time, [I] actually went through the process of giving back that adhered to the principles of the society.” He feels deportation would be an extreme consequence for people, like him, who arrived in the U.S. as children, whose lives are here, and who have already served their time for past mistakes.
Mr. Banyee wants to stay in the U.S., with his family, in the country he calls home. The U.S. is the country that has molded him, that has provided him security and allowed him to have ambitious dreams while supporting his family. “I’m willing to put in the work,” he said, “just to be allowed to live that dream.”
Published May 13, 2024 at 10:23PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/bv4j2Ql
Japan: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Technical Note on Regulation and Supervision of Investment Funds
Published May 13, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
Austria: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Austria
Published May 13, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
Maldives: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Maldives
Published May 13, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
Haiti: Staff-Monitored Program-Extension and Modification of Performance Criteria-Press Release; and Staff Report
Published May 10, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
Close to 60 percent of these women serving prison sentences were the primary caregiver of their minor children before sentencing. All too often, a prison sentence tears them from their family connections and contact with their children, while severing their children from a vital source of emotional and financial support. State women’s prisons are often located in rural areas, with limited modes of transportation, and families struggle to visit.
As a result, families have very few in-person visits, and must rely on postal mail, or pay inflated prices for telephone calls and video contacts. Compounding the lack of connection, women in many state prisons cannot even hold in their hands and cherish a card or drawing sent by their children. Many prisons have done away with real mail, and now use vendors to intercept, scan, and destroy all postal mail, delivering poor quality printouts of the original letter to the incarcerated recipients weeks later for a fee.
Children with mothers incarcerated in local jails often fare no better than those whose mothers are in state prisons: Some jails have completely banned in-person visitation to require all visits be done by paid video, not because of COVID, but to boost their bottom line. A 2015 study found that 74 percent of jails had banned in-person visits after putting video visits into place. Even when women are able to have in-person visits with their children, jail visits are often done through a plexiglass barrier. Women cannot hold, hug, touch, or kiss their children.
Women often become entangled with the criminal legal system due to trying to cope with poverty, limited access to child care, underemployment or unemployment, unstable housing, and physical and mental health challenges. They get thrown into a legal system that criminalizes survival behaviors such as selling drugs or sex work, and policies that charge and arrest persons for being present when crimes are committed by others, “aiding and abetting” others, or fighting back against domestic violence. A study in California found that 93 percent of women incarcerated in state prison for a homicide of a partner were abused by the person they killed, and in two-thirds of those cases, the homicide occurred while attempting to protect themselves or their children.
Incarcerated women have high rates of histories of physical and sexual abuse, trauma, and mental health and substance use disorders. While incarcerated, women are more likely than incarcerated men to face sexual abuse or harassment by correctional staff, and they experience serious psychological distress due to incarceration and the conditions in prisons. Treatment in prisons or jails for mental health conditions, substance use disorders, and trauma is often nonexistent. Health care for physical medical conditions or pregnancy often is limited at best: Last year, through our lawsuit, we learned the Arizona Department of Corrections was inducing the labor of pregnant incarcerated people against their will. This came after we documented inadequate prenatal and postpartum care of women in Arizona prisons in 2019, including a woman with serious mental illness who gave birth alone, in the toilet of her cell, at a maximum custody unit.
So what can we do to honor incarcerated women and families? First, we can financially support the incredible work of community-based bail funds that help free mothers and bring them home to their children and families. Second, we can support criminal legal reform policies to stop mass incarceration.
The National Bail Out is a Black-led and Black-centered collective of organizers and advocates who are working to abolish pretrial detention and mass incarceration. They have coordinated with a variety of other groups, including Southerners on New Ground (SONG), to create the tactical mass bail out of #FreeBlackMamas to acknowledge the reality that incarceration of women disproportionately affects Black women. They work with partner organizations to post bail for incarcerated women year-round, but especially before Mother’s Day. This year, instead of (or in addition to) sending flowers to your favorite mothers, you can donate to National Bail Out or the 18 Black-led organizations they are working with across the country to help #FreeBlackMamas.
We also need to address the root causes of the incarceration of women in this country, which is often due to poverty. While drug or property offenses account for about half of the charges for which women are incarcerated, policies must also focus on reducing so-called “violent” offenses that women commit often in response to violence and abuse.
When we incarcerate women, we are causing irreparable damage to them, their families, and all of our communities.
