Republicans defend Trump by attacking criminal justice system

Republicans — including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — have accused the Manhattan district attorney of weaponising the criminal justice system to influence next year’s presidential election. (AFP)
Republicans — including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — have accused the Manhattan district attorney of weaponising the criminal justice system to influence next year’s presidential election. (AFP)
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Updated 01 April 2023

Republicans defend Trump by attacking criminal justice system

Republicans defend Trump by  attacking criminal justice system
  • Critics warn the present partisan rhetoric could shake public trust in courts

WASHINGTON: Many Republicans in the US Congress have responded to Donald Trump’s looming Tuesday arraignment by characterizing the criminal justice system as corrupt, in accusations that parallel their earlier broadsides against the nation’s elections after the former president’s 2020 defeat.

Trump and his allies in the House of Representatives and Senate have used rhetoric that echoed his false claims of widespread election fraud in the build-up to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol by his supporters.
Critics warn that the present partisan rhetoric could shake public trust in courts by undermining the institutional legitimacy of the criminal justice system.
“Trump’s indictment is the culmination of six years of the Democrats weaponizing law enforcement to target and persecute their political enemies. Dictatorships operate like this – the US is supposed to be different,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz, a hard-line Republican who voted to overturn 2020 election results.

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Most Democrats have warned against challenging the legitimacy of the institutions of government in defense of Trump, who routinely pushed up against the guard rails of democracy during his four years in the White House and was twice impeached by Congress.

Trump says he is innocent of the expected New York charges — which revolve around hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. Details of the charges are as yet unclear.
He says the investigation and three other probes involving his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House are all politically motivated.
Most Democrats have warned against challenging the legitimacy of the institutions of government in defense of Trump, who routinely pushed up against the guard rails of democracy during his four years in the White House and was twice impeached by Congress.
“Political leaders ought to stand up for the American system of government,” said Democratic Representative Zoe Lofgren, a member of the House Judiciary Committee who also served on the congressional investigation of the Jan. 6 attack.
“Undercutting the system of government is a serious matter and a threat to our future,” she said in an interview.
Trump has been unrestrained in his rhetoric in recent weeks, calling for protests and warning of potential “death & destruction” if he were to be charged.
He used fiery language hours before his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, in a bid to overturn his election defeat. Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after that riot and more than 140 police officers were injured. The Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damage.
Most Republicans have trained their invective on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accusing the prosecutor of mounting a politically motivated investigation aimed at preventing Trump from being reelected to the White House in 2024.
After Trump on March 18 announced that he expected to be arrested in days, the Republican-controlled House launched its own probe of Bragg’s grand jury investigation, seeking documents and testimony. They have called Bragg’s move “an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority” and said the indictment followed years of the office searching for any basis on which to bring charges.
Democrats questioned whether Congress has the authority to investigate a state-level investigation, particularly one conducted under secretive grand jury rules.
Bragg, a Democrat, on Friday warned Republican Representatives Jim Jordan, James Comer and Bryan Steil, who are leading the probe, against attacking the criminal justice system.
“You and many of your colleagues have chosen to collaborate with Mr. Trump’s efforts to vilify and denigrate the integrity of elected state prosecutors and trial judges,” the Manhattan prosecutor wrote.
House Republicans continued to push back. Firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene said she planned to protest against Trump’s court appearance on Tuesday, while Brian Mast went further and told CNN he would not accept the outcome of a jury trial, saying “I don’t have a trust that a jury will make a fair assessment of this.”
Not all Republicans were so quick to cast doubt on the courts.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson issued a statement that called for patience and underscored the legal principle that Trump, as a defendant, should be presumed innocent.
“We need to wait on the facts and for our American system of justice to work like it does for thousands of Americans every day,” said Hutchinson, who is considering his own 2024 White House run.
Historians including Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer said Republican statements about Bragg and the criminal justice system follow a long-established partisan line.
“The party has invested a great deal in attacking the legitimacy of institutions, which is why Trump fit well into the party and continues to be popular,” Zelizer said in an email.
Nicole Hemmer, director of the Rogers Center for the American Presidency at Vanderbilt University, warned that Republican attacks on the US criminal justice system could ultimately have dire consequences for courts and juries.
“This is the end-game of the ‘deep state’ rhetoric that Donald Trump has deployed since 2016 to sow those seeds of distrust in institutions of accountability,” Hemmer said.
“We haven’t yet seen a cataclysmic moment in this rejection of the courts. But we are starting to see the steps toward it, as we saw the steps toward Jan. 6 coming from a long way off.”

