Friday, July 19, 2024. The GOP wraps up Hate Week in Wisconsin, the world watches to see what Joe Biden will do, Amnesty International decries the treatment of detained Palestinians, and more.
The former president who sparked a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol less than four years ago took the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee Thursday night claiming to desire an end to the "discord and division in our society."
But Donald Trump's record, rhetoric throughout the 2024 campaign, insidious plans for a second term, and remarks as he accepted his party's presidential nomination give the lie to his fleeting attempt to posture as a unifying figure, critics said in the wake of the former president's speech, which came days after an attempt on his life in Pennsylvania.
"What we witnessed tonight were just empty words," said Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America. "This is the same twice-impeached, convicted felon who botched the Covid response, repeatedly tried to take healthcare away from millions of Americans, incited an insurrection to cling to power after voters rejected him, and to this day brags about appointing the justices that 'killed' Roe v. Wade."
"Let's be clear—Trump hasn't changed. He's only gotten more extreme," Harvey added. "If elected, he will enact the radical Project 2025 plan that allows employers to stop paying overtime, takes away health protections for preexisting conditions, and lets the government monitor Americans' pregnancies to potentially prosecute them if they miscarry. The damage of a second Trump term won't just last for four years. Trump would appoint more MAGA justices to the Supreme Court who will continue eroding our freedoms for decades. We must vote this November to keep Trump out of the Oval Office and protect our democracy and fundamental freedoms."
Not long after pledging to "be president for all of America, not half of America," Trump reverted to well-worn falsehoods about his 2020 election defeat, claiming that the Democratic Party "used Covid to cheat."
During his speech, numerous web commenters noted that Gaetz’s face seemed different from its previous appearances. Some commenters blamed Botox, a toxin used as a cosmetic product to tighten face muscles. Others claimed he had undergone plastic surgery or was experimenting with becoming a drag queen.
As mentioned earlier, Rep. Orden posted a pic of Gaetz during his speech on X and joked that the RNC had debuted the “first AI powered inflatable sex doll to speak at a national convention.”
“You don’t have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him,” Haley told the gathering. “Take it from me. I haven’t always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree.” Earlier this year, Haley said it would be “like suicide for our country” were Trump to again be the Republican presidential nominee. She also called Trump “unhinged,” saying he is “more diminished than he was” and “is now saying things that don’t make sense.”
Cruz began his remarks with a proclamation: “God bless Donald J. Trump.” This is a guy who once stood up, ever so slightly, to Trump, declining to urge others to vote for him in 2016 after Trump had insulted Cruz’s wife and suggested his father helped kill JFK. DeSantis—who during the primary campaign also attested to Trump’s diminished capacity, saying “He’s lost the zip on his fastball”—also fell in line, referring to Trump in near-messianic terms: “Donald Trump has been demonized, he’s been sued, he’s been prosecuted, and he nearly lost his life. We cannot let him down, and we cannot let America down.”
DeSantis devoted the heart of his speech to recounting horrific instances in which “illegal immigrants” have committed heinous crimes, making it sound as though they were both common and deliberate, which they are not. But the Republicans are now all singing from the same hymnal, accusing Democrats of purposely seeking to destroy the country—a ridiculous assertion that no one would be asking had this not originated from the twisted worldview of Donald Trump.
Michele Ann Fiore (born July 29, 1970) is an American Republican politician serving as a justice of the peace for Nye County since being appointed to the position by the Nye County Commission in December 2022.
Biography[edit]
Fiore moved to Nye County in November 2022 after losing the race for Nevada State Treasurer in the 2022 election. She was a member of the Nevada Assembly from 2012 to 2016.[1] Fiore, who represented much of northwestern Clark County, served two Assembly terms. On December 7, 2015, she confirmed that she would not seek reelection, and would instead enter the 2016 race for Nevada's 3rd congressional district in southern Clark County.[2] On June 15, 2016, Fiore placed third in the primary, with 18% of the vote.[3] She was elected to the Las Vegas City Council in 2017 and represented Ward 6.[4] Fiore has been a high-profile supporter of Cliven Bundy and Donald Trump.[4][5] She briefly ran in the Republican primary for the 2022 Nevada gubernatorial election before dropping out and winning the Republican nomination in the 2022 Nevada State Treasurer election, which she lost to Democratic nominee Zach Conine, 46.0% to 47.7%. She is currently the Nevada Republican Party national committeewoman responsible for fund-raising in the state.[6][4]
Fiore allegedly promised donors “100% of the contributions” would be used to create the statue, the indictment alleges.
But prosecutors said Fiore did not use the tens of thousands of dollars in charitable donations for the statue of the fallen officer and instead converted the money to her personal use.
