SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
");background-position:center;background-size:19px 19px;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-color:var(--button-bg-color);padding:0;width:var(--form-elem-height);height:var(--form-elem-height);font-size:0;}:is(.js-newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter_bar.newsletter-wrapper) .widget__body:has(.response:not(:empty)) :is(.widget__headline, .widget__subheadline, #mc_embed_signup .mc-field-group, #mc_embed_signup input[type="submit"]){display:none;}:is(.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper) #mce-responses:has(.response:not(:empty)){grid-row:1 / -1;grid-column:1 / -1;}.newsletter-wrapper .widget__body > .snark-line:has(.response:not(:empty)){grid-column:1 / -1;}:is(.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper) :is(.newsletter-campaign:has(.response:not(:empty)), .newsletter-and-social:has(.response:not(:empty))){width:100%;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col{display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;justify-content:center;align-items:center;gap:8px 20px;margin:0 auto;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col .text-element{display:flex;color:var(--shares-color);margin:0 !important;font-weight:400 !important;font-size:16px !important;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col .whitebar_social{display:flex;gap:12px;width:auto;}.newsletter-wrapper .newsletter_bar_col a{margin:0;background-color:#0000;padding:0;width:32px;height:32px;}.newsletter-wrapper .social_icon:after{display:none;}.newsletter-wrapper .widget article:before, .newsletter-wrapper .widget article:after{display:none;}#sFollow_Block_0_0_2_0_0_0_1{margin:0;}#sSHARED_-_Social_Desktop_0_0_10_0_0_0.row-wrapper{margin:40px auto;}#sBoost_post_0_0_0_0_0_0_1_0{background-color:#000;color:#fff;}.boost-post{--article-direction:column;--min-height:none;--height:auto;--padding:24px;--titles-width:calc(100% - 84px);--image-fit:cover;--image-pos:right;--photo-caption-size:12px;--photo-caption-space:20px;--headline-size:23px;--headline-space:18px;--subheadline-size:13px;--text-size:12px;--oswald-font:"Oswald", Impact, "Franklin Gothic Bold", sans-serif;--cta-position:center;overflow:hidden;margin-bottom:0;--lora-font:"Lora", sans-serif !important;}.boost-post:not(:empty):has(.boost-post-article:not(:empty)){min-height:var(--min-height);}.boost-post *{box-sizing:border-box;float:none;}.boost-post .posts-custom .posts-wrapper:after{display:none !important;}.boost-post article:before, .boost-post article:after{display:none !important;}.boost-post article .row:before, .boost-post article .row:after{display:none !important;}.boost-post article .row .col:before, .boost-post article .row .col:after{display:none !important;}.boost-post .widget__body:before, .boost-post .widget__body:after{display:none !important;}.boost-post .photo-caption:after{content:"";width:100%;height:1px;background-color:#fff;}.boost-post .body:before, .boost-post .body:after{display:none !important;}.boost-post .body :before, .boost-post .body :after{display:none !important;}.boost-post__bottom{--article-direction:row;--titles-width:350px;--min-height:346px;--height:315px;--padding:24px 86px 24px 24px;--image-fit:contain;--image-pos:right;--headline-size:36px;--subheadline-size:15px;--text-size:12px;--cta-position:left;}.boost-post__sidebar:not(:empty):has(.boost-post-article:not(:empty)){margin-bottom:10px;}.boost-post__in-content:not(:empty):has(.boost-post-article:not(:empty)){margin-bottom:40px;}.boost-post__bottom:not(:empty):has(.boost-post-article:not(:empty)){margin-bottom:20px;}:root{;}@media (min-width: 1024px){#sSHARED_-_Social_Desktop_0_0_10_0_0_0_1{padding-left:40px;}}.donation_banner{position:relative;background:#000;}.donation_banner .posts-custom *, .donation_banner .posts-custom :after, .donation_banner .posts-custom :before{margin:0;}.donation_banner .posts-custom .widget{position:absolute;inset:0;}.donation_banner__wrapper{position:relative;z-index:2;pointer-events:none;}.donation_banner .donate_btn{position:relative;z-index:2;}#sSHARED_-_Support_Block_0_0_13_0_0_3_1_0{color:#fff;}#sSHARED_-_Support_Block_0_0_13_0_0_3_1_1{font-weight:normal;}#sElement_Post_Layout_Press_Release__0_0_1_0_0_11{margin:100px 0;}.grey_newsblock .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper, .newsletter-wrapper.sidebar{background:linear-gradient(91deg, #005dc7 28%, #1d63b2 65%, #0353ae 85%);}.black_newsletter{background:linear-gradient(91deg, #005dc7 28%, #1d63b2 65%, #0353ae 85%);}.black_newsletter .newsletter_bar.newsletter-wrapper{background:none;}
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
The Egyptian military should immediately end trials of civilians before military courts and release all those arbitrarily detained or convicted after unfair proceedings, Human Rights Watch said today. In the latest case, 28 civilians arrested in Cairo's Tahrir Square on April 12, 2011, went on trial as a group before a military court on April 28.
