Get Malik Out of Ad-Seg Keith "Malik" Washington is an incarcerated activist who has spoken out on conditions of confinement in Texas prison and beyond:  from issues of toxic water and extreme heat, to physical and sexual abuse of imprisoned people, to religious discrimination and more.  Malik has also been a tireless leader in the movement to #EndPrisonSlavery which gained visibility during nationwide prison strikes in 2016 and 2018.  View his work at comrademalik.com or write him at: Keith H. Washington TDC# 1487958 McConnell Unit 3001 S. Emily Drive Beeville, TX 78102 Friends, it's time to get Malik out of solitary confinement. Malik has experienced intense, targeted harassment ever since he dared to start speaking against brutal conditions faced by incarcerated people in Texas and nationwide--but over the past few months, prison officials have stepped up their retaliation even more. In Administrative Segregation (solitary confinement) at McConnell Unit, Malik has experienced frequent humiliating strip searches, medical neglect, mail tampering and censorship, confinement 23 hours a day to a cell that often reached 100+ degrees in the summer, and other daily abuses too numerous to name.  It could not be more clear that they are trying to make an example of him because he is a committed freedom fighter.  So we have to step up. Who to contact: TDCJ Executive Director Bryan Collier Phone: (936)295-6371 Email:  exec.director@tdcj.texas.gov Senior Warden Philip Sinfuentes (McConnell Unit) Phone: (361) 362-2300

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Major George Tillery

MAJOR TILLERY FILES NEW LEGAL PETITION SEX FOR LIES AND MANUFACTURED TESTIMONY

April 25, 2018-- The arrest of two young men in Starbucks for the crime of "sitting while black," and the four years prison sentence to rapper Meek Mill for a minor parole violation are racist outrages in Philadelphia, PA that made national news in the past weeks. Yesterday Meek Mills was released on bail after a high profile defense campaign and a Pa Supreme Court decision citing evidence his conviction was based solely on a cop's false testimony. These events underscore the racism, frame-up, corruption and brutality at the core of the criminal injustice system. Pennsylvania "lifer" Major Tillery's fight for freedom puts a spotlight on the conviction of innocent men with no evidence except the lying testimony of jailhouse snitches who have been coerced and given favors by cops and prosecutors. Sex for Lies and Manufactured Testimony For thirty-five years Major Tillery has fought against his 1983 arrest, then conviction and sentence of life imprisonment without parole for an unsolved 1976 pool hall murder and assault. Major Tillery's defense has always been his innocence. The police and prosecution knew Tillery did not commit these crimes. Jailhouse informant Emanuel Claitt gave lying testimony that Tillery was one of the shooters. In May and June 2016, Emanuel Claitt gave sworn statements that his testimony was a total lie, and that the homicide cops and the prosecutors told him what to say and coached him before trial. Not only was he coerced to lie that Major Tillery was a shooter, but to lie and claim there were no plea deals made in exchange for his testimony. He provided the information about the specific homicide detectives and prosecutors involved in manufacturing his testimony and details about being allowed "sex for lies". In August 2016, Claitt reaffirmed his sworn statements in a videotape, posted on YouTube and on JusticeforMajorTillery.org. Major Tillery has Fought his Conviction and Advocated for Other Prisoners for over 30 Years Major Tillery Needs Your Help: Major Tillery and family HOW YOU CAN HELP Financial Support—Tillery's investigation is ongoing. He badly needs funds to fight for his freedom. Go to JPay.com; code: Major Tillery AM9786 PADOC Tell Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: The Conviction Review Unit should investigate Major Tillery's case. He is innocent. The only evidence at trial was from lying jail house informants who now admit it was false. Call: 215-686-8000 or Email: justice@phila.gov Write to: Security Processing Center Major Tillery AM 9786 268 Bricker Road Bellefonte, PA 16823 For More Information, Go To: JusticeForMajorTillery.org Call/Write: Kamilah Iddeen (717) 379-9009, Kamilah29@yahoo.com Rachel Wolkenstein (917) 689-4009, RachelWolkenstein@gmail.com Obtain Updates: www.justice4majortillery.info *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* On Monday March 4th, 2019 Leonard Peltier was advised that his request for a transfer had been unceremoniously denied by the United States Bureau of Prisons. The International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee appreciates and thanks the large number of his supporters who took the time to write, call, email, or fax the BOP in support of Leonard's request for a transfer. Those of us who have been supporting Leonard's freedom for a number of years are disappointed but resolute to continue pushing for his freedom and until that day, to continue to push for his transfer to be closer to his relatives and the Indigenous Nations who support him. 44 years is too damn long for an innocent man to be locked up. How can his co-defendants be innocent on the grounds of self-defense but Leonard remains in prison? The time is now for all of us to dig deep and do what we can and what we must to secure freedom for Leonard Peltier before it's too late. We need the support of all of you now, more than ever. The ILPDC plans to appeal this denial of his transfer to be closer to his family. We plan to demand he receive appropriate medical care, and to continue to uncover and utilize every legal mechanism to secure his release. To do these things we need money to support the legal work. Please call the ILPDC National office or email us for a copy of the postcard you can send to the White House. We need your help to ask President Trump for Leonard's freedom. DONATE  ©2019 ILPDC | 116 W Osborne Avenue Tampa, FL 33603  Web Version  Preferences  Forward  Unsubscribe   Powered by GoDaddy Email Marketing ® Free Leonard Peltier!

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1) Ugly From the Outset: A Day of Violence and Anger in Hong Kong
By Mike Ives, Elaine Yu and Edward Wong, November 11, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/world/hong-kong-protests.html

A still image captured from a live video shot by Chan Cheuk-hin, a reporter for a local production house, shows the scene just before a police officer shot a protester on Monday.Credit...Cupid Producer, via Reuters

 

HONG KONG — On a Hong Kong street corner, a young protester found himself staring at the end of an angry police officer's handgun. He was shot.

Across town on an overpass, a middle-aged man argued with rowdy protesters, accusing them of lacking patriotism for the Chinese motherland. He was set on fire.

By nightfall, both were in the hospital, fighting for their lives.

