Can Trump Pardon Himself?

BY BRIAN KALT-MAY 19, 2017

With the appointment of Robert Mueller as a special counsel, the chatter about President Donald Trump’s impeachment has started to migrate from the purely hypothetical to the realm of potential practical reality. All citizens have a duty to stay informed during such a moment. But legal and political experts have the added responsibility of anticipating the many constitutional dilemmas that loom on the horizon. Donald Trump is an unprecedented president in many ways, and there is good reason to think any early departure of his from office would be unprecedented as well.

Consider the following situation. Whether or not presidents can be prosecuted while in office (no one knows for sure), the law is clear that they can be prosecuted after they have left. That makes it conceivable that President Trump, if he perceives that a team of prosecutors is closing in on him, could attempt to solve his problem by simply pardoning himself.

I have been writing about presidential self-pardons for years. My position has always been that they would be legally invalid. I have also believed that a self-pardon is unlikely to ever happen because there are too many incentives weighing against it. But I am not sure that applies to Trump, who has proved he has a high tolerance for personal risk and a taste for attempting the never-before attempted.

So what would happen if Trump attempted a self-pardon? First, some pardon fundamentals: Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives the president the power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Pardons thus can only cover federal criminal offenses and cannot thwart an impeachment (which technically is not a criminal prosecution anyway).

A person can be pardoned before being convicted and even before being charged with anything. The pardon need not specify what offenses are covered.

A person can be pardoned before being convicted and even before being charged with anything. The pardon need not specify what offenses are covered. President Richard Nixon’s case exemplifies this breadth; Nixon had not been indicted, but President Gerald Ford pardoned him preemptively for every federal offense he had “committed or may have committed” while in office.

No president has ever tried to pardon himself, let alone been prosecuted after trying to pardon himself, so no court has had a chance to rule on the validity of self-pardons. Nixon considered pardoning himself just before he resigned. His lawyer advised him that he had the power, but Nixon decided against it. President Bill Clinton rendered the issue moot by reaching a settlement with his special prosecutor the day before he left office (and pardoned 140 people other than himself).

If a court ever did consider the issue, the decision could go either way because there are reasonable arguments on both sides. The president (or ex-president by the time he would be prosecuted) would have a very simple case that his self-pardon was valid: There is nothing in the Constitution that explicitly forbids it.

The prosecutor’s argument, while much more complicated, is a stronger one. First, a textual argument: The word “pardon” means something inherently bilateral, something that a sovereign bestows upon a subject. Consider more colloquially that you can beg someone else’s pardon, but you never seek or receive one from yourself. While there is admittedly no explicit limitation on self-pardons, there is no need for one, because a self-pardon is by definition not a “pardon.” Other examples show that the pardon power is subject to inherent limitations like this. For instance, the law is clear that a pardon cannot be prospective — it can only reach offenses committed before the pardon is issued — but that limit is not spelled out in the Constitution either. It is implicit in the definition of a “pardon” as opposed to a suspension of the law.

The prosecutor can also appeal to the venerable maxim that no one may be the judge in his own case. If a federal criminal defendant feels unjustly accused, he must convince one of the following to back him: the U.S. attorney (who can drop the prosecution), a majority of the grand jury (which can refuse to indict), the judge (who can dismiss the case), any member of the trial jury (which can fail to unanimously convict), or the president (who can pardon). But people cannot prosecute, judge, or sit on juries in their own cases. Like a judge who would have to submit to the authority of another judge if he were being prosecuted, a president must seek a pardon from his successor.

The Constitution provides an interesting analogy. It empowers the vice president to preside over the Senate, with one explicit exception: When the Senate is holding the impeachment trial of a president, the chief justice presides. So who presides over the impeachment trial of a vice president? Following the logic of the president’s “it doesn’t say I can’t” self-pardon argument, if a vice president is impeached, he would preside over his own trial. Following the prosecutor’s self-pardon argument that one cannot be the judge in his own case produces the more compelling conclusion that the vice president would have to step aside.

The prosecutor has historical evidence as well. James Madison’s notes of the debates at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 record Edmund Randolph proposing that the pardon power not extend to treason. “The President may himself be guilty,” Randolph worried. “The Traytors may be his own instruments.” James Wilson responded that if the president “be himself a party to the guilt he can be impeached and prosecuted.” Wilson’s view carried the day, and no exception for treason was carved out. But what about self-pardons? They never came up, which is a very telling omission in a discussion about criminal presidents abusing the pardon power. If anyone had thought that self-pardons were possible, Wilson’s argument would not have persuaded them. It apparently went without saying — literally — that self-pardons are not possible.

