19 October 22
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Fresh protests ignited around Iran by 16-year-old Asra Panahi’s death after schoolgirls assaulted in raid on high school in Ardabil
According to the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, 16-year-old Asra Panahi died after security forces raided the Shahed girls high school in Ardabil on 13 October and demanded a group of girls sing an anthem that praises Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
When they refused, security forces beat the pupils, leading to a number of girls being taken to hospital and others arrested. On Friday, Panahi reportedly died in hospital of injuries sustained at the school.
Iranian officials denied that its security forces were responsible and, after her death sparked outrage across the country, a man identified as her uncle appeared on state TV channels claiming she had died from a congenital heart condition.
Schoolgirls have emerged as a powerful force after videos went viral of classrooms of pupils waving their hijabs in the air, taking down pictures of Iran’s supreme leaders and shouting anti-regime slogans in support of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman who died after being detained by Iran’s morality police for not wearing her hijab correctly in August.
The Iranian authorities responded by launching a series of raids on schools across the country last week, with reports of officers forcing their way into classrooms, violently arresting schoolgirls and pushing them into waiting cars, and firing teargas into school buildings.
In a statement posted on Sunday, Iran’s teachers’ union condemned the “brutal and inhumane” raids and called for the resignation of the education minister, Yousef Nouri.
News of Panahi’s death has further mobilised schoolgirls across the country to organise and join protests over the weekend.
Among them was 16-year-old Naznin*, whose parents had kept her at home for fear that she would be arrested for protesting at her school.
“I haven’t been allowed to go to the school because my parents fear for my life. But what has it changed? The regime continues to kill and arrest schoolgirls,” says Naznin.
“What good am I if I simply sit outraged at home? Myself and fellow students across Iran have decided to stand in protest on the streets this week. I’ll do it even if I have to now hide it from my parents.”
19-year-old Nergis* also joined the protests, and was hit by rubber bullets in her back and legs. She says Panahi’s death has motivated her and her friends to continue to protest, despite the danger.
She says what happened to Panahi – as well as the deaths of two other schoolgirls, 17-year-old Nika Shahkarami and 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh, both at the hands of the Iranian security forces – has united young people across Iran under a common cause.
“I don’t have a single relative in Ardabil, but with this brutal crackdown on our sisters, who were just 16 years old, they’ve awakened the whole nation,” she says.
“We never knew we were so united – across the Baloch regions as well as the Kurdish regions. The world has heard about Nika, Sarina and Asra, but there are so many other nameless children who we know nothing about.
“It’s not just Asra’s death,” she says. “The Islamic Republic has been killing our people for 40 years, but our voices weren’t heard. Let the world know this is no longer a protest – we are calling for a revolution. Now that you’re all listening to our voices, we will not stop.”
According to the latest report by the Iran Human Rights group, 215 people, including 27 children, have been killed in the nationwide protests, as of 17 October.
Ron DeSantis has made action against voter fraud a centerpiece of his tenure as governor of Florida. (photo: Joe Raedle/Getty)
“What is wrong with this state, man?” Patterson protested as he was being escorted to a police car in handcuffs. “Voter fraud? Y’all said anybody with a felony could vote, man.”
Body-worn camera footage recorded by local police captured the confusion and outrage of Hillsborough County residents who found themselves in handcuffs for casting a ballot following investigations by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Office of Election Crimes and Security.
The Aug. 18 arrests — conducted hours before DeSantis called a news conference to tout his crackdown on alleged voter fraud — were carried out by state police officers accompanied by local law enforcement.
The never-before-seen footage, obtained by the Herald/Times through public records requests, offers a personal glimpse of the effects of DeSantis’ efforts to root out perceived voter fraud.
“They’re going to pay the price,” DeSantis said during the news conference announcing the arrests.
Of the 19 people arrested, 12 were registered as Democrats and at least 13 are Black, the Herald/Times found.
Romona Oliver, 55, was about to leave for work when police walked up her driveway at 6:52 a.m. and told her they had a warrant for her arrest.
“Oh my God,” she said.
An officer told her she was being arrested for fraud, a third-degree felony, for voting illegally in 2020.
“Voter fraud?” she said. “I voted, but I ain’t commit no fraud.”
Oliver and 19 others are facing up to five years in prison after being accused by DeSantis and state police of both registering, and voting, illegally.
They are accused of violating a state law that doesn’t allow people convicted of murder or felony sex offenses to automatically be able to vote after they complete their sentence. A 2018 state constitutional amendment that restored the right to vote to many felons excluded this group.
But, as the videos further support, the amendment and subsequent actions by state lawmakers caused mass confusion about who was eligible, and the state’s voter registration forms offer no clarity. They only require a potential voter to swear, under penalty of perjury, that they’re not a felon, or if they are, that their rights have been restored. The forms do not clarify that those with murder convictions don’t get automatic restoration of their rights.
Oliver, who served 18 years in prison on a second-degree murder charge, registered to vote at the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles on Feb. 14, 2020. Six months later, she updated her address and completed another registration form.