Published May 10, 2024 at 10:35PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/eTVha8J
Close to 60 percent of these women serving prison sentences were the primary caregiver of their minor children before sentencing. All too often, a prison sentence tears them from their family connections and contact with their children, while severing their children from a vital source of emotional and financial support. State women’s prisons are often located in rural areas, with limited modes of transportation, and families struggle to visit.
As a result, families have very few in-person visits, and must rely on postal mail, or pay inflated prices for telephone calls and video contacts. Compounding the lack of connection, women in many state prisons cannot even hold in their hands and cherish a card or drawing sent by their children. Many prisons have done away with real mail, and now use vendors to intercept, scan, and destroy all postal mail, delivering poor quality printouts of the original letter to the incarcerated recipients weeks later for a fee.
Children with mothers incarcerated in local jails often fare no better than those whose mothers are in state prisons: Some jails have completely banned in-person visitation to require all visits be done by paid video, not because of COVID, but to boost their bottom line. A 2015 study found that 74 percent of jails had banned in-person visits after putting video visits into place. Even when women are able to have in-person visits with their children, jail visits are often done through a plexiglass barrier. Women cannot hold, hug, touch, or kiss their children.
Women often become entangled with the criminal legal system due to trying to cope with poverty, limited access to child care, underemployment or unemployment, unstable housing, and physical and mental health challenges. They get thrown into a legal system that criminalizes survival behaviors such as selling drugs or sex work, and policies that charge and arrest persons for being present when crimes are committed by others, “aiding and abetting” others, or fighting back against domestic violence. A study in California found that 93 percent of women incarcerated in state prison for a homicide of a partner were abused by the person they killed, and in two-thirds of those cases, the homicide occurred while attempting to protect themselves or their children.
Incarcerated women have high rates of histories of physical and sexual abuse, trauma, and mental health and substance use disorders. While incarcerated, women are more likely than incarcerated men to face sexual abuse or harassment by correctional staff, and they experience serious psychological distress due to incarceration and the conditions in prisons. Treatment in prisons or jails for mental health conditions, substance use disorders, and trauma is often nonexistent. Health care for physical medical conditions or pregnancy often is limited at best: Last year, through our lawsuit, we learned the Arizona Department of Corrections was inducing the labor of pregnant incarcerated people against their will. This came after we documented inadequate prenatal and postpartum care of women in Arizona prisons in 2019, including a woman with serious mental illness who gave birth alone, in the toilet of her cell, at a maximum custody unit.
So what can we do to honor incarcerated women and families? First, we can financially support the incredible work of community-based bail funds that help free mothers and bring them home to their children and families. Second, we can support criminal legal reform policies to stop mass incarceration.
The National Bail Out is a Black-led and Black-centered collective of organizers and advocates who are working to abolish pretrial detention and mass incarceration. They have coordinated with a variety of other groups, including Southerners on New Ground (SONG), to create the tactical mass bail out of #FreeBlackMamas to acknowledge the reality that incarceration of women disproportionately affects Black women. They work with partner organizations to post bail for incarcerated women year-round, but especially before Mother’s Day. This year, instead of (or in addition to) sending flowers to your favorite mothers, you can donate to National Bail Out or the 18 Black-led organizations they are working with across the country to help #FreeBlackMamas.
We also need to address the root causes of the incarceration of women in this country, which is often due to poverty. While drug or property offenses account for about half of the charges for which women are incarcerated, policies must also focus on reducing so-called “violent” offenses that women commit often in response to violence and abuse.
When we incarcerate women, we are causing irreparable damage to them, their families, and all of our communities.
Published May 10, 2024 at 06:05PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/EjKn0O8
Pakistan: Second and Final Review Under the Stand-by Arrangement-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Pakistan
Published May 10, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
A lot of people are surprised to hear they may not get a lawyer at their first bail hearing: “Don’t I have a right to an attorney?”
You should – that’s what the ACLU has argued in court in Galveston, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Utah. But half of U.S. states do not guarantee counsel at first appearance. In these states, first appearance is typically a rushed proceeding where magistrates (limited-purpose judges) rubber-stamp detention orders without entertaining arguments to let people out of jail. This “hearing” often takes place inside the jail with no means of public access. Without defenders present to fight on behalf of arrestees, and without the check of public accountability, the gross unfairness resulting from the lack of counsel can be lost on even the most well-meaning public officials.