Besides these legal arguments against self-pardons, there are also some practical reasons why a president would not want to pardon himself even if he thought he could. The most important is that it would look so craven and corrupt that it would greatly weaken the president’s political position with all but his most die-hard supporters. If he were facing impeachment, it would increase his chances of being removed from office. If there were an election anytime soon, he and his party could pay a tremendous price.

These political reasons are important because they speak to the very reason that the framers of the Constitution gave the president the pardon power: He is politically accountable. That is why certain political norms have come to govern the use of pardons. While presidents do still have the pardon power even when they are lame ducks, or are terribly unpopular, or are facing imminent removal, using the power in an aggressively self-serving way at such times has been rare and, when done, extremely controversial.

But 

President Trump has shown many times, in many ways, that he is not particularly interested in convention.

President Trump has shown many times, in many ways, that he is not particularly interested in convention. No president in recent memory has been as likely to answer the establishment’s gasps (“You can’t do that!”) with defiance (“I just did!”). As such, if push comes to shove — if he ever fears being prosecuted and he is on his way out of office — it is easy to imagine President Trump giving self-pardoning a try. There is no precedent that says he cannot pardon himself and a decent legal argument that says he can.

One final thing might give him pause: A self-pardon might itself be a crime. By analogy, if a president agreed to veto legislation in exchange for a bribe, the veto would be valid, but the bribe would be a felony. Depending on the circumstances, a self-pardon might similarly be valid in its function as a pardon but felonious as an obstruction of justice. Since a pardon can only cover past actions, moreover a criminal self-pardon could not cover itself. A president might still find it worthwhile to trade a raft of criminal charges for a single count of obstruction of justice. But this adds one more item to the list of reasons not to self-pardon.

There are two questions on the table. First, might Trump pardon himself? It is far too early to speculate about him facing criminal liability, but he certainly acts like someone who wouldn’t hesitate to deliver himself such a plum.

Second, if Trump did it, what would happen? This question is easier to answer. If he weren’t already on his way out of office, a self-pardon would bring nearer that day. Any prosecutor who was already pursuing him would not roll over and assume that the self-pardon was valid. Instead, the prosecutor would press forward and force the courts — and surely the Supreme Court, eventually — to decide the issue. The court could potentially rule either way. But one would hope it would rule in favor of justice and the rule of law and not in favor of unaccountable presidential plunder.

Photo credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images

A GOP congressman from Kentucky wonders: Is ‘this Trump thing’ sustainable?

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) leaves the McLean County Courthouse in Calhoun, Ky., on May 12, 2017, after a town hall. (Michael Noble Jr./For The Washington Post)--Comer calms an argument between town hall attendees in Kentucky’s 1st Congressional District. As he prepared to host meetings during a congressional recess, Comer was eager to gauge his constituents’ views on President Trump. (Michael Noble Jr./For The Washington Post)

Comer pauses after a town hall meeting in his district, which is in the southern part of Kentucky. The district is 90 percent white, nearly 1 in 5 people live in poverty, more than 1 in 6 are disabled, and 72 percent voted for Trump. (Michael Noble, Jr./For The Washington Post)--The sheriff and other officers look on as Comer speaks at a town hall meeting May 12 at the Metcalfe County Judicial Center in Edmonton, Ky. It was one of four constituency meetings he held in three days. (Michael Noble, Jr./For The Washington Post)

By Chico Harlan May 20

BENTON, Ky. — The congressman was home in Kentucky now, traveling through his district for the first time in a month and worried that, for Republicans, the “wheels were falling off.” Washington had been feeling like a city on fire. Every day brought a new crisis. Russia. The FBI. The vote to replace the Affordable Care Act, which he had cast just before leaving. “So much doom and gloom,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said. “It can play games with your mind.”

A GOP congressman from Kentucky wonders.docx by Thavam on Scribd

India’s refusal to attend Belt and Road highlights growing rift with China

Indian government buildings, Raj Path, New Delhi, India. Source: Mikadun / Shutterstock

21st May 2017

CHINA invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and six cabinet colleagues to its “new Silk Road” summit this month, even offering to rename a flagship Pakistani project running through disputed territory to persuade them to attend, a top official in Modi’s ruling group and diplomats said.