After brief eligibility checks by the Department of State — which reports to DeSantis and is responsible for cleaning the rolls of ineligible voters — she was given a voter ID card both times.
Oliver wasn’t removed from the rolls until March 30 this year, more than two years later.
‘There’s your defense’
The recordings by Tampa police and Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies reveal officers who were patient, understanding — almost apologetic.
A handcuffed Nathan Hart, 49, found a sympathetic ear when he explained how he ended up registering and voting illegally, according to the sheriff’s office recording.
As he stood handcuffed, he told officers that he signed up to vote at the encouragement of somebody at “the driver’s license place.” Records show it was in March 2020.
“I said, ‘I’m a convicted felon, I’m pretty sure I can’t,’ ” Hart, a registered sex offender, told officers. “He goes, ‘Well, are you still on probation?’ ”
Hart’s probation had ended a month earlier, Hart recalled. The person told him to sign up anyway.
“He said, ‘Well, just fill out this form, and if they let you vote, then you can,’ ” Hart said. “ ‘If they don’t, then you can’t.’ ”
“Then there’s your defense,” one of the officers replied. “You know what I’m saying? That sounds like a loophole to me.”
“Well, we can hope,” Hart said.
The officer was correct in one way: State law says that a voter has to “willfully” commit the crime — a hurdle that has forced some prosecutors not to charge ineligible voters.
In Lake County this year, for example, prosecutors declined to bring charges against six convicted sex offenders who voted in 2020.
“In all of the instances where sex offenders voted, each appear to have been encouraged to vote by various mailings and misinformation,” prosecutor Jonathan Olson wrote. “Each were given voter registration cards which would lead one to believe they could legally vote in the election. The evidence fails to show willful actions on a part of these individuals.”
‘Political Strategy’
DeSantis’ voter fraud arrests are being carried out by the Office of Statewide Prosecution, which is restricted by law to prosecuting crimes, including voting, involving two or more judicial circuits. Those crimes are usually “complex, often large scale, organized criminal activity,” according to its website. The statewide prosecutor is Nicholas Cox, who was reappointed by Attorney General Ashley Moody in 2019.
Oliver’s lawyer, Tampa attorney Mark Rankin, said he thinks DeSantis’ election security force chose these 20 in particular because the public would not have sympathy for people who were convicted of murder or sexual offenses. During a news conference announcing the arrests, DeSantis noted their criminal records.
“That’s not an accident,” Rankin said. “That’s a political strategy.”
Public defenders representing Hart and Patterson declined to comment.
Patterson, a registered sex offender, wondered why he was being singled out when officers showed up at his home, the recording shows.
“This happened years ago,” he told officers. “Why now? Why me?”
Even the Tampa police officer driving Patterson to the jail seemed surprised by the charges against him. En route, the officer received a phone call and appeared to briefly discuss Patterson’s case.
“I’ve never seen these charges before in my entire life,” the officer said.
Handcuffed in the back seat, Patterson, 40, stewed. He said his brother encouraged him to register to vote.
“I always listen to everybody else. Vote for this. Vote for — come on, man,” Patterson grumbled. “I thought felons were able to vote. That’s why I signed a petition form, that’s what I remember.
“Why would you let me vote if I wasn’t able to vote?”
“I’m not sure, buddy,” the officer replied. “I don’t know.”
New coronavirus booster shots target the omicron variant of the virus. (photo: Ringo Chiu/AFP)
Instead of a single new Greek letter variant, a group of immune-evading omicron spinoffs are popping up all over the world
But this fall and winter are expected to be different: Instead of a single ominous variant lurking on the horizon, experts are nervously eyeing a swarm of viruses — and a new evolutionary phase in the pandemic.
This time, it’s unlikely we will be barraged with a new collection of Greek alphabet variants. Instead, one or more of the multiple versions of the omicron variant that keep popping up could drive the next wave. They are different flavors of omicron, but eerily alike — adorned with a similar combination of mutations. Each new subvariant seems to outdo the last in its ability to dodge immune defenses.
“It is this constant evolutionary arms race we’re having with this virus,” said Jonathan Abraham, an assistant professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School.
The pace of evolution is so fast that many scientists depend on Twitter to keep up. A month ago, scientists were worried about BA.2.75, a variant that took off in South Asia and spawned a cloud of other concerning sublineages. In the United States, BA.4.6 and BF.7 have been slowly picking up steam. A few weeks ago, BQ.1.1 started to steal the spotlight — and still looks like a contender to take over this fall in Europe and North America. A lineage called XBB looms on the sidelines, and threatens to scramble the forecast.
To focus too much on any one possible variant is, many experts argue, missing the point. What matters is that all these new threats are accumulating mutations in similar spots in what’s called the receptor binding domain — a key spot in the spike protein where virus-blocking antibodies dock. If those antibodies can’t dock, they can’t block. Each new mutation gives the virus a leg up in avoiding this primary line of immune defense.