Our most recent investigation in Travis County, Texas, documents what we commonly observe when we scratch the surface of these lawyer-less bail hearings. The ACLU of Texas organized volunteer law students to observe hundreds of first appearances in the first quarter of 2024. The results, digested by the ACLU’s data and analytics team, support our most recent lawsuit on counsel at first appearance and demonstrate why counsel at first appearance is so important. Here is what we found:
Magistrates order detention but tell arrestees that down the line, a lawyer might make a persuasive argument for release. This practice effectively punts the real release decision until after a lawyer is appointed and the case is assigned to the trial judge – jailing the arrestee in the meantime. The numbers bear this out: we observed magistrates require cash bail at significantly higher rates than Travis County claims over the total duration of criminal cases. Our observation confirms what magistrates are owning up to from the start: after lawyers are appointed, the lawyer’s advocacy secures release without cash bail and gets more people out. The days that people wait in jail for their lawyer matter. Beside the fact that any time jail is inherently harmful, people lose their jobs and can’t be home to take care of their families. And even a few days in jail without a lawyer increases the chances that people plead guilty and accept harsher sentences, because they’re fighting their cases on an uneven playing field.
It’s natural for people to try to argue for their release: 29 percent of arrestees we observed made potentially harmful statements about their cases. People without legal training can’t realistically make a strategic choice about waiving the right to silence or deciding what to say. Even statements that are not outright confessions can limit strategies for the defense. It’s impossible to know from court observation alone how harmful these statements are in the scheme of each person’s criminal defense. But the harm of some statements, including those documented in our subsequent lawsuit, is painfully obvious:
It happened a long time ago
I have no choice but to be in that area (site of alleged trespass)
Video appearances are inadequate and prone to abuse.
In the absence of counsel at first appearance, court and jail personnel begin to regard first appearance as an empty formality rather than a meaningful hearing on release. First appearances conducted by video reinforce this dynamic: magistrates see arrestees as images on a screen, rather than human beings whose freedom is on the line. In Travis County, we documented communication problems resulting from video feeds in 10 percent of first appearances. Respect for the purpose of first appearance had eroded so dramatically that magistrates conducted the hearing through a camera pointed at the meal tray slot on cell doors, forcing arrestees to communicate by bending over to talk through the narrow slot. When the magistrate and arrestee could not communicate, the magistrate relied on jail staff to relay what the arrestee was saying and whether it appeared they could hear. Follow-up reporting by the Austin Chronicle documented additional instances of this practice, leading a retired federal judge to comment on the importance of counsel at first appearance.
Many officials – even in progressive Austin, Texas – try to convince themselves that counsel at first appearance is a luxury rather than a necessity. These findings show the need for counsel at first appearance.
Published May 10, 2024 at 02:07AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/bIl3Pfh
A lot of people are surprised to hear they may not get a lawyer at their first bail hearing: “Don’t I have a right to an attorney?”
You should – that’s what the ACLU has argued in court in Galveston, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Utah. But half of U.S. states do not guarantee counsel at first appearance. In these states, first appearance is typically a rushed proceeding where magistrates (limited-purpose judges) rubber-stamp detention orders without entertaining arguments to let people out of jail. This “hearing” often takes place inside the jail with no means of public access. Without defenders present to fight on behalf of arrestees, and without the check of public accountability, the gross unfairness resulting from the lack of counsel can be lost on even the most well-meaning public officials.
Our most recent investigation in Travis County, Texas, documents what we commonly observe when we scratch the surface of these lawyer-less bail hearings. The ACLU of Texas organized volunteer law students to observe hundreds of first appearances in the first quarter of 2024. The results, digested by the ACLU’s data and analytics team, support our most recent lawsuit on counsel at first appearance and demonstrate why counsel at first appearance is so important. Here is what we found:
Magistrates order detention but tell arrestees that down the line, a lawyer might make a persuasive argument for release. This practice effectively punts the real release decision until after a lawyer is appointed and the case is assigned to the trial judge – jailing the arrestee in the meantime. The numbers bear this out: we observed magistrates require cash bail at significantly higher rates than Travis County claims over the total duration of criminal cases. Our observation confirms what magistrates are owning up to from the start: after lawyers are appointed, the lawyer’s advocacy secures release without cash bail and gets more people out. The days that people wait in jail for their lawyer matter. Beside the fact that any time jail is inherently harmful, people lose their jobs and can’t be home to take care of their families. And even a few days in jail without a lawyer increases the chances that people plead guilty and accept harsher sentences, because they’re fighting their cases on an uneven playing field.