But New Delhi rebuffed Beijing’s diplomatic push, incensed that a key project in its massive initiative to open land and sea corridors linking China with the rest of Asia and beyond runs through Pakistani controlled Kashmir.

The failure of China’s efforts to bring India on board, details of which have not been previously reported, shows the depths to which relations between the two countries have fallen over territorial disputes and Beijing’s support of Pakistan.

SEE ALSO: India-Pakistan relations tense as ICJ hearing stalls death penalty

India’s snub to the “Belt and Road” project was the strongest move yet by Modi to stand up to China.

But it risks leaving India isolated at a time when it may no longer be able to count on the United States to back it as a counterweight to China’s growing influence in Asia, Chinese commentators and some Indian experts have said.

Representatives of 60 countries, including the United States and Japan, travelled to Beijing for the May 14-15 summit on President Xi Jinping’s signature project.

But Ram Madhav, an influential leader of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) involved in shaping foreign policy, said India could not sign up so long as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a large part of the “Belt and Road” enterprise – ran through parts of Pakistan-administered Kashmir that India considers its own territory.

“China routinely threatens countries when it finds issues even remotely connected to its own sovereignty question being violated,” Madhav said. “No country compromises with its sovereignty for the sake of trade and commerce interests.”

Economic potential

India, due to the size and pace of expansion of its economy, could potentially be the biggest recipient of Chinese investment from the plan to spur trade by building infrastructure linking Asia with Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to a Credit Suisse report released before the summit.

Chinese investments into India could be anything from $84 billion to $126 billion between 2017 to 2021, far higher than Russia, Indonesia and Pakistan, countries that have signed off on the initiative, it said.

China has not offered any specific projects to India, but many existing schemes, such as a Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor that has been planned for years, have now been wrapped into the Belt and Road enterprise.

SEE ALSO: Burma: Chinese naval ships to conduct joint exercises amid closer ties

China is also conducting feasibility studies for high-speed rail networks linking Delhi with Chennai in southern India that would eventually connect to the modern day “Silk Road” it is seeking to create.

But if India continues to hold back from joining China’s regional connectivity plans the commercial viability of those plans will be called into question, analysts say.

China has held talks with Nepal to build an $8 billion railway line from Tibet to Kathmandu, but it ultimately wants the network to reach the Indian border to allow goods to reach the huge Indian market.

Strategic fears

India has other worries over China’s growing presence in the region, fearing strategic encirclement by a “string of pearls” around the India Ocean and on land as China builds ports, railways and power stations in country such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Ashok Kantha, who was India’s ambassador to China until 2016, said India had repeatedly conveyed its concerns to China, especially about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the need to have open discussions about it.

“Where is the economic rational for CPEC?” he said. “There is no major economic driver, the drivers are essentially political and strategic in character.”

Just a week before the summit, China’s ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui, offered to change the name of CPEC to placate New Delhi and ensure it didn’t boycott the Beijing conference.

Luo did no elaborate on the proposal, made during a speech at an Indian military think-tank, according to people who attended the meeting and local media reports. A transcript released later by the Chinese embassy did not include a reference to changing the project’s name.

But Chinese officials in the past have suggested this could mean adding India to the name to make it the “China-Pakistan-India Economic Corridor”.

A Chinese diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested India could build infrastructure on its side of Kashmir which could eventually be linked to the roads and power lines China planned to build in Pakistani Kashmir.

SEE ALSO: Pakistan signs nearly $500m in China deals at Silk Road summit

Indian experts said another proposal explored in meetings between former diplomats and academics from the two sides was renaming the project the “Indus Corridor” to overcome India’s objection that the “China-Pakistan” name endorses Pakistan’s claim to Kashmir. 

Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, which they both claim in full.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying did not comment directly on any offer to change the name of CPEC, but drew attention to President Xi’s remarks during the summit that China would follow the principle of peaceful co-existence and that New Delhi need not worry.

“I think the concerns from the India side should be able to be resolved,” she said.

Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Gopal Baglay said New Delhi had not received any suggestions through proper channels and that India wanted a meaningful discussion with China on the whole project. – Reuters

Hungarians protest again over clampdown on university, NGOs

Protesters attend a rally against Hungarian government's clampdown on a top foreign university and non-government organisations in Budapest, Hungary, May 21, 2017. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh--Protesters attend a rally against Hungarian government's clampdown on a top foreign university and non-government organisations in Budapest, Hungary, May 21, 2017. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh

Protesters attend a rally against Hungarian government's clampdown on a top foreign university and non-government organisations in Budapest, Hungary, May 21, 2017. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh--Protesters attend a rally against Hungarian government's clampdown on a top foreign university and non-government organisations in Budapest, Hungary, May 21, 2017. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh

Sun May 21, 2017

Thousands of protesters marched to Hungary's parliament on Sunday in the latest mass rally against Prime Minister Viktor Orban's clampdown on a top foreign university and non-government organisations ahead of a parliamentary election due next year.

The string of major street demonstrations in Budapest since early April has been triggered by a new law that would drive out of Hungary a top university founded by U.S. financier George Soros.

The European Commission started legal action against Hungary over the new higher education law, while the European Parliament condemned Budapest for what it called a "serious deterioration" in the rule of law and fundamental rights.

Budapest says those moves are part of a "vendetta" against Orban, one of the toughest opponents of migration to Europe who has called for transforming Hungary into an "illiberal state," citing Russia and Turkey as models of success.

Less than a year before a parliamentary election in April, 53-year-old Orban has launched a crusade against Hungarian-born Soros, whose liberal and internationalist world view is at odds with that of the nationalist-minded Hungarian leader.

Orban has rejected accusations Budapest was threatening the Central European University (CEU) and dismissed Soros, whose Open Society Foundations has been active in Hungary for three decades, as a "financial speculator".

"It is the government's arrogant tone that upsets me the most," said Sandor Zsuga, a 30-year-old IT engineer, one of dozens of demonstrators carrying a European Union flag.

"I think the identity of George Soros is irrelevant. It does not matter what he is doing. They only needed to create a villain. Now they pulled him out of the hat because he supports civil organisations," he said.

In the past seven years, Orban has eliminated checks on his power by taking control of the public media, curbing the powers of the constitutional court, and placing loyalists in top positions at public institutions.

Under another bill, non-governmental organisations with foreign donations of at least 7.2 million forints ($26,172) will be required to register with authorities and declare themselves as foreign-funded. The NGOs have said the bill stigmatised them.

A survey by pollster Median put support for Orban's ruling Fidesz at 31 percent of the electorate in April, down from 37 percent in January. Nationalist Jobbik was backed by 14 percent of voters, while the Socialists came third with 9 percent.

The Fidesz party said in a statement that Sunday's protest was another attempt by the "Soros-network" to put pressure on Hungary over its migration policy.

($1 = 275.1 forints)

(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Clelia Oziel)

Need to Improve Job Skills to Reduce Joblessness in India

by N.S.Venkataraman-May 20, 2017

( May 20, 2017, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian)  India adds over 10 million new employees to the workforce every year. This is equivalent to roughly the entire population of the Czech Republic or Portugal.

Government of India promised 20 million jobs annually three years back, while the reality is that 1 to 2 percent of the government’s target has been achieved.

The pace of job creation fell to a six year low in 2015 with 1.35 lakh new jobs being created compared with 4.21 lakh new jobs in 2014 and 4.19 lakh in 2013, according to a quarterly survey of industries conducted by Labour Bureau, under the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

Another survey-Fifth Annual Employment-Unemployment Survey of households conducted by Labour Bureau showed unemployment rate rising to a five year high of 5% in 2015-16 compared with 4.9% in 2013-14 and 4.7% in 2012-13.

At present, in India, around 92% of the workers are engaged in informal employment, those who are not covered by any social security law.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD )report said that over 30 percent Indian youth aged 15-29 are not in employment. This is more than double the OECD average of 14.6 per cent and three times that of China (11.2 percent).

The present pace of job creation in India is no where near the need of the country, considering the steady growth in population and particularly with the large segment of growing population constituting the youth.

A matter of grave concern

It has been said by the Government of India, several state governments and also a few of the international study groups that Indian economy is growing at impressive rate. Some overseas study groups have also said that the growth of Indian economy is even faster than that of China and India is now one of the fast developing countries in the world today.

Government of India expects that the Indian digital economy will be a $1 trillion economy in 5 to 7 years.