The actions on Monday were the violent expressions of a city on edge and seething with resentment. The protesters are furious with a police force they see as acting with impunity, while their detractors are angry with the increasingly destructive demonstrations.

Months of antigovernment protests have thrown the Chinese territory into its worst political crisis in decades, with no end in sight. The movement, which started as a fight over an extradition bill, has morphed into a broader call for democracy and police accountability in the former British colony. But neither side seems to agree on what the future should look like under Chinese rule — and neither seems willing to compromise.

Carrie Lam, the city's embattled chief executive, denounced the unrest on Monday, saying the escalating violence would not force the government to give in to the protesters' demands. She called those who had set the man on fire "enemies of the people."

Tensions had been building for days, following the death of a student last week who fell from a parking garage amid demonstrations. The protesters see him as a martyr, and have depicted his death as another sign of excessive police violence.

In response, they called for the city to join in a strike on Monday, disrupting transit en masse and messing up the morning commute. Events across the city, including classes at most of its universities, were canceled.

Monday's unrest was ugly from the outset. The police officer drew a handgun on the protester as commuters, snarled by roadblocks set up by demonstrators, looked on in disbelief. Several shots rang out, and the 21-year-old man crumpled to the ground in the middle of an eerily deserted intersection.

As blood pooled on the asphalt, a crowd of angry pedestrians surrounded riot police officers who had arrived as reinforcements. "Murderer!" some of them cried, while an officer doused the crowd with pepper spray.

Anger over the shooting quickly unspooled across several districts in the city of more than seven million people, drawing suit-clad office workers in the central business district and residents in working-class neighborhoods.

The scale of the transit disruptions on Monday was not as large as a citywide strike that protesters staged on a weekday in early August. Yet the clashes between protesters and the police were intense by any measure; the shooting was only the third time the police have shot a protester since the demonstrations began in June.

Notably, some clashes occurred on the fringes of leafy university campuses that have in recent months generally been off limits to such violence. Protesters threw Molotov cocktails and glass bottles at police lines, while officers responded by firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

Thousands of black-clad protesters also turned up for a flash mob-style demonstration in Hong Kong's central business district around lunchtime, creating a starkly surreal aura in an area filled with luxury malls. Some front-liners used orange traffic cones, bricks and wooden poles to set up barricades on main roads.

On the side of a Giorgio Armani store, a screen with a video ad that showed sleek models parading down a runway was defaced with graffiti: "They shoot, they murder, they are well-paid." And protesters, some of them office workers in full face masks, yelled insults at police officers along the same lines.

"Shooting everywhere, you think you're so cool?" one asked an officer at one point, adding an expletive. "Have you killed someone yet today? Have you met your killing quota?"

Marcus Lee, a 26-year-old lawyer in a charcoal gray suit with a blue face mask, stood outside with a group of protesters who were shouting at the police.

"The gun wasn't necessary, let alone firing shots," he said, referring to the morning's shooting. "You can see how people are reacting to this. They are angry. It's just very ridiculous."

Scattershot violence erupted throughout the city for much of the day.

Video footage showed a police officer on a motorcycle in the Kwai Fong district of northern Hong Kong swerving into a crowd of protesters, clipping at least one of them. The police later said the officer had been suspended from front-line duties.

Across town in Ma On Shan, a district near the border with the Chinese mainland, a video showed a man who appeared to be a government supporter being doused with flammable liquid and set on fire after arguing with a group of protesters.

"Go back to the Greater Bay Area!" the protesters shouted at him, using Beijing's term for the region of southern China that includes Hong Kong and neighboring cities.

As many Hong Kong residents prepared for their evening commute, the smell of tear gas lingered outside their office buildings. In an internal memo, the bank HSBC said that while it was still operating normally, its employees should "leave the office early and under safe conditions."

The Hospital Authority said that both the protester who had been shot and the man who had been set on fire were in critical condition.

On Monday afternoon, the police urged protesters to stop threatening public safety. The authorities said that the officer who fired the three live rounds in the Sai Wan Ho area had acted in self-defense against protesters who had been trying to steal his revolver.

"We certainly believe our officer did not have bad intention to hurt anyone," John Tse, a top police official, told reporters.

Mrs. Lam, the city's leader, called Monday's mayhem "destructive" and said it could "take Hong Kong to the road of ruin."

"The behaviors of these rioters have already far exceeded this so-called fight for demands," Mrs. Lam said, describing those who were responsible for the man's burning.

Mrs. Lam also made it clear that the government would not be pressured into making concessions to the protesters, describing such expectations as "wishful thinking."

"I am making this statement clear and loud here," she said. "That will not happen."

Katherine Li, Ezra Cheung and Paul Mozur contributed reporting.

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2) Big Business Is Overcharging You $5,000 a Year
Consolidation is great for corporations — and bad for almost everyone else.
By David Leonhardt, November 10, 2019
"In the United States, the process is more political, and companies spend vastly more money on campaign donations and lobbying. Lobbyists — and, by extension, regulators — justify mergers with dubious theories about money-saving efficiencies. Somehow, though, the efficiencies usually end up raising profits rather than lowering prices."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/opinion/big-business-consumer-prices.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Thomas Philippon outside Washington Square Park in New York on Friday.Credit...Emon Hassan for The New York Times

When Thomas Philippon moved to Boston from his native France 20 years ago, he was a graduate student on a budget, and he was happy to discover how cheap American telephone use was. In those days of dial-up internet connections, going online involved long local phone calls that could cost more than $10 apiece in France. In the United States, they were virtually free.

Philippon eventually got a Ph.D. in economics at M.I.T. and decided to stay here. He's now a professor at New York University. And over the years, he has noticed something surprising about his adopted country: Internet usage is no longer a good deal.

Today, his parents pay about 90 euros (or $100) a month in the Paris suburbs for a combination of broadband access, cable television and two mobile phones. A similar package in the United States usually costs more than twice as much.

Figuring out why has become a core part of Philippon's academic research, and he offers his answer in a fascinating new book, "The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets." In one industry after another, he writes, a few companies have grown so large that they have the power to keep prices high and wages low. It's great for those corporations — and bad for almost everyone else.

