Civil Rights

Opposition ‍leader claims escaping police and army raid as Museveni, 81, looks set to win the presidential election.

Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine says he escaped a police and army raid on his house as veteran incumbent Yoweri Museveni looks set to secure an overwhelming victory in the presidential election.

“I want to confirm that I managed to escape from them,” Bobi Wine, a former pop star whose real name is ​Robert Kyagulanyi, wrote in a post on X on Saturday.

“Currently, I am not at home, although my wife and other family members remain under house arrest. I know that these criminals are looking for me everywhere, and I am trying my best to keep safe.”

Bobi Wine on Friday said security forces had placed him under house arrest. His party later wrote on X that he had been “forcibly taken” from his residence by an army helicopter. The military rejected the allegation.

Bobi Wine, the country’s top opposition figure, had challenged longtime President Museveni in an election campaign that the United Nations said was marred by “widespread repression and intimidation”.

Museveni, 81, looked set to be declared the winner and extend his 40-year rule, in an election marred by reports of at least 10 deaths and intimidation of the opposition and civil society.

After repeated clashes and a fatal shooting, the injunction bars federal ​agents from detaining or retaliating against peaceful protesters.

A ‌federal judge in Minnesota has ordered the United States’ immigration agents ‍deployed ‍to the state to curb some of the tactics they have used against observers and protesters of their enforcement actions.

Tensions over the deployment have mounted in Minnesota since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three, Renee Nicole Good, behind the wheel of her car earlier this month.

Good was taking part in one of numerous neighborhood patrols organised by local activists to track and monitor ICE activities.

On Friday, US District Judge Kate Menendez’s court injunction barred federal ​agents from retaliating against individuals engaged in peaceful, unobstructive protest ‍activity.

Officers were explicitly prohibited from arresting or detaining people protesting peacefully or engaged in orderly observations, if there was no reasonable suspicion that they had committed a crime ‍or were ⁠interfering with law enforcement.

The ruling also bans federal agents from using pepper spray, tear gas or other crowd-control munitions against peaceful demonstrators or bystanders observing and recording the immigration enforcement operations.

The US ‌Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was given 72 hours to bring its operation in Minneapolis into compliance.

The court ruling hands a victory to activists in Minneapolis, the state’s most populous ⁠city, two weeks after the Trump administration announced the deployment of 2,000 immigration agents to ​the area.

Their numbers have since grown to nearly 3,000, dwarfing the ranks of the local police. The DHS calls it the largest operation of its kind in the country’s history.

Crowds of protesters across Minneapolis have clashed with the immigration officers, opposing their efforts to target undocumented migrants, with some officers responding with violence.

Amid the escalating dispute between Trump and local state and city leaders, the president threatened on Thursday to invoke the Insurrection Act, allowing him to deploy the military to police the protests.

“If I needed it, I would use it. I don’t think there is any reason right now to use it,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the move.

The Insurrection Act allows a president to sidestep the 19th-century Posse Comitatus Act, which removes the military from regular civil law enforcement, to suppress “armed rebellion” or “domestic violence” and deploy soldiers on US soil “as he considers necessary”.

A federal officer in the United States has shot a Venezuelan man in the leg in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Officials say officers had tried to stop a car to arrest the man and opened fire after two people attacked one of them with a “snow shovel and broom handle”.

Protests broke out in the city after the incident.

Wednesday’s shooting comes exactly a week after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed local resident Renee Nicole Good in her car in Minneapolis during an immigration raid.

What happened?

In an X post on Wednesday, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote that at 6:50pm (00:50 GMT on Thursday), federal law enforcement officers were stopping “an illegal alien from Venezuela who was released into the country by [former President] Joe Biden in 2022”.

The DHS added that the man had tried to evade the officers, crashing his car into another parked car and then fleeing on foot. It said one of the officers caught up with the immigrant on foot “when the subject began to resist and violently assault the officer”.

The department’s post said that while the immigrant and the officer were struggling on the ground, two people came out of a nearby apartment and began to strike the officer with a snow shovel and a broomstick. It further said, “The original subject got loose and began striking the officer with a shovel or broom stick.”

“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg,” the DHS wrote.

It added that the immigrant and the two people who had come out of the apartment ran back inside the apartment and barricaded themselves in.

The immigrant and officer who was attacked were taken to hospital, and the other two people who attacked the officer are in custody, DHS wrote.

Who was Renee Nicole Good and what happened to her last week?

On the morning of January 7, Jonathan Ross, an ICE officer, fatally shot Good while she was in her car in Minneapolis.