The government says that foreign direct investment (FDI ) inflows and private investments in telecom, infrastructure, energy and power have been indicative of a change in business sentiments.

In support of it’s stand, the following data have been provided by Government of India.

* Foreign direct investment climbed to an all-time high from $36 billion in 2013-14 to $62 billion in 2016-17.
* India’s foreign exchange reserves soared from $341 billion in 2014-15 to $376 billion in 2016-17.
* India remains one of the fastest-expanding economies from GDP growth of 6.5% in 2013-14 to GDP growth of 7% in 2016-17 .

However, the ground reality is that such impressive growth are not resulting in the .growth of happiness index among cross section of country men, as the gap between the haves and have nots are increasing, as large number of youth remain unemployed or under employed leading to frustration and bitter feelings.

As a result of population growth and lack of adequate job addition and the consequent increasing level of unemployment in the country, joblessness amongst the youth may lead to restive conditions in the country in the coming years.

This is a matter of grave concern that has to be tackled by Modi government with great sense of urgency.

Government’s claim on job creation

A recent tweet from BJP claims that, as on May 2017, the number of small entrepreneurs who received loan was 7.75 crore amount of loan sanctioned was Rs.3.32 lakh crore and total amount disbursed was Rs.3.21 lakh crore.

The government says that larger number of jobs have been created under electronic manufacturing, digital economy and the Start Up India initiatives. The Mudra scheme has created many small entrepreneurs who are generating jobs. Self-employment generation has been a focus of the government.

Obviously, such progress in the employment generation are inadequate.

During the last three years, the following three sectors have outpaced GDP growth

· Financial services, Real estate and professional services;
· Public administration, defence and community services;
· Trade hotels and restaurants.

However, construction and manufacturing activity, which are employment oriented, have been lagging overall GDP growth.

Why overall growth not leading to job growth ?

India has a large number of educated unemployed. On the other, industry is desperately short of skilled professionals. One of the biggest challenges faced by industry across the country today is in finding candidates for employment with the right skills sets.

If one would look at the overall scenario, there is unlikely to be dearth of jobs, considering the growth in various sphere of activities and self-employment opportunities but the shortage really is of the required skills for a particular job.

With overemphasis on academic performance and widespread interest amongst youth to get degree qualification which is considered as a matter of social prestige, colleges and universities in India are producing qualified but hardly employable graduates. The result is that the employability gap is getting wider by the day.

The growing disconnect between higher education and industry requirement in India is causing severe constraints in utilising the opportunities created by the overall growth, to boost employment generation.

The country produces lakhs of engineers and diploma holders every year. Most of them are not trained to carry out skilled jobs but are ready only for file pushing jobs, sitting in offices to carry out desk work related to planning, purchase, sales etc. How many engineers and diploma holders the country needs to do this kind of desk oriented work ?

Skill development needs to be a strong component of Indian educational curriculum. A good mix of classroom teaching and practical training is what is needed. This is yet to be done and plans and efforts towards achieving this objective are dismal.

Thoughtlessness in planning in the past by All India Council of Technical Education in according permission to open of so many engineering colleges all over India without carefully considering the need of the country, has caused huge problems.

In the same way, there is no need for so many science and arts graduates. Most of them carry out totally unrelated jobs after completing their education, as they have no particular skill in any field of study . They have neither educational plan nor career plan, while joining the educational courses and completing it.

The damage has been done due to poor planning of the government for the last several years, by not creating adequate number of institutions for providing skill oriented education and training in appropriate fields.

As a result, the country is suffering today with the lakhs of youth remaining jobless and not knowing what to do.

Efforts of Government of India

The National Skill Development Corporation was set up with the objective of increasing the skill training capacity in the country. It was formed in 2008 to encourage and synchronise private sector initiative in skill development. It was planned that the skills of a large number of young people from the unorganised sector, who lack formal certification, could be utilised under umbrella initiatives recognised by the government.

Narendra Modi government’s ambitious Skill India campaign, targets training 40 crore people in different skills by 2022. It includes initiatives like the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana, the flagship schemes for incentivising skill training.

But lack of widespread awareness about such training programmes, particularly in the rural areas where unemployment level is high, the absence of adaptability with the changing market needs and the lack of vertical mobility are key challenges facing the skill development landscape in India.