Many Americans have a choice between only two internet providers. The airline industry is dominated by four large carriers. Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are growing ever larger. One or two hospital systems control many local markets. Home Depot and Lowe's have displaced local hardware stores. Regional pharmacy chains like Eckerd and Happy Harry's have been swallowed by national giants.

Other researchers have also documented rising corporateconcentration. Philippon's biggest contribution is to explain that it isn't some natural result of globalization and technological innovation. If it were, the trends would be similar around the world. But they're not. Big companies have become only slightly larger in Europe this century — rather than much larger, as in the United States.

What explains the difference? Politics.

The European economy certainly has its problems, but antitrust policy isn't one of them. The European Union has kept competition alive by blocking mergers and insisting that established companies make room for new entrants. In telecommunications, smaller companies often have the right to use infrastructure built by the giants. That's why Philippon's parents can choose among five internet providers, including a low-cost company that brought down prices for everyone.

In air travel, European discount carriers like easyJet have received better access to the gate slots they need to operate. The largest four European airlines control only about 40 percent of the market. In the United States, that share is 80 percent, and, as you'd expect, airfares are higher. Even Southwest Airlines has begun to behave less like a low-fare carrier.

The irony is that Europe is implementing market-based ideas — like telecommunications deregulation and low-cost airlines — that Americans helped pioneer. "E.U. consumers are better off than American consumers today," Philippon writes, "because the E.U. has adopted the U.S. playbook, which the U.S. itself has abandoned."

The European Union has created an impressively independent competition agency that's willing to block mergers, like General Electric-Honeywell and Siemens-Alstom. In the United States, the process is more political, and companies spend vastly more money on campaign donations and lobbying. Lobbyists — and, by extension, regulators — justify mergers with dubious theories about money-saving efficiencies. Somehow, though, the efficiencies usually end up raising profits rather than lowering prices.

Whirlpool's 2006 purchase of Maytag is a good example. The Justice Department rationalized the deal partly by predicting that foreign appliance makers would keep the combined company from raising prices. But Whirlpool later successfully lobbied for tariffs to keep out foreign rivals. Washers, dryers and dishwashers have all become more expensive.

The consolidation of corporate America has become severe enough to have macroeconomic effects. Profits have surged, and wages have stagnated. Investment in new factories and products has also stagnated, because many companies don't need to innovate to keep profits high. Philippon estimates that the new era of oligopoly costs the typical American household more than $5,000 a year.

It's a problem that should inspire bipartisan action. Some solutions feel conservative: reducing licensing requirements and other bureaucratic rules that hamper start-ups. Others feel progressive: blocking mergers, splitting up monopolies and forcing big business to share infrastructure.

There are signs that the politics of antitrust are shifting. Several Republicans, like Senator Josh Hawley, now talk about the issue, and many Democrats — not just Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but also Amy Klobuchar — do too.

But we have a long way to go. Too often, both parties are still confusing the interests of big business with the national interest. And American families are paying the price.

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3) Australia Confronts 'Catastrophic' Fire Conditions
An emergency was declared for all of New South Wales as risk warnings reached their highest possible level.
By Damien Cave, November 11, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/world/australia/fires-sydney-new-south-wales.html?action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage

Bushfires in New South Wales, Australia, on Saturday.Credit...Tom Bannigan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

SYDNEY, Australia — Australia is bracing for cataclysmic wildfires on Tuesday, as officials warned that strong winds, high temperatures and parched forests had created some of the worst fire conditions the country has ever seen. 

After powerful blazes caused three deaths over the weekend, the authorities said people and homes were now at risk from Sydney's outer suburbs up the southeastern coast to Byron Bay, 500 miles away. An emergency was declared on Monday for all of New South Wales as risk warnings reached their highest possible level.

"If a fire starts and takes hold during 'catastrophic' fire danger conditions, lives and homes will be at risk," said Shane Fitzsimmons, the Rural Fire Service commissioner, adding, "We are talking about something we haven't experienced before in Sydney."

The fires also became a political issue on Monday as the deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said that only leftist "lunatics" were linking the blazes to climate change.

Schools close and residents prepare to flee.

Across the region, the day began with preparations for the increased fire risk. 

• More than 400 schools and education centers across New South Wales, and a number in neighboring Queensland, canceled classes Tuesday.
• In Sydney's suburbs near the Blue Mountains, where a devastating fire destroyed hundreds of homes and left two people dead in 2013, residents reported packing their cars with clothes, water and essentials in case they needed to flee. Farther north, where fires continued to rage, evacuation centers have been filling up with residents fleeing to safety. 
• The Country Fire Authority in the state of Victoria reported sending more than 300 members to New South Wales after the state requested help. More than 1,000 firefighters have been fighting blazes across the state since the weekend. Most are volunteers. 
• Conditions were expected to ease somewhat on Wednesday in New South Wales, with temperatures cooling and winds slowing, but the fire threat was expected to remain for several days. 

Drier-than-normal conditions set the stage for danger.

An omen for the current fire season came in September, when a historic lodge in a rain forest burned nearly to the ground.

The areas where fires were raging as of Tuesday morning, north of Sydney near Port Macquarie and the Queensland border, have been suffering from a lengthy drought.

But scientists note that moisture levels of live trees and shrubs around Sydney are also at record lows — even lower than the levels during the Black Christmas fires of 2001, which destroyed more than 500 buildings on the edge of Sydney and burned for three weeks.

Given the drier-than-normal conditions, there is fuel both on the ground, with dry leaves, and in the branches of trees that are dying or dead. And if something ignites, high winds threaten to carry the flames far and wide.

On Tuesday, the federal Bureau of Meteorology reported, winds could reach up to 70 kilometers per hour, or 43 miles per hour, with gusts in excess of 90 km/h (56 m.p.h). Gusts could be even higher in the mountains.

"It's not just out in the bush, because many people in cities are right on that edge," said Lesley Hughes, a biology professor at Macquarie University who works with the Climate Council of Australia. "Everybody loves to live in the bush and around the bush — it's becoming an increasingly dangerous place."