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has tried more than 5,000 civilians before military tribunals since February, including many arrested following peaceful protests in Tahrir Square. Trials of civilians before the military courts constitute wholesale violations of basic fair trial rights, Human Rights Watch said. At the same time, senior officials in the government of former president Hosni Mubarak are being tried before civilian courts on charges of corruption and using lethal force against protesters.
"Egypt's military leadership has not explained why young protesters are being tried before unfair military courts while former Mubarak officials are being tried for corruption and killing protesters before regular criminal courts," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The generals' reliance on military trials threatens the rule of law by creating a parallel system that undermines Egypt's judiciary."
Since Egypt's military took over policing the streets from the Ministry of Interior at the end of January, it has arbitrarily arrested peaceful protesters. On February 26, March 6, March 9, April 9, and April 12, military police accompanied by other military personnel violently dispersed protesters and arrested at least 321 persons from Tahrir and Lazoughli squares. At least 76 of them remain in detention after unfair trials before military courts.
Human rights lawyer Adel Ramadan from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, who has been representing defendants before military courts, told Human Rights Watch that, based on court rolls and case numbers, military courts handed down over 5,000 sentences across the country between February 11 and the middle of April. The military courts typically handle groups of between five and thirty defendants at a single trial, with a trial lasting 20 to 40 minutes.
Egypt's Emergency Law, in place since 1981, and the Code of Military Justice authorize the president to refer civilians for military trials. Under the Mubarak government, such trials were reserved for high-profile political cases, such as the 2008 conviction of the former deputy guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat al-Shatir, and 24 others; cases in which the defendants had been arrested in a military zone such as the Sinai; or bloggers who criticized the military.
Since February, however, the military has tried thousands of civilians before military courts under the Code of Military Justice. The code, in articles 5- 6, allows for such trials only under specified conditions, such as when the crime takes place in an area controlled by the military or if one of the parties involved is a military officer. In a live television interview on a local station, ON TV, on April 11, Gen. Ismail Etman, the military's head of Morale Affairs, said that "in cases where it affects the security of the armed forces or the security of the country such as thuggery, looting or destruction of property, theft, and especially if one of the parties is a military officer, we transfer it to military trials to be looked into immediately."
The Code of Military Justice should be amended to restrict the jurisdiction of the military courts to trials only of military personnel charged with offenses of an exclusively military nature, Human Rights Watch said.
The Egyptian military amended the country's penal code on March 1, under the legislative powers accorded to it by the Constitutional Declaration of February 13, to add the crime of "thuggery" in articles 375bis and 375bis (a) entitled "causing fear, intimidation and affecting sense of security." It defines "thuggery" as "displaying force or threatening to use force against a victim" with the "intention to intimidate or cause harm to him or his property."