+ Tuesday was Back the Blue night at the GOP convention. It says something about the truly perverse psychological state of American politics that the RNC convention spent last night heaping praise on law enforcement days after local police retreated from confronting the Trump shooter, while in Milwaukee out-of-town cops providing “security” for the RNC gunned down an unarmed black homeless veteran as a threat more than a mile from the convention.
+ Samuel Sharpe, a homeless Black veteran who was a regular at an encampment in downtown Milwaukee, was shot and killed by police today. Not by Milwaukee Police, but by a Columbus, Ohio police officer, in town to help police the RNC Convention, who shot Sharpe a mile from the convention. “Why are cops from Ohio way out here?” asked David Porter, a friend of Sharpe’s. “Had that been Milwaukee PD that man would be alive right now. I know that because they know him.”
+ As if to emphasize their indifference to the victims of the shooting, they’re having an AR-15 giveaway at the GOP convention…
+ Days after a 20-year-old tried to nail Trump with an AR-15, a federal appeals court ruled that Minnesota’s law requiring people to be at least 21 to carry a handgun in public is unconstitutional.
- Abusive Israeli law used to arbitrarily detain Palestinians from Gaza indefinitely without charge or trial
- Unlawful Combatants Law legalizes incommunicado detention, enables enforced disappearance and must be repealed
- Harrowing torture testimony from 27 former detainees, including a 14-year-old boy
Israeli authorities must end their indefinite incommunicado detention of Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip, without charge or trial under the Unlawful Combatants law, in flagrant violation of international law, said Amnesty International.
The organization documented the cases of 27 Palestinian former detainees, including five women, 21 men and a 14-year-old boy, who were detained for periods of up to four and a half months without access to their lawyers or any contact with their families, in connection with this law. All those interviewed by Amnesty International said that during their incommunicado detention, which in some cases amounted to enforced disappearance, Israeli military, intelligence and police forces subjected them to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Unlawful Combatants Law grants the Israeli military sweeping powers to detain anyone from Gaza that they suspect of engagement in hostilities against Israel or posing a threat to state security for indefinitely renewable periods without having to produce evidence to substantiate the claims.
“While international humanitarian law allows for the detention of individuals on imperative security grounds in situations of occupation, there must be safeguards to prevent indefinite or arbitrary detention and torture and other ill-treatment. This law blatantly fails to provide these safeguards. It enables rampant torture and, in some circumstances, institutionalizes enforced disappearance,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
“Our documentation illustrates how the Israeli authorities are using the Unlawful Combatants Law to arbitrarily round up Palestinian civilians from Gaza and toss them into a virtual black hole for prolonged periods without producing any evidence that they pose a security threat and without minimum due process. Israeli authorities must immediately repeal this law and release those arbitrarily detained under it.”
Our documentation illustrates how the Israeli authorities are using the Unlawful Combatants Law to arbitrarily round up Palestinian civilians from Gaza and toss them into a virtual black hole for prolonged periods without producing any evidence that they pose a security threat and without minimum due process
Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International
Amnesty International is calling for all detainees held under the Unlawful Combatants Law, including suspected members of armed groups, to be treated humanely and given access to lawyers and international monitoring bodies such as the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). Those suspected of responsibility for crimes under international law must be tried in line with international fair trial standards, while all civilians detained arbitrarily without charge or trial must be immediately released.
The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) confirmed to the Israeli NGO Hamoked that as of 1 July 2024, 1,402 Palestinians were detained under the Unlawful Combatants law. This number excludes those held for an initial 45-day period without formal order.
Between February and June 2024, Amnesty International documented 31 cases of incommunicado detention and found credible evidence of widespread use of torture and other ill treatment. Interviews were conducted with 27 released detainees – all civilians arrested from the occupied Gaza Strip (20 men, six women and one child). The organization also interviewed four family members of civilians detained for up to seven months whose whereabouts are yet to be disclosed by Israeli authorities and two lawyers who recently managed to meet with detainees.
Israeli military seized the detainees from locations across Gaza including Gaza City, Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Khan Younis. The detainees were rounded up at schools housing internally displaced people, during raids on homes, hospitals, and newly installed checkpoints. They were then transferred to Israel and held for periods ranging from two weeks to up to 140 days in military or IPS-run detention facilities.
Those detained included doctors taken into custody at hospitals for refusing to abandon their patients; mothers separated from their infants while trying to cross the so-called “safe corridor” from northern Gaza to the south; human rights defenders, UN workers, journalists and other civilians.
All those interviewed by Amnesty International said they were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment.