Government officials deny link to climate change

Despite several months of mass protests drawing attention to the Australian public's concerns about climate change, the country's deputy prime minister on Monday dismissed questions about its role in the fires. 

In an interview with ABC Radio National, the official, Michael McCormack, said it "galls" him when people raise climate change in relation to bush fires. He said global warming was a concern of "raving inner-city lunatics."

Scientists and firefighters immediately responded. Many pointed out the clear connections between climate change and the extended and more intense fire seasons in Australia, California and other places around the world. 

"Fires are burning in places and at intensities never before experienced," Greg Mullins, a former fire and rescue commissioner in New South Wales, wrote in an op-ed article for The Sydney Morning Herald, citing rain forests in northern New South Wales, tropical areas of Queensland and the "formerly wet old-growth forests" of Tasmania. 

He also said that thunderstorms caused by fires — known as "pyro-convective" events — were rare in the past but were now happening regularly.

Joëlle Gergis, a climate scientist and writer from the Australian National University, said it was clear that "there's a human fingerprint on the temperature increases since 1950 — all the weather patterns are occurring in a planet that is warming and warming because of human activity."

By dismissing the role of climate change, she said, the government was choosing immediate disaster response over long-term needs. 

"We're really missing the opportunity to prepare for future life in Australia," Ms. Gergis said. 

"It's going to be a lot warmer, and we're going to see a lot of prevalence of extreme fire conditions," she added. "The further we kick the can down the road and avoid these conversations, we're really missing the opportunity to get the Australian public ready for what is upon us."

Jamie Tarabay, Isabella Kwai and Sasha Gattermayr contributed reporting.

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4) Is It a Crime to Encourage Unauthorized Immigration? The Supreme Court Will Decide
An appeals court struck down a broad 1986 law under the First Amendment, saying it covers conversations between family members and legal advice.
By Adam Liptak, November 11, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/us/politics/supreme-court-immigration-speech.html

The case is one of several significant immigration matters on the Supreme Court's docketAnna Moneymaker/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — A 1986 federal law makes it a crime to "encourage" unauthorized immigrants to come to or stay in the United States. 

"The statute potentially criminalizes the simple words — spoken to a son, a wife, a parent, a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker, a student, a client — 'I encourage you to stay here,'" Judge A. Wallace Tashimawrote last year for a unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, in striking down the law.

The law applies to a grandmother urging a grandchild to overstay a visa or a lawyer advising a client to stay in the country while fighting deportation, Judge Tashima wrote. It may cover public officials helping immigrants in sanctuary cities and perhaps even speeches at immigration rallies, he wrote.

Last month, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the law can be squared with the First Amendment. The case, United States v. Sineneng-Smith, No. 19-67, is one of several significant immigration matters on the court's docket. On Tuesday, the court will hear arguments on whether the Trump administration can rescind protections for so-called Dreamers. Later in the term, it will consider whether immigrants can go to court to challenge orders calling for their expedited removal.

The First Amendment case concerns Evelyn Sineneng-Smith, who ran an immigration consulting firm in San Jose, Calif. Her clients, mostly from the Philippines, worked without authorization in the home health care industry. Ms. Sineneng-Smith offered to help them get green cards under a Labor Department certification program that she said would give them permanent resident status and allow them to work legally.

But the program had expired. Ms. Sineneng-Smith nonetheless charged her clients $6,800 to file applications she knew to be futile. She was convicted of mail fraud, a conviction that the Ninth Circuit affirmed and that Ms. Sineneng-Smith is not challenging in the Supreme Court. The question for the justices is whether her separate conviction under the 1986 law for encouraging her clients to stay in the United States was proper.

In the Ninth Circuit, Ms. Sineneng-Smith argued that she had a First Amendment right to file the applications, which was not a particularly strong argument. "Speech integral to criminal conduct," the Supreme Court has said, is not protected by the First Amendment.

When the case reached the Ninth Circuit, it did something unusual. It asked for briefing on a different First Amendment question. The court wanted to know whether the law was overbroad, chilling the free speech of people other than Ms. Sineneng-Smith.

After getting additional briefs and hearing another round of arguments, the appeals court ruled that the law was unconstitutional.

In urging the Supreme Court to hear its appeal, the Trump administration said the Ninth Circuit had gone too far. The Supreme Court has said that striking down laws because they are too broad is "strong medicine" to be used only when the laws are unconstitutional in a substantial number of real-world settings rather than in "fanciful hypotheticals."

In his Ninth Circuit opinion, Judge Tashima said that his examples of possible prosecutions "are not some parade of fanciful horribles." 

"Instead," he wrote, "they represent real and constitutionally protected conversations and advice that happen daily."

Whatever the literal language of the 1986 law, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco wrote for the government in its petition seeking review, criminal laws are "ordinarily understood not to prohibit abstract advocacy of illegality."

"Just as a teenager does not aid, abet or solicit marijuana possession merely by saying to a friend, 'I encourage you to try smoking pot,'" Mr. Francisco wrote, a grandmother does not violate the 1986 law "merely by saying to her grandson whose visa has expired, 'I encourage you to stay.'"

Mr. Francisco asked the justices to decide only whether speech made for financial gain could be made criminal. The 1986 law does discuss financial gain, but in a separate provision allowing longer sentences when money is involved.

Prosecutions under the law tend to be limited to cases concerning classically criminal conduct by unsympathetic defendants. But not always. In 2012, for instance, a Massachusetts woman, Lorraine Henderson, was convicted of hiring an unauthorized immigrant to clean her home and offering general and not always reliable advice about immigration law.

In that case, Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, of the Federal District Court in Boston, wrote that the "plain and unadorned language" of the law "can be read to cast a wide net over those who interact with illegal aliens by offering employment." 

Judge Woodlock did not consider First Amendment issues in his decision, but he granted Ms. Henderson's motion for a new trial based on his misgivings about the sweep of the law. Prosecutors dropped the case.

In Ms. Sineneng-Smith's case, the government argued that it did not pursue prosecutions based on ordinary interactions with unauthorized immigrants.