Most virologists demur when asked about which variant — or variants — will be infecting people this winter. That doesn’t mean they think the virus is standing still.
Much of the world’s population has gained a measure of immunity because of vaccinations and infections with omicron. That protection gave us the relative freedoms of the moment — with many people returning to normal life. But protection is fleeting for two key reasons: immunity wanes and the virus is changing. And then there’s this: Monoclonal antibodies, targeted drugs that can be used as a treatment or to protect immunocompromised people who don’t respond well to vaccines, are likely to be knocked out by future variants.
“It’s important for people to understand that the fact there’s not a Greek letter name that has come out does not mean the virus stopped evolving,” said Jesse Bloom, an expert on viral evolution at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, who described the evolutionary rate of SARS-CoV-2 as “strikingly rapid.”
Instead of worrying about which variant will win, or even focusing on particular mutations, many scientists have shifted to watching hot spots — specific sites on the virus, known by numbers like a street address, where any change in the virus’s code might allow it to slip by the neutralizing antibodies that are a first line of defense.
The coronavirus spike protein is made up of about 1,300 building blocks called amino acids, and mutations that change even a single building block can make it harder for antibodies to block the virus. Instead of a Greek alphabet, scientists are maintaining shortlists of worrisome spots for mutation: 346, 444, 445, 452, 460, 486, 490.
Seeing so many lineages of the coronavirus develop similar constellations of genetic changes at these spots is a sign of convergent evolution — when different versions of the virus have slammed into the wall of immune defenses in the human population, and then come up with similar ways to get around them. That happens with influenza but is fairly new to SARS-CoV-2. And in the case of the coronavirus, the more mutations, the bigger advantage a new variant seems to have.
Cornelius Roemer, a computational biologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, has been ranking the new omicron sublineages by how many mutations they have in the receptor binding domain.
XBB appears to be the best at evading immunity. Researchers in China have found that XBB can elude the protective antibodies generated by a breakthrough BA.5 infection, raising concern that fall boosters engineered to target the BA.4 and BA.5 versions of omicron may be quickly outpaced. Still, those booster shots remain the best tool on the shelf.
“We do not have a better choice at the current stage,” Yunlong Cao, a scientist at the Biomedical Pioneering Innovation Center in Peking University in Beijing, said in an email.
On Friday, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 had grown to about 11 percent of the viruses sampled in the United States. Whether it is XBB, BQ.1.1, or some as yet unknown twist on omicron, most experts agree variants will help fuel a difficult fall and winter.
“These lineages are going to have a greater ability to reinfect people than what is currently circulating … which is very likely to drive or contribute to infection waves over the winter,” Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London, said in an email.
It’s a matter of debate what will happen when one or more of them gets a toehold in a population with a protective layer of underlying immunity. Protection against the worst outcomes is likely to hold up, particularly if bolstered by boosters, many scientists predict.
Cases are ticking up in Europe already. Many scientists think the upswing is driven largely by factors such as children going back to school, people spending more time indoors and the seasonality of the virus. The variants may just be starting to contribute.
“We are certainly in a better place than we were many months ago; we are still in a downward trend” in the United States, said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who exhorted people to get an updated booster if eligible. “We need to watch and follow these things very carefully, because we want to make sure we have a good handle on what is going on with regard to the emergence of variants, and what impact they’re going to have on any trends we are going to see in winter.”
But the impact on society could still be considerable even with a surge in cases that doesn’t lead to a massive wave of hospitalizations.
“To put it in context, the summer wasn’t considered a wave — but at the same time, there were lots of issues with work absences, and that kind of thing did have an impact on the world as a whole,” said Manon Ragonnet-Cronin, a scientist at the University of Chicago. “Our primary measurement of how bad these waves are tends to be hospitalizations and deaths, but those other effects shouldn’t be discounted.”
There’s nothing certain about a late-fall wave — whether one will happen, what its magnitude might be or what could spark it. The new crop of variants clearly escapes immunity, but Justin Lessler, a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, said the question will be how that advantage plays out in the world.
“A strain can have a growth advantage compared to the other strains, but still not enough of an advantage to lead to a resurgent epidemic,” Lessler said.
What’s more predictable: Any variant that winds up dominating in coming months will probably challenge a key line of treatment and protection for people with compromised immune systems — the drugs known as monoclonal antibodies. Evusheld is a long-acting version used to prevent illness in people with compromised immune systems. Another monoclonal, bebtelovimab, is used as a treatment.
The pharmaceutical companies making these drugs stress that they remain useful against variants that are prevalent now. But for many scientists, the writing is on the wall. The swarm on the horizon threatens to wipe out one or both of those therapies — and may even subvert the next generation of candidates yet to make it into the medicine cabinet.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a major maker of monoclonal antibodies, paused start-up activities in late September on clinical trials for its new drug — pointing not to a particular new lineage of omicron but to a mutation at one of the hot spots.
“We ask that all start-up activities … be paused to allow Regeneron to evaluate the new variant and its potential impact to our planned clinical development trials,” a company memo sent to investigators running the trials said.
