Supreme Court rules for unanimous decisions in state trials; German court to hold trial of accused Syrian torturers; Trudeau to move forward on gun control; Rights group opposes suspended immigration
NewsHero - April 21, 2020 - Issue 81
Welcome to today’s edition of NewsHero for April 21, 2020.
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Team NewsHero
Kashmiri photojournalist Masrat Zahra. (Masrat Zahra)
NewsHero Notes
Committee to Protect Journalists - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday that authorities in Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir should immediately cease harassment of journalists Masrat Zahra and Peerzada Ashiq, letting them report freely. “Police should drop their investigations into both journalists, and India should reform its laws to make such capricious actions by police impossible,” said Aliya Iftikhar, CPJ’s senior Asia researcher.
Human Rights Watch - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Human Rights Watch reports that the Ethiopian government’s recent changes to asylum procedures for Eritreans leaves children at risk. “Ethiopia has long welcomed tens of thousands of Eritreans fleeing persecution each year,” said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “With no letup in repression in Eritrea, the Ethiopian government shouldn’t be denying protection to Eritrean nationals, particularly unaccompanied children.”
Afternoon Brief
U.S. Supreme Court - 🦸♀️🦸♀️
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that juries in state criminal trials must be unanimous to convict a defendant, settling a quirk of constitutional law that had allowed divided votes to result in convictions in Louisiana and Oregon.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court that the practice is inconsistent with the Constitution’s right to a jury trial and that it should be discarded as a vestige of Jim Crow laws in Louisiana and racial, ethnic and religious bigotry that led to its adoption in Oregon in the 1930s.
“In fact, no one before us contests any of this; courts in both Louisiana and Oregon have frankly acknowledged that race was a motivating factor in the adoption of their States’ respective nonunanimity rules,” Gorsuch wrote.
“We are heartened that the Court has held, once and for all, that the promise of the Sixth Amendment fully applies in Louisiana, rejecting any concept of second-class justice,” said lawyer Ben Cohen. “In light of the COVID-19 crisis, it is essential that prisoners who are wrongfully incarcerated be given the chance for release as soon as possible.”
Prosecutors, plaintiffs in trial against accused torturers - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
In the first legal proceedings worldwide over state-sponsored torture in Syria, two alleged former Syrian intelligence officers accused of crimes against humanity for Bashar al-Assad’s regime will appear in a German court on Thursday.
Anwar al-Bunni, a Syrian lawyer in his sixties, was an indefatigable advocate for human rights in his home country. Bunni was arrested at his Damascus home in May 2006 and thrown in a state prison, where he spent five years until being freed during the Syrian uprising in 2011.
Bunni, who has lived as a refugee in Berlin, will not be one of the plaintiffs in Thursday’s trial, though he is a respected figure in Germany’s 700,000 strong Syrian community, and has convinced numerous victims to come forward.
For Bunni, speaking to AFP in Berlin, the trial will send “an important message” to the Assad regime: “You will never have impunity, so think about it!”
German lawyer Patrick Kroker represents six Syrian plaintiffs, who may yet be joined by a further two women. “This is not about revenge, it is about exposing the truth,” Kroker told AFP.
Justin Trudeau, gun-control advocates - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that he would be proceeding with gun-control legislation he promised during last year’s election campaign following the country’s deadliest shooting, which happened over the weekend in rural Nova Scotia, reports The Washington Post.
“I can say that we were on the verge of introducing legislation to ban assault-style weapons across this country,” Trudeau said. “It was interrupted when the pandemic caused Parliament to be suspended, but we have every intention of moving forward on that measure, and potentially other measures, when Parliament returns.”
Gun-control groups on Monday urged Public Safety Minister Bill Blair to ban the new sale of military-style weapons. “While we appreciate the capacity for substantive policy change is difficult at this moment,” the groups wrote to Blair, “we implore you to take one decisive, achievable action right now. . . . As has been well documented, these guns pose an excessive risk to public safety and serve no reasonable purpose.”
Blair said he planned to bring about gun-control legislation “as quickly as possible.”
Advocacy Groups Oppose Trump Plan To Suspend Immigration To US
UN calls for global access to virus testing, supplies, drugs
High school students lining up for temperature checks in China’s Shandong Province this week. (Xinhua/Fang Dehua via Getty Images)
NewsHero is continuing to offer a compilation of stories and resources that best represent the current state of the coronavirus pandemic, centered on those individuals, institutions, and organizations stepping up to end this crisis as quickly and effectively as possible. The public, too, has a duty. This includes staying responsibly informed and taking the situation seriously, while remaining as cool-headed and as isolated as possible. These are strange and difficult times, but we will endure.
Critics are speaking out against Donald Trump’s decision to temporarily suspend immigration to the U.S. as the country grapples with the effects of the coronavirus crisis. “This is not about the policy. It is about the message the president wants to send. He wants people to turn against ‘the other.’ And, regardless of the valuable contributions immigrants are making to the response and recovery, he sees immigrants as the easiest to blame,” tweeted Ali Noorani, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
U.N. leaders have called for efforts to ensure that all people have access to testing, medical supplies, drugs and future vaccines, especially in developing countries where virus cases are rising. “#BREAKING UN member states demand ‘equitable’ access to future COVID-19 vaccines: resolution,” tweeted AFP.