That was small comfort, Judge Tashima wrote. "Just because the government has not (yet) sought many prosecutions based on speech," he wrote, "it does not follow that the government cannot or will not use an overbroad law to obtain such convictions."

In the Supreme Court, Ms. Sineneng-Smith's lawyers said they should be allowed to challenge the law in order to protect the constitutional rights of other people.

"The very reason that overbroad laws are subject to facial attack," they wrote, "is to remedy the chilling effect resulting from keeping such laws on the books."

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5) Hong Kong’s Universities, the Last Refuge of Protesters, Become Battlegrounds
Police have begun raiding the edges of campuses to make arrests, leading student activists to engage with them in pitched battles that resemble medieval sieges.
"...the students discuss the wealth inequality that has led to visions of a bleak future among many of their generation..."
By Edward Wong and Ezra Cheung, November 13. 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-students.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Protesters at the Chinese University of Hong Kong clashed with riot police officers.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

HONG KONG — During hourslong standoffs with students this week, the Hong Kong police broke an unspoken rule to keep off campuses.

Confronted by lines of riot police, black-clad students at the city’s largest universities erected makeshift barricades and threw bricks.The police responded by firing nonlethal projectiles for the first time on campuses.

In six months of antigovernment protests, universities around Hong Kong had served as sanctuaries for the students at the core of the movement, homes where they could strategize and classrooms where they could debate politics.

This week, they became medieval citadels under siege.

[Why are people protesting in Hong Kong?]

The most dramatic clash unfolded late Tuesday night at a bridge leading to the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. For hours, police officers fired hundreds of rounds of tear gas and rubber bullets and students hurled Molotov cocktails and bricks, and practiced firing bows with flaming arrows. More than 100 injured students were brought to a makeshift first-aid clinic in a gym.

By targeting campuses, the police have breached the last refuge of the protesters, a move that brings the violence to the heart of the universities and invokes the pivotal and fraught role of student activism in the global history of democracy movements. 

“One thing that people have realized is that the protests, the movement, the conflict, is unavoidable,” Gabriel Fung, a 19-year-old second-year student at the University of Hong Kong, said. “It’s going to reach you wherever you are at some point.”

It is at these universities where young leaders and other students have been organizing revolts against the Chinese Communist Party and spreading the pro-democracy ideas that undergird the protests. And here too, that the students discuss the wealth inequality that has led to visions of a bleak future among many of their generation.

In Hong Kong, university administrators and professors now find themselves in a difficult position, trying to preach tolerance and walk a tightrope of furious demands from students, the police and government officials. Two schools on Wednesday ended their semesters weeks early.

“Not a single place in Hong Kong is exempt from the rule of law, and that includes universities,” John Lee, the secretary for security, said Wednesday at a news conference. “Universities are not supposed to be the breeding ground of violence.”

The showdown has been brewing for years, going back to the pro-democracy Umbrella Movement of 2014. And the roots of the protests in many ways harken back to social movements elsewhere.

On mainland China, students have led campaigns calling for sweeping political change, notably in 1919 and 1989. In the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, violence broke out on campuses during anti-Vietnam War protests, most horrifically at Kent State University in 1970, when Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on students, killing four and injuring nine.

Student activists in Hong Kong have lived by an exhausting weekly rhythm since the movement began in early June: protest on weekends, show up on Mondays for class, study for exams and apply for internships or jobs in between it all. Many argue with parents who disagree with their politics or tactics. Hundreds have been arrested in recent months and quickly released by the police, as required by law.

It was the death of a university student this month that set off the current round of protests and violence. Chow Tsz-lok, a student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, sustained a fatal injury after falling from a parking garage near a police action on Nov. 4. Thousands attended candlelit memorial rallies last weekend and his photograph is on posters and makeshift shrines all over campuses, since he is now a martyr for other students.

Roiled by the latest unrest, universities canceled classes from Monday to Thursday. That meant protesters were able to hit the streets at dawn on weekdays after sleeping a few hours. On campus, activists have sprayed fresh graffiti, including phrases cursing administrators.

The fraught situation led police officers on Wednesday to organize an evacuation of dozens of mainland Chinese students across the border to Shenzhen, where hotels offered them free rooms. 

One graduate student at Hong Kong University said he and others from the mainland still felt safer on campuses than on the streets. He said many students do not openly express pro-Beijing opinions and sometimes avoid speaking loudly in Mandarin, the dominant language back home. (He spoke on the condition of anonymitybecause of the tensions.) 

Some university departments have delayed recruitment drives of mainland and foreign students to come up with new strategies; a drop-off in enrollment by mainland graduate students, who often pay full tuition, would lead to budget problems. 

Hong Kong’s public universities, which have more than 86,000 undergraduate and nearly 11,000 graduate students, each have distinct characters. That means the students have occupied different roles in the movement, and the protests have played out in different ways on each campus.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with 20,000 students, is considered the most radical campus. Most of its students are Cantonese-speaking locals, some of whom live nearby with their parents in dense apartment blocks. And the campus is located high in the hills of Sha Tin, isolated from the city center, which is an hour’s ride away by subway.

On Monday, the police arrested five students on the campus’s edge, administrators said. The next morning, the police, still at the border, confronted front line students, and clashes took place over 20 hours. Rocky S. Tuan, the president, who has been known for trying to engage with students during the movement, showed up during a lull in the evening to urge the students to be calm.

“You all should know that I really want to help you. I will do everything within my capability,” he said. “It is the university’s responsibility to maintain peace on campus, not the police.”

But as Mr. Tuan began walking away, the police fired tear gas. Mr. Tuan himself was enveloped in the gas. Students set fires to keep the police from advancing, and scores formed human chains to pass along bricks, umbrellas and bottled water to the front lines. Students sitting on one patch of road made gasoline bombs as if on an assembly line.

“It was a savage move and a type of police violence when they tried to encroach on the university,” said Timothy Chow, 23, an engineering student who graduated in June. “This is why we have to protect our Chinese University of Hong Kong.”