Scientists are worried that Evusheld could be useless by the end of the year, as new variants take over. The Food and Drug Administration warned this month that the drug is unlikely to protect against infection from BA.4.6, a strain that represents about 12 percent of the viruses circulating in the United States.
Bebtelovimab, the monoclonal made by Lilly, could also face a ticking clock as yet other mutations threaten to undermine its effectiveness.
Companies can choose from many libraries of monoclonal antibody drugs, but questions about how to pick them, prove they work and whether they are safe have become more pressing as the drugs turned out to have a short shelf life, because of the pace of viral evolution.
In an effort to make their drugs more variant-proof, companies are trying to design antibody products that are not similar to the dominant antibodies the human body naturally creates to rout the virus.
Laura Walker, chief scientific officer of Invivyd, a biotechnology company working on monoclonal antibody drugs, described one of the compounds her company is hoping to start testing in people in January as a “freak of nature” — because it binds to an unusual spot on the virus.
“You want to try and look ahead, and the question is: How far do those headlights go?” Walker said.
Unmitigated transmission of the virus will allow it to find vulnerable people — whether because of age or medical risk factors. It could also result in the wild-card scenario that many experts fear: A new and very different variant could emerge from some other branch of the coronavirus evolutionary tree.
A leading theory of omicron’s origin is that it evolved as the result of a long-term infection in an immunocompromised patient — and the possibility of a huge jump happening again can’t be ignored.
“If we sit on our hands and say, ‘Well, we are all fine,’ and forget about the vulnerable people who don’t make good immune responses, then that might increase the likelihood a new, scarier variant emerges,” Abraham, of Harvard, said. “I’m not sure if it’s going to happen this winter, but I think it’s likely. There’s still a lot of room for evolution.”
Lina Abu Akleh sits near photographs of her late aunt, journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, at their family home in east Jerusalem in July. (photo: Rosie Scammell/AFP)
Her aunt, Shireen Abu Akleh, was the famed Palestinian American correspondent for the Arabic language network Al Jazeera. She spent decades reporting on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories until she was killed while doing her job.
At first Israeli authorities claimed Abu Akleh was killed by Palestinian gunmen in the midst of fighting. That was despite witness accounts and videos showing there was no active fighting in the area.
Following international scrutiny, Israel admitted Shireen Abu Akleh was most likely killed by an Israeli soldier but said the killing was a mistake. The Abu Akleh family fiercely disputes that. They believe the killing was deliberate.
Her niece says she was wearing a vest clearly labeled "press" on both sides and continued to face gunfire even as she and her colleagues at the scene identified themselves as journalists.
"All the investigative reports concluded that all the bullets targeted her upper body," Lina Abu Akleh adds. "Even after she was on the floor, bleeding to death, they were still firing towards her direction. Even when there was a young man trying to help her and take her into a car, they were still being fired at."
Lina Abu Akleh has become the face of her family's global campaign for accountability and justice. She was recently named one of Time's 100 emerging leaders for "publicly demanding scrutiny of Israel's treatment of Palestinians."
Abu Akleh has met with U.S. lawmakers and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and has attempted to meet with President Biden about her aunt, a U.S. citizen. She tells Morning Edition host that she believes the U.S. failed because it did not conduct a transparent and independent investigation into the killing of her aunt, a U.S. citizen.
"For us, justice is putting an end to this impunity and holding the perpetrators accountable for the killing of my one and only Aunt Shireen," she says.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
On why Abu Akleh feels the U.S. has failed her family:
We met with Secretary of State Mr. Antony Blinken, and we really appreciated that he gave us the time to speak to us and share his condolences. We appreciate knowing that he's committed to accountability. However, at this point — now more than ever — it's so important that all these words that we heard on the Hill are followed by action, by holding the perpetrators accountable.
But we left D.C. knowing that we have a lot of allies on the Hill, especially after we met with various representatives, members of Congress, senators who continue to show their support to us and calling for the administration to launch an investigation since, until today, we haven't seen any action taken.
On their unsuccessful attempts to meet with Biden:
Until this day, we haven't heard back from them in terms of meeting with the president. The president was here in July. He was 10 minutes away from our home, from Shireen's home where she grew up. And unfortunately, he did not meet with our family. And when we went to D.C., we were hoping that he would be meeting with us, but again that did not happen.
And we were definitely disappointed, because it's very important to us for the president to hear from us and for us to know that he's taking this seriously, since she's a citizen and a journalist. And this is something he's always talked about, especially a few days before Shireen was killed, he said it's important that journalists, especially women in the field, in war zones, are protected. Yet this did not apply to Shireen. So until this day we continue to demand and to request that the president meet with us.
On whether she thinks Abu Akleh's death is treated differently because of where it happened:
Of course, and I always say this. Because she's a Palestinian-American, she hasn't received the same action, the same attention as she would if she was killed somewhere else. And this is something that's very unfortunate, but it also continues to show the double standards that the international community has and that the U.S. has. Unfortunately, it's very sad that if she was killed in a different part of the world, then we would probably have justice and accountability from day one.