The New York State Nurses Association filed multiple lawsuits on Monday, accusing the New York State Department of Health, and Westchester Medical Center and Montefiore Medical Center of allegedly “compromising the health and safety of” members fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, reports NBC News.
Activists and politicians have concerns regarding Samaritan’s Purse, the Christian group running the emergency field hospital in New York City’s Central Park, which is requiring all staff and volunteers to sign a “statement of faith” opposing gay marriage and abortion.
Despite warnings from health officials and evidence from other countries, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) has said he’ll allow a number of businesses to re-open in the state starting Friday. Critics say the decision is reckless, including Stacey Abrams, who lost to Kemp in 2018, who called the move “dangerously incompetent.”
Facebook has confirmed it is banning promotions for protests that violate social distancing rules, reports The Verge.
ProPublica spoke to experts from around the globe to put together a report titled, “Coronavirus Advice From Abroad: 7 Lessons America’s Governors Should Not Ignore as They Reopen Their Economies”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said Monday that she and senior members of her staff would be receiving reduced pay as the state makes budget cuts amid the COVID-19 crisis, reports The Hill.
Scientist June Almeida operates an electron microscope in 1963 at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto, Canada. One year later, Almeida would become the first person to see a coronavirus using microscope techniques she developed. (Norman James, Toronto Star/Getty)
A new National Geographic story centers on then 34-year-old scientist June Almeida, who in 1964 saw under her microscope what would later come to be known as the coronavirus.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans on Sunday to roll out antibody testing this week to determine who has been infected with COVID-19, conducting the “largest survey of any state population that has been done,” reports CNBC.
Jordan’s King Abdullah says his country will export medical equipment to the United States to help fight the coronavirus.
World-renowned chef José Andrés spoke to Anderson Cooper for CBS’ 60 Minutes to discuss the challenges in getting food to Americans during the pandemic.
U.S. restaurants asked Congress for more financial aid on Monday to help weather the coronavirus crisis ravaging the industry, saying they are on track to lose $240 billion by the end of 2020. The National Restaurant Association said its latest survey showed two-thirds of its workers—more than 8 million people—have been laid off or furloughed as four in 10 restaurants are closed.
New York-based Shake Shack, one of several restaurant chains to receive federal loans intended to assist small businesses during the pandemic, said that it is returning the entire $10 million.
And, ending on an appropriate note, Wired published a piece on Monday saying that coronavirus news fatigue has set in. We feel you.🤔
Extra! Extra!
We caught a story from Mashable via Twitter that we had to mention here. A paralyzed woman named Claire Lomas walked ten miles for charity wearing a bionic suit.
With the help of a ReWalk robotic exoskeleton, Loman completed the Great South Run in Portsmouth, England, to raise money for the Nicholls Spinal Injury Foundation.
Watch video of the inspiring story here.
Our heroes are identified as follows:
🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️ - the hero, hands down. - Meaning that it wasn’t even a close call.
🦸♀️🦸♀️ - the hero, but… - Meaning that in this situation the call needed to be looked at in a little more detail. For example, in this case, they did the right thing but there have been some questionable calls in the past.
🦸♀️ - the hero, but only here, and it was a close call. - Meaning that in this instance they did the right thing but it was either out of character or a maddeningly close call.
Sources:
Jammu and Kashmir police launch investigations into 2 journalists - Committee to Protect Journalists
Lone Eritrean Children at Risk in Ethiopia - Human Rights Watch
Supreme Court: Criminal juries must be unanimous to convict - AP News
Supreme Court Guarantees Right To Unanimous Verdict In Serious Criminal Trials - NPR
Supreme Court rules criminal jury verdicts must be unanimous, overturning decades-old precedent - Fox News
Alleged Syrian war criminals face landmark trial in Germany - Al Jazeera
Syria refugees to face their torturers in German court - AP News
In Germany, Syrians take their torturers to court - AFP
'We're going to get through this together': Trudeau calls for unity after mass killing - CBC News
Nova Scotia shootings: Canada's Trudeau pledges gun control - The Washington Post
Nova Scotia shooting: Justin Trudeau is pushing for stricter Canadian gun laws - CNN
Trump claims he will temporarily suspend immigration over coronavirus fears - CNNPolitics
UN urges world to quickly scale up medicines, vaccines - AP News
AFP news agency - Twitter
Nurses union sues New York state, claims 'grossly inadequate' coronavirus protections - NBC News
Questions mount over Christian group behind Central Park Covid-19 hospital - The Guardian
June Almeida discovered coronaviruses decades ago—but got little recognition - National Geographic
Gov. Cuomo says New York will roll out antibody testing in 'aggressive way' this week - CNBC
Governor Brian Kemp to reopen some businesses as early as Friday in Georgia - CNNPolitics
Facebook is banning protest events that violate social distancing rules - The Verge
Coronavirus Advice From Abroad: 7 Lessons America’s Governors Should Not Ignore as They Reopen Their Economies - ProPublica
Jordan's King Abdullah says country will export medical equipment to U.S. to fight coronavirus - Face the Nation
Addressing the strain the coronavirus has put on America's food supply chain with José Andrés - 60 Minutes - CBS News
U.S. restaurants seek more aid, on track to lose $240 billion by end of 2020 - Reuters
Shake Shack returning $10 million government loan meant for small businesses - NBC News
Coronavirus News Fatigue Is Officially Setting In - Wired
A bionic suit helped this incredible paralyzed woman walk 10 miles for charity - Mashable