“When I saw our compatriots and Chinese University staff being hurt by the police, I felt particularly furious and wanted to come back to defend our university,” he added.

A demonstration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in September.Credit...Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

At the University of Hong Kong this week, front-line students also set up barricades and, against the advice of professors, threw paving bricks off balconies, even though it is considered the most establishment of the territory’s schools. 

Founded in 1911, it is the territory’s oldest university. Many of its students are foreigners or Hong Kong residents who attended international schools. English is the main language, and the university aims to open a mainland China campus. Among its alumni are many police commanders and Carrie Lam, the territory’s chief executive who is reviled by protesters.

On Monday, the students were on edge in part because the police had taken a student from a dormitory early that morning.

Two liberal law professors, Fu Hualing and Johannes Chan, urged a group of front-line protesters in masks not to resort to violence and to understand that the struggle for democracy was a lifetime commitment, according to video footage. But one masked woman shouted they had no choice, and asked: “How many people are we going to sacrifice?”

“We are better, we are different,” Mr. Fu said.

“But we shall not forgive,” a young man shouted, “we shall not forget.”

On Tuesday, police officers arrived at campus entrances to try to clear the barricades. They fired tear gas, but retreated.

Students have called on the president, Xiang Zhang, to forcefully condemn the police, but he has refrained from doing so, and, unlike Mr. Tuan, rarely holds open forums. On occasion, professors have shown up at the front lines to speak to students, as William Hayward, dean of social sciences, did on Tuesday.

“Obviously, as it goes on and as it gets more polarized, this becomes increasingly a challenge,” Mr. Hayward later said of student engagement. “Some of them do really open up, but at the same time, you know, of course they’re trying to figure out — is he on our side or is he trying to silence us?”

As night fell on Tuesday, students traded shifts at the barricades, walking past a famous eight-meter statue of orange corpses, “The Pillar of Shame,” that memorializes the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy students and workers around Tiananmen Square in Beijing by the Chinese government.

Paul Mozur and Katherine Li contributed reporting.

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6) New York’s Jails Are Failing. Is the Answer 3,600 Miles Away?
City officials are looking to Norway, whose correctional system is a radical departure from cold, harsh American prisons.
By Henrik Pryser Libell and Matthew Haag, November 12, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/nyregion/nyc-rikers-norway.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

Leif Arne Røsand, a warden at Romerike Prison, in a room used to house prisoners with drug problems. Credit...David B. Torch for The New York Times

ULLENSAKER, Norway — From the outside, Romerike Prison looks like many correctional facilities in the United States: barbed-wire fences, guard stations and inmate cells scattered across acres of land.

But inside is a different story. 

Hard plastic windows allow prisoners to look outside. Contemporary artwork lines the hallways. And when prisoners are released — almost all of them will eventually be freed — a warden gives them his personal cellphone number. Call if you need help, he tells them.

In nearly every measurable way, the Norwegian correctional system is a radical departure from cold, harsh American prisons and jails. Yet those stark differences were exactly what led officials in New York City to travel recently to Norway. 

For the first time in a century, the city is embarking on an ambitious plan to rebuild its jails, the second largest correctional system in the United States.

By 2026, four new jails in neighborhoods across New York have been proposed to replace those at Rikers Island, the notorious jail complex plagued by abuse and neglect that has come to symbolize a criminal justice system that ensnares black and Hispanic people in disproportionate numbers. 

With the new jails, city officials want to reimagine not only physical features but also how they operate on the inside, creating an opportunity for New York City, supporters say, to become a national model of more humane incarceration. 

“All of us feel, not just within the city but across the justice system, that we’re really at this kind of transformational moment,” said Elizabeth Glazer, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, the city agency helping lead the project. “That sounds quite grandiose, but it feels very real.”

The City Council approved the $8 billion jails plan in October, but essential questions remain. What should modern jails look like? How should they fit into neighborhoods? What is the role of a correction officer?

In recent months, city officials have set out to find answers, touring facilities across the United States and in Europe. In late September, they touched down in a place far different from New York: Norway, a welfare state with a low crime rate whose population is fairly homogeneous and smaller than New York’s.

New York and Norway also have other significant differences that raise questions about how the country’s practices can be applied in a large urban setting. The city’s new jails will be in the middle of densely populated neighborhoods, while most facilities in Norway are in rural settings. In 2018, Norway had 26 homicides — about how many New York City averages every month.

Most notably, Norway has a broad social safety net, including generous education benefits and pensions, which helps prisoners both while in prison and after their release. Inmates receive a daily allowance of about $7.60, which they can save or spend at the commissary.

Still, its incarceration system has become a model worldwide.

One stop was Halden Prison, tucked among birch and pine trees about an hour’s drive south of Oslo. It has about 200 inmates, roughly half of whom were convicted of violent crimes, including murder, rape and assault.

Inside the perimeter of 25-foot-tall smooth concrete barriers, inmates can wear their own clothing and have some freedom to move around the grounds alone. It is eerily quiet — no sounds of slamming metal doors or dangling key chains or shouting inmates and officers.

It is often considered the world’s most humane maximum-security prison. 

“Halden is in this extraordinarily beautiful, rural setting, and that’s obviously not New York City,” said Ms. Glazer, who toured the property with one of the prison’s architects. “But there are elements of what’s in Halden that you can find anywhere: the openness of light, the effect of air coming through.”

Later in the weeklong visit, the team, which also included criminal justice advocates, visited Romerike, a high-security prison about 65 miles north of Halden in a town of about 39,000 people. 

Tunnels connect prison cells to a cafeteria and a recreation area, allowing inmates to move without officers by their sides. Inmates can decorate their cells with personal items.

There are workshops with wood milling machines, a gym, a stocked kitchen for cooking classes and a library. 

Perhaps the most startling difference, though, is the relationship between officers and inmates. 

Every officer is assigned to about five or six inmates, compared with about 50 prisoners for every officer in New York. In Norway, officers socialize with them over meals and prepare them for life after their release. In fact, when inmates leave they must have a place to live and be enrolled in school or have found a job.

That connection, one Romerike guard told the group from New York, made them “kind of friends” — a remark that startled some visitors.

