Yemeni women activists at risk; Brazil court OKs investigating Bolsonaro; HRW: Turkey forcing disappearances; ACLU says relief package must cover voters; Refugee-led groups battle virus on front lines
NewsHero - April 29, 2020 - Issue 87
Welcome to today’s edition of NewsHero for April 29, 2020.
**Now through June 1, 2020, new annual subscriptions to NewsHero will each be contributing 25% to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund**
At NewsHero we put the heroes in the headlines and give them the attention that they deserve. Our coverage puts the focus on those who are helping, over those causing harm. Here you’ll find the same top-priority issues, but you won’t find clickbait, and what you read won’t be driven by ad sales.
Hubble's Cosmic Reef (Image: NASA, ESA, STScI)
NewsHero Notes
NASA - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
NASA is celebrating 30 years of the Hubble Space Telescope with the unveiling of a “stunning new portrait of a firestorm of starbirth in a neighboring galaxy.” The image is referred to as the “Cosmic Reef.”
Voter rights advocates - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
A federal civil rights trial will take place to determine if hundreds of thousands of people with felony convictions will be able to vote this fall in Florida, reports NPR.
In this March 4, 2020, photo, Bardis Assayaghi, who was detained by Houthis in Yemen, poses for a portrait with her manicure in the colors of the Yemeni flag, in her home near Cairo, Egypt. Assayaghi, a prominent poet who circulated verses about Houthi repression, was detained last fall in a school and counted around 120 women held there. Some nights, the head of the Sanaa criminal investigation division, Sultan Zabin, took the “young, pretty girls” out of the school to rape them, another former detainee Samera al-Huri and Assayaghi said. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Afternoon Brief
Women’s rights advocates - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Women who dare dissent, or even enter the public sphere, have become targets in an escalating crackdown by Houthi rebels who control northern Yemen.
Activists and former detainees described to The Associated Press a network of secret detention facilities where they are tortured and sometimes raped.
“Many had it worse than me,” said Samera al-Huri, 33, an activist who survived three months in detention until she confessed on camera to fabricated prostitution charges, a grave insult in conservative Yemen.
As men die in battle or languish in jail in a conflict now dragging into its sixth year, Yemeni women have increasingly taken political roles. In many cases, women are organizing protests, leading movements, working for international organizations or advocating peace initiatives—all acts the Houthis increasingly view as a threat.
“This is the darkest age for Yemeni women,” said Rasha Jarhum, founder of the Peace Track Initiative, which lobbies for women’s inclusion in peace talks between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
Brazil’s Supreme Court - 🦸♀️🦸♀️
Brazil’s Supreme Court has given the green light for the top public prosecutor to investigate allegations against President Jair Bolsonaro of improper interference in the police force, after he named a family friend to head the federal police.
The appointment came just days after Justice Minister Sergio Moro quit, accusing the president of meddling in law enforcement for political motives.
Moro alleged in a televised address that Bolsonaro had repeatedly said he wanted a “personal contact” in the top police job “from whom he could get information, intelligence reports.”
Based on the results of the police investigation, the public prosecutor will decide whether to press charges against the president. An indictment would have to be approved by the lower house.
Human Rights Watch - 🦸♀️🦸♀️🦸♀️
Human Rights Watch is calling on Turkish authorities to launch “an investigation into credible testimony from a man in pretrial detention that state agents forcibly disappeared him for nine months and tortured him.”
Gökhan Türkmen is one of at least two dozen people over the past three years whose families, or in a few cases the individuals themselves, have said they have been abducted and forcibly disappeared by government agents for many months, HRW reports.
“Flagrantly flouting its legal obligations, Turkey has consistently failed to investigate credible evidence of enforced disappearances,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should urgently investigate Türkmen’s allegations that he was abducted, tortured, and pressured to remain silent, and ensure that he and his family are protected against reprisals for speaking out.”
Türkmen, 43, spoke for the first time during a February 10 court hearing about his abduction, enforced disappearance, and torture, says HRW.
ACLU Says Congress Must Include Voter Provisions In Relief Package
UNHCR, New Humanitarian say refugee-led groups on front lines battling coronavirus
Tech. Sgt. Dion Richardson with the 152nd Medical Group respirator fit tests Soldiers of 240th Engineer Company before support operations in response to COVID-19, Friday, Apr. 17, 2020, Las Vegas, Nevada. (Flickr/The National Guard)
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.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says that “Congress must address COVID-19’s impact on the 2020 elections by passing a relief package that requires states to provide no-excuse absentee voting and expanded early voting.”