Local officials said Good, 37, was acting as a legal observer during protests against US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Legal observers are usually volunteers who attend protests to watch police-demonstrator interactions and record any confrontations or possible legal violations.

Good’s killing sparked outrage and protests in Minnesota and nationwide.

In a joint statement released after she was shot dead, Minneapolis City Council President Elliot Payne and council members wrote: “Renee was a resident of our city who was out caring for her neighbors this morning and her life was taken today at the hands of the federal government. Anyone who kills someone in our city deserves to be arrested, investigated, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

After Good was shot, the Republican Trump administration clashed with local authorities, including Democratic Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

Trump and administration officials claimed that Good had deliberately hit the ICE officer with her SUV and he had shot her in self-defence.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem described Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism”.

She said Good had refused to obey orders to get out of her car, “weaponise[d] her vehicle” and “attempted to run” over the officer. Minnesota officials disputed Noem’s account, citing videos showing Good trying to drive away.

Footage from the incident shows Good’s car slowly reversing and then trying to move forwards. As the car moves forwards, an agent is seen walking around in front of it. He opens fire while standing in front of the driver’s side of the SUV.

Speaking about the shooting on Wednesday, Trump told the Reuters news agency: “I don’t get into right or wrong. I know that it was a tough situation to be in. There was very little respect shown to the police, in this case, the ICE officers.”

What have local authorities said about the latest shooting?

Walz wrote in an X post on Wednesday that state investigators have been to the scene of the shooting.

“I know you’re angry. I’m angry. What Donald Trump wants is violence in the streets,” Walz wrote.

“But Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of community, and of peace. Don’t give him what he wants.”

In a series of posts on X on Wednesday, Frey wrote: “No matter what led up to this incident, the situation we are seeing in our city is not sustainable.”

He added that there are 600 local police officers working in Minneapolis, and the Trump administration has sent in 3,000 federal officers.

“I have seen conduct from ICE that is intolerable. And for anyone taking the bait tonight, stop. It is not helpful. We cannot respond to Donald Trump’s chaos with our own chaos.”

What is ICE doing in Minnesota?

The DHS launched Operation Metro Surge, which includes Minneapolis, in December. The Trump administration said the operation aims to root out and arrest criminals and undocumented immigrants.

The Trump administration escalated its immigration operation in Minneapolis on January 6. In an X post, ICE announced it planned to deploy 2,000 additional agents to the northern Midwestern city.

“A 100% chance of ICE in the Twin Cities – our largest operation to date,” the post said, referring to Minneapolis and the adjacent city of St Paul.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, told local news media that ICE is “surging to Minneapolis to root out fraud, arrest perpetrators and remove criminal illegal aliens”.

On Monday, the state of Minnesota filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing that the operation is an unconstitutional “federal invasion”.

The population of Minnesota is more than 5 million people, and according to numbers from the Migration Policy Institute from 2023, the number of undocumented immigrants in the state is 100,000.

Republicans have made disparaging remarks particularly targeting the state’s Somali population.

Noem said on Tuesday that Trump intends to end temporary deportation protections and work permits for some Somali nationals in the US.

“Country conditions in Somalia have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law’s requirement for Temporary Protected Status,” Noem said in a statement. “Further, allowing Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to our national interests. We are putting Americans first.”

In December, ICE launched a raid in Columbus, Ohio, which also has a large Somali population. In late November, ICE agents were deployed in New Orleans, Louisiana. Similar raids were launched in Charlotte, North Carolina, the same month.

How many Venezuelan immigrants are in the US?

As of 2023, there were about 770,000 Venezuelan immigrants in the United States, making up just under 2 percent of the country’s 47.8 million foreign-born population, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

The institute estimated that in 2023, 486,000 Venezuelan immigrants were not authorised to be in the US, accounting for 4 percent of a total of 13.7 million unauthorised immigrants.

Since 2014, about 7.7 million Venezuelans, comprising 20 percent of the population, have left the country, mostly to seek better opportunities abroad as the economy has faltered and the government has cracked down on the political opposition. While the vast majority have moved to neighbouring countries, some have gone to the US.

On January 3, US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom the Trump administration describes as a “narcoterrorist”. He currently faces charges related to weapons and drug trafficking in New York.

During a national address on January 3, Trump stated: “Maduro sent savage and murderous gangs, including the bloodthirsty prison gang, Tren de Aragua, to terrorise American communities nationwide.”

However, several US intelligence agencies have rejected the claim that Trump has repeatedly made that Maduro controls Tren de Aragua. In an April memo, the agencies said Maduro’s government “probably does not” cooperate with the gang or direct it to carry out operations in the US.