On why her family filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court:
It's really important that when states fail to provide protection for their own citizens ... it's important that we pursue justice and accountability in any way possible. We're hoping that the prosecutor would actually take up this case and would investigate it.
On the day of her aunt's funeral, when Israeli forces raided mourners:
That day was very traumatizing. Until this day, I still get shivers when I pass by the hospital in Jerusalem ... We were faced with the Israeli paramilitary police occupation forces who stormed the hospital in a barbaric manner. They were armed, attacked me and my family, attacked mourners, pallbearers with batons, stun grenades. And the casket almost fell to the ground because of how they were beating the pallbearers ... Until this day, I don't understand how a funeral was so threatening for them. And it felt as if they were trying to silence her even after her death. They violated our right to put Shireen to rest, our right to a funeral, and most importantly, they violated her right to dignity even after death.
The entire experience was traumatizing, it was humiliating and it's something I don't wish for anyone to go through that. But then again, this was seen all over the world. Everyone saw what it's like to be living under this kind of occupation.
On what Shireen Abu Akleh was like:
Shireen was more like my best friend. She wasn't just an aunt, but someone I relied on on various occasions, various moments of my life. She's someone who was always there, regardless of how difficult her job was, how demanding, challenging and emotionally exhausting it was, she was always there for me and my siblings, always ready to help us in any way possible.
She was very funny, and this is not something everyone sees on TV, especially when it comes to journalists — you have to put on that journalist face, as I like to call it. And behind the scenes, she was very funny, always lit up the room, always excited about life.
It's definitely been difficult not having her around. We feel the void in the family, with her friends. There is emptiness, but we still feel her presence and her spirit around us.
I want her legacy to be remembered as someone who stood up for truth, for justice and for peace, as she was the voice of justice, the voice of truth, the voice of Palestinians. I want people to remember her voice and the voice that entered every single house in Palestine and the Arab world. Her legacy continues to be honored up to this day with all the various awards ceremonies that I attended all over the world, and all over [the] United States. And these awards are a testament to her legacy, which was where she spoke truth to power. She empowered not just me as her niece, but she empowered millions and countless of young Palestinian women and Arab women who looked up to her and were inspired by her professionalism, by her work as a female journalist in the field.
Voters cast their ballots in the Ohio primary election at a polling location at Noor Islamic Cultural Center on May 3, 2022 in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty)
Conspiracy theories about election fraud, some being pushed by influential Republicans, have experts worried about the possibility of political violence.
“God will take care of our midterms as promised,” one user on former President Donald Trump’s platform Truth Social wrote.
“A massive, absolutely overwhelming Truth Tsunami of Continental proportions that will wash away the stench of rot and corruption from the world,” another wrote. “Nothing can stop what is coming.”
This narrative is coupled with the presumption that the only way Democrats could win in hotly contested races or maintain control of the House and Senate is if they commit election fraud—baseless claims that are being amplified by influential MAGA figures. And the prospect of yet another election being “stolen” is fueling threats of violence from the right.
Extremism watchdogs have been warning about the potential for political violence in the coming weeks.
SITE Intel, which tracks international terrorist activity, recently put out a memo warning that “ultranationalist users on Telegram” were hinting at violent action if Democrats “steal votes again.” “I’ll vote and also build local groups of like minds to move from OBSERVERS to PATRIOTS taking Action,” one person wrote on Telegram, according to posts documented by SITE.
The Soufan Center, which tracks extremism around the world, published an intelligence bulletin last week identifying “widespread calls for civil war, echoing some of the most violent rhetoric that accompanied the lead-up to the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection,” on platforms like Reddit, Parler, Telegram, Gab, and Truth Social.
The Soufan Center also noted that election workers in some places are undergoing active-shooter training, and election offices are in the process of bolstering security, hiring guards, installing bulletproof and bomb-resistant glass. For example, an election office in Flagstaff, Arizona, has had a barricade of bulletproof glass installed, and anyone wishing to enter will have to ring a buzzer. The walls of an election office in Tallahassee, Florida, have been fortified with Kevlar, a material used in bulletproof vests. Other election offices are paying for armed security guards for the busiest weeks close to the election.
And last year, the Justice Department even launched the Election Threats Task Force in response to threats of violence against election workers.
“These measures are necessary to keep people safe,” said Colin Clarke, director of Policy and Research at the Soufan Group. “It’s crept up on us, this creeping normalization of political violence that’s now going to be with us every election for the foreseeable future. I don’t see any signs that we’re going back to normal.”
Black Americans, in particular, have expressed concern about encountering “displays of violence” or threats at their polling places. A recent poll by Grid-Harris found that 35% of Black Americans believe violence is likely or very likely at their polling place in November, compared to 22% of white respondents. And 40% of Black American adults who were polled said that they fear the results of the midterm elections will spark violence in their area.