 


NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters

NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters
Updated 10 sec ago

NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters

NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters
  • KFOR: ‘Several soldiers of the Italian and Hungarian KFOR contingent were the subject of unprovoked attacks and sustained trauma wounds with fractures and burns’
  • Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that 52 Serbs were injured, three of them seriously
LEPOSAVIC, Kosovo: Around 25 NATO peacekeeping soldiers defending three town halls in northern Kosovo were injured in clashes with Serb protesters on Monday, while Serbia’s president put the army on the highest level of combat alert.
KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping mission to Kosovo, condemned the violence.
“While countering the most active fringes of the crowd, several soldiers of the Italian and Hungarian KFOR contingent were the subject of unprovoked attacks and sustained trauma wounds with fractures and burns due to the explosion of incendiary devices,” it said in a statement.
Hungary’s defense minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky said that 7 Hungarian soldiers were seriously injured and that they will be taken to Hungary for treatment. He said 20 soldiers were injured. Italian soldiers were also injured in clashes.
“What is happening is absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible,” Italy’s Giorgia Meloni said in a statement. “It is vital to avoid further unilateral actions on the part of the Kosovar authorities and that all the parties in question immediately take a step back to ease the tensions.”
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that 52 Serbs were injured, three of them seriously.
Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani accused Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic of destabilising Kosovo.
“Serb illegal structures turned into criminal gangs have attacked Kosovo police, KFOR (peacekeeping) officers & journalists. Those who carry out Vucic’s orders to destabilize the north of Kosovo, must face justice,” Osmani tweeted.
Vucic accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of creating tensions. He called on Serbs in Kosovo to avoid clashes with NATO soldiers.
The tense situation developed after ethnic Albanian mayors took office in northern Kosovo’s Serb majority area after elections the Serbs boycotted — a move that led the US and its allies to rebuke Pristina on Friday.
In Zvecan, one of the towns, Kosovo police — staffed by ethnic Albanians after Serbs quit the force last year — sprayed pepper gas to repel a crowd of Serbs who broke through a security barricade and tried to force their way into the municipality building, witnesses said.
Serb protesters in Zvecan threw tear gas and stun grenades at NATO soldiers. Serbs also clashed with police in Zvecan and spray-painted NATO vehicles with the letter “Z,” referring to a Russian sign used in war in Ukraine.
In Leposavic, close to the border with Serbia, US peacekeeping troops in riot gear placed barbed wire around the town hall to protect it from hundreds of angry Serbs.
Later in the day protesters threw eggs at a parked car belonging to the new Leposavic mayor.
Vucic, who is the commander-in-chief of the Serbian armed forces, raised the army’s combat readiness to the highest level, Defense Minister Milos Vucevic told reporters.
“This implies that immediately before 2:00 p.m. (1200 GMT), the Serbian Armed Forces’ Chief of the General Staff issued additional instructions for the deployment of the army’s units in specific, designated positions,” Vucevic said, without elaborating.
NATO peacekeepers also blocked off the town hall in Zubin Potok to protect it from angry local Serbs, witnesses said.
Igor Simic, deputy head of the Serb List, the biggest Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb party, accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of fueling tensions in the north.
“We are interested in peace. Albanians who live here are interested in peace, and only he (Kurti) wants to make chaos,” Simic told reporters in Zvecan.
Serbs, who comprise a majority in Kosovo’s north, have never accepted its 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and still see Belgrade as their capital more than two decades after the Kosovo Albanian uprising against repressive Serbian rule.
Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90 percent of the population in Kosovo as a whole, but northern Serbs have long demanded the implementation of an EU-brokered 2013 deal for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their area.
Serbs refused to take part in local elections in April and ethnic Albanian candidates won the mayoralties in four Serb-majority municipalities — including North Mitrovica, where no incidents were reported on Monday — with a 3.5 percent turnout.
Serbs demand that the Kosovo government remove ethnic Albanian mayors from town halls and allow local administrations financed by Belgrade resume their work.
On Friday, three out of the four ethnic Albanian mayors were escorted into their offices by police, who were pelted with rocks and responded with tear gas and water cannon to disperse the protesters.
The United States and its allies, which have strongly backed Kosovo’s independence, rebuked Pristina on Friday, saying imposing mayors in Serb-majority areas without popular support undercut efforts to normalize relations.
Kurti defended Pristina’s position, tweeting after a weekend phone call with the European Union’s foreign policy chief: “Emphasized that elected mayors will provide services to all citizens.”
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told RTS it was “not possible to have mayors who have not been elected by Serbs in Serb-majority municipalities.”
After meeting Kurti, US ambassador to Kosovo Jeffrey Hovenier told reporters: “We are concerned about reports today about violence against official property.”
“We’ve seen pictures of graffiti against KFOR cars and police cars, we’ve heard about attacks on journalists, we condemn that, that is not appropriate response.”