The wholesale use of military courts to try civilians comes at a time when the military is trying to reassure Egyptians that it is taking a strong stance to suppress criminal activity. Since February 26, the military has sent faxes to Egyptian media listing the names and sentences of 647 civilians tried before military courts, lists that newspapers reproduced without providing any further information.
Based on these lists, over the past two months, military courts in Cairo, Alexandria, Ismailiyya, and other cities have sentenced civilians to prison terms ranging from six months to seven years - in at least three cases even 25 years' or life imprisonment. The charges typically were breaking curfew, possession of illegal weapons, destruction of public property, theft, assault, or threat of violence.
"Those who commit genuine crimes should be tried in regular criminal courts, as they have been in the past." Stork said. "Egyptian prisons are now filled with thousands of civilians who were convicted by fundamentally unfair military courts, often on dubious charges."
Defendants in military trials have no access to counsel of their own choosing, except in high-profile cases such as the blogger Maikel Nabil. Dozens of protesters arrested on March 9 were not allowed to speak to their court-appointed lawyers before or during the trial or to communicate with their families to request a lawyer. Military prosecution officials denied human rights lawyers access on at least three occasions when groups of protesters were being interrogated and tried.
Most Egyptian news media have been unwilling to report on arbitrary arrests and allegations of torture of protesters by the military police. The media also largely ignored two March news conferences by human rights lawyers in which a number of torture victims testified. Only a few opinion writers and TV hosts have been willing to raise the issue of torture and arbitrary arrests by the military.
On March 22, General Etman sent a letter to editors of Egyptian newspapers telling them "not to publish any articles/news/press releases/complaints/advertising/pictures concerning the armed forces or the leadership of the armed forces, except after consulting the Morale Affairs directorate and the Military Intelligence since these are the competent parties to examine such issues to protect the safety of the nation."
On April 14, the military said, in its Statement Number 36, that it would review the detentions of "all the youth ... tried in the recent period," an apparent reference to the protesters, but Human Rights Watch is unaware of any movement in their cases. The military had earlier announced that it was reviewing the sentencing of two protesters, Amr Eissa and Mohamed Adel, and also ordered the retrial of Walid Sami Saad.
Two lawyers, Khaled Ali and Taher Abul Nasr, brought a case before Egypt's Court of Administrative Justice on behalf of a former military detainee, Rasha Azab, challenging the military's administrative decision to try civilians before military courts. The court held the first session in the case on April 19 and adjourned the case until May 10.
If the court decides it is competent to rule on this issue, this would be the first step toward the judiciary reasserting control over the administration of criminal justice, Human Rights Watch said. Thus far, civilian judicial bodies have had little say over military abuses, and the Public Prosecutor has referred torture complaints against the military to military prosecutors.
International Law
Human Rights Watch strongly opposes any trials of civilians before military courts, where the proceedings do not protect due process rights and do not satisfy the requirements of independence and impartiality of courts of law. International human rights bodies over the last 15 years have determined that trials of civilians before military tribunals violate the due process guarantees found in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which affirms that everyone has the right to be tried by a competent, independent, and impartial tribunal.
These bodies have consistently rejected the use of military prosecutors and courts in cases involving abuses against civilians, by stating that the jurisdiction of military courts should be limited to offenses that are strictly military in nature. The Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity, presented before the former United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2005, state that "the jurisdiction of military tribunals must be restricted solely to specifically military offenses committed by military personnel, to the exclusion of human rights violations, which shall come under the jurisdiction of the ordinary domestic courts or, where appropriate, in the case of serious crimes under international law, of an international or internationalized criminal court."
The Human Rights Committee, the international expert body authorized to monitor compliance with the ICCPR, has stated that civilians should be tried by military courts only under exceptional circumstances and only under conditions that genuinely afford full due process. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, in interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, has said that military courts "should not, in any circumstances whatsoever, have jurisdiction over civilians."