United States news agencies and press freedom groups have expressed concern after federal agents raided the home of a reporter for The Washington Post as part of a probe into the handling of classified material.

Wednesday’s raid focused on the residence of journalist Hannah Natanson, who has led the Post’s coverage of efforts under President Donald Trump to slash the federal workforce.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seized her work and personal laptops, as well as other electronics like her phone and a Garmin watch.

“According to the government warrant, the raid was in connection with an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. We are told Hannah, and the Post, are not a target,” said Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray.

“Nonetheless, this extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the constitutional protections for our work.”

Free press organisations echoed the Post’s concerns, arguing that the raid fit into a pattern of escalating pressure on journalists who report on information the government does not want made public.

Trump has frequently attacked the news media and threatened those he deems too critical with lawsuits and investigations.

Still, it is unusual for law enforcement to seize materials from a journalist, given the broad press freedom protections established under the US Constitution. Advocates warned that Wednesday’s actions could dampen any efforts journalists may take to report on whistleblower complaints.

According to the Post, the search warrant was part of an investigation into leaks of classified materials, another one of Trump’s pet peeves.

Prosecutors allege that a contractor named Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system engineer and information technology specialist, took screenshots of intelligence reports and printed them while working for a government contractor in Maryland.

Investigators also say they found classified documents in a lunchbox while searching his car and basement earlier this month.

The Trump administration accused Perez-Lugones of contacting Natanson to leak the information and said the search of her home came at the request of the Department of Defense.

“The Department of Justice and FBI executed a search warrant at the home of a Washington Post journalist who was obtaining and reporting classified and illegally leaked information from a Pentagon contractor,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a social media post.

She added that “the leaker” – an apparent reference to Perez-Lugones – had been arrested.

“The Trump Administration will not tolerate illegal leaks of classified information that, when reported, pose a grave risk to our Nation’s national security and the brave men and women who are serving our country,” she said.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also weighed in, writing online that Trump had “zero tolerance” for leaks and would “aggressively crack down” on them.

But press advocates argue that working with whistleblowers is an essential component of reporting on secretive government agencies, especially in areas such as national security.

Raids like the one conducted at Natanson’s residence risk violating the understanding of anonymity that journalists build with their sources, particularly those in sensitive government positions.

Natanson had extensively covered the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce and push for nonpartisan employees to align with his political agenda.

She has also reported on recent US actions in Venezuela, which culminated with the abduction of President Nicolas Maduro on January 3.

Groups like Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) were among those to speak out against the search warrant.

“This raid should disturb all Americans. The United States is at a critical juncture as the Trump administration continues to roll back civil liberties,” said Katherine Jacobsen, coordinator for the US, Canada and the Caribbean at the CPJ.

“Using the FBI – funded by American taxpayers – to seize a reporter’s electronic devices, including her official work laptop, is a blatant violation of journalistic protections and undermines the public’s right to know.”

Colvin’s arrest for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a segregated bus helped spark the modern civil rights movement in the US.

Claudette Colvin, who helped to ignite the modern civil rights movement in the US after refusing to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus, has died aged 86.

Colvin was 15 when she was arrested on a bus in Montgomery, nine months before Rosa Parks gained international fame for also refusing to give up her seat.

Colvin died of natural causes in Texas, according to a statement from her legacy foundation on Tuesday.

Colvin was detained on March 2, 1955, after a bus driver called the police to complain that two Black girls were sitting near two white women in violation of segregation laws. Colvin refused to move when asked, leading to her arrest.

“I remained seated because the lady could have sat in the seat opposite me,” Colvin told reporters in Paris in April 2023.

“She refused because… a white person wasn’t supposed to sit close to a negro,” Colvin said.

“People ask me why I refused to move, and I say history had me glued to the seat,” she added.

Colvin was briefly imprisoned for disturbing public order. The following year, she became one of four Black female plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit challenging segregated bus seating in Montgomery.

The case was successful, impacting public transportation throughout the US, including trains, aeroplanes and taxis.

Colvin’s arrest occurred at a time of growing frustration over how Black people were being treated on Montgomery’s bus system. The arrest of Parks in December 1955 triggered the start of the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The boycott propelled the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr into the national limelight and is considered the start of the modern civil rights movement.

“She leaves behind a legacy of courage that helped change the course of American history,” the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation said in a statement.

‘Too often overlooked’

Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said Colvin’s action “helped lay the legal and moral foundation for the movement that would change America”.

Colvin’s role in helping to trigger the modern civil rights movement is often overshadowed by the actions of Parks, and Reed said her bravery “was too often overlooked”.