In an interview, Leif Arne Rosand, a warden at Romerike, said the officer’s comment had been lost in translation, but acknowledged that the way guards open up to inmates might seem unusual to Americans. 

It is called “dynamic security,” a theory that interpersonal relationships among officers and inmates help promote safety. Mr. Rosand offered an example: “If you’re in dialogue with a group where the role of being a father is discussed, you need to tell them you are a father, too,” he said.

During a walk through the prison yard, Mr. Rosand came across one of Romerike’s better-known inmates. He had been convicted of drug-related charges and spent time in a prison in Lithuania. Prison officials asked that his name be withheld because he had not given consent to an interview.

“I am dead tired of being here,” the man told Mr. Rosand, laughing. But he added that the prison was much nicer than the one in Lithuania, which he described with a profanity and added, “Six men per cell and rats.” 

Brenda Cooke, the chief of staff at New York City’s Department of Corrections who also traveled to Norway, said officers in New York already got to know inmates, though on a limited basis.

“The difference was that connection between the relationship of understanding the person who was with us in custody and then how you can support, direct help and shape their opportunity once they’re released,” Ms. Cooke said.

Jarrod Shanahan, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Governors State University outside Chicago who has written extensively about Rikers, said he had little faith in correction officers and administrators being capable of change.

“They can try to implement whatever design and management plan they please, but it will be futile in the face of the immense political power wielded by the city’s jail guards and police,” Dr. Shanahan said. “These entities, backed by powerful unions, simply disregard civilian command and do as they wish in their dealings with working-class communities of color.”

Elias Husamudeen, the president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, the union that represents nearly all of the city’s 11,000 jail officers and that opposed the closing of Rikers, said city officials did not need to travel to Norway to learn how officers could help inmates.

“I’ve been doing this for 31 years and there are inmates I see on the street who were in my custody, and I ask, ‘How are you doing? Are you staying out of trouble?’” said Mr. Husamudeen, illustrating the rapport he had established with prisoners.

Still, in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other country, some of Norway’s methods have been adopted by Oregon and North Dakota. 

Officials in those states, as well as those from New York City, traveled to Norway with a group called Amend, a program at the University of California, San Francisco, that works to improve prison culture and the health of inmates and employees.

“When people come with us, they see that there is a different way,” said Brie Williams, Amend’s director and a professor of medicine at the university. “Treating people with respect and dignity and humanity is key to making things safer and the lives of people incarcerated more meaningful.”

Yet there are fundamental differences between Norway and the United States. America has a history of mass incarceration and stiff punishments, while the longest sentence in Norway for most crimes is 21 years. (The far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a 2011 attack, was sentenced to 21 years, though his sentence can be extended by five-year increments for the rest of his life.)

In New York, the city tracks the use of force by officers on inmates and how often released inmates end up back in custody.

Ms. Glazer of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice said that when she asked Norway correction officials for that kind of data, they said they either did not keep track or did not know; they also did not know how much it costs to run the country’s prisons. (Mr. Rosand, the warden, says Romerike averages about three or four use-of-force incidents per week, though the vast majority do not involve a weapon; New York City averages about 18 per day.)

Norwegian officials have explained their approach as the honorable way to treat people, arguing that anything less would reflect poorly on the country.

“It is a social welfare state, so there is a level of resources applied, whether you’re in or out, that’s just different from here,” Ms. Glazer. “Those big investments, obviously, are beyond our scope.”

Now that the City Council has approved the jails plan, the city is expected to work with architects, designers and construction firms to incorporate the best design aspects they have studied.

“We have an opportunity here to really push the industry to bring us creativity,” Ms. Cooke said. “We’re building these facilities not for today or tomorrow but for 50 years from now.”

Henrik Pryser Libell reported from Ullensaker and Oslo, and Matthew Haag from New York.

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7)  Soldier Kills Man at Lebanon Protest, 1st Fatality in Nation’s Turmoil
The killing was sure to inflame tensions already running high in the country, which has been engulfed by protests for the past month.
By The Associated Press, November 12. 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/world/americas/lebanon-protester-shot.html

Protesters blocked a highway in Beirut on Tuesday.Credit...Nabil Mounzer/EPA, via Shutterstock

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A local official for a Lebanese political party was shot dead by soldiers trying to open a road closed by protesters in southern Beirut late Tuesday, the army reported, marking the first death in 27 days of nationwide protests.

An army statement said the man was shot in the Khaldeh neighborhood after an altercation during which a soldier opened fire to disperse the crowd, hitting one person. It said the army command had opened an investigation.

The killing was sure to inflame tensions already running high in the country, which has been engulfed by nationwide protests since Oct. 17. The leaderless, economically driven protests were triggered by new proposed taxes and have quickly evolved into the most sustained that Lebanon has seen in years.

The victim was identified as a local official with the Progressive Socialist Party headed by Walid Jumblatt, political leader of Lebanon’s Druze community. It was confirmed by the party’s Al-Anbaa newspaper.

Protesters had poured into the streets Tuesday night closing roads around Lebanon after President Michel Aoun said in a televised interview that there could be further delays before a new government is formed.

Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned his government Oct. 29 in response to the demonstrations. Protesters are demanding a government made up of technocrats that would address the worst economic and financial crisis Lebanon has confronted in decades. 

Lebanon’s banking association said banks would remain closed because of a strike by employees. Banks were supposed to have reopened Tuesday following a three-day closure. Depositors have rushed to withdraw money in recent days amid the rapidly deteriorating economic and financial crisis.

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8) Handcuffed for Selling Churros: Inside the World of Illegal Food Vendors
On the male-dominated black market, a permit for mobile food vending can easily cost $25,000.
By Sharon Otterman, November 12, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/nyregion/churro-lady-subway-vendors.html

María Falcon, center, sold churros during a protest on Monday at the Broadway Junction subway station in Brooklyn, where a fellow vendor was detained last week.Credit...Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York Times

The hot dog carts that are synonymous with New York City street food are run mostly by men. So are the ice cream stands in Central Park, and the halal carts dishing out aromatic tins of chicken and rice in Midtown. 