It’s natural for people to try to argue for their release: 29 percent of arrestees we observed made potentially harmful statements about their cases. People without legal training can’t realistically make a strategic choice about waiving the right to silence or deciding what to say. Even statements that are not outright confessions can limit strategies for the defense. It’s impossible to know from court observation alone how harmful these statements are in the scheme of each person’s criminal defense. But the harm of some statements, including those documented in our subsequent lawsuit, is painfully obvious:
It happened a long time ago
I have no choice but to be in that area (site of alleged trespass)
Video appearances are inadequate and prone to abuse.
In the absence of counsel at first appearance, court and jail personnel begin to regard first appearance as an empty formality rather than a meaningful hearing on release. First appearances conducted by video reinforce this dynamic: magistrates see arrestees as images on a screen, rather than human beings whose freedom is on the line. In Travis County, we documented communication problems resulting from video feeds in 10 percent of first appearances. Respect for the purpose of first appearance had eroded so dramatically that magistrates conducted the hearing through a camera pointed at the meal tray slot on cell doors, forcing arrestees to communicate by bending over to talk through the narrow slot. When the magistrate and arrestee could not communicate, the magistrate relied on jail staff to relay what the arrestee was saying and whether it appeared they could hear. Follow-up reporting by the Austin Chronicle documented additional instances of this practice, leading a retired federal judge to comment on the importance of counsel at first appearance.
Many officials – even in progressive Austin, Texas – try to convince themselves that counsel at first appearance is a luxury rather than a necessity. These findings show the need for counsel at first appearance.
Published May 9, 2024 at 09:37PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/QE358hR
Nigeria: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; Staff Statement; and Statement by the Executive Director for Nigeria
Published May 09, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
Montenegro: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Montenegro
Published May 07, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
Colombia: Request for an Arrangement Under the Flexible Credit Line and Cancellation of the Current Arrangement-Press Release; Staff Report; Staff Supplement; and Statement by the Executive Director for Colombia
Published May 02, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
Morocco: 2024 Article IV Consultation, Review Under the Flexible Credit Line Arrangement, First Review Under the Resilience and Sustainability Arrangement, and Rephasing of Access Under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Morocco
Published May 01, 2024 at 07:00AM Read more at imf.org
Five Things to Know About the Supreme Court Case Threatening Doctors Providing Emergency Abortion Care
The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Idaho v. United States and Moyle v. United States, which will determine whether politicians can put doctors in jail for treating pregnant patients experiencing medical emergencies. The ultimate decision in the case — which is expected by the summer — could have severe consequences on the health and lives of people across the country facing emergency pregnancy complications. Here’s what you need to know:
This case is about politicians trying to block emergency care for pregnant patients.
Anti-abortion politicians brought this case all the way up to the Supreme Court to deny pregnant people access to emergency abortion care that is necessary to prevent severe and potentially life-altering health consequences, and even death. A federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act or EMTALA, has long guaranteed that, in an emergency, patients can get the care they need — including abortion care — regardless of where they live. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue: Every administration from President Reagan to President Biden has recognized that EMTALA requires emergency abortion care. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade did not diminish these longstanding federal protections, which override state laws that would prohibit such care, but now, extreme politicians are doing everything in their power to prevent someone experiencing emergency pregnancy complications from getting care in emergency rooms.
This case could have a severe impact on emergency care across the country, and these devastating effects are already playing out in Idaho.
While it considers the case, the Supreme Court has already allowed Idaho politicians to block emergency care for pregnant people using the state’s abortion ban which has no exception for health, and the impact is already reverberating across the state. For example, St. Luke’s Health System, the largest health system in Idaho, which sees hundreds of thousands of emergency department visits each year, reports that they are now transferring pregnant patients with medical emergencies out of state to get the care they need, but even that delay can also increase the unacceptable risks patients face. Not surprisingly, doctors do not want to practice in a state where they are criminalized for providing the emergency care their patients need: Since Idaho’s extreme abortion ban took effect, more than 20 percent of obstetricians in Idaho have left the state, according to a report published by the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare.
If the Supreme Court sides with Idaho in this case, these devastating effects on patients and doctors alike could spread to other states with extreme abortion bans, such as Arizona, and would give anti-abortion politicians around the country the green light to try to prohibit this essential, even life-saving, emergency care.
This case is about doctors and hospitals that want to provide care, but politicians want to stop them from treating patients.
The issues in this case are about hospitals and physicians who want to fulfill their oath and provide care to patients experiencing medical emergencies, but politicians want to enforce Idaho’s abortion ban up until the moment that a pregnant person’s life is at imminent risk. “Can I continue to replace her blood loss fast enough? How many organ systems must be failing? Can a patient be hours away from death before I intervene, or does it have to be minutes?”