It’s not just online chatter on fringe sites that’s driving these fears. Influential right-wing figures with large platforms, like former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, are stoking the flames, telling their supporters that the stakes couldn’t be higher this midterms and that Democrats will do anything they can to steal the election. Bannon, on his War Room podcast, has described the upcoming election as the “most important midterm election since 1862” (which took place during the Civil War).
And guests on Bannon’s show are priming listeners to expect the election to be rigged.
“I just know that they're going to engage in massive election fraud,” Infowars’ Alex Jones said on an episode this week. “They [Democrats] know there’s a landslide that you’ve been predicting that we see all the evidence from. They’ve done the math. They’re desperate. They know they’re losing.”
(Far from a “landslide” win, recent polling from the New York Times found that 49% of voters were backing the Republican congressional candidate in their district, compared to 45% supporting the Democrat candidate (last month, the same poll found that Democrats had the edge by just 1%).
Some current and former members of Congress have been painting a dire picture of what could happen after Nov. 8.
“If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place—and it’s bloodshed,” said ex-Congressman Madison Cawthorn at a GOP event in North Carolina this summer. “And I will tell you as much as I’m willing to defend our liberty at all costs. There’s nothing that I dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American.” And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene seized on an incident in North Dakota where a man intentionally hit and killed a teenager (because he falsely believed he was part of a right-wing extremist group) to stoke fears around impending political violence from Democrats.
“I’m not going to mince words with you all,” Greene said at a campaign event for Trump earlier this month. “Democrats want Republicans dead, and they’ve already started the killings.”
The latest wave of violent rhetoric and calls for civil war began in early August, after the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. QAnon, MAGA, and other far-right online communities went wild, claiming that the raid was a political attack against Trump by the Biden administration. After that raid, and amid a torrent of threats online directed toward the FBI, a 42-year-old Trump supporter —who regularly posted on Truth Social—wearing body armor and armed with an AR-15-style rifle and nail gun attempted to breach the Bureau’s field office in Ohio. He fled the scene after being confronted, and was ultimately shot dead following a lengthy standoff with police.
The temperature has remained high ever since, with angry rhetoric aimed at anything considered evidence of political corruption from Democrats.
For example, when GOP Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was removed from her Democrat opponent’s town hall event earlier this month, MAGAworld pounced on the incident and said it was just further evidence of some widespread political crackdown and censorship.
“It’s called communism,” one person on Truth Social remarked. “We’re already there.” “Civil war,” someone else replied bluntly. “I’m ready to die.” “Better get armed while you can,” another user added.
There’s also been a lot of national interest in Pennsylvania’s elections, where Christian nationalist Doug Mastriano is vying for governor. The Pennsylvania State Department recently said it anticipates “several days’ worth of work” to tally all the election results following the election itself (many counties are currently barred from opening or scanning mail-in ballots received prior to 7 a.m. on Election Day). After the 2020 election, Trump and his allies targeted Pennsylvania's drawn-out vote-counting process to make unsubstantiated claims of nefarious activity.
“State races have captured national attention and gained cross-state support,” said Clarke. “The temperature is rising to such a degree that, let’s say Herschel Walker losing to Warnock, it could prompt violence in a state nowhere near Georgia.”
Many of the most hotly contested races in the midterms are taking place in states that were heavily scrutinized by election deniers since 2020, including Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.
In addition to threats of violence over potential fraud, there’s also violent fantasies online about how the right hopes to hold Democrats “accountable” once they regain control of the House and Senate.
“We need a lot of new rope,” one Truth Social user replied to an article about recent polling giving GOP candidates the edge. Another responded with a meme showing dozens of nooses and the words “Government Repair Kit.”
Migrants from Venezuela wait in line to turn themselves to U.S. immigration agents, after crossing from Ciudad Juárez into El Paso, Texas, on Oct. 13, 2022. (photo: Luis Torres)
We get an update from immigrant justice advocate Guerline Jozef, who is in Mexico to look at the impact of the Biden administration’s expansion of Title 42 to turn away Venezuelan asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Trump-era policy lets the government expel asylum seekers on public health grounds. “It is unacceptable today for the government to try to expand Title 42, and forcing people to continue to die,” says Jozef. Meanwhile, the Biden administration announced it will allow 24,000 Venezuelans to enter the country by air if they have a financial sponsor in the United States. Applicants must first apply online. The program is similar to one set up for Ukrainians earlier this year. Jozef notes immigrants from Venezuela and Haiti are treated harshly, while Ukrainians fleeing similar political instability back home are welcomed, and that the immigration system should be structured to treat everyone with compassion and dignity.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration announced it’s going to allow 24,000 Venezuelans to enter the country by air if they have a financial sponsor in the United States — of course, which many don’t. Applicants must first apply online. The program is similar to one set up for Ukrainians.
This is Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaking last week in D.C.