But just as much a part of New York City life, if harder to spot, are the female street vendors, who often hawk their wares from small pushcarts. They sell things like sliced mangos on busy street corners, churros on subway platforms and Italian ices outside of schools in warm weather, usually for a dollar or two.

A video of police officers handcuffing a woman selling churros on Friday in a subway station in Brooklyn has focused attention on this subset of street sellers, who generally work without permits or permanent locations. That puts them at risk of fines, property confiscation and arrest.

[Read more: The policing of churro sales in the subway.]

Their decision to work illegally, those who study street vendors say, is linked to a broader problem: It is practically impossible to get a permit for mobile food vending in New York City, except on the black market. In that booming, male-dominated economy, $200 city-issued permits, good for two years, can easily rent for upward of $25,000 each.

The woman’s detention was also part of a string of recent incidents posted to social media that some say highlight aggressive policing in the subways, even as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo calls for 500 more officers to join the force. On Monday afternoon, another woman was arrested after selling churros at a different station in Brooklyn. The police said she had two outstanding warrants, for prior summonses for selling unlicensed food.

Edward Delatorre, the chief of the Police Department’s transit bureau, said a common theme was that people refused to cooperate with the police.

“When people don’t follow our requests or commands, there’s a potential for escalation,” Chief Delatorre said at a Metropolitan Transportation Authority board meeting on Tuesday.

Why is there a black market for mobile food vending licenses?

To operate legally, mobile food vendors need two documents: a mobile food vending license for themselves, which costs $50, and a mobile food vending permit for each cart or food truck, which costs $200.

The city limits the number of citywide mobile food vending permits to 2,900 — a cap that has remained unchanged since 1983. Even though an additional 2,200 permits are issued for things like seasonal food selling and fruit and vegetable vendors, demand far exceeds supply. 

Because of the permits’ scarcity, the market for them functions a bit like the taxi medallion market, said Mohamed Attia, executive director of the Street Vendor Project, which supports lifting the cap. Owners sometimes lease their permits to other vendors — mostly poor, immigrant families — for upward of 125 times the price, which can drive the vendors into debt. 

This practice violates city Department of Health regulations, because the permits are nontransferable. As a result, Mr. Attia said, transactions are typically all-cash deals and no paperwork is exchanged, leaving the lessees particularly vulnerable. 

Kabir Ahmed, a halal cart vendor profiled by The New York Times in 2017, for example, said he had paid $25,000 to lease his license.

“We think it doesn’t make any sense that they are able to get vending licenses, but not vending permits,” Mr. Attia said.

How many people are waiting for vending permits?

New York capped its wait-list for citywide permits in 2007, when there were 2,500 names on it, Mr. Attia said. So, vendors who have gone into business since then are likely leasing their permits. The Street Vendor Project estimates that some 20,000 vendors work on the city’s streets, more than half of whom sell food.

Immigration status is not a central factor limiting people’s access to their own permits, Mr. Attia added. Undocumented immigrants can get both mobile food vending licenses and permits, because only a tax identification number is required for them.

A special class of permits exists for disabled veterans, who are permitted to sell food along the perimeter of city parks without restriction. Also, unlimited permits can be granted for food vending on private property, with a lease agreement from the owner, the Department of Health said.

What can be changed?

The City Council is considering legislation to gradually increase the number of mobile food vending permits over the next several years. Councilman Rafael L. Espinal Jr. said on Monday that 29 Council members had signed on; his district includes the subway station, Broadway Junction, where the woman was handcuffed on Friday.

In the State Senate, Jessica Ramos of Queens has introduced a billthat would eliminate caps on the number of food and merchandise street vendors statewide. The legislation is similar to a recent law in California that largely legalized street selling.

“It’s about legalizing their small businesses,” Ms. Ramos said.

What are the concerns about adding permits?

Opponents of issuing more permits, which include the restaurant industry and various business improvement district groups, say the changes would hurt brick-and-mortar storefronts and congest sidewalks. They want robust enforcement of the existing rules and more regulations dictating where street vendors can operate. 

Mayor Bill de Blasio did not throw his weight behind adding permits in 2017, when an earlier version of the bill was considered in the City Council. He has since said he supports an increase. 

Also in 2017, the city’s Department of Health warned that without additional sanitary commissaries to house food carts, and better enforcement of the smoke some of them produce, more carts could pose health challenges.

Did the churro seller detained last week have a permit?

On Friday, several police officers surrounded Elsa Morochoduchi, a 43-year-old immigrant from Ecuador who was selling churros in a subway station, which is not permitted by the M.T.A. They handcuffed her, confiscated her cart and ultimately gave her a summons. 

Mr. Attia said that he had later met with Ms. Morochoduchi and that she did not have a vending license or a permit for her churro cart. If she had both documents, she would have been able to sell on the street, but not in the station.

Is she typical of women selling food on the street?

Yes. In October, the Urban Justice Center published what it believes is the first survey of female street vendors in New York. Of the 50 women surveyed, 36 were from Mexico or Ecuador, like Elsa. Their average age was 46, and most were the primary breadwinners in their families.

The vendors typically lived in Queens, Brooklyn or the Bronx, and 72 percent of them did not have vending permits. The women said the work could be dangerous, but some said they still preferred it over domestic or restaurant work, their other main employment options.

What percentage of vendors are women?

The issue is lightly researched, so it is impossible to know. On the lucrative, tourist-rich corners of Manhattan, mobile food vendors tend to be men. But in some immigrant neighborhoods, the majority of the sellers are women. 

In Corona, Queens, for example, a Street Vendor Project survey in 2017 found that 79 percent of the vendors were women. The organization also found that women seem to be disproportionately penalized for street vending. 

In 2018, 57 percent of the tickets for unlicensed mobile food vending were issued to women, according to data from the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. At the same time, only 22 percent of the 46,000 people who received mobile food vending licenses from 2000 to 2018 were female, the Street Vendor Project found. 

Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Azi Paybarah contributed reporting.

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*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* *---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------* Working people are helping to feed the poor hungry corporations!  Charity for the Wealthy!