Rohingya remain ‘top priority’ for OIC as chief visits refugee camp in Bangladesh

Rohingya remain ‘top priority’ for OIC as chief visits refugee camp in Bangladesh
Updated 46 sec ago

Rohingya remain ‘top priority’ for OIC as chief visits refugee camp in Bangladesh

Rohingya remain ‘top priority’ for OIC as chief visits refugee camp in Bangladesh
  • OIC Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha in Bangladesh until May 31
  • Islamic body been leading advocacy for Rohingya, says nation’s FM

DHAKA: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has said that the Rohingya remain a top priority for the body, saw its chief official visit the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar on Monday as part of a five-day trip to the country.

OIC Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha arrived in Bangladesh on Saturday and met with the country’s top officials, including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The Rohingya situation was discussed in Taha’s meetings with Bangladeshi officials, as the South Asian nation is hosting more than 1 million refugees from the persecuted minority, most of whom fled from Myanmar’s Rakhine State in 2017 to escape a deadly military crackdown.

“(The) Rohingya is one of the top priority issues for (the) OIC … These Rohingya people are suffering. They deserve peace, security and a better life,” Taha told reporters after meeting Bangladesh’s Foreign Affairs Minister A.K. Abdul Momen on Sunday.

The OIC chief also called on the organization’s member states to support Gambia’s case at the International Court of Justice, which alleges that Myanmar has violated the Genocide Convention with its actions against the Rohingya in Rakhine State.

During his meeting with Hasina, Taha thanked the Bangladeshi government and people “for their relentless efforts to provide shelters, protection, hospitality, and necessary assistance to Rohingya refugees,” the OIC said in a statement.

Bangladesh is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, and has spent an estimated $1.2 billion a year to support the refugees.

“For a long time, we have had them (the OIC) beside us on the Rohingya issue. They have taken a leading role in removing the plight of the Rohingya,” Momen told reporters.

Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mizanur Rahman said Taha spoke with members of the Rohingya community in Cox’s Bazar during his visit on Monday.

“(The) OIC secretary-general exchanged views with the Rohingya and listened to their plight,” he said. “Taha promised to do the best on (the) OIC’s part to resolve the Rohingya crisis.”

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are facing compounding issues, including a further decrease of their rations from the World Food Programme, which said a lack of funding has forced it to cut food aid per person from $10 to $8 a month starting June 1.


Thousands of Albanians breaching immigration bail in UK

Thousands of Albanians breaching immigration bail in UK
Updated 29 May 2023

Thousands of Albanians breaching immigration bail in UK

Thousands of Albanians breaching immigration bail in UK
  • 12,842 Albanians released from immigration detention centers failed to report to bail officials at their scheduled time

LONDON: Nearly 13,000 Albanians who entered the UK without valid visas breached the terms of their immigration bail, it was reported on Monday.

Home Office data shows that in the 15 months to this March, 12,842 Albanians released from immigration detention centers failed to report to bail officials at their scheduled time. They accounted for just over a quarter of the 44,957 people who violated their immigration bail in that period.

Many people released into the community are monitored by electronic tags. The Daily Telegraph reported on Monday that videos on TikTok show Albanians using scissors or wire cutters to remove them. 

The Telegraph said that TikTok users in Albania were also offering to act as guarantors for up to £3,000 ($3,700), so that compatriots entering the UK could skip being held at a detention center.