Refugee-led organizations are finding themselves on the COVID-19 response front lines in camps and cities around the world as other groups withdraw, reports The New Humanitarian.
UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, is supporting efforts to maximize the skills and resources that refugee medics can provide.
Medical personnel and supplies needed to combat the coronavirus are unable to reach two million people in northeast Syria due to restrictions on aid deliveries from Damascus and Iraq, reports Human Rights Watch.
Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Tuesday that every American in need of a COVID-19 test should be able to get one by late May or early June, reports Axios.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Gilead Sciences Inc’s experimental antiviral drug Remdesivir will become the standard of care for COVID-19 after early results from a key clinical trial on Wednesday showed it helped patients recover more quickly.
Health workers react as people applaud from their nearby houses in support of the medical staff that are working on the COVID-19 virus outbreak at the Jimenez Diaz Foundation University Hospital in Madrid, Spain, April 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Disability advocates expressed relief as U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said she will not recommend that Congress waive the main requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), reports NPR.
Thousands of independent restaurant owners from across the U.S. were scheduled to join a Zoom press conference to urge Congress to create a “restaurant stabilization fund,” reports Axios.
Committee to Protect Journalists is joined by 73 media and rights groups signing the #FreeThePress petition, calling on Asian heads of state to release jailed journalists.
Demonstrators in Lebanon, with its economy suffering amid the pandemic, are taking to the streets to protest increasing hunger and poverty, reports CNN.
After a group of state attorneys general had asked for an injunction against the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule, the Supreme Court has denied blocking the rule.
American news website Axios qualified for a federal Paycheck Protection Program loan—the organization says it will be returning the money.
“Once spiked twice shy?” The latest from Coronadaily, can be read here.
Extra! Extra!
Food issues—pandemic underway or not—are never to be taken lightly.
Shortages and surpluses can have devastating consequences for the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.
With that in mind, we’d like to extend our services to assist Belgium, as residents are being urged to eat pomme frites—French fries—twice a week.
It seems the coronavirus crisis has caused a surplus of potatoes in the country, and more than 750,000 tons of potatoes are at risk of being tossed in the trash.
Sometimes you just step up and do what you gotta do for your country. And if that means eating extra fries—we’re ready to enlist.
Sources:
Hubble captures a 'Cosmic Reef' in stunning 30th anniversary image - Space
Voting Rights For Hundreds Of Thousands Of Felons At Stake In Florida Trial - NPR
Brazil's supreme court allows investigation of President Bolsonaro - CNN
Bolsonaro taps family friend as Brazil top cop, Supreme Court OKs probe - Reuters
Brazil's Bolsonaro isolated by coronavirus, corruption investigation, Moro charges - The Washington Post
Women who dare dissent targeted for abuse by Yemen's rebels - AP News
Briefing to the United Nations Security Council UN Special Envoy for Yemen – ReliefWeb
WHO to Slash Humanitarian Aid to Yemen After Trump Cuts Agency’s Funding - Democracy Now!
Turkey: Enforced Disappearances, Torture - Human Rights Watch
Amnesty 2019 Report: Judiciary is Still a Tool of Pressure in Turkey - Bianet
Congress: Expand Voting Access During COVID-19 - ACLU
75% of Lebanon needs aid after coronavirus, and hungry protesters are back on the streets - CNN
Fauci: Everyone who needs a test should be able to get one by June - Axios
Gilead's remdesivir meets main goal of trial in COVID-19 patients - Reuters
Refugee groups fill gaps in COVID-19 response, and they need support - The New Humanitarian
Refugee health workers step up for coronavirus response in Latin America - UNHCR
Millions in Syria Await Blocked Relief: Daily Brief - Human Rights Watch
Secretary DeVos Forgoes Waiving Disability Law Amid School Closures - NPR
Chefs push Congress for coronavirus "restaurant stabilization fund" - Axios
CPJ, 73 media and rights groups urge Asian heads of state to release jailed journalists - Committee to Protect Journalists
Supreme Court denies motion to block Trump 'public charge' rule during pandemic - The Hill
Axios returns PPP loan - Axios
Once spiked twice shy? - Coronadaily
Coronavirus: Belgians urged to eat fries twice a week during lockdown - CNBC