“Claudette Colvin’s life reminds us that movements are built not only by those whose names are most familiar, but by those whose courage comes early, quietly, and at great personal cost,” Reed added.

While Colvin’s arrest helped to bring an end to racial segregation in the US, there are concerns from civil rights groups that President Donald Trump is looking to roll back policies on social progress.

On Tuesday, the largest civil rights group in the US said that Trump was being deceptive in his claims that civil rights hurt white people.

In an interview from last week published by The New York Times, Trump said he believed civil rights-era protections resulted in white people being treated unfairly.

The comments came after Trump was asked whether protections that began in the 1960s with the passage of the Civil Rights Act resulted in discrimination against white men, according to the newspaper.

“It accomplished some very wonderful things, but it also hurt a lot of people – people that deserve to go to a college or deserve to get a job were unable to get a job,” Trump was quoted as saying.

“It was a reverse discrimination,” he said.

In response, NAACP President Derrick Johnson said Trump was “lying through his teeth”.

“Trump does this all the time. He deliberately invents a false reality to lay the groundwork for policies that further benefit the top one percent by privatising government services and stripping resources away from underserved communities,” said Johnson.

US president issues latest threat to midwestern state, where protests have continued after ICE agent killed woman.

United States President Donald Trump has said that a “day of reckoning and retribution” is coming to Minnesota, as outrage and protests have continued days after an immigration agent fatally shot a woman in the state’s largest city, Minneapolis.

Trump did not provide further details on the statement, which came at the end of a lengthy screed on the president’s Truth Social account on Tuesday.

The apparent threat represented the latest pledge to come down hard on the midwestern state in the wake of the killing of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent last week.

The administration on Monday promised to send hundreds more ICE agents to Minneapolis, where federal officer ranks already dwarf local law enforcement, in what city and state leaders have called a dangerous escalation.

“All the patriots of ICE want to do is remove them from your neighborhood and send them back to the prisons and mental institutions from where they came, most in foreign Countries who illegally entered the USA though Sleepy Joe Biden’s HORRIBLE Open Border’s Policy,” Trump said, referring to his predecessor, US President Joe Biden.

“FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!” he said.

The phrase was quickly quoted by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees domestic US immigration enforcement, in a post on X.

Later on Tuesday, a federal judge was set to hear arguments in a lawsuit filed by Minnesota’s Attorney General and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, alleging that the surge of immigration agents violates residents’ freedom of speech while trampling on the state’s constitutionally protected authorities.

“People are being racially profiled, harassed, terrorised, and assaulted,” the state’s attorney general said in a statement upon filing the lawsuit.

“Schools have gone into lockdown. Businesses have been forced to close. Minnesota police are spending countless hours dealing with the chaos ICE is causing.”

“This federal invasion of the Twin Cities has to stop, so today I am suing DHS to bring it to an end,” it said.

Ongoing outrage

Daily protests have continued across the state since Good’s killing during an enforcement operation in Minneapolis.

Within moments of the shooting, the Trump administration labelled Good a “domestic terrorist”, while claiming the officer was acting in self-defence after the 37-year-old “weaponised her vehicle”.

Widely circulated video evidence quickly cast doubt on their claims, with many observers saying recordings appeared to show Good attempting to flee the scene in her Honda Pilot SUV when the agent opened fire. Questions have also been raised over the conduct of the agents involved, including a series of actions that appeared to escalate the situation.

Last week, local officials decried the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) unorthodox move to block an independent state investigatory body from taking part in a probe of Good’s killing. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the move – coupled with the Trump administration’s comments – raises questions over the integrity of any conclusions reached.

On Tuesday, the UN Human Rights Council also called for a “prompt, independent and transparent” investigation into the incident.

Prior to Good’s killing, the Trump administration had surged immigration agents to Minnesota as the president increasingly focused on alleged fraud in the large Somali-American community in the state, at times employing racist rhetoric as he sent 2,000 immigration agents to the area.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced it was revoking so-called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalia, a special designation that protects individuals from deportation due to unsafe conditions in their home country.

In a statement on X, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said the move means Somalis who had been on TPS are required to leave the country by March 27.

Protests about the soaring cost of living in Iran have entered their sixth day after the rial plunged to a record low against the United States dollar in late December.

After a number of deaths as a result of clashes between protesters and security services, the government of President Masoud Pezeshkian appealed for unity and blamed economic pressure on what he said are Tehran’s “enemies”. Despite government promises to enact economic reforms and put more effort into tackling corruption, the protests have continued.

So far, at least seven people have been killed and 44 people have been arrested since shopkeepers in Tehran first shuttered their businesses on Sunday to protest against Iran’s economic crisis.