Arbitrary Arrest and Military Convictions of Peaceful Protesters
February 26 Protest
One of those detained for participating in peaceful protest is Amr al-Beheiry, whose case alerted human rights lawyers to the fact that protesters were being brought before military courts.
Military officers arrested al-Beheiry, along with at least eight others, in the early hours of February 26 after forcibly evicting protesters from Tahrir Square. Mona Saif, an activist, told Human Rights Watch that she and her mother, Laila Soueif, intervened when they saw military officers first arrest al-Beheiry, and they were able to secure his release. Al-Beheiry had bruises on his face and told Saif that officers had beaten him. After they parted ways, military officers re-arrested him.
Al-Beheiry's family learned of his arrest from the newspaper and contacted Ramadan, the defense lawyer, who unsuccessfully tried to gain access to him at the military base on March 1 and only then learned that al-Beheiry had been tried and sentenced on February 28. Al-Beheiry is serving a five-year sentence in Wadi Gedid prison, 400 miles from his home, rather than in Tora prison outside Cairo.
March 9 Protest
Of the 173 detainees arrested on March 9 from Tahrir Square, at least 76 are believed to remain in prison after military courts sentenced them to prison terms ranging from one to three years on charges of breaking curfew, possession of explosives and knives, and destruction of property.
Human Rights Watch has interviewed 16 men and women who testified to being tortured by beating, electroshocks, and whipping by military officers on March 9 in the grounds of the Egyptian Museum, adjacent to Tahrir Square. Ahmed al-Sharkawy, one of 22 men released on March 12, told Human Rights Watch:
I was one of the protesters in Tahrir. Military officers beat me at the museum on March 9, used electroshocks on my legs and my neck and whipped me on my back with an electric cable. Later they moved us to the military camp S28 where a camera crew filmed us at a table with sticks, knives and Molotov cocktails placed before us, saying we were thugs. My father saw this on state television that evening and that's how he knew I'd been arrested.
The next day they took us to the military prison and brought each of us before the prosecutor. He asked me what I was doing in Tahrir and I said I was just walking past. He told me was charging me with being a thug and I denied all the charges. I was with him for around 15 minutes.
A while later they took me along with 29 others before a military judge. There were three court-appointed lawyers - I tried to ask their names but they told us they couldn't speak to us. He asked us one question "Why were you in Tahrir?" The whole process took around 20 minutes and then they took us to our cells. On Saturday [March 12], an officer came and called me out of the cell. He released me along with 21 other men and the 17 women.
Some of the protesters were able to alert lawyers shortly after they were arrested. Ramadan and Omran went to the military prosecutor's office on March 9 and requested access to the detainees, but officials there denied the detainees were being interrogated and said they would not be brought to trial until March 12. When Ramadan returned on March 12, military officials at the military prosecutor's office told him the group had been tried and sentenced on March 9.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 members of the group tried by military courts on March 9. They all said military police and other military officers had arrested them where they were protesting in Tahrir Square, and that military officers beat them in the grounds of the Egyptian Museum. They also said they had no access to lawyers prior to their trials or the chance to speak to court-appointed lawyers at the proceedings. They did not learn about their sentences until, at the earliest, six days later, when their families visited them in prison and saw their sentences on the visiting list.
Human Rights Watch has interviewed six people, received letters from prisoners, reviewed video footage of the events of March 9, and spoken with four prisoners' families to confirm the following cases of protesters who remain inside Tora's high security prison:
Rai'f Kashef, 22, a second-year business student, was arrested at the same time as his brother Ragui in Tahrir Square. Ragui told Human Rights Watch that military officers arrested them and took them to the museum, where the officers beat and subjected the brothers to shocks with electric stun devices. The officers then brought them to a military base, where military prosecutors questioned them separately and brought them before military judges for trial in groups of 25 to 30. Military officers released Ragui Kashef on March 12 along with 21 other men but sentenced his brother to a year in prison.