Immigration lawyers in London told Top Channel that Albanians were breaching their bail because they were afraid of being deported to their home country following the signing of an agreement between Tirana and London that fast-tracks their removal. 

“We take further steps if the person does not comply with the conditions of their bail,” A Home Office spokesman told the Telegraph. “There are further bail conditions, home visits, arrests and obtaining financial guarantees,” they added.
 


Ukraine approves sanctions against Russian ally Iran: parliament

A police expert examines fragments of a missile after Russia fired a barrage of missiles for the second time in 24 hours.
A police expert examines fragments of a missile after Russia fired a barrage of missiles for the second time in 24 hours.
Updated 29 May 2023

Ukraine approves sanctions against Russian ally Iran: parliament

A police expert examines fragments of a missile after Russia fired a barrage of missiles for the second time in 24 hours.
  • Package was approved one day after Ukraine said Russia used Iranian Shahed drones in the largest UAV attack on the capital since beginning of invasion

KYIV: Kyiv’s parliament on Monday approved a sanctions package against Russia’s ally Iran, accused of sending weapons to Moscow during its more than year-long invasion of Ukraine.
The package was approved by parliament one day after Ukraine said Russia used Iranian Shahed drones in the largest UAV attack on the capital since the beginning of the invasion.
“The resolution synchronizes Ukrainian sanctions with the actions of the entire civilized world on the path to the complete isolation of Iran,” the Ukrainian parliament said on its website.
The package includes a ban on “military and dual-use goods” with Iran and the “suspension of economic and financial obligations in favor of residents of Iran.”
It still needs to be signed into law by Zelensky — a formality as the Ukrainian leader submitted the bill himself.
Zelensky had last week appealed directly to Iranians, asking: “Why do you want to be accomplices in Russian terror?“
His adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said Sunday that Kyiv was hit by dozens of Shahed drones and called Iran a “terrorist regime.”
“Tehran has become a key ally of Moscow in this war, deliberately supplying it with weapons for attacks on civilian cities,” Podolyak said on Twitter.
Tehran has struck back by saying this was an attempt by Zelensky to gain the West’s military and financial support.


Afghanistan calls for ‘diplomatic’ resolution with Iran after border skirmishes

Afghanistan calls for ‘diplomatic’ resolution with Iran after border skirmishes
Taliban security forces in Nimroz province take defensive position at the Afghanistan-Iran border on May 27, 2023. (Twitter) A
Updated 29 May 2023

Afghanistan calls for ‘diplomatic’ resolution with Iran after border skirmishes

Afghanistan calls for ‘diplomatic’ resolution with Iran after border skirmishes
  • 1 Taliban officer, 2 Iranian border guards killed after shooting broke out on Saturday
  • Latest incident came amid a dispute over water rights to the Helmand River

The Taliban government has called on Iran to resolve bilateral issues “through diplomatic channels,” an Afghan official told Arab News on Monday, as tension at their border eased following skirmishes over the weekend. 

At least one Taliban officer and two Iranian border guards were killed on Saturday after shooting broke out near a border post between Afghanistan and Iran, with officials from the two countries accusing each other of opening fire first. 

The incident came amid a dispute over water rights to the Helmand River, which flows from Afghanistan into Iran’s arid eastern regions, as the neighbors face worsening drought exacerbated by climate change. 

“We don’t want relations with our neighboring countries to deteriorate. Our request to all neighboring countries, including Iran, is to resolve these issues through diplomatic channels,” Hafiz Zia Ahmad, deputy spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Arab News. 

“The current situation is normal. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is never in favor of escalation.” 

Officials have yet to provide details on what provoked the incident, in which several people on both sides were also injured. 

It occurred after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned the Taliban earlier this month not to violate Iran’s water rights over their shared Helmand River, as laid out in a bilateral treaty signed in 1973. 

Water rights are among other issues the two countries faced since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, including previous skirmishes at the border and reports of mistreatment against Afghan refugees in Iran, which has for decades hosted millions of them. 

In a report published on Monday, state-run IRNA news agency quoted Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi as saying that “there is no problem at the present time” and that “everything is calm” at the Afghan-Iranian border. 

Gul Mohammed Qutrat, a police spokesman in Nimroz, said problems at the border have been addressed. 

“Currently, the situation is under control,” he told Arab News. “There is no tension at all at the border.”