Start up India, Make in India schemes yet to make impact

Government of India, with much fanfare and good intentions, launched Start Up India and Make in India schemes, expecting that it would enthuse the countrymen, particularly the youth to set up activities in manufacturing and service oriented sector in multiple fields all over India, that would generate chain of activities, leading to significant level of employment generation.

However, the schemes have not so far made progress to the level of expectation. Many of the projects under Start Up India scheme launched have not been in manufacturing sector or research pursuits but more related to low skill oriented services and trading sector.

A study titled “Entrepreneurial India: How start-ups redefine India’s economic growth” conducted by Institute for Business Value Study (IBM)’ was commissioned in the second half of 2016. It had about 1,300 Indian respondents, around 600 of whom are entrepreneurs and another 100 venture capital investors, apart from leaders in enterprises, government and academia.

The IBM report has pointed out misreporting of financial and other data, misrepresentation of financial plans or achievements, and ignorance of regulatory requirements amongst Start Up India entrepreneurs.

Almost two thirds of 100 venture capital (VC) investors (64% polled) covered in the IBM study claim that the poor corporate governance due to entrepreneurial inexperience is the main cause for the Start Up India scheme not taking off well.

While Government of India has to launch careful investigation about the progress of the schemes. obviously lack of skill amongst the people is the root cause for such well-intentioned schemes not taking off in the manner desired.

What way forward now ?

Government of India and all state governments have to re assess the level of academic oriented engineers and graduates needed by the country, keeping the job potentials in view. There is need to reorient the education and training programme at various levels in tune with the skill required, emerging trend and job profiles, keeping the ground realities in view. There is no point in producing massive number of generalist graduates, who have no particular specialisation or skill to take up jobs. The emphasis has to be on promoting employability amongst the youth.

There is a myth in the country that anyone can be considered as educated only if the person would be a graduate or diploma holder. Youth have to be clearly told that most segments of the, army of graduates in India are not doing anything good to themselves or to the country. They are not part of productive force.

It is high time that the government should stop giving permiss.ion for new general courses and engineering colleges that are not directly skill development oriented and drastically reduce the number of the existing ones based on the assessment of need. Several existing colleges can be converted to specialised educational institutions, imparting knowledge and skill in diversified areas that would make the students employable

Promotion of skill for self-employment

The youth must be motivated to take responsibility to think and try to stay current. Getting a job is not necessarily the answer, as jobs can not be provided to everyone in a highly populated country like India in organised sector unless self-employment activities surge in a big way. Youth have to move away from the old job mindset.

The educational and training programme should be oriented to provide internships and provide students hands on work opportunity and help them learn to apply their theoretical knowledge to real life situations to enable them to become self employed persons and turn themselves to be employers rather than employees.

Brazil police raid Sao Paulo 'Crackland' and make arrests

EPAImage captionThe authorities say cheap hostels used by addicts in the area will be closed-Some reacted in anger to the raids, vandalising cars and looting local shops

Police destroyed stalls used for the sale of illegal drugs

21 May 2017

Brazilian police have arrested nearly 40 people for drug trafficking offences in central Sao Paulo where crack cocaine has been sold and consumed freely for years.

About 500 armed police officers were involved in the operation.

Dozens of addicts reacted in anger, vandalising cars and looting shops.

Sao Paulo's centre-right Mayor Joao Doria said the operation marked the end of impunity in the area, widely known as Cracolandia or Crackland.

Critics say the move will merely push the problem to other parts of the city.

Mr Doria promised to knock down many buildings and redevelop the streets near the Luz train station that have become an open-air drugs market over the past decade.

"Crackland doesn't exist any more and it won't come back. The government won't allow it," said Mr Doria during the operation.

He also announced that CCTV cameras would be installed in that part of the city.

But he later admitted in a press conference that "it will be difficult to put an end to a historical problem".

"Police will be deployed here permanently and the problem will be reduced," Mr Doria said.

The governor of Sao Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, said state rehab centres had 3,000 places available for addiction treatments.

The mayor and the governor recently announced a plan to combat drug trafficking in the region.

The previous left-wing mayor of Sao Paulo, Fernando Haddad, had a programme that tried to solve addiction through therapy and without the use of force by police.

But many were critical and felt that something had to be done about Crackland, which became a no-go area for most residents of Brazil's largest city.