The tide of protest has continued to rise with economic demonstrations morphing into political protests as unrest has spread across the country.

How significant is the current round of protests, how real are the protesters’ grievances and where might this end? Here are five things you should know:

Worries about the cost of living are very real

Iran is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world. A range of international restrictions means that Tehran is struggling to access international financial markets and frozen foreign assets. The country’s increasing reliance on imports is exacerbating the situation and fuelling inflation.

On Sunday, the Iranian rial dropped to 1.42 million against the US dollar – a 56 percent drop in value in just six months. The plummeting currency has driven inflation with food prices soaring by an average of 72 percent compared with last year.

“If only the government, instead of just focusing on fuel, could bring down the price of other goods,” taxi driver Majid Ebrahimi told Al Jazeera. “The prices of dairy products have gone up six times this year and other goods more than 10 times.”

These protests are large

What began as a single protest about the collapse of the Iranian economy by shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar on Sunday had spread to 17 of Iran’s 31 provinces by New Year’s Eve with students and demonstrators from across Iranian society joining the wave of demonstrations.

Thousands of people have mobilised across the country with security forces responding forcefully in some places.

On Thursday, Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency reported that three people had died in confrontations between security forces and protesters in Lordegan in southwestern Iran. A further three deaths were reported in Azna and another in Kouhdasht, both in central Iran.

“Some protesters began throwing stones at the city’s administrative buildings, including the provincial governor’s office, the mosque, the Martyrs Foundation, the town hall and banks,” Fars reported of protests in Lordegan, adding that police had responded with tear gas.

It’s hard to know how the government will respond

Tehran’s previous hardline responses to public unrest have been marked by the deaths of protesters. However, so far, despite a number of isolated clashes between protesters and security forces, Pezeshkian’s government has held back from an outright crackdown and appears ready to listen to the “legitimate demands” of protesters.

In an effort to address protesters’ concerns, the government appointed a new governor of the central bank on Wednesday. Abdolnaser Hemmati has pledged to restore economic stability after the rial’s dramatic collapse.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Higher Education removed campus security managers from the University of Tehran and two other major universities. Local media reported that their removal was due to “a record of misconduct and failure to properly handle recent student protests”.

Speaking at a ceremony in Tehran on Thursday to mark the assassination of senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone attack five years ago, Pezeshkian also took the opportunity to emphasise his government’s commitment to economic reforms and addressing corruption.

“We are determined to eradicate all forms of rent-seeking, smuggling and bribery,” he told attendees. “Those who benefit from these rents will resist and try to create obstacles, but we will continue on this path.”

“We must all stand together to solve the people’s problems and defend the rights of the oppressed and the underprivileged,” he added.

Protecting people’s livelihoods is a “red line” for his government, he declared.

Mass protests have happened before

Mass protests erupted across Iran in 2022 after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested in September that year for not wearing her hijab correctly.

Demonstrations first broke out after Amini’s funeral in the western city of Saqqez when women ripped off their headscarves in solidarity with the dead woman before they spread across much of the country.

Iran’s brutal response to the unrest involved the arbitrary arrest of tens of thousands of people, the extensive use of tear gas, the firing of live ammunition and, according to human rights organisations, the unlawful deaths of hundreds of people.

A 2024 investigation by United Nations experts into the government’s response found that its actions amounted to “crimes against humanity”, a claim rejected by authorities in Tehran as “false” and “biased”.

The so-called morality police were briefly suspended in December 2022 after the protests before being reinstated the following year. However, their enforcement of dress codes has since become notably more relaxed although many women still fear a resurgence.

These protests could escalate

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump – who in 2018 unilaterally withdrew the US from a nuclear deal with Iran that limited Iran’s nuclear development in return for sanctions relief – commented on the unrest. He posted on his Truth Social platform: “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

On Thursday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on its Farsi social media account pre-revolutionary Iranian images of a lion and a sun with the lion’s paw resting on an hourglass featuring the country’s current flag. The post read: “The rise of Iranian lions and lionesses to fight against darkness”, continuing: “Light triumphs over darkness.”

In June, Israel and the US launched attacks on Iran during a 12-day war between Iran and Israel.

While that conflict ended with what the US claimed was a decisive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, speculation that Israel has been readying itself for further strikes has continued.

This week, the US news website Axios reported that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed further strikes on Iran as well as potentially targeting Tehran’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah.

Responding on social media, Pezeshkian wrote: “Answer of Islamic Republic of Iran to any cruel aggression will be harsh and discouraging.”