Detention of Palestinians from Gaza under the law
“Torture and other ill-treatment including sexual violence are war crimes. These allegations must be independently investigated by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor’s office. This is crucial due to the documented failure of the Israeli judiciary to credibly investigate torture allegations by Palestinians in the past. Israeli authorities must also grant immediate and unrestricted access to all places of detention to independent monitors – access that has been denied since 7 October,” said Agnès Callamard.
The Detention of Unlawful Combatants Law, enacted in 2002, was invoked for the first time in five years following the horrific attacks perpetrated by Hamas and other armed groups on 7 October in southern Israel.
The Israeli military initially invoked the law to hold alleged participants in the 7 October attacks, but shortly thereafter expanded its use to detain Palestinians from Gaza en masse without charge or trial. The lack of due process means that both civilians and those directly engaging in hostilities have been detained under this law.
For the first 45 days of detention, the military are not required to issue a detention order. The law denies detainees access to a lawyer for up to 90 days, codifying incommunicado detention, which in turn enables torture and other ill treatment.
Detainees must be brought before a judge within a maximum period of75 days of their detention for judicial review, but judges typically rubberstamp the detention order in sham proceedings.
The law does not stipulate a maximum time for detention and allows security services to hold detainees under indefinitely renewable orders.
Amended law facilitates incommunicado detention
The Unlawful Combatants Law was originally enacted in 2002 to allow for the prolonged detention without charges or trial of two Lebanese nationals, who were not under Israeli jurisdiction. Since its unilateral “disengagement” from the occupied Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel has used this law to hold people from Gaza it deems a national security threat for indefinitely renewable periods.
In December 2023, the Israeli authorities passed a temporary amendment to the law, extending the time the military is permitted to detain Palestinians without a detention order from an initial 96 hours (extendable up to seven days) to up to 45 days. It also increased the maximum time a detainee can be held before being brought before a judge to review the detention order from 14 days to 75 days and extended the period a detainee can be held without seeing a lawyer from 21 days to up to six months, later reduced to three months. This amendment was renewed again in April 2024.
Evidence justifying the detention is withheld both from the detainee and their lawyer. This means many of those detained are held for months without the slightest idea of why they have been detained, in violation of international law, completely cut off from their family and loved ones and unable to challenge the grounds of their detention.
Two detainees told Amnesty International they were brought before a judge twice for virtual hearings and on both occasions were unable to speak or ask questions. Instead, they were simply informed that their detention had been renewed for a further 45 days. They were never informed of the legal basis of their arrests nor of what evidence had been brought against them to justify their arrests.
Following a petition brought before the Israeli Supreme Court by Hamoked on behalf of a detained X-ray technician from Khan Younis, the state informed the Court in May 2024 that lawyers can apply to visit detainees from Gaza 90 days after their detention. Only a very limited number of such applications has been approved since.
In addition to being denied access to legal counsel, detainees are also cut off from their families. Families described to Amnesty International the agony of being separated from their loved ones and living in constant fear of discovering that they died in prison.
Alaa Muhanna, whose husband Ahmad Muhhana, the director of Al-Awda hospital, was detained during a raid on the hospital on 17 December 2023, told Amnesty International the only scant information she receives about him is from other released prisoners: “I assure the children that Ahmad is fine, that he’s coming back soon, but to live through this war, the constant displacement, the bombing and also have to fight to know where your husband is, not to hear his voice, is like a war within the war.”
One released health worker told Amnesty International that not knowing whether his family in Gaza were alive or dead while he was detained was “even worse than torture and starvation”.
Torture and other ill-treatment
The extensive periods of incommunicado detention facilitate torture by eliminating any monitoring of the physical condition of detainees and communication with them.
The 27 released detainees, interviewed by Amnesty International, consistently described being subjected to torture on at least one occasion during their arrest. The organization observed marks and bruises consistent with torture on at least eight detainees interviewed in person and also reviewed medical reports of two detainees corroborating their accounts of torture.
Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab verified and geolocated at least five videos of mass arrests including of detainees filmed while stripped to their underwear after being detained from northern Gaza and in Khan Younis. Public forced nudity for long durations violates the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment and amounts to sexual violence.
Those held at the notorious Sde Teiman military detention camp, near Beersheba in southern Israel said they were blindfolded and handcuffed for the entire time they were detained there. They described being forced to remain in stress positions for long hours and being prevented from talking to one another or raising their heads. These accounts are consistent with findings of other human rights organizations and UN bodies as well as numerous reports, based on accounts of whistleblowers and released detainees.
One detainee who was released in June after 27 days during which he was detained in a barrack with at least 120 others told Amnesty detainees they would be beaten by the military or sent to be attacked by dogs simply for talking to another prisoner, raising their head or changing position.