DHS SECRETARY ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS: To reduce the number of people arriving at our southwest border irregularly and create a more orderly and safe and humane process for people fleeing the humanitarian and economic crisis in Venezuela. Those who attempt to cross the southern border of the United States illegally will be returned. Those who follow the lawful process we announced yesterday will have the opportunity to travel safely to the United States and become eligible to work here.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said last week the Biden administration has no plans to reduce sanctions on Venezuela. Some studies estimate the sanctions have killed tens of thousands of people in Venezuela. A few years ago, it was Mike Pompeo, under Trump, who offered a pathway to lift the sanctions, predicated on regime change in Venezuela and replacing the president with Juan Guaidó.
How much of this situation can you attribute to U.S. policy against Venezuela? And then, what is happening with this massive deportation of Venezuelans? And also talk about Haitians being turned back.
GUERLINE JOZEF: Thank you so much, Amy.
Again, I am not an expert in Venezuelan politics, but what I can tell you is that the 24,000 Venezuelans who have been announced by Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden administration is a piecemeal, because what we are seeing, we are seeing hundreds of thousands of people still fleeing Venezuela. We are seeing a expulsion, deportation of at least 1,000 Venezuelans a day from the United States back to Mexico. And we are seeing that the piecemeal that is being offered to the Venezuelan population is also being used as a deterrent factor for people who have already been on the road to seek for protection, people who are still traversing the Darién, people who are here in Mexico, who do not have the ability or the privilege to fly from Venezuela to the United States. I think when we are looking into how we are welcoming people, we must center compassion, not just using a carrot and a stick just to deter people, but really provide wholesome protection for folks.
So, I am here in Mexico City looking into how it is affecting, impacting the migrant population, people in mobility, people in displacement, people who are searching for asylum and protection. Whether they are from Venezuela, whether they are from Ukraine or from Haiti, they must all welcome with dignity. And what we are seeing happening to the Venezuelan community is unacceptable. Although we welcome the idea of providing, you know, the protection for the 24,000, but what will happen with the hundreds of others who are already at the U.S.-Mexico border? What will happen to the Haitians who are still stuck at the U.S.-Mexico border because of Title 42? It is unacceptable today for the government to try to expand Title 42 and forcing people to continue to die.
Amy, as I’m speaking to you right now, we are in the middle of doing three funerals in Tijuana. Three Haitians have died in Tijuana this past week alone, including a 2-year-old girl, a man who was killed, and another one who died due to lack of medical care. So, what we are seeing is that the use of Title 42 continues to destroy lives. And there is no reason that the U.S. government, under President Biden, should continue to use Title 42 as a way to deter, and definitely being able to see death at the U.S.-Mexico border.
So we must continue to push. We must continue to hold everyone accountable as we move forward, to understand that support, protection must be provided for the Venezuelans, support and protection must be provided for the Haitians, the same way we are welcoming and continue to support the Ukrainians. The reality is —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Guerline — Guerline, if I can ask you —
GUERLINE JOZEF: — we cannot return —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: If I can ask you — we just have a few more minutes. I wanted to ask you about the role of the Mexican government in cooperating with the Biden administration in terms of people being sent back to Mexico. And also, what do you say to these local leaders around the United States, even in places like New York City, that are now being inundated with the asylum seekers that are being shipped by bus from Texas and Florida to Northern cities and Northern states, the sheer numbers of people they’re suddenly having to deal with?
GUERLINE JOZEF: I don’t think we are being inundated by asylum seekers. I believe that we did not prepare, intentionally or unintentionally, to actually receive people in mobility, people in need of protection. As a country, the same way we did for the Ukrainians, we did not have anyone on the news complaining about Ukrainians coming to New York or to other cities. They were received and welcomed and placed into a sponsorship program and supported full, full on. So I don’t believe we are being inundated. I believe that we need to be better prepared to receive people, and not allow the false narrative that we are in the middle of a crisis in order to deter cities, such as Chicago or New York, or states, like Massachusetts, to receive people.
And we applaud the states and the cities who are receiving people, but we know that the federal government can provide the support needed to welcome those people, just as we have done for the Ukrainians. And we still have yet to see any welcoming program for the Haitians. We still have yet to see any meaningful change within the immigration system to be able to address those issues. We are seeing a response to false narrative. We are seeing a system that is being built to deter people. We are seeing a narrative that is being creating against immigrants. That’s what we are seeing right now.
And we are calling on accountability for all people who are a part of this misleading information. And we really are here — we are in communications with many organizations in New York, in Chicago, in D.C., who are willing and able to support people arriving.
AMY GOODMAN: Guerline Jozef, we want to —
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And —
AMY GOODMAN: Juan, go ahead.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Oh, no. And Mexico’s role? I asked you about Mexico’s role, as well.
GUERLINE JOZEF: Yes, Juan. The thing is, we understand that the U.S.-Mexico summit happened last week in San Diego. We were not privy of the decisions or how the communications went. But as a result, we see Mexico is receiving folks. So, we just are here and pleading and asking the Mexican government to do the right thing by the migrants and people in — displaced people in immobility.