In Alabama, Embryos Are People and It Won't Stop There
In Alabama, Embryos Are People and It Won't Stop There
On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children under state law, meaning the embryo has rights consistent with a person living in the United States. While this marks the first time a frozen embryo has been granted ...
On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children under state law, meaning the embryo has rights consistent with a person living in the United States. While this marks the first time a frozen embryo has been granted ...
These are some of the questions our client Dr. Caitlin Gustafson shared that some Idaho providers are now forced to consider when a patient comes in with an emergency pregnancy complication in a recent op-ed on the case. Politics shouldn’t matter when you’re trying to treat a patient whose condition is rapidly deteriorating before your very eyes, but that’s the exact dystopia politicians are trying to force on all of us.
The extremists behind this case won’t stop with abortion.
Overturning Roe v. Wade was just the beginning. Anti-abortion politicians are using every tool at their disposal in their campaign to ban abortion nationwide, and they won’t stop there. They are also pushing a legal strategy to give rights to embryos and fetuses that would override the rights of the pregnant person. We saw what happened in Alabama when the state supreme court granted rights to embryos, which forced IVF clinics across the state to temporarily shut down services. To be clear: There isn’t a serious argument to use EMTALA to grant legal rights to embryos, but that may not stop justices from considering whether to follow the lead of the anti-abortion movement and issue another devastating blow to people’s power to make personal medical decisions during pregnancy.
We have the power to fight back, and we will win!
Anti-abortion politicians and the groups supporting them are trying to use the courts to further their agenda because the policies they’re pushing are deeply unpopular. Every time abortion is on the ballot, voters send a clear message that they want reproductive freedom to be protected. That’s why the anti-abortion movement has turned to the courts to carry out their agenda, and the scary thing is they might just be successful.
While there is already federal law to protect access to emergency care, the way anti-abortion politicians are trying to manipulate their state’s ban to deny people emergency care shows why we need to put an end to state bans once and for all. We need Congress to pass federal protections for abortion rights that will end extreme bans in states and protect access to care nationwide.
Published April 30, 2024 at 07:21PM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/Eu5Ksmn
How Comics Can Spark Conversations About Race and History in the Classroom
Right now, efforts to censor college protestors, to ban diverse materials in schools and to silence students and staff threaten our right to free speech in schools. People are having their voices silenced, their right to learn challenged, and their access to information restricted. But how can we navigate these complex issues with the next generation?
We at the ACLU created a series of comic stories with illustrative journalist Eda Uzunlar to empower students and educators, spark vital conversations about their rights, and ensure all voices are heard and clear, both in the classroom and beyond. Our first installment illustrates the story of Anthony Crawford who is a public school teacher and part of a lawsuit challenging HB 1775, Oklahoma’s classroom censorship law.
In this Q&A, we sat down with Eda to discuss why comics are the perfect medium to tackle these issues and connect with young people in a way that resonates far more effectively than traditional media can.
Let’s start with your journey as an illustrative journalist, comic creator, and audio enthusiast. What inspired you to use this kind of medium for your work?
I’ve been making comics since childhood. Like most kids, I doodled, and eventually, my doodles turned into my first comic. It was about a character called Spaceman – creative, I know – an astronaut stranded on the moon. He was this sardonic, really sarcastic, figure. It was a simple concept. He became this kind of vessel for expressing myself as a young person, particularly growing up in South Dakota with my family being both Muslim and immigrants from Turkey. Expressing these issues in a way that people who were very different from me would understand was crucial to me.
I realized that comics are a way to discuss complex stories without oversimplifying them. But I never imagined it would become a career. Similarly, my entry into journalism was unexpected. Someone introduced me to FM radio in my teens. Within a year, community radio became this amazing space for me where I hosted a show discussing anything, from civil disobedience to whether or not respect is implied or earned – things I thought people from any background could weigh in on. And I don’t know why they gave a 16-year-old the ability to take live calls, but I got to talk to so many people in my community that way. It felt like a continuation of my comics — anonymous conversations driven by passion rather than preconceived notions based on appearances.
So I took those experiences and turned them into what I do now. I try to help people tell their stories – no matter how complex – in an accessible way, so others can gain understanding of perspectives they might not have known about before.
It’s so great how you’ve integrated your childhood passion for comics with your later pursuits in journalism and radio. You mentioned that comics offer a unique way to discuss complex issues without oversimplifying them. How do you navigate that balance between accessibility and depth when creating your comic content?