Canada eases steps to open supervised drug injection sites amid opioid crisis

New legislation streamlines the more than two dozen requirements previously needed to launch facilities, which offer supervision and sterile equipment

 Canada’s health minister: ‘Solid evidence shows that, when properly set up and maintained, supervised consumption sites save lives.’ Photograph: Rick Callahan/AP

Ashifa Kassam in Toronto-Sunday 21 May 2017

Canada’s government has made it easier to open supervised drug injection sites across the country, offering communities a lifeline as they battle an opioid crisis that has claimed thousands of lives in recent years.

New legislation passed this week streamlines the more than two dozen requirements previously needed to launch these facilities, which offer a medically supervised space and sterile equipment for people who use drugs intravenously.

“Solid evidence shows that, when properly set up and maintained, supervised consumption sites save lives, and they do it without increasing drug use or crime in the neighbourhood,” Jane Philpott, Canada’s health minister, told parliament this week.

The law builds on Canada’s previous success in this field. In 2003, health authorities in Vancouver launched Insite – the first supervised injection facility in North America – to address an epidemic of HIV and hepatitis C in the city’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.

By 2015, Insite had logged more than 3m visits and had safely treated nearly 5,000 overdoses – without one death. It had earned accolades around the world for the critical role it plays in saving lives and preventing the transmission of HIV and hepatitis C, while research suggested those who visited the clinic were more likely to pursue detox programs.

But the program clashed with the then Conservative federal government and its tough-on-crime approach. After losing a bid at the supreme court to close Insite, the Conservatives hit back with legislation – described by one health authority as “unduly onerous” – aimed at muddying the process of opening safe injection sites.

Communities were now required to brandish multiple letters of support, compile reports detailing statistics on crime and HIV rates and carry out background checks for staff members, among other demands. The daunting requirements stalled plans by several communities and left others carrying out feasibility studies for more than a decade.

Canada’s health minister: ‘We know that at minimum in Canada, there were 2,300 Canadians that died last year of an opioid overdose.’ Photograph: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images

Since taking power in late 2015, the Liberals – fuelled by a surging number of overdose deaths across the country – have taken a different approach. Last year the party gave the green light to the country’s second supervised intravenous drug use site and have paved the way for three new safe injection services to open in Montreal within the coming weeks. Another 18 applications from 10 cities will be expedited, the government said this week.

The success of Insite has sparked interest across North America; groups in Seattle, San Francisco and New York City, among others, are currently exploring the creation of similar facilities.

The Canadian government’s emphasis on safe injection sites comes amid criticism that it has done little to address the devastation being wrought by fentanyl – a drug that is 50 times stronger than heroin – and other opioids across the country. “We know that at minimum in Canada, there were 2,300 Canadians that died last year of an opioid overdose,” Philpott told a conference in Montreal this week. “The death toll is worse than any other infectious epidemic in Canada, including the peak of Aids deaths, since the Spanish flu that took the lives of 50,000 people a century ago.”

Her keynote address was interrupted by protesters, who unfurled a banner reading: “They talk, we die.”

On Friday, the Canadian Nurses Association described the new law as a good start. “We do think it’s a definite significant improvement over the previous government’s legislation,” said Barb Shellian, the organisation’s president.

The new legislation sets out five categories of requirements, including a letter of support from a provincial or territorial minister and evidence of the site’s intended public health benefit. Amendments added in by the country’s senate also require a minimum 45-day period for public consultations and encouraging staff to offer pharmaceutical therapies before a client can use illicit drugs. “In a perfect world we would have preferred to see some of those five not be there, specifically ones about offering access to rehab on every single visit,” Shellian said. “But we recognise the victory when we see it.”

The organisation will continue to carefully monitor the law to ensure the requirements do not hinder the creation of these much-needed facilities, she added. “These people are someone’s brother, someone’s sister, someone’s mom. And we need to pay attention to this absolutely desperate epidemic that is happening in our country right now.

ABUSES CONTINUE 8 YEARS AFTER SRI LANKA’S CONFLICT- RIGHTS GROUPS ‎

Image: A grieving Tamil mother at the remembrance stones with names carved on them. Photo credit @sampathslk(radiovaticana)

20/05/2017

As Sri Lanka marked the 8th anniversary of the end of its civil war on Thursday, an international human rights group criticized the government’s latest anti-terrorism bill saying rights abuse could continue under it. Sri Lanka’s Cabinet approved the third draft of the Counter Terrorism Act (CTA) on May 3, 2017, but no parliamentary vote has been set. Human Rights Watch said that the bill falls far short of the government’s pledges to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2015 to end abusive detention without charge. While the bill improves upon the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), it would still permit many of the abuses occurring under current law, and raises a number of new concerns, the New York-based group said in a statement on may 18.