AMY GOODMAN: Guerline Jozef, we want to thank you for being with us, co-founder and executive director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, today joining us from Mexico City in Mexico.
Waste disposal is more lucrative than drugs for certain organized crime groups. (photo: Picture-Alliance/DPA/G. Ismar)
Environmental crime is the third-most lucrative criminal business in the world. Yet too often it is still treated like petty crime. Activists hope new EU legislation may soon change that.
"The brutality and profit margins in the area of environmental crime are almost unimaginable. Cartels have taken over entire sectors of illegal mining, the timber trade and waste disposal," he said at a recent press conference, held together with German politicians.
Braun listed examples. Villages in Peru that had resisted deforestation efforts had been razed to the ground by criminal gangs in retribution, he said, while illegal fishing fleets had thrown crew overboard to avoid having to pay them.
And much of the timber and fish acquired through illegal means ended up in Germany, he said.
Environmental crime has many faces and includes the illegal widelife trade, illegal logging, illegal waste disposal and the illegal discharge of pollutants into the atmosphere, water or soil.
It is a lucrative business for transnational crime networks. Illegal waste trafficking, for example, accounts for $10 to 12 billion (€10.28 to 12.34 billion) annually, according to 2016 figures from the United Nations Environment Program.
Criminal networks save on the costs of proper disposal and obtaining permits. For some crime networks, the profits from waste management are so huge that it has become more interesting than drug trafficking.
Is wood the new gold?
The profits from illegal logging have also grown. Well-seasoned tropical hardwood, which is used to build yachts, for example, is increasingly rare and demand is high.
Katharina Lang, project manager for forest crime at the German branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said that consumers could never be certain if the wood in a product they had bought had been acquired through legal means.
According to a 2021 study by the German Association of Engineers (VDI), illegal logging accounts for 30% of activities in the global forestry sector. This figure can rise to almost 90% in countries that produce tropical timber.
German timber regulations call for a certificate of origin, but labeling fraud is frequent, as WWF has demonstrated many times. For example, wood might be labeled as being hardwood from Vietnam but actually it might be low-grade waste wood. WWF Germany uses genetic and isotopic fingerprinting to verify the declared origin of wood.
Sasa Braun from Interpol says that cooperation with NGOs such as WWF is invaluable, but, he says, the activities of these organizations aren't always appreciated, particularly in countries where there is corruption at all levels.
Environmental crime is seen as petty crime
According to the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), environmental crime — the third-most lucrative area of crime worldwide after drug trafficking and counterfeit goods — generates profits of between $110 billion and $280 billion each year.
It is difficult to be more precise because there is an extremely high number of unreported cases. And it's not like nature can sue.
"This certainly also has to do with the fact that we speak of administrative offenses in the case of environmental crime. Cases of environmental crime often aren't uncovered at all. They are only discovered when deliberate and targeted controls are carried out," said Moritz Klose, head of the wildlife program in Germany and Europe for WWF. Even when such crimes are revealed, penalties tend to be light.
Experts seem to agree that there is also a problem of staff shortages, as well as possibly a lack of political will. "A few years ago in [the western German state of] North Rhine-Westphalia, we had an environmental crime unit in the Environment Ministry," explained Klose. "It was very successful. An experienced investigator and a public prosecutor worked together to coordinate on cases of environmental crime in North Rhine-Westphalia, advise the authorities and conduct some of the investigations themselves."
However, it was closed down "for political reasons," he told DW, saying that the state is now trying to reverse this decision.
The eastern German state of Brandenburg has had a special prosecutor's office for environmental crime for two years. However, people there also complain of staffing shortages. Experts say that Europe-wide operations centers are needed, with judges, public prosecutors, police and customs officers who have been trained in tackling environmental crime.
Sasa Braun of Interpol says that environmental crime has to be fought with the same tools, including undercover investigations, wiretaps and GPS tracking, as other serious crimes. "It is often still considered as petty crime and not as a crime against our future," he told DW.
Activists put pressure on German justice minister
Some are hoping that new European legislation, to be introduced next year, will tighten compliance with EU environmental laws.
"Too often in Europe, there is no real penalty for environmental crime. Lawbreakers can go unpunished and there are too few incentives to observe the law," European Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius said last year. "We want to change that by proposing a new directive on environmental crime that will strengthen the environmental rule of law."
But Germany's leading environmental associations fear sanctions won't be as tough as they should be. In an open letter to German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann, they urged him to ensure that the EU adopts modern and effective legislation.
They also criticized Buschmann for advocating for lower maximum penalties for serious environmental crimes as well as for lowering fines that companies might be liable for.
Stephan Sina, a lawyer specializing in environmental law at the Berlin-based Ecologic Institute, told DW that other measures would be much more effective. "When it comes to sanctions, it is important that profits gained from a crime be systematically seized. That usually hits criminals harder than the actual penalty," he said.
Environmental advocates still have some time to make their case. The EU is only expected to adopt the new directive by the middle of next year.
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