It’s all about breaking down big ideas into something digestible and engaging. When stories like these are presented in a visual format, it helps the audience both process and retain what they’re taking in. This especially applies to younger people. They’re the ones making use of social media and watching YouTube to learn about the world around them. Traditional newspapers? Not so much for them. And when we’re talking about accessibility, it’s a big deal. There’s a direct correlation between marginalized groups and limited access to media literacy. Traditional long-form journalism often fails to reach these communities.
Take, for instance, the whole debate around critical race theory (CRT) in Oklahoma. A long-winded article might not reach the people who need to hear about it most. But with comics, we’re able to package up those complex ideas into something that will catch your eye and is easy to grasp. It’s like delivering a message directly to their social media feed. By making these reported stories visually engaging and using everyday language, we’re making sure that everyone gets a chance to join the conversation, especially those who might feel left out by traditional media channels, especially the ones with a paywall.
Let’s talk about this first comic you worked on about Anthony Crawford, an Oklahoma teacher who is part of a lawsuit challenging a classroom censorship bill. How did your approach to brainstorming and initial sketches contribute to capturing his story, particularly in conveying the depth of Black history and the importance of including both student and teacher perspectives?
There’s a process where you try very hard not to limit yourself at the beginning. That’s where you do quick sketches of one panel ten times, trying anything that might be cool to represent the idea. For example, for the panel about Black history being filled with wisdom, not just difficulty, there are a thousand ways to approach it. That could be represented literally with historical figures, or the opposite, which is what I did – a tree. A really big, grand tree. On its own, it could mean anything. But with the context and few words in the panel, it suggests a huge heritage and lineage. Trees are generational, lasting hundreds or even thousands of years. I had about five ideas, and then I saw how the tree looked. The detail and grandeur of this single image helped convey the depth to which Anthony described the importance of Black history in America, aligning with the voice he gave it throughout the piece. That’s another thing – I went back and said, “Listen, there’s just a tree in this panel, but it’s based on how you talked about what Black history feels like to you.” Like history existed before we were here and after we’re gone, just like a tree. And he was like, “That’s perfect.”
Eda on Adding Figures in Black History to An Illustration
With critical race theory and book bans, everyone loses. The teacher, the student, the whole community is affected when our right to learn and right to free speech are stifled. So we really wanted to get both the student and teacher perspectives. Anthony opened his own story as a teenage version of himself in the early 2000s, enraged because he wasn’t being taught his own community’s history, discussing his experience as a student, which served as an ideal starting point for the piece. Eventually, he transitions into the current day, where he’s facing the same problem – only now, he’s the teacher. And there’s this vague law in Oklahoma that makes it hard for him to teach that same history, and the history of other oppressed communities in America. This shift illustrates the cyclical nature of issues like CRT and book bans in Oklahoma, highlighting how such restrictions on free speech persist over time. The initial depiction of Anthony as an unhappy student parallels the final panel where he faces his own students, who are motivated to learn because they can actually see themselves in their histories.
From Anthony’s perspective as a teacher, the issue of critical race theory getting banned is represented as one that educators like him are worried about. How did you make sure that struggle spoke to the younger audience as well?
When students face dilemmas like seeing banned books in their libraries and the removal of celebrated authors of color from their curriculum, it can shake their confidence in their education and understanding of history. That’s the first part of the comic, and allows young people to make connections with the younger version of Anthony. Then, the narrative zeroes in on the educator perspective. Anthony champions diverse perspectives in his classroom. Through his actions, the comic reveals Anthony’s motivations for teaching, emphasizing his dedication to his students and his younger self. That’s where I wanted students to connect to the teacher side of the comic – so they know that if their right to an inclusive education is stifled, even if none of their own teachers have taken steps to continue teaching about America’s diverse history, there are educators out there who care and are making a difference. My hope is that by seeing someone who was once in their shoes assert his First Amendment rights, current students feel empowered to do the same for themselves.
In fact, I have seen my comics be used as a connection between students and teachers. I put out a comic about juvenile justice, and about a year later, a teacher from Wyoming reached out to me on Facebook and shared that one of their students shared my comic with them. Next thing you know, they’re teaching it in their classes, sparking discussions on juvenile justice, and showing students how to navigate tough situations. It’s pretty amazing, right? Shows how comics can really make a difference in the real world by influencing education and promoting meaningful dialogue.
Published April 30, 2024 at 01:08AM
via ACLU https://ift.tt/4e3kZdF