Amr Eissa, 26, an artist, was arrested along with Ragui Kashef and Khaled Sadek in front of the KFC restaurant in Tahrir Square and sentenced to three years in prison, his brother, Mostafa, told Human Rights Watch.
Eissa's was one of the two cases the military said it would review. In its Statement 30 on March 28, in which it ordered a review of the legal proceedings against him, the military stated that,
"The Egyptian armed forces announced its position at the beginning of the January 25 revolution toward the youth of the revolution that it will not stand against the free youth and that all of the legal measures that have been taken in the past period have been solely directed against acts of thuggery which have terrorized the people."
As of April 18, however, Eissa remained in Tora's high security prison. Mostafa Eissa has been campaigning on his brother's behalf, but said there had been no developments since the military announced it was reviewing the conviction.
Mustafa Abdelmoneim, 25,works in an advertising production company and took part in the Tahrir Square demonstrations from the beginning. On March 9, he was standing next to the tents protesters had set up when army officers, together with men in civilian clothes, started breaking down the tents and arresting demonstrators. In a letter written from his Tora prison cell, he wrote that he had been arrested by two military police officers, who took him to the museum and beat him on his back and his legs and used electric stun guns on him, then took him to the military camp and then before the military prosecutor and court. He told them he was tried in a group of about 30 before a military judge in a hearing that lasted 20 minutes. He said he first learned of his three-year prison sentence from his family when they came to visit him.
Hani Maher Mikhail, 26, from Imbaba, was also one of the demonstrators in Tahrir Square from the beginning. On March 9 men in civilian clothes came into the tent area to take down the tents. Mikhail went to nearby Talaat Harb Street and on his way back to the square, two officers in uniform and two men in civilian clothes arrested him and took him to the museum, where military officers beat him and used electric stun guns on him. A military judge sentenced him to three years in prison, along with a group of about 30 others.
Tamer al-Shishtawy, from Tanta, took part in the Tahrir demonstrations beginning on January 28. Military officers took him to the museum on March 9 and beat him. He said that he was tried together with 30 others by the military judge and was not permitted to speak to a lawyer.
"It is outrageous that those who peacefully protested against Mubarak should now be imprisoned after unfair military trials for peacefully protesting against the new authorities," Stork said. "The military should release all those held arbitrarily and retry any persons suspected of a criminal offence in fair proceedings before civilian courts."
The names of 76 of the protesters now imprisoned in Tora and Wadi Gedid prisons after sentences by military courts are:
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
"When a senior American official lies to Congress in the middle of genocide so that the government can keep funding that genocide, he is deliberately flouting the law and prolonging the suffering of millions of innocent people."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken faced calls to resign on Tuesday following a ProPublica report detailing how he contradicted the findings of his own department's experts in order to maintain the flow of American weaponry to Israel, which has repeatedly used the arms to commit war crimes in the Gaza Strip.
"Secretary Blinken and the Biden administration ignored Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid to the suffering people of Gaza—which is a violation of American law—and lied about it to Congress," said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "When a senior American official lies to Congress in the middle of genocide so that the government can keep funding that genocide, he is deliberately flouting the law and prolonging the suffering of millions of innocent people who desperately need our government to stop funding their slaughter."
"He must resign," Awad added, "and the Biden administration must be held accountable for its violation of the law and its complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza."
"The American people deserve honest and upright leaders to represent their values and protect their interests."
ProPublica's story provides a thorough account—backed by internal communications and other documents—of how the Blinken-led State Department delivered a report to Congress that was at odds with the conclusions of experts within the department as well as those of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The latter agency told Blinken directly in an April memo that Israel was deliberately impeding shipments of U.S. humanitarian assistance, a finding consistent with assessments from the United Nations and outside groups. Under U.S. law, the federal government cannot provide arms or other military equipment to countries obstructing American humanitarian aid.
But in a May report to Congress, the State Department concluded that the Israeli government was not "prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance within the meaning of Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act."
One State Department official, Stacy Gilbert, resigned over the final report to Congress, saying in a statement following her departure that "there is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid" and that "to deny this is absurd and shameful."
