Good morning,
Rallies have been taking place in Minneapolis to mark the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder. The world watched in horror one year ago on Tuesday as the police officer Derek Chauvin placed his knee on Floyd’s neck during an arrest and ignored his cries for help. After a summer of demonstrations nationwide, Chauvin went on to be one of the few police officers in the US to be prosecuted and convicted for killing a person while on duty.
Demonstrations and marches are expected across the country throughout the week. The anniversary comes as the US Senate considers the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, the most ambitious police reform effort in decades. The legislation, which passed in the House in March, would ban chokeholds and “qualified immunity” for law enforcement, which protects police officers from being personally sued by victims and their families for alleged civil rights violations.
“We want something coming out of Washington. We want something that will change federal law,” the Rev Al Sharpton said at the Minneapolis rally. “There’s been an adjournment on justice for too long. It’s time for them to vote and make this the law.”
US joins global outcry at Belarus over ‘forced diversion’ of Ryanair flight
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has demanded the immediate release of Roman Protasevich, the journalist and blogger who was arrested after the Belarus president, Alexander Lukashenko, ordered his military to scramble a MiG-29 fighter to escort a commercial Ryanair plane to land at Minsk airport.
Protasevich, a former editor of the influential Telegram channels Nexta and Nexta Live, has been accused by Belarus of terrorism and provoking riots after the channels became one of the main conduits for organizing last year’s anti-Lukashenko protests over election fraud. Protasevich had been living in exile and Poland had previously rejected an extradition request by Minsk.
“I’m facing the death penalty here,” Protasevich reportedly told a fellow passenger. The mass unrest charges against him carry a sentence of up to 15 years.
Along with more than 120 other passengers, Protasevich was flying on an intra-EU flight from Athens in Greece to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, when the plane was diverted to Minsk. The jet had been over Belarusian airspace when it diverted course, according to online flight data. The Belarus government claimed it was investigating a bomb threat.
Possible sanctions for Belarus The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said he would demand new sanctions against Belarus at a European Council meeting scheduled for Monday. “I call on Belarus authorities to immediately release the detained passenger and to fully guarantee his rights.” said Charles Michel, president of the council. “EU leaders will discuss this unprecedented incident tomorrow during the European Council. The incident will not remain without consequences.”
Belarus KGB possibly on Ryanair flight “We believe there were some KGB agents offloaded at the airport as well,” the Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary, said in an interview on Newstalk Breakfast on Monday.
Hijacking, piracy, state terror Morawiecki accused Belarus of hijacking the plane, while the US, Ireland, Germany, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic joined in condemning the action as “an act of piracy” and calling for the suspension of all overflights. “This act of state terror and kidnapping is a threat to all those who travel in Europe and beyond. It cannot be allowed to stand,” they said in a joint statement.
Top Senate Republicans are working to derail the creation of a Capitol riot commission
Top Senate Republicans are fearful enough of what a 9/11-style commission into the 6 January Capitol attack could do to their party politically that they are making a concerted effort to quash the creation.
While the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has already signalled his opposition, the stance he and other Republicans are taking reflects a fear that extending their support to an inquiry will probably find Donald Trump at fault for inciting the Capitol attack, something that could be used against them ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
Over in the House, however, the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, has more to fear from what a 9/11-style commission could uncover.
McCarthy would probably have to testify, voluntarily or under subpoena, given that he phoned Trump as rioters breached the Capitol building and begged him to call them off. The former president responded by siding with the rioters, saying they appeared to care more about overturning the election results than Republicans in Congress. McCarthy was desperate enough to then try the senior White House adviser, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to stop the attack after Trump ignored his pleas, according to a former administration source said.
In other news …
The Biden administration will deal with “the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza”, Blinken has pledged, seeking “equal measures of security” for Israelis and Palestinians, as a ceasefire after 11 days of conflict held throughout the weekend.
In Samoa, the clerk of the legislative assembly locked the prime minister-elect and her supporters out of the parliament building to prevent the swearing-in and transition of power. It came after the most closely fought election in Samoa’s history, that saw the Human Rights Protection party (HRPP), which has ruled Samoa for 39 years, challenged by the insurgent Faatuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (Fast) party, which was founded in June 2020.
Stat of the day: Vancouver has experienced a 717% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes
Vancouver has earned the terrible moniker of “the anti-Asian hate crime capital of North America”, with 98 reported cases of anti-Asian hate crimes – more than all US cities combined. Bear in mind that hate crimes are terribly difficult to prove and investigate – authorities must be able to prove intent as well as the circumstances of the act itself. So while it may feel as if there have been a huge number of anti-Asian hate crimes taking place in cities across North America, many if not most of the horrific assaults seen on social media were probably not investigated or pursued as hate crimes by the police.
Don’t miss this: the oldest Black-owned newspaper in Minnesota, in the aftermath of George Floyd
As Minneapolis marks the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, the mission of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder, an 87-year-old newspaper headquartered just five blocks from where Floyd was killed, is more necessary than ever.
Last Thing: Centuries of racist imagery coming down in one year
Some more on George Floyd’s legacy: here’s a look at how the worldwide outcry after his murder forced leaders to re-examine the images in our everyday lives.
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