Said Maarouf, a 57-year-old pediatrician who was detained by the Israeli military during a raid on al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza City in December 2023 and detained for 45 days at the Sde Teiman military camp, told Amnesty International that detention guards kept him blindfolded and handcuffed for the entire duration of his detention, and described being starved, repeatedly beaten, and forced to sit on his knees for long periods.
In another case, the Israeli army arrested a 14-year old child from his home in Jabalia, in northern Gaza on 1 January 2024. He was held for 24 days in the Sde Teiman military detention centre with at least 100 adult detainees in one barrack. He told Amnesty International that military interrogators had subjected him to torture, including by kicking him, punching him in the neck and head. He said he had been repeatedly burnt with cigarette butts. Signs of cigarettes burns and bruises were visible on the child’s body when Amnesty International interviewed him on 3 February 2024, in the school where he was sheltering with other displaced families. During his detention, he was not allowed to call his family or see a lawyer and was held blindfolded and handcuffed.
On 5 June Israeli authorities announced plans to improve detention conditions at Sde Teiman military camp and limit the number of detainees held at the site in response to a petition from Israeli human rights organizations demanding its closure, but over a month later little appears to have changed.
The lawyer Khaled Mahajna was able to gain rare entry into Sde Teiman on 19 June. He told Amnesty International that his client, Mohammed Arab, a detained journalist, told him he was being held with at least 100 people in the same barrack in inhumane conditions and that the detainees had seen no improvement whatsoever over the past two weeks. He also said he had been held in Sde Teiman for over 100 days, without even knowing why.
The Israeli military confirmed to Haaretz on 3 June that it is investigating the deaths in custody in Israel of 40 detainees, including 36 who died or were killed in the military detention facility in Sde Teiman. No indictments have been filed yet. This number does not include detainees who died or were killed while in the custody of the Israeli Prison Service.
Women detainees
Among the detainees interviewed by Amnesty International were five women all of whom had been detained incommunicado for over 50 days. They were first held in a women-only detention camp at Anatot military detention centre, in an illegal Israeli settlement near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, then in Damon prison for women in northern Israel, under the control of the Israeli Prison Service. None of the five was informed of the legal grounds for their arrest or brought before a judge. All of them described being beaten while being transported to detention.
One of them, arrested on 6 December from her home, said she was separated from her two children- a four-year-old and a nine-month-old baby – and held initially alongside hundreds of men. She was accused of being a Hamas member, beaten, forced to remove her veil and photographed without it. She also described the torment of being subjected to the mock execution of her husband:
“On the third day of detention, they put us in a ditch and started throwing sand. A soldier fired two shots in the air and said they executed my husband and I broke down and begged him to kill me too, to relieve me from the nightmare,” she said.
On the third day of detention, they put us in a ditch and started throwing sand. A soldier fired two shots in the air and said they executed my husband and I broke down and begged him to kill me too, to relieve me from the nightmare
Former detainee
“I was terrified and scared for my kids all the time,” another released woman detainee told Amnesty that her repeated requests for information about her children were ignored by prison guards whom she overheard laughing and mocking her.
She told Amnesty International that after three weeks at Damon prison she was told she would be released. She was handcuffed, blindfolded and had her feet shackled and was taken to another location. Upon arrival there, instead of being released she was violently strip-searched by guards who used a huge knife to rip off her clothes. She was then returned to Anatot for 18 more days.
She told Amnesty that she was threatened by prison guards who said: “We will do to you what Hamas did to us, we will kidnap and rape you”. She was never informed of the reason for her detention.
She and other detainees interviewed by Amnesty International said that they were dropped off near Kerem Shalom/Karem Abu Salem crossing and had to walk for more than half an hour until they reached an ICRC -run point for released prisoners. All detainees said that all or most of their belongings were never returned to them, including their phones, jewellery and money.
Background
Amnesty International expressed grave concerns over Israel’s use of the Unlawful Combatants Law and its violations of international human rights law in a 2012 report Starved of Justice: Palestinians detained without trial by Israel. As explained in detail in that report, Israel previously derogated from its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) citing the fact that the nation has been in a declared state of emergency since its formation, a derogation that continues to this day. However international humanitarian law, which is not subject to derogation, requires that the right to a fair trial must always be respected. In addition, Article 4(2) of the ICCPR prohibits derogation from certain rights in the ICCPR even during a state of emergency, including the right not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 7). Accordingly, incommunicado detention, the lack of fair trial, and torture and other ill-treatment violate international law, even during a state of emergency.
Beyond this law, Israeli authorities have a history of incarcerating Palestinians without charge or trial through their systematic use of administrative detention, a key feature of Israel’s system of apartheid. According to Israeli human rights organization Hamoked, as of 1 July Israeli authorities were holding 3,379 people under administrative detention, the vast majority of whom are Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 287 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 38,848, with 89,459 wounded." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
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