The aid obstructions are ongoing. According to an analysis released last week by a coalition of human rights organizations, Israel's siege is currently blocking over 80% of food aid from reaching Gaza as the enclave faces famine.
Awad of CAIR said Tuesday that "Secretary Blinken may have committed a crime with his lies."
"The American people deserve honest and upright leaders to represent their values and protect their interests," said Awad.
Others echoed the call for Blinken to step down or be removed by lawmakers. Congressional Republicans are currently pushing to hold Blinken in contempt, but for a matter entirely unrelated to U.S. support for Israel's war on Gaza.
Sam Perlo-Freeman, an academic who has worked as a researcher for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and the Campaign Against Arms Trade, said Blinken "should resign or be impeached."
"Of course," he added, "most of Congress was very happy to be lied to and would have denounced Blinken for the truth."
"This is so important," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal. "Congress needs to step up and codify abortion rights—and we do that by ending the filibuster."
The Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, on Tuesday endorsed eliminating the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade, the federal abortion rights ruling that was overturned two years ago.
"It is well within our reach to hold onto the majority in the Senate and take back the House," Harris, a former U.S. senator, toldWisconsin Public Radio. "I would also emphasize that while the presidential election is extremely important and dispositive of where we go moving forward, it also is about what we need to do to hold onto the Senate and win seats in the House."
"I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe," she continued. "And get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do."
Multiple current lawmakers joined a wide range of reproductive rights advocates in welcoming Harris' comments about ending the filibuster, which requires 60 of the Senate's 100 members to agree to hold a final vote on a bill.
"This is so important," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has shared her own abortion story. "Abortion access is under attack as extreme MAGA Republicans pass cruel laws to strip away our rights. Congress needs to step up and codify abortion rights—and we do that by ending the filibuster."
Unable to pass any defenses of reproductive healthcare in the divided Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has instead held recent votes on legislation regarding abortion, birth control, and in vitro fertilization (IVF) to call out Republicans.
"The filibuster is an undemocratic rule that prevents us from passing policies that a majority of Americans want. Look no further than last week's IVF vote," Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said Tuesday. "Could not agree more with Vice President Harris."
The Hillreported that after Harris' comments, Schumer told journalists that if Senate Democrats retain their majority next year, they will discuss creating an abortion "carveout" in the filibuster rule to pass abortion rights legislation.
Meanwhile, the campaign of former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for the November election, claimed on social media Tuesday that Harris' position is a "real threat to democracy."
In response, Nina Turner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy, declared that "the filibuster is anti-democratic in nature. It's a rule that takes the votes necessary in the Senate from 50 to 60."
Another critic of Harris' position was
retiring Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), a key supporter of the filibuster. According toCNN's Manu Raju, the former Democrat—who left the party in May—responded to the vice president's remarks by saying, "Shame on her."
"She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It's the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids," Manchin continued, adding that he wouldn't support Harris for president.
Veteran Democratic political strategist Tom Bonier
said that "defending 'the filibuster' over women's bodily autonomy is one heck of a way for Joe Manchin to leave the scene. Though I imagine this lack of endorsement helps Harris much more than it hurts her."
While Manchin was a Democrat, he was a major obstructionist of the party's agenda under President Joe Biden—who backed a filibuster carveout for legislation to codify abortion rights in 2022. The other primary defender of the filibuster is Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), who ditched the Democratic Party later that year and is also leaving the chamber after this term.
In the absence of federal legislation, GOP state lawmakers have ramped up efforts to restrict reproductive freedom since the U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing justices—including three Trump appointees— reversedRoe with their June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.
Given the Republican-led attacks, reproductive freedom has been a major focus of the presidential contest. While Trump has
bragged about his role in reversing Roe, Harris has blamed him for states' recently enacted and deadly abortion bans.