The CTA has been proposed to replace the archaic PTA, which was enacted in 1979 to deal with the rebels of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The UN and rights groups have accused the Sri Lankan military of killing thousands of civilians, ‎mostly ‎Tamils, during the final weeks of the war, which ended on May 18, 2009‎, and have pressed for justice for the families of those ‎who ‎disappeared. ‎More than 100,000 are believed to have died and some ‎‎65,000 went missing during the 26-‎year conflict.‎

“Sri Lanka’s counterterrorism bill buries its abusive intent under detailed procedures, but it still won’t protect people from wrongful detention,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “While some provisions could prevent abuses, the fundamental danger of prolonged detention without charge remains. This isn’t what UN member countries sought when they agreed that Sri Lanka would reform its security laws.” Human Rights Watch urged the government to reject any counterterrorism legislation that is not in accordance with international best practices.

Recent interviews by Human Rights Watch found that those arrested under the PTA, including since the end of the war, gave accounts of torture and mistreatment, forced confessions, and denial of basic rights such as access to lawyers or family members. The rights group acknowledged improvement in several sectors under the proposed counterterrorism law, such as greater detainee access to counsel, entry of magistrates and Human Rights Commission officers to detention facilities, and reporting requirements that could help prevent enforced disappearances. However, a number of provisions are likely to facilitate human rights abuses, such as the bill’s broad and vague definitions of terrorist acts, which include a wide array of illegal conduct, and the power of police and military officers to make arrests without a warrant. Suspects may be detained without charge for 12 months, a reduction from the 18 months permitted under the PTA. Bail is only to be granted for exceptional reasons. If enacted, the new law would prohibit ordinary dealings with many ethnic Tamil organizations, including those based abroad, that were declared illegal during the armed conflict and remain so, even if during or since the war they never engaged in any terrorist activity.

On the 8th anniversary of the end of the Sri Lankan conflict, Amnesty International also called for the repeal of the “highly repressive” PTA, saying any legislation replacing it should meet international standards. The ‎failure to repeal the notorious law, it said, is one of several commitments that the government has ‎stalled on since coming to power two years ago, when it pledged to deliver truth, justice and reparation ‎to victims of the conflict and enact reforms that would prevent further human rights violations.”

‎“The PTA is a highly repressive law that contributed to many of the human rights violations during and ‎following Sri Lanka’s conflict. Despite being in power for two years, the current government has failed ‎on its promise to repeal the law,” said Biraj Patnaik, Amnesty International’s South Asia Director. ‎ “What’s worse, it’s considering adopting a new Counter Terrorism Act that would continue to give the police very broad powers to arrest and detain suspects without charge and place them in administrative detention,” Patnaik said.

The London-based rights group called on the Sri Lankan government to present a clear and coordinated roadmap to implement its commitments to justice, truth, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, including repeal of the PTA. It noted that under the draconian law still in force, the police retain broad powers to arrest and detain suspects without effective human rights safeguards. Amnesty said it has received credible testimony alleging human rights violations in the aftermath of the conflict under the PTA, with Sri Lankan security forces subjecting people to arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, rape and enforced disappearance.

“Transparency is absolutely vital. Draft legislation, including the CTA, should be open for public and civil society consultation,” Patnaik said. Despite the government’s commitments, it has yet to establish effective justice mechanisms to investigate abuses of international human rights and international humanitarian by all sides of the conflict, including acts reported during the final months of the conflict that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“Each anniversary is a depressing reminder of the conflict’s ugly and unresolved legacy. Every year that passes is a reminder of the horrific injustices that were visited on people and what little has been done to address them. Eight years is a long time to wait. The victims and their families should not have to wait any longer. Justice is long overdue,” said Patnaik. Amnesty International is deeply concerned about the harassment of activists and victims who are campaigning for justice and memorializing the victims of the conflict. “It is appalling that nearly a decade after the conflict ended, people are still being prevented from remembering the dead. No one should be stopped from demanding justice or grieving the loss of loved ones,” said Patnaik.