It is "great to finally hear Kamala Harris be clear as our candidate about ending the filibuster to restore abortion rights nationwide," For All founder Kai Newkirk said Tuesday. "Abolishing the Jim Crow relic minority veto is essential to undo abortion bans and deliver the progress our nation needs."
"We must abolish this flawed, racist, inhumane practice once and for all," Congresswoman Cori Bush said of the death penalty.
Update: The state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams by lethal injection Monday evening over the objections of his prosecutor and the murder victim's relatives, The Associated Pressreported.
Earlier:
Advocates for a man set to be executed by the state of Missouri on Tuesday lodged desperate pleas for Republican Gov. Mike Parson to change course and grant an eleventh-hour reprieve in a case with such serious red flags that even the office that prosecuted the defendant wants his conviction overturned.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay for Williams, one day after both Parson and the Missouri Supreme Court said they would not halt Williams' killing by lethal injection—a method associated with botched executions—barring a last-minute change of heart by the governor.
"We wish we had better news. But as of now, Marcellus Williams is still scheduled to be executed by Missouri tonight at 6:00 pm Central for a crime he is totally innocent of," the Innocence Project—which works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people—said in a social media post.
Williams, who is Black, was convicted in 2001 of murdering Felicia Gayle, a white woman, during a 1998 robbery. DNA found on the knife used to kill Gayle matched another man. However, Williams was convicted by a nearly all-white jury after St. Louis County prosecutors were permitted to preemptively strike half a dozen Black prospective jurors from service.
Earlier this year, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, a Democrat running for Congress, asked to vacate Williams' conviction, citing "clear and convincing evidence" of his innocence including evidence contamination and the revelation that at least one potential juror was excluded because he was Black.
However, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled against stopping the execution, asserting that Williams' lawyers "failed to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence Williams' actual innocence or constitutional error at the original criminal trial that undermines the confidence in the judgment of the original criminal trial."
Following the ruling, Parson said that Williams "has exhausted due process and every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction."
Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—a death penalty opponent who was recently defeated by Bell in their district's Democratic House primary—joined civil and human rights defenders in appealing to Parson to reconsider.
"A system that rules that an innocent man can be executed by the hands of the state is anything but just," Bush said on social media. "Gov. Parson must reverse his disgraceful decision not to stop this inhumane execution and act now to save Marcellus Williams' life."
As NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund president and director-counsel Janai Nelson noted:
There is a groundswell of voices calling for either commutation or a temporary reprieve. As you know, these voices include the family of Felicia Gayle... Gayle's family had communicated their "desire that the death penalty not be carried out in this case." Mr. Williams has presented compelling evidence that he is innocent of Ms. Gayle's murder. The perpetrator of this horrific crime left behind significant forensic evidence, including fingerprints, footprints, hair, and trace DNA on the murder weapon. None of this evidence matches Mr. Williams. The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney has recognized that Mr. Williams' capital trial was marred by constitutional errors and the prosecution's presentation of unreliable evidence, which undermine confidence in the judgment against him.
"I implore you to use your gubernatorial authority to grant Mr. Williams clemency, or, at a minimum, grant a reprieve until the underlying conviction can be investigated further and applicable law can be determined," Nelson said.
As Amherst College law professor Austin Sarat noted in Slate Monday, the United States is currently "witnessing the worst execution spree in three decades."
Republican-led states are set to carry out four state-sanctioned killings in addition to last week's lethal injection of Freddie Owens in South Carolina, despite the key prosecution witness' bombshell claim that the convicted man did not commit the murder for which he was put to death.
"This week's execution spree should unsettle all Americans, whether or not they support the death penalty," Sarat wrote. "It will offer further reasons for why capital punishment should be abolished everywhere in this country."
As the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) notes on its website, capital punishment "carries the inherent risk of executing an innocent person."
"Since 1973, at least 200 people who had been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the U.S. have been exonerated," the group says, adding that it is "clear that innocent defendants will be convicted and sentenced to death with some regularity as long